Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Battle with Tu Mian — Part 3

Earlier, Tu Mian had fought barehanded because his cultivation overwhelmed his opponent.

After trading dozens of close-range moves with him, Zhao Chun could tell he wasn’t truly skilled in fist-and-foot techniques. If she could break through the two centipede gu and reach him, perhaps she could find an opening.

The problem was the gu.

They were fast and agile, their bodies sheathed in hard armor. Zhao Chun could block them, but killing them outright proved difficult.

An idea sparked. She remembered the day she had cut down the black cicada with her golden fire qi. Following that instinct, she poured her qi into the Crimson Edge Dagger and brought the blade down in a fierce slashing arc.

The larger male gu failed to dodge in time. Her blade light struck it and knocked it back into a crimson bead. The female gu was weaker but far nimbler; it darted aside and slipped past the attack.

The male and female centipede gu were Tu Mian’s life gu, bound to his blood. When the gu were injured, the master suffered. Zhao Chun saw Tu Mian’s face blanch and immediately pressed, trying to finish off the female gu as well.

Tu Mian couldn’t allow it. He snapped the gu back to himself, fury blazing. He didn’t know what that golden-red light truly was, only that it could crack the centipede gu’s armor. He realized, bitterly, that he had misjudged Zhao Chun.

“My Ren Yang Sect’s secret arts,” he spat, “won’t be broken by you so easily!”

Then he did something that startled Zhao Chun.

He lifted the two crimson beads to his mouth and swallowed them whole without chewing.

In the Ren Yang Sect, disciples chose a life gu even before they first drew in qi. After that, three arts were taught: Command Art, Inner-Nurture Art, and Incarnation Art.

Command Art was the foundation—the method by which one directed gu to fight.

Inner-Nurture Art meant swallowing the life gu into the body and using its qi and blood to bolster one’s own cultivation for a short time. The price was steep: afterward, it took an extremely long time to rebuild the gu’s vitality.

As for the more terrifying Incarnation Art, it was said to belong to the Foundation Establishment Stage. One used the life gu as an externalized body; human and gu became linked in mind and intent, allowing one to fight across realms.

Zhao Chun knew none of this. What she saw was simple and horrifying: after Tu Mian swallowed the centipede gu, an eerie crimson glow spread over his entire body. His aura surged.

Before, she had only faintly sensed him at the fifth level of the Qi Refining Stage. Now his qi roared like a tide. The pressure he gave off felt closer to Meng Han’s—less suffocating than Meng Han’s presence, but unmistakably beyond the mid Qi Refining Stage.

“Late Qi Refining Stage…” Zhao Chun tightened her grip on the Crimson Edge Dagger and held it across her chest. She didn’t dare act rashly.

At the fifth level, she could still gamble with her golden fire qi. But against late Qi Refining Stage, the gap was too great. It was, for all practical purposes, hopeless.

Except… she wasn’t without preparation.

She only needed to hold on until the “moment” arrived.

Then Tu Mian moved.

His eyes had turned blood-red. Insect-like ridges crawled over his face, until little remained of the smiling fox from before. He looked like something dragged up from a nightmare.

He was astonishingly fast. Even as Zhao Chun retreated with Serpent-Form Step, he closed the gap within three breaths, roaring as he drove a heavy punch straight at her.

There was no room to dodge. Zhao Chun threw both arms up before her chest, shielding her head and torso, and took the blow head-on.

Even before the fist landed, the violent wind of it made her ears ring. The impact that followed flung her backward like a rag doll. She crashed through the round wooden posts at the edge of the platform, snapping them apart.

That punch was far beyond what the mid Qi Refining Stage could unleash.

Zhao Chun’s arms went numb, nearly useless. Splinters tore into her back. She endured only because the Eight-Treasure Mirror absorbed the worst of the force—otherwise, the moment the blow struck, it would have shattered her arm bones and punched through her chest.

This was the absolute oppression of late Qi Refining Stage.

A single strike nearly robbed Zhao Chun of any strength to fight.

“How pitiful,” Tu Mian sneered, utterly without mercy. “Fourth level of the Qi Refining Stage, no older than 12… among the Ling Zhen Sect’s disciples, you’re considered decent. Too bad. A fine seedling dies here.”

He wasn’t the type to waste words. After only a couple of mocking lines, he drove another punch toward Zhao Chun’s head.

“The moment has come…” Zhao Chun tilted her face upward.

Behind Tu Mian, beyond the sky and drifting clouds, a blaze of brilliant light flared.