Kill the Young, Then the Old

Kill the Young, Then the Old

"Stop!"

Liu Jierong sensed that something was wrong and immediately shouted in rage.

At the same time, he shot forward, trying to save Liu Xuan.

But he was still a step too late. Zhou Shan's Great Strength Vajra Palm had already struck. At such close range, the palm force instantly landed on Liu Xuan's head, shaking him until blood poured from his seven orifices and directly blasting apart both his eyeballs.

Even Liu Xuan's brow bone was smashed, caving inward and revealing an incomparably clear palm print.

Bang!

Liu Xuan's body tilted, and his head crashed heavily onto the ground.

After taking a Great Strength Vajra Palm from Zhou Shan, Liu Xuan's brain had been shaken into mush. He had already stopped breathing, his two exploded eyeballs leaving only empty sockets.

"Xuan'er!"

Seeing Liu Xuan lying on the ground without a trace of life left in him, Liu Jierong's eyes nearly split open.

He had only this one son. Now, watching his own son die before his very eyes, a white-haired man sending off a black-haired one, how could he not be enraged? His eyes practically spat fire.

"You little beast, die!"

Liu Jierong roared, driving his cultivation to its limit and channeling it into both palms. His hands immediately turned crimson, like red-hot branding irons.

"Crimson Refinement Palm, Fire Net Heaven's Net!"

Right from the start, Liu Jierong unleashed the killing move of the Crimson Refinement Palm. More than a hundred years of cultivation erupted in an instant. Both palms moved together, and dozens—perhaps over a hundred—crimson palm prints immediately appeared in the air.

These crimson palm prints were all formed from Liu Jierong's Internal Force, and in an instant, they all blasted toward Zhou Shan.

"An Aperture-Opening Martial Artist!"

The moment Liu Jierong made his move, Zhou Shan knew that his cultivation had surpassed a hundred years.

The commandants of the Black Armored Army were generally Superclass Martial Artists with over seventy years of cultivation. Liu Jierong had always presented himself to the outside world as a Superclass Martial Artist, but the cultivation he revealed now had exceeded a hundred years. Internal Force surged from the apertures throughout his body. He was clearly an Aperture-Opening Martial Artist.

It seemed he was not the only one in this world who knew how to conceal his strength. Other martial artists hid some of their strength as well.

However, Internal Force was only surging from several of Liu Jierong's apertures. He had only just entered the Aperture-Opening Realm. In terms of cultivation, he was far inferior to Zhou Shan, who had opened thirty-one apertures and possessed a hundred and thirty-one years of cultivation.

"Golden Bell Shield!"

Zhou Shan pressed his hands together, and vast Internal Force immediately gushed from the apertures all over his body. In an instant, it condensed into a golden bell over his body, enclosing him within it.

Clang, clang, clang—

Crimson palm prints struck the golden bell one after another, erupting with ear-splitting clashes of metal.

At the same time, with each peal of the bell, ripples spread through the air, carrying a rebounding force within them.

Each wave of rebounding force was equivalent to the power unleashed by a Superclass Martial Artist.

After throwing dozens, even over a hundred palms, Liu Jierong felt his hands beginning to go numb.

"Crimson Snake's Tongue Flick!"

Liu Jierong immediately changed his technique.

His hand moved like a venomous snake. He extended two fingers like a snake's fangs, gathering all his cultivation as they tore through the air and stabbed toward a weak point in the golden bell covering Zhou Shan's body.

The location Liu Jierong attacked was one of the Golden Bell Shield's Weak Points.

Zhou Shan already possessed a hundred and thirty-one years of cultivation. Although he had begun cultivating his Weak Points, and powerful qi protected those places, they had not completely disappeared.

To make the Weak Points vanish and leave no vulnerable place anywhere on the body, one had to become a Martial Dao Grandmaster.

Only by opening all one hundred and eight apertures within the body, linking the twelve primary meridians and the eight extraordinary meridians, advancing into the Innate Realm, and becoming a Martial Dao Grandmaster could one cultivate the Golden Bell Shield to great mastery and obtain a Leakless Body, with not a single Weak Point from head to toe.

If Liu Jierong had merely been an ordinary Superclass Martial Artist with seventy years of cultivation, then even if he knew the location of the Weak Points, he would have found it difficult to break Zhou Shan's Golden Bell Shield. But since his opponent was an Aperture-Opening Martial Artist with over a hundred years of cultivation, Zhou Shan naturally would not allow Liu Jierong to strike his Weak Points. Raising his hand, he answered with a Great Strength Vajra Palm.

"Vajra Mountain Push!"

Zhou Shan thrust out his palm, intercepting Liu Jierong's attack in midair.

Boom!

Finger and palm collided. Liu Jierong's two fingers stabbed into Zhou Shan's palm, and a terrifying shockwave swept outward.

Crack—

The sound of shattering bones rang out.

Although Liu Jierong and Zhou Shan were both Aperture-Opening Martial Artists, there was a gap of nearly thirty years of cultivation between them. Moreover, the Great Strength Vajra Palm was famed for its unmatched ferocity. Liu Jierong's two fingers could not withstand its palm force and were broken by the overwhelming power. His body staggered backward again and again, each step cracking the floor beneath his feet as he struggled to shed the force.

"Poison!"

At the same time, Zhou Shan felt a fiery pain in his palm. Turning it over, he saw two marks resembling burns from blazing fire. More importantly, they contained a strand of fire poison.

Every martial art possessed different abilities and traits.

The Great Strength Vajra Palm's traits were doubled strength, invulnerability to blades and spears, and striking objects from afar. The traits of the Crimson Refinement Palm cultivated by Liu Jierong, meanwhile, were heat resistance, fire poison, and a certain immunity to burning flames.

Zhou Shan immediately circulated the Internal Force of the Golden Bell Shield and forced out the fire poison.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle...

A stream of black smoke rose from Zhou Shan's palm.

One of the Golden Bell Shield cultivation technique's traits was poison resistance. With a hundred and thirty-one years of cultivation, that resistance had also been strengthened. Zhou Shan's body possessed tremendous resistance to certain toxins.

"Quick, quick, quick! Someone has broken into the commandant's residence!"

At this moment, Zhou Shan heard movement all around him. The Black Armored Army was closing in on the commandant's residence.

"Great Strength Vajra Palm, Chain Mountain Push!"

Sensing that the Black Armored Army was surrounding the place, Zhou Shan knew he had to end this quickly. He could not allow himself to be encircled. Before the Black Armored Army arrived, he had to kill Liu Jierong.

In an instant, vast Internal Force gathered in both arms. The meridians in his arms writhed and his muscles swelled. Zhou Shan used a body technique as light as a swan's feather, flashing to Liu Jierong's side in an instant. His palms, carrying overwhelming force, struck out more than a dozen times in rapid succession.

At this moment, Liu Jierong had only just steadied himself and shed the force.

Faced with Zhou Shan's attack, Liu Jierong could only hastily raise his cultivation and defend in a panic.

Bang bang bang bang—

Those broad palms crashed into Liu Jierong's body like two massive hammers. The overwhelming force they carried was enough to match ten thousand jun, with one jun equal to thirty catties; ten thousand jun was thus three hundred thousand catties of force.

Beyond that ten-thousand-jun force, Zhou Shan's palms were bolstered by incomparably vigorous Internal Force. After more than a dozen blows, Liu Jierong's protective cultivation had long been shattered. The bones in the hands he raised to block were smashed apart, and his arms now hung limp and powerless.

Liu Jierong's chest had also taken several palms. His breastbone was broken, his lungs reduced to mush, and his heart had long since been shattered by the impact. Blood streamed incessantly from his mouth.

"Twin Peaks Pierce Ears!"

Zhou Shan delivered Liu Jierong the final blow.

His two palms spread open and smashed fiercely toward Liu Jierong's head from both sides.

(End of Chapter)