The flaming qi rippled out of Sha Chen and consumed the entire area, incinerating the s.p.a.ce and blowing the surrounding rock to smithereens.

In contrast to his blazing figure, mine was a picture of black chaos, everything blacking out as the flames and debris swirled into what seemed like a whirlwind around me. Then the black mist dispersed as my golden wave of destructive qi lashed out, my Heaven and Earth Strike barreling ferociously toward the torrent of crimson fire.

Baaaam!

The two immense forces of qi collided between us, erupting into a colossal conflagration that blew the earth apart and left a new canyon in its wake. I swear, if I"m going to use the f.u.c.king word crater again, I was going to hurl my keyboard at Sha Chen. Not that it would do anything to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but the readers were getting p.i.s.sed off by the repet.i.tive use of the word by now.

With just one hand stretched out, Sha Chen glared at me determinedly, unleashing whatever qi he could into the torrent of h.e.l.lfire. However, fury changed to shock and his eyes bulged when he noticed something.

"!"

Even though perspiration dripped down his face, Sha Chen didn"t seem to care. He was more concerned with what was greeting him.

"This is…"

What? Was he so surprised that I could counter his attack with my own? Not that I cared. If he wanted to get distracted, then I was going to use the chance to exploit the opening and prevail over him. I didn"t buy into the whole realms or power level bulls.h.i.t, after all. Sure, it was useful to be aware that he was stronger than me, had more qi than me, and had more experience than me, but that didn"t mean I should give up and a.s.sume that I would automatically lose.

A real fight was never purely a contest of strength. No doubt superior strength gave you an overwhelming advantage, but a human was a human, not a G.o.d or immortal. Okay, I get that cultivation was supposed to turn you into a G.o.d or immortal or something, but even that was iffy because what was the point of being a G.o.d when you have G.o.ds being more G.o.dly than you, and it turned into a never-ending cycle? It was like the problem of geniuses all over again. Everyone"s a genius, but there are better geniuses than others. Then what was the point of using that word to describe anything at all? It became meaningless.

However, it seemed I was mistaken, despite my protagonist"s privilege. Sha Chen didn"t care about power levels either (he was old and experienced enough to recognize they were absolutely meaningless, which was why he never harped on whatever realm he was and why it was impossible for me to defeat him, blah blah). He was more concerned about the technique I was using.

"Heaven and Earth Strike again!" with a wave of his left arm, he blew apart the flames and qi with sheer force. "If that"s the best technique you possess, then this will be your last fight ever!"

"Dude, you know I"m just a young guy who had just barely started learning Heaven and Earth Formula like…a few years ago? Why the h.e.l.l are you a.s.suming I"ve mastered every technique in Heaven and Earth Formula?"

Obviously the old man ignored me and continued to rage unfairly at what he thought was an insult. Dude, it wasn"t as if I was using Heaven and Earth Strike because I thought it would defeat you. I literally had no other technique in my a.r.s.enal that was more powerful.

But just like all those forum users who always thought they were right and wanted to bash people for no reason other than because they were jerks (complaining about Games Workshop, Catalyst Game, Qidian, every company under the sun) and then insulting people who pointed out the flaw in their criticisms, Sha Chen ignored all logic and common sense and insisted on flaming me. Typical.

Unfortunately, unlike all those hot-headed keyboard warriors, Sha Chen was on a completely different level. His attacks were actually capable of killing me.

"Ugh…!"

I grimaced when Sha Chen"s attacks suddenly intensified and his flaming wave grew stronger. Slowly, my golden wave of Heaven and Earth Strike was being pushed back and diminishing in the face of the torrent of destructive fire.

Even though I was doing my best with my swords, I saw that I was inevitably losing.

KROOOOOOOM!

"!"

Grimacing, even as blood ran down my face, I clenched my teeth and slashed at the incoming stream of flames when the last of my Heaven and Earth Strike flickered out. It was useless. The h.e.l.lfire washed over me, engulfing my body completely despite my desperate attempts to cleave it apart. Scorching heat overwhelmed my senses.

I dug my heels in and I tried to stand defiantly in the onslaught of demonic flames, but they were too much.

And then I was blasted off my feet. Blood spewed from my body as the ravenous flames consumed me, destroying my body from all over.

Trees around me simply ceased to exist, reduced to ashes and cinders as the flames carved a devastating path through them. The torrent of flames continued on, not sated with its meal, and hurtled onward until it finally slammed into the base of an imposing mountain.

Boom!

Even the ancient mountain was not impervious against the a.s.sault of man. An avalanche of rock rained down, turning into drips of red-hot, molten stone.

The effects could be detected by the people in Duchun Town, despite them being miles away. Several civilians actually saw the majestic mountain shudder, and huge fumes of smoke billowing into the sky.

"W…what"s going on?"

"Is this the end of the world?"

"Someone, call the Imperial Guard!"

Even the regulars of the Imperial Guard garrisoned at Duchun were stunned to see such a scale of destruction.

"Two high-level experts must be fighting there!" one soldier exclaimed, his face turning pale. His comrade shook his head.

"We received reports that the Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen, was heading the Black Venom Cult. You know, the one where the Lady from the Song Clan was injured? She claimed that she met him. Could it be…he"s currenly fighting an expert from the Martial Arts Alliance?"

"But…we haven"t seen anyone from the Martial Arts Alliance?"

"Idiot…you think they would drop by and say hi to common soldiers like us? Besides, the Martial Arts Alliance isn"t under the jurisdiction of the royal family. They"re not going to work with us."

They were mostly mistaken, but they did guess right that it was the Heavenly Venom King at work here, unleashing his demonic powers of destruction. Okay, that sounded cheesy, but whatever.

Woo…

A maelstrom of crackling qi continued to rage at the base of the mountain, ravaging what was left of the forest. A huge canyon had been carved through the once verdant Sen Lin Forest, but the magical beasts residing within it were used to such wanton displays of power. After all, what was a human to a beast?

At the foot of the mountain, a huge impression several meters wide in radius had been carved into the rock. The blackened stone glowed red-hot and flowed almost like lava, almost like crimson veins running against dark skin. Smoke continued to fume out of the ma.s.sive dent and obscured visibility of the obliterated s.p.a.ce.

Debris continued to rain downward uncontrollably, the tremendous forces still reverberating across the mountain and causing broken rock to shake loose and plummet downward.

Opposite me, Sha Chen stood in an intimidating manner, wisps of qi continuing to shroud him. Several stony shards levitated around him, held aloft by his immense qi. Or perhaps it was just an illusion – the debris was probably disintegrating against his qi aura, thus giving the impression that they were floating before disappearing. That was why it looked as if they never touched the ground.

Sha Chen raised his head, his countenance grim. Ahead of him, the fumes continued to billow, but they were gradually fading away, revealing the extent of damage he had caused to the poor forest and mountain.

Swoosh…

It was very faint, but Sha Chen could just barely make out my figure. Right in the center of the deep, cracked impression, I was literally buried meters into the foot of the mountain, surrounded by cracks and broken rock.

Sha Chen"s eyes narrowed, and with his martial artists" senses he could see me clearly. My flesh was slightly charred, my clothes scorched and ripped, and my head hung low. My eyes were shut, my face singed with soot and burns.

For a moment, it seemed I was unconscious. Stony fragments were still pelting me, but I didn"t stir.

"…"

The Dark Sage studied me silently. For a moment he recalled the distant past, but his position had been reversed.

He was the one who had been buried into the foot of the mountain, and it was my master, Tian Mo, who had been standing in front of him, a terrifying figure billowing with immense amounts of forceful qi. Just looking at him alone was enough to make him shudder.

Okay…this was the limit of my protagonist privilege. Did you honestly think I was going to launch into a flashback about Sha Chen"s past here? I couldn"t read his mind. And this wasn"t Gosu. I wasn"t going to rip off a Korean murim manhwa. Especially since I had to worry about copyright and stuff. Plus people were complaining about my fourth-wall breaking because it "destroys" the immersion (I wonder how Deadpool does it), so I should keep that to the minimum.

"You…seem immune to my poisons."

Sha Chen seemed to have realized something while he was reminiscing about the past. He craned his neck and studied me, then shook his head.

"Your qi didn"t weaken, and I don"t sense you expending it to suppress my poison at all. Yet your movements remain the same, your speed is still impressive and you haven"t slowed down or relent in your attacks. Could it be that my venom has no effect on you at all?"

Congratulations. You"ve only just figured that out now? Should I offer you a prize for guessing correctly?

"Come to think of it…"

Sha Chen paused and considered something gravely, his brows furrowing as he rubbed his chin. He sighed and shook his head.

"I can"t believe I didn"t notice it before, but when I poisoned your master, he still possessed enough power to counterattack and wound me seriously. At that time I thought he was prepared to die, and wanted to kill me instead of dragging his own death out…I mean, normally people would first spend their qi to suppress the poison, to keep it from circulating around their body. But…your master was different."

The Dark Sage glowered at me.

"Instead of suppressing the poison, he immediately lashed out to attack me. I thought that would be the end of him, but now that I add up the numbers, they don"t match. If he really suffered from my poison and withered away, how was he able to teach you? From what I know, the earliest you could have learned martial arts from him was about five to six years ago, while he disappeared when being on the run from the Martial Arts Alliance."

A bit too late to be thinking about all that now, wasn"t it?

"But…"

The Heavenly Venom King held out his left hand and stared at it. Flames continued to crackle atop his palm, hissing and dancing ferociously. He sighed and shook his head.

"In the end…you"re partially right. As it turns out, all types of poisons are useless to those from the Heaven and Earth Sect. I am forced to use the fire techniques I learned from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect to destroy you."

…I knew it. So this guy was formerly from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect. No wonder his techniques were so familiar. I had seen Ling Qing Zhu use them before, as well as the old guy (her father, if I remembered correctly) when he fought against Sect Lady Zi Da Ji.

Not that the knowledge was going to help me currently. The old guy was currently too strong for me to deal with. I was slowly being overpowered by him. Whatever counters I could think of, he would just crush them with brute force.

Truly, he was the strongest from the old Martial Arts Alliance. I didn"t think there would exist anybody capable of withstanding a blow from my Heaven and Earth Strike. Yet the Heavenly Venom King not only survived, but overpowered it.

"Hmph. Did you really think Heaven and Earth Strike would be enough to defeat me?" Sha Chen sneered, gnashing his teeth in fury from what he considered an insult.

Not really, but I was in no position to reply, so I said nothing.

"That arrogance is the reason why you"ll die today!"

Still, it was a hard-fought battle. The Dark Sage admitted that. His face was pale and beads of perspiration continued to run down his face. His right arm was gone – allt hat remained of it was a bleeding stump.

Rumble…

The stones on the ground began to shake as a dense layer of qi rippled across them.

"?"

"Hmm?"

Glancing downward, Sha Chen noticed the movement, as well as the change in atmosphere. He tensed when he saw a whirlwind of qi revolve violently around him. Not powerful enough to hurt him, but not weak to the point where it would simply dissipate upon colliding with his aura.

"This is…?"

The Dark Sage raised his head and traced the movements of the qi, seeing that they all originated from me. I was still embedded deeply in the rock, but somehow I was exuding a good amount of qi.

"Ugh…"

Coughing out blood, I yanked myself out of the hole, and staggered. An avalanche of rocks, shaken loose by my sudden movement, crashed down on either side of me. But I ignored them, knowing that they wouldn"t be able to hurt me.

Sha Chen stared at me, astonished.

"Ouch…that really hurts," I muttered as I picked up both my swords, breathing heavily. Cracking the muscles in my neck, I tested my limbs and swung my swords slightly. "Phew. Looks like nothing has been broken. I still can fight."

My eyes caught onto both my swords and stayed there. I smiled slightly.

"Thanks, guys," I told them as I waved them a bit. I was still heaving from the ma.s.sive damage I had taken, but I ignored the screaming agony that lanced through my body. "It"s thanks to you guys that I had survived. If I didn"t parry that last attack, I would probably have died back then."

"You"re still able to stand even after taking my Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt? Sha Chen growled incredulously. I shrugged.

"I appear to be more tenacious than I look. I"ve taken a lot of beatings in the past. None as brutal as yours, though…but I"m no stranger to pain. Therefore I"m a bit st.u.r.dier when compared to my peers."

Torture at the hands of Ba Yun and the Chinese Parasol Tree Sect. Forced to survive on my own when betrayed and abandoned in Sen Lin Forest. Barely survived against the Ghost Bear and Hydra when attempting to escape. Cornered by an entire army when the Martial Arts Alliance invaded Nine-Tailed Fox Sect.

I had survived through each and every one of those crises, and gotten stronger. It would take a lot more to kill me.

The Dark Sage suddenly threw his head back and roared in laughter.

"Good!" he howled. "Very good! This is more like it! Now you seem worthier of being the disciple of the Absolute One!"

His right stump tensed unintentionally, blood still dripping from it. Even though Sha Chen didn"t blatantly glance at his injury, I could see his pupils shifting to the corner of his eyes. It was evident what he was thinking.

My attack wasn"t as powerful because I"m missing an arm…

Hah! Excuses. If that was the case, why didn"t you use the attack from the beginning and finish me off immediately? You looked down on me, toyed with me, got careless and lost your d.a.m.ned arm to me. You had no one to blame but yourself.

However, even now Sha Chen continued to act arrogantly.

"But this doesn"t change anything," he sneered. "If you surrender and kneel before me now, I"ll make it less painful."

"So in the end you"re going to kill me anyway." I snorted. "Are you an idiot? Whether I die painfully or painlessly, I still die. So why should I f.u.c.king surrender since you"re going to kill me either way? I might as well fight to my last. Even if it"s painful and I suffer for it, that"s what living is about. Living is never painless. I have already made my resolve from the start."

Still swaying unsteadily on my feet, I took a step forward.

Crack.

The ground split beneath my foot. Breathing heavily, I continued to gather qi into my body. My physical injuries might be serious, but I still possessed an abundance of qi thanks to Heaven and Earth Formula.

"…?"

I blinked when I caught sight of the swirling qi around both my swords. Instinctively, I recognized them.

Heaven and Earth Strike…I can see Heaven and Earth Strike.

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

I burst out laughing, much to Sha Chen"s outraged astonishment. He glared at me, his own qi suffusing his battered body.

"What"s so funny?" he demanded.

"Oh, no. it"s not funny. It"s just…delightful." I grinned, but didn"t elaborate. I wasn"t stupid, after all.

But I couldn"t contain my joy. It was thanks to the Heavenly Venom King pushing me to my limits, cornering me to near-death, and forcing me into a life-and-death battle that I had finally understood how to use Heaven and Earth Strike.

If I surived this, then it meant I had learned and benefited tremendously from this duel. I would emerge from this battle much stronger than ever.

Well, there was no point holding back. Now that I could fire off Heaven and Earth Strike freely, I might as well use it.

Gripping my Azure Lotus Sword, I unleashed Heaven and Earth Strike, sending a golden blast of qi at Sha Chen.

"!!!"

The Dark Sage must have noticed the change in me, but to him, it was insignificant. After all, I had already been using Heaven and Earth Strike. And he had fought against this technique in the past, when he dueled my master.

This wasn"t anything impressive to him.

Even so, he couldn"t afford to underestimate it. Raising his hand, he conjured a gigantic wall of fire and blocked the blast. The entire area around him exploded, showering him in debris and large rocks. The old man disappeared from sight as he was overwhelmed by the ma.s.sive tsunami of destructive golden qi.

Boom!

"I"ve got him!" I muttered excitedly, but then I frowned and clamped down on my rapidly beating heart. No, it wouldn"t be wise to underestimate my opponent. This guy stood at the pinnacle of the old Martial Arts Alliance once.

There was no way my Heaven and Earth Strike could defeat him, or I would have already won long ago.

Hiss…

The smoke cleared out and Sha Chen emerged, still standing. His clothes were slightly singed, and his hair ruffled, but other than superficial wounds sustained from enduring my attack, he was unhurt.

"Hmph!" the Heavenly Venom King sneered and raised a hand, conjuring a new tornado of fire. "I suppose it"s my turn now?"

Woo…!

I watched in horror as a gigantic halo of fire spread across his hand, turning into a raging maelstrom so intense I could feel its blistering heat even from so far away. Biting my lip, I unsconsiously took a step back, but knew there was nowhere to run. Even if I used my footwork techniques or Shadow Steps, I still wouldn"t be able to escape the enormity of the Dark Sage"s technique.
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"You"ll die like your master!" Sha Chen growled furiously. "You may be a pup barely entering manhood, but I will not show you any mercy just because you"re a brat! I will erase you, along with any sign of Heaven and Earth Sect!"

Well, given how Tian Yu Di was still around, he was going to fail, but I obviously wasn"t going to tell him that.

Instead, I braced myself for his attack.

With a swing of his hand, Sha Chen launched what seemed like another Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt again, this time one more powerful than the last. As I expected, it was too ma.s.sive, too fast and too powerful to escape.

I had to stand my ground here or I would die the moment I turned my back from it and attempted to flee.

Might as well take my chances with taking the strike head-on.

Standing my ground firmly, I fired off another Heaven and Earth Strike. Just like the last time, it was gradually overwhelmed and pushed back toward me, the golden qi withering and sparking despite defiantly trying to stem the tide of h.e.l.lfire. I infused more of my qi into my technique, but still it was being swallowed by Sha Chen"s inexorable attack.

However, as the two attacks clashed, I somehow saw my golden qi colliding with Sha Chen"s red qi. They were merging into a single sphere of violence, the lethal energies whipping out and destroying everything within its path.

To my astonishment, I found that I could read the flow of qi.

This is…Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps?

Master always said that mastering Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps was the first step to learning the true Heaven and Earth Formula. I had to learn how to read the flow of qi belonging to my opponent. And now I realized I also had to learn to read the flow of my own qi.

"I see…so that"s how it is…"

Following the movements of destructive qi, I noticed something anomalous about the clashing techniques. There was some sort of rupture, a…path, if you will, that beckoned me. Intuitively I knew it was important somehow.

What if I slashed at that place with Heaven and Earth Strike?

There was no time to think too much about it. Presently Sha Chen"s Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt was overwhelming my Heaven and Earth Strike. My technique was holding off his attack for now, but it wouldn"t be long before it completely crushed my display of defiance and obliterate me. I had just barely survived the last one.

My body couldn"t handle much more damage.

I might as well gamble on this.

Taking a deep breath, I swung my Azure Lotus Sword and unleashed another Heaven and Earth Strike into the rupture. The golden qi flowed into the raging maelstrom, but instead of trying to engulf it, it gently traced the currents of the present qi and merged with the violent sphere of energies.

And then…it began to reverse the flow of the qi.

This wasn"t something that could be seen by normal human eyes or recorded by my gla.s.ses. No, it was something I could only sense. The flow of qi was being twisted and turned, coaxed by the influx of Heaven and Earth Strike. My technique had quietly merged with the rampaging qi, the golden traces of its wake disappearing and blending in with the crimson qi.

Then the flow of Sha Chen"s Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt was reversed completely, turning on itself and momentarily halted its advance. No, it didn"t just stop. It was actually reversing its trajectory and speeding back toward the stunned Heavenly Venom King.

"…what? My Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt is swallowed up and being reversed?! What the h.e.l.l is with this technique!?"

Sha Chen"s jaw dropped as he watched me. I was staying stationary, remaining standing where I was, even as I was surrounded by dozens of gigantic whirlpools of qi. None of them touched me, each of them keeping a respectable distance from my figure.

Even so, it was clear that I was keeping a tight leash on them, preventing them from spiraling out of control.

"…!"

The Dark Sage blinked as he tried to get a read on me. Currently, my silhouette was barely visible, distorted by the whirlpools of qi raging around me. Sha Chen had the impression of a shadowy demon lurking at the edge of reality, defying all laws of established science.

"That"s…!" he growled, paling in fright. "That"s a Heaven and Earth technique, isn"t it? One that I"ve never seen before…"

Perspiration was running down his face now, chilling him. Sha Chen suddenly realized that he might have just pushed me over the edge and awoken a monster. A monster that was now rearing up from the abyss he thought he had thrown me into.

If he was the poetic type of person, he might even be thinking something along the lines of what have I just unleashed upon the world?

Come on, dude. Nothing. I"m just a normal, ordinary guy who wanted to survive. That"s all.

A dark voice chuckled at the back of my mind, and I ignored it. I already knew what it was going to say.

To survive, I had no choice but to kill my opponent. He had been trying to murder me this entire time. I wasn"t a psychotic xianxia protagonist who went around looking for trouble and commiting genocide against clans just because an arrogant young master p.i.s.sed me off or attacked me.

But I wasn"t some spineless light novel protagonist who refused to kill someone who had been actively trying to murder me. If you were trying to take my life, then I had no reason to hold back. I was going to fight desperately and do my best to survive, even if it meant the death of my opponent.

After all, I valued my life over my opponent"s. Plus the enemy this time was too strong. If I held back even a little, it would be me who lost my life.

Taking a deep breath, I reined in my ma.s.sive whirlpools of crimson qi, and then set them free, allowing the qi to reverse and travel backward, returning the attack back toward their original owner.

Heaven and Earth Reversal. The ultimate technique of Heaven and Earth Formula.

By reversing the flow of my enemy"s qi, I used my opponent"s own attack against him, and even added the power of a highly destructive Heaven and Earth Strike on top of it. Even if the opponent could survive an attack from Heaven and Earth Strike, there was no way he could withstand having his own qi reversed and turned upon him.

"Allow me to return those words you said earlier back to you," I declared, my silhouette still half-concealed by the inexorable advance of my enormous qi whirlpools. Despite the burns and perspiration that welled up on my pale complexion, I was unable to hold back a smirk. "If Ma.s.s Incendiary Bolt is your most powerful technique, then this match is over."