Chapter 381: Miona’s Extremely Violent Cultivation Lessons

Miona rolled one shoulder and stared at Damian. "You know what your biggest problem is?"

Damian wiped a little blood from the corner of his mouth. "Besides fighting an ancient psycho with ridiculous strength?"

Miona ignored that. "You’ve got a shitload of King Grade martial arts, but you’re terrible at using most of them."

Damian frowned. "Excuse me?"

Miona clenched her fist, clearly getting annoyed. "I’m serious."

She pointed straight at Damian. "Those techniques were never truly yours in the first place. They were created by other cultivators, based on their cultivation paths."

She stepped closer, her expression becoming more serious. "So listen carefully, Damian. If you want to enter the King Realm, having a strong foundation isn’t enough."

She clenched one fist and punched it into her open palm. "You also need to understand your own path."

Damian’s expression slowly changed as he listened.

Miona crossed her arms. "If you just blindly copy someone else’s technique without understanding why it works, then no matter how high-grade it is, you’ll never bring out its real power."

She smirked. "Right now? I’d say you’re squeezing out maybe half of what those techniques are actually capable of."

Damian clicked his tongue. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Reinvent every technique I use?"

Miona grinned. "Of course. That’s what every cultivator who wants to reach the King Realm eventually has to do once they reach the peak of Nascent Soul. Hell, the really talented ones start figuring out their own path much earlier."

She clenched one fist. "Here. Let me give you a real example."

[Raging Ocean Punch]

Miona stepped forward and punched Damian.

He immediately crossed both arms to block the blow, but the force still pushed him several meters backward.

Miona lowered her fist. "That one is simple. I made it mostly around my Raging Ocean Qi."

Damian lowered his arms and frowned. "And you call that simple?"

Miona rolled one shoulder, shifted her footing, and drew her fist back again.

Her grin faded slightly, replaced by a more focused look. "This next one was created from my own understanding of my path."

Before Damian could answer, Miona vanished and appeared right in front of him.

[Ten Furious Waves Fist]

She threw a single punch.

Damian crossed both arms and blocked it without much trouble. He lowered his guard slightly and gave her a skeptical look. "Huh? Is that it?"

Miona’s lips curled upward.

A moment later, Damian’s entire body suddenly jerked backward.

BANG!

His eyes widened. "What the hell?! When did you hit me again?"

Miona straightened and crossed her arms, clearly enjoying his reaction. "I didn’t. Didn’t you hear the name? Ten Furious Waves Fist. One punch, ten waves."

Damian’s expression immediately changed.

Miona grinned wider. "You thought the first impact was weak, didn’t you? That’s the point. Like waves crashing toward the shore, every one that follows carries more force than the last."

Damian realized what was happening and cursed under his breath. "Goddammit..."

Before he could do anything else, another impact slammed into him. Then another.

His shoulders snapped back, his feet tore through the seabed, and before he could properly steady himself, the next wave arrived even harder.

By the tenth impact...

BOOM!

Damian was blasted off his feet and sent flying across the dried seabed.

Miona lowered her fist and looked at him with a smug smile. "Now do you understand the difference between borrowing someone else’s technique and creating one that actually belongs to you?"

She tilted her head with a smug grin. "And I didn’t even use half my strength, you know... yet that was still enough to throw you around like that."

Damian pushed himself up from the seabed and spat out a mouthful of blood. "Alright... screw it."

Miona raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

Damian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "If technique isn’t enough, then I’ll just use brute force to push through."

Before Miona could ask what he meant, Damian pulled out a crimson-gold pill and swallowed it in one gulp.

[Dragon Sacrifice Burst Pill]

Almost immediately, Damian’s body tightened.

His breathing grew heavier, his muscles tensed, and the dragon power inside him surged violently through his limbs.

Miona’s grin faded slightly. "What the hell did you just eat?"

Damian ignored her and slowly clenched his fist, feeling the sudden surge of power flooding through his body.

But this strength came with a price.

The pill he had just swallowed was his only King Grade pill, and just as its name suggested, its effect was brutally simple.

It sacrificed a portion of his Dragon power in exchange for temporarily pushing his strength far beyond its normal limits.

Normally, that would have been a damn terrible trade, but Damian didn’t even care.

"This Dragon power came from the System anyway. If I lose some, I’ll just get more later."

Right now, there was only one thing that mattered, and that was to beat the hell out of Miona and show her exactly who the man was.

Damian shot forward without hesitation, lowering his body as he pulled one fist back.

[Primordial Dragon Crushing Fist - Second Fist: Dragon King Splits the Heaven]

He rushed in from below and drove his fist upward, and the shadow of a massive dragon immediately appeared behind him.

Miona was still grinning, but her expression had clearly sharpened. "I don’t know what the hell you just did, but now your aura actually feels dangerous."

She kicked off the ground and shot into the air, looking down at Damian with an excited smile. "Now that you’re finally serious, this Empress will return the favor."

Miona twisted in midair, raised one fist above her shoulder, then came crashing down toward him.

[Tsunami Impact]

Their attacks collided in the middle of the air.

BOOM!

The impact blasted both of them apart.

Damian was hurled backward across the seabed, while Miona flipped once through the air before landing several dozen meters away.

For the first time since the fight began, Miona was pushed back a considerable distance, the force dragging her feet across the seabed hard enough to surprise even her.

She looked toward Damian and broke into an excited grin. "Hahaha! What the hell did you just do? That was seriously damn strong!"

Damian slowly straightened, shaking his aching arm with a smug smile. "Of course..."

But before he could say anything else, his expression suddenly stiffened, his legs gave out, and in the next instant, he dropped to the ground.

The sight immediately startled all three women.

Cassandra vanished from where she stood and appeared beside him almost instantly. "DAMIAN! What the hell happened?!"

Miona’s grin disappeared at the same time, and both she and Serina immediately rushed over as well.

After all, this was only supposed to be a spar, not a death match.