Chapter 170: Death by Fist
The farthest reaches of the Azure Cloud World’s northern expanse were ever frigid, yet beyond the towering mountains that split the land, the cold grew even sharper, cutting to the bone like an unseen blade.
The emissary group, long since clad in thick winter robes, moved in silence through the Snowy Wastes, avoiding open roads and lingering in places where vision was obscured. Yesterday, they had sought shelter within the Swampwood Grove, and tonight, they rested at the foot of the Yellow Earth Ridge, a place equally concealed from prying eyes.
As darkness blanketed the land, Ji You once again strode into the mist alone, gazing northwest. His golden eyes blazed like twin ghostly lanterns, piercing through the veil of night.
In that moment, he reached an undeniable conclusion—
The Barbaric Race’s Berserker Frenzy was not a martial technique but an innate trait, woven into their very blood and flesh. Thus, it could not be seized through force or trickery.
A shame, truly. He had misjudged them before, believing their silence under torture was mere obstinance, refusing to share their secrets even in the face of suffering. Now, he realized, only the truly innocent know the depths of their own injustice.
Though he had failed to extract new abilities, his journey was not fruitless. He had tested the limits of his own body.
Among the Human Race, cultivation of the body was neglected, for it constrained the boundless potential of Spiritual Consciousness. As such, no proper measure existed to gauge physical resilience.
Yet Ji You, whose very sinews were tempered steel, wished to know—just how indomitable was his flesh? Here, in the land of the Barbarians, he thought to find a standard against which he could measure himself.
Alas, even now, he had not been broken.
He needed to test further. To misjudge his own endurance could one day mean death.
With that resolve, Ji You cast his Spiritual Consciousness outward in a wide net, his senses sweeping the cold land. Soon, he found what he sought—
A lone Barbarian Scout.
[Good. You shall be my stepping stone.]
Excitement flickered in Ji You’s heart as he stepped forward, sword in hand, his presence unfurling like an unsheathed blade.
The Barbarian turned, eyes flaring with a fervent, primal hunger. With a bestial roar, he lunged, iron blade flashing under the moonlight.
Clang!
Ji You met the charge with his sword, its gleaming arc unfolding in waves, swift as a tempest. The two weapons collided, sending fiery sparks into the night.
For a heartbeat, surprise flickered in the Barbarian’s eyes. Then, that shock melted into unrestrained ecstasy.
Beneath the moonlit ridge, their blades clashed in a symphony of steel and death.
Then—
With a final surge of Sword Intent, Ji You sent the iron blade spiraling from the Barbarian’s grasp, embedding itself in the earth.
His purpose achieved, he discarded his own sword.
“Commence your Berserker Frenzy.”
“Damnable Human…”
With a guttural snarl, the Barbarian’s body convulsed. His shoulder blades surged forward, bones distorting, flesh swelling.
Ji You felt the abrupt rise in temperature as the Barbarian’s blood ignited with fury. A deep, thunderous rumbling sounded from within the beast-warrior’s core, and in mere moments, he had expanded, his already towering form growing even more massive.
Their armor—crafted for this very transformation—groaned under the strain, once-loose segments now stretched taut over an explosion of raw muscle. Even so, the overwhelming power within could not be contained.
Boom!
The very earth trembled beneath his feet. A crater burst open where the Barbarian once stood.
Then, like an arrow loosed from a great bow, the monster charged forth, fists the size of cauldrons tearing through the air, aimed straight for Ji You’s face.
In response, Ji You did not retreat.
He lifted his own fist.
A strike honed through thousands of repetitions, tempered by combat and hardship—
Mountain-Shaking Fist.
It was a mere foundation-level technique, one overlooked by the masses. Who, among the Human Race, would forsake blade and spell to engage in brutish brawling?
But Ji You had practiced it uncountable times. Every moment after Minor Illumination, when his body overflowed with untamed power, he had relied on this technique to disperse the lingering might.
And now, that simple fist technique, wielded by a man whose body defied mortal limits—
Thundered through the air with cataclysmic force.
Each punch was like the howl of a storm, sweeping forward with an unrelenting, shattering momentum. The very wind howled in protest, the sky seeming to buckle under the ferocity of his strikes.
Before the onslaught, the Barbarian’s face twisted in rage and disbelief.
Bam! Bam!
Two bone-shattering blows crashed down upon the Barbarian’s raised forearms. The ground beneath him cracked, his feet sinking into the dirt.
And then—
Another pair of fists surged from behind the Barbarian’s shoulders.
Four arms.
A Companion-born Talent, a gift of mixed bloodlines within the Barbaric Race.
[Beautiful,] Ji You thought. [This is exactly what I was hoping for.]
Ji You clenched his fists, and a blazing aura surged forth from his body. With a thunderous stomp, the earth beneath him cracked, forming a deep pit.
Lightning-like spiritual energy wove around him, flickering and crackling in an intricate dance. His fists, drawn close to his chest, pulsed with power, their presence like rolling thunder gathering strength. Then, with an explosive force, he struck forward, meeting the monstrous four-armed foe that loomed before him.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dull reverberations of their clash echoed across the barren hills, like the relentless pounding of war drums. The turbulent air between them rippled, their blows colliding and dissipating in an endless cycle of creation and destruction.
Bad news—four fists did prove to be superior to two. Good news—Ji You was stubbornly unyielding.
Bracing himself, he took a direct hit to his chest but didn’t falter. Without a moment’s hesitation, he clenched his right fist and sent the brute flying backward. His feet surged with spiritual energy as he leapt skyward, descending once more with a devastating punch.
The battle on the yellow-earth slope waged on for what seemed an eternity before silence finally returned.
The barbarian’s berserk transformation faded. His additional arms retracted into his torso, and his body temperature gradually cooled into lifelessness.
Ji You stood amid the battlefield, his condition slightly worse than the day before. A faint redness tinged the corner of his lips, his chest ached, and his shoulders throbbed, sore from the unexpected strike they had taken.
[Truly… a storm of wild blows can topple even a seasoned master.]
He recalled his spirit sword, sheathing it as he took stock of the encounter. The barbarian warrior, strengthened by his Companion-born Talent, was physically far mightier than Chu He, even when the latter had employed Huntian Spell. After all, when Ji You had fought Chu He, he had only completed his twelfth Minor Illumination, but now he had reached his fifteenth.
Had he not persisted in refining his body through these incremental awakenings, that unexpected four-armed strike might very well have shattered both his shoulders.
[Curse these savage brutes—they truly fight like demons,] he thought, glaring at the fallen barbarian warrior whose chest now bore a deep, caved-in mark.
From this battle, one thing was clear—when facing warriors of the Upper Soldier Realm, he no longer needed to test his resilience in close combat. Their raw power was insufficient to truly break through his physical defenses.
The golden glow in Ji You’s eyes gradually faded. The Lantern of the Underworld, which had briefly illuminated the barbarian’s path to death, dimmed to nothingness. With practiced efficiency, Ji You rifled through the body.
[Hmph, as poor as me.]
Lifting the corpse onto his back, he made his way toward the encampment. A few steps in, however, his brows furrowed slightly.
Disposing of the body would help obscure his trail for a while, but the problem remained—disappearances were just as telling as corpses. The moment the barbarians noticed all their missing warriors were from the same region, it would only be a matter of time before their movements were exposed.
Lost in thought, he descended the yellow-earth slope toward their base.
Jiang Yan and Yan Qiu Bai were already there, waiting. The moment they saw him approaching, they stepped forward.
“Any stragglers left behind?”
“None.”
“What happened to your lip?”
“The barbarians are savages.”
“Were they… stronger today?”
“Their physique was the same as yesterday, but this one had an extra set of arms. He caught me off guard with an overhead strike. They’re naturally gifted with strength—I was nearly taken down by the sudden attack. Thinking back, it was indeed a dangerous moment.”
Jiang Yan and Yan Qiu Bai exchanged glances.
It was rare for a barbarian’s Companion-born Talent to manifest as extra limbs. Throughout this campaign, only Huo Hong had encountered such a foe. And according to him, such an opponent was equivalent to fighting two barbarian warriors at once.
They refocused, advising Ji You to rest. Then, with quiet efficiency, they dragged the corpse toward a pit that had been prepared earlier.
But before they dumped the body, their blades flicked out, stripping the armor and cutting away the garments.
Then, a heavy silence fell over them. Their expressions darkened.
For days now, many had noticed that Ji You was returning later and later, each time looking more battered, his steps walking ever closer to the edge of life and death.
Perhaps today. Perhaps next time. Would he fall?
Yet, no one had given thought to the condition of the barbarian corpses he brought back. They had simply been buried or thrown into the marshes without much scrutiny.
It wasn’t until last night, when Yan Qiu Bai had casually examined one, that suspicions began to arise—suspicions they found hard to believe.
A fluke, perhaps. A potion or an artifact, maybe.
But now, as they looked at tonight’s corpse, they knew.
It wasn’t that it resembled the last one—it had died in exactly the same way.
No blade wounds.
Only bruises—some light, some deep—covering the arms and shoulders, as though the flesh had been pounded into submission.
And at the center of its chest, the unmistakable mark of a fist—deep, concave, fatal.
“Battered?”
Yes, Ji You looked battered. His clothes were disheveled, the corner of his lip swollen. He seemed as though he had barely scraped through another fight.
But it was only now they realized—Ji You had never even drawn his sword.
He had fought these naturally powerful warriors with his bare hands from beginning to end, striking them down with nothing but the strength of his own mortal body.
[Barbarians are too savage.]
[My physique is stronger now.]
[I nearly lost.]
[It was truly dangerous.]
Yan Qiu Bai recalled Ji You’s words, and for a long moment, she was speechless.
They had once heard Gong Shu Chou say that Ji You had slain eighteen Mystic Enlightenment cultivators with his sword, even felling a Dao Fusion expert. At the time, it had seemed almost unbelievable.
But now, as they looked at him from afar, the images of that legendary swordsman and the battered warrior before them overlapped.
They rose to their feet in a daze, turning toward Ji You’s silhouette.
At that moment, the quiet rustling of footsteps emerged from the dense forest. Soon, a group of figures approached—the Deputy Warden of the Immortal Overseer Office, Peng Dong Yang, along with six elders of the Immortal Sect.
“Pack your things,” Peng Dong Yang ordered. “We’re changing our route—we leave tonight.”
Peng Dong Yang gazed into the depths of the night, his voice steady yet edged with caution. “Judging from the recent movements of the Barbaric Tribes, it seems our whereabouts have been compromised. We can no longer continue down this path.”
Jiang Yan snapped out of her daze, eyes narrowing in confusion. “Compromised? But not a single one of them has slipped past us in days.”
“We assumed that burying their bodies would be enough to avoid discovery,” Peng Dong Yang sighed, his gaze deep as he pondered their predicament. “Yet, if you have observed carefully, you would have noticed that the Barbaric Tribes have not been conducting large-scale patrols. Instead, their warriors move in small groups, and their range of activity has drawn ever closer to ours. This suggests that they have begun to deduce our route.”
A bitter smile tugged at his lips. “I have thought about this for a long time, and I believe we overlooked the strict discipline within the Barbaric Tribes’ forces.”
He turned to the group, his expression grave. “They may not have seen the bodies, but they would still have noticed their missing warriors. It is likely they have been tracking us based on where their people disappeared. Their method lacks precision, but if we move now, we still have time to escape their net.”
Elder Ge of the Heavenly Script Academy nodded in agreement. “We have already made preparations. Some of the carriages must be abandoned to reduce our footprint and mislead their pursuit.”
Yan Qiu Bai hesitated. “But the surrounding areas have yet to be cleared. If we run into them unprepared, we may expose ourselves further.”
Elder Ge met her gaze. “That is precisely why the two of you must scout ahead. Avoid the enemy at all costs. We will regroup at the foot of that low ridge in half an hour.”
Jiang Yan exchanged a glance with Yan Qiu Bai, then tightened her grip on her Dao Sword. “Then so be it.”
Before leaving, their eyes drifted toward Ji You, who remained seated under the tree, quietly recovering. Their focus lingered on his clenched fists.
“Sister Yan, he…?” Yan Qiu Bai murmured.
Jiang Yan shook her head. “I do not know…”
Without another word, the two women vanished into the darkness, their figures blending into the night wind. Meanwhile, those who remained worked swiftly to prepare for departure.
The warriors who had gone to slaughter the Barbaric Tribes’ scouts—Huo Hong, Jiang Chen Feng, and Chu Bu Tian—returned in succession, dragging lifeless bodies behind them. As they observed their allies moving hastily in the silence, furrowed brows revealed their unease.
“We are barely a hundred miles from the Snowy Wastes,” one muttered. “I thought we would reach it without further trouble. But now, it seems our path is fraught with peril once more.”
Jiang Chen Feng let out a derisive laugh. “If getting there were so easy, then the Barbaric Tribes would not be a force to fear.”
Just then, a faint cough from the edge of the dirt slope caught everyone’s attention.
Their gazes turned toward the sound, only to find Ji You sitting in disarray, his arms and shoulders slack, his lips bruised and swollen.
The wilderness offered no grand feasts nor beautiful sights. Amid this brutal journey, aside from comparing kill counts, most had taken to observing Ji You. After all, he was the weakest among them, with the highest chance of perishing. Every time he returned, his appearance was more disheveled than before.
Jiang Chen Feng shifted his gaze westward, his voice low. “It seems this group will soon suffer its first casualty.”
“You mean the Mystic Enlightenment disciple?” someone asked.
“Who else? Certainly not us of the Dao Fusion Stage.”
Jiang Yue Rou withdrew her gaze. “In the first few days, he returned unscathed. But now, he is battered and struggling to keep up. With our tracks exposed, his chances grow even slimmer.”
Jiang Chen Feng remained indifferent. “I fail to see what use he serves in this expedition. I only hope he does not drag us down.”
At these words, all eyes instinctively turned to Xiao Han Yan and Shi Jun Hao, fellow disciples of the Heavenly Script Academy. A silent question lingered—if Ji You truly fell into danger, would they intervene?
Both furrowed their brows, sensing the weight of expectation.
Though they shared the same academy, they had always identified more with Jiang Chen Feng, Huo Hong, and the other prodigies of various sects. Ji You, however, had never fit into their circle. His actions in Feng Prefecture had already drawn scorn; many wished he would simply never return. They had no desire to invite trouble.
Yet, under the scrutiny of the group, ignoring Ji You’s plight would make the academy seem cold and unfeeling. The thought frustrated them, as though a burden had been unwillingly thrust upon their shoulders.
They did not wish to act, yet felt forced to.
Half an hour later, the preparations were complete.
Ji You, still dazed from his recovery, was abruptly pulled to his feet by Gong Shu Chou. “We are leaving. Get up.”
“Where to?” Ji You asked, his expression unbothered.
“Our location has been compromised. We must move through the night.”
Ji You studied him for a moment before smirking. “No silver bait? You think I’d just walk into this shoddy trap?”
Gong Shu Chou blinked. “What trap?”
Ji You was about to answer when he caught the hushed murmurs surrounding him. Turning his gaze outward, he saw that the carriages were already rolling toward the distant ridge.
He had suspected that once the Barbaric warriors started vanishing, their enemies would grow wary, even if no bodies were found. He had not expected it to happen so soon.
Still, he could not understand why Gong Shu Chou had come personally to fetch him.
“Did I hit you on the head?” Ji You asked, half amused.
“No. The chest.”
“Your head’s in your chest, then?”
Gong Shu Chou rolled his eyes, dragging Ji You forward. “I won’t let you die here. I have an image to maintain.”
The caravan sped away from the Yellow Earth Ridge, their enchanted artifacts humming, steeds galloping through the dark.
Under the elders’ direction, three divisions of the convoy discarded over a dozen carriages at various points, seeking to fragment their trail.
The warriors of the Barbaric Tribes were naturally strong, but unlike humans, they lacked the ability to extend their spiritual senses. Their reliance on sight made shrinking the group’s footprint a wise decision.
Thus, hooves thundered into the night, their passing marked by the echo of the wind.
Meanwhile, far behind them, beyond the now-abandoned ridge, a faint glow of fire began to creep toward their former resting place.
(This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation)