Yan Nu recognized the corpse soldiers as the same elder who had asked him about the Battle of the Ji River earlier.
Sweeping his gaze again, he saw the farmer uncle who had previously called him a bandit.
"This... what is going on? Have they been controlled?" Yan Nu thought in disbelief.
The fifty corpse soldiers before him with ashen skin and green-glowing eyes were unexpectedly all villagers from the nearby villages they had passed, the ones waiting for their children to return from the battlefield.
Shen Leling had noticed this long ago and said coldly, "What else could be going on? They were all killed by the Zhang family, and their corpses were refined into spirit puppets."
"How could they?" Yan Nu looked furiously and indignantly at the person and the ghost currently toying with Shen Leling.
Zhang Quan glanced at him from afar, gave a cold laugh, and said nothing.
"What crime did they commit?" Seeing Zhang Quan not answer, Yan Nu's voice instantly rose, like a roaring tiger or chanting dragon.
That single shout packed forty years of internal energy! It could be called explosive!
In an instant, the sound wave swept in all directions, and the valley rumbled, echoing endlessly.
The surrounding air whistled and loose stones trembled!
Two martial artists standing closer clutched their ears and screamed. The one already heavily wounded and on the verge of death on the ground spat out a mouthful of blood as his internal injuries erupted, and he died on the spot!
Only the corpse soldiers were unaffected, each one fearless of death as they swarmed Yan Nu, yet Yan Nu completely ignored them.
He stood tall without moving, glaring with rage, letting the corpse soldiers hack at him with wild blades as if he possessed an indestructible Vajra body!
Zhang Quan, standing further back, felt a piercing pain in his eardrums and his meridians and Qi churning, shocking his complexion into a drastic change.
His lips moved slightly, but he didn't dare to answer.
Instead, Mr. Feng said gloomily, "Don't look at me, he did it."
"To wipe you out, the Zhang family didn't want to lose any more men, so they killed the nearby villagers and let me refine corpse soldiers."
"If you insist on asking what crime this group of villagers committed, perhaps it was... being old."
Being old!
These three words nearly drove Yan Nu mad with rage.
Already furious, he remembered Grandpa, who had also been sent to the battlefield for this very reason and never returned.
In an instant, Yan Nu's Qi and blood surged, and his eyes turned completely crimson.
His entire body vibrated with formless internal Qi, as if shrouded in a layer of a fiery aura.
His pants fluttered loudly, like standing in a fierce gale, let alone his hair—the long strands couldn't be held back by the straw rope at all, directly snapping it apart as they flew up and swayed in turbulent waves.
Seeing him like this, Zhang Quan instead showed great joy: "His internal Qi is out of control!"
Shen Leling also wore an anxious expression: "Not good! Yan Nu, quickly regulate your breath and recite the mind method..."
Halfway through her words, Shen Leling froze; in her rush for quick success, she hadn't taught Yan Nu any mind method, and Yan Nu's internal Qi was simply farmed from scratch.
Mr. Feng also saw the situation and shook his head slightly: "The greatest taboo in cultivation is eagerness for quick success. The more internal Qi one has, the easier it is to suffer from qi deviation..."
"Hahaha!" Zhang Quan laughed in pleasant surprise. Yan Nu's internal Qi was a hundred times his, and the risk of qi deviation was also a hundred times greater.
So-called qi deviation, as the name implied, was a state of loss of control and madness.
Loss of control was very simple; like a powerful crossbow with the arrow nocked, carried on one's body without moving it, yet suddenly firing the arrow all on its own.
Internal Qi normally circulated according to the cultivation technique's momentum, but occasionally it would go off track!
If not corrected in time, it was easy to leave hidden dangers. As they accumulated more and more, sooner or later a day would come when it would spin out of control, no longer circulating along the established route and beginning to run amok.
In severe cases, it could even cause Qi and blood to reverse, destroy the meridians, hinder human bodily functions, and even affect the brain, driving a person crazy and wild.
The more internal Qi one had, the greater the possibility of qi deviation.
Yan Nu's three thousand years of internal Qi could be said to be entirely achieved overnight, so his circulation momentum was insufficient. Now burning with rage, his internal Qi went straight out of control.
"Boom!" Yan Nu stomped fiercely on the ground, his entire body charging at Zhang Quan like a wild bull.
A fierce blast from the sky, with momentum like thunder.
Shen Leling panicked: "No! Don't use internal Qi!"
Using internal Qi proactively at a time like this would only make the loss of control even more severe.
Moreover, Yan Nu had too much internal Qi; how could he control himself to use only forty years right now? I'm afraid a slight lapse would cause him to explode and die!
Yet immediately afterward, Shen Leling was astonished.
Yan Nu's charge this time was even faster than before! He had explosively unleashed sixty years of internal Qi!
"What!"
"He actually broke through?"
Shen Leling's brain buzzed. One Yuan, First Cycle allowed a maximum burst of forty years of internal Qi.
If Yan Nu could unleash sixty years and remain fine, wouldn't that make him One Yuan, Second Cycle?
How much time had even passed? He had actually continuously tempered his body twice!
However, there were indeed precedents where qi deviation could lead to breakthroughs. Although extremely harmful to the body and even fatal, one's combat prowess would become stronger than before.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Yan Nu charged forward recklessly, the steel sabers of the surrounding corpse soldiers landing on him, only to be blown away by his internal Qi.
On the contrary, the swirling black mist was bone-chillingly cold, seeping into his body, but the Water Talisman quickly reacted, dissolving it in an instant.
Yan Nu brazenly withstood the hacking and slashing, living his way right out of the encirclement.
The eardrums of the two martial artists had ruptured, and having already suffered internal injuries from the sound wave, they failed to dodge in time and were directly swept by a spear strike, smashed into a burst of bloody spray and mist.
"Hisss!" Zhang Quan watched with his scalp tingling. This single blow carried seventy years of internal Qi!
His last two subordinates were swept into two halves, nearly blown to pieces.
"Yan Nu! Stop! Quickly stop!" Seeing that the internal Qi Yan Nu was unleashing hovered between sixty and seventy years, Shen Leling knew he couldn't accurately control his internal Qi.
Every time he only wanted to use forty years, but because of the loss of control, he inadvertently ended up using a few decades more.
Strengthened Bones and Plump Muscles doubled the limit with each additional instance. The limit of One Yuan, Second Cycle was eighty years.
Right now Yan Nu was still hovering between sixty and seventy years and was fine, but what if the loss of control worsened and he accidentally used ninety years?
Yet Yan Nu seemed not to hear, unleashing a fierce blast from the sky as he charged at high speed.
"I told you to leave and you wouldn't, damn it! Give me a Vitality Restoration Pill!" Mr. Feng was so angry he wanted to kill someone. If he weren't forbidden from harming Zhang Quan, he would have wanted to snatch them himself.
Seeing his family's elite forces decimated with only himself left, Zhang Quan knew things looked ominous and finally fished out a small bottle, pouring out the pills.
Mr. Feng took the two pills, didn't eat them, but brought them close to his nose and took a deep breath, watching as the two pills transformed into two streams of vitality that drifted into his body.
In an instant, he felt his vitality brimming and hurriedly refined the magical power to replenish his consumption.
Seeing Yan Nu chase after him, Mr. Feng was unwilling to make a move against him, only steering the hoverboard to carry Zhang Quan out of the way and widening the distance toward the far side.
Yan Nu executed an aerial refraction, exploding with eighty years of internal Qi as he pursued them.
Mr. Feng frowned and said, "Mortal, calm down, do you want to explode your body... Eh, eh, eh?"
Only to see Yan Nu perform another aerial acceleration, unleashing one hundred and sixty years of internal Qi!
"What! One Yuan, Third Cycle?" Only then did Mr. Feng's expression change drastically.
He flurriedly steered the hoverboard to get Zhang Quan out of the way, though this time it was already extremely close.
As a result, Yan Nu unleashed even more internal Qi, once again performing an aerial refraction—three hundred and twenty years of internal Qi!
Shen Leling was already dumbfounded: "This is what they call qi deviation?"
Mr. Feng was even on the verge of a breakdown: "Is this fucking Emperor Tai's White Jade Technique?"
He couldn't dodge it! The speed was too fast!
"Damn it..." Mr. Feng could only sacrifice himself to stand before Zhang Quan, spreading his arms as rolling black mist emerged from his body for protection.
"Bang!"
A deafening collision exploded resoundingly.
The strong shockwave blew everything in the surroundings away. Amidst the flying sand and stones, Zhang Quan vomited a mouthful of blood as he crashed into a tree, breaking who knows how many ribs.
"Ugh..." Mr. Feng floated above in some pain, his ghost body flickering between bright and dim as he had clearly also sustained heavy injuries.
"Why the hell didn't you use stones to block it!" Zhang Quan crawled up shakily, his face as pale as gold paper.
Mr. Feng steadied himself before saying, "His internal Qi is out of control; he cannot use body protection."
"So what?" Zhang Quan felt it was inexplicable.
"I don't kill mortals..." Mr. Feng slanted a glance at him.
Zhang Quan's face twisted in anger. It turned out Mr. Feng was afraid the stones would smash Yan Nu into a meat patty, which was why he used his ghost body and black mist to block this blow.
"Do you fucking want us to die?" Zhang Quan gnashed his teeth in anger.
Mr. Feng said loftily, "It's just internal Qi, this level isn't enough to... Oh, crap!"
His expression suddenly changed drastically as he watched the billowing dust gradually disperse, revealing a glowing figure walking out.
Yan Nu's left arm was dyed completely crimson! His fist was even suffused with a fiery glow!
It wasn't simply that his skin was flushed red, but rather that internal red light was radiating outward, going from shallow to deep, glowing white within the red, suffused with a brilliant halo while the heat warped the surrounding air.
Like a red-hot branding iron... Yes, just like a branding iron in a furnace!
"What kind of ghost thing is this!" Mr. Feng's eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets.
It wasn't that he didn't know the reason for this, but rather that he found it hard to believe what he was seeing.
Yan Nu didn't have Three Essences Body Tempering, so his internal Qi couldn't break through the exterior for external projection. At this moment, his arm was continuously storing power, gathering far too much energy, which naturally caused it to emit light and heat.
Yet what Mr. Feng couldn't figure out was why it wasn't exploding! This was an arm, not iron!
Even if it were iron, exciting this much energy at such a high concentration should have melted it!
Yet it hadn't. That arm, despite being as scorching as a branding iron, didn't suffer the slightest bit of damage.
It was even full of elasticity, with even the fine hairs on it still intact!
"Are you really human?" Mr. Feng began to doubt his judgment as a ghost regarding living people.
"Hah!" Yan Nu unleashed a fierce blast from the sky, thrusting toward them.
He carved a red trajectory through the night, resembling a scorching meteor.
Seeing this, Mr. Feng finally didn't dare to take the blow head-on, immediately pointing two fingers at the ground: "Hah!"
Rumble, the earth trembled, and chunks of gravel rose up, forming a stone wall that intercepted Yan Nu's path.
"Don't!" Shen Leling finally caught up, a sphere of wondrous water enveloping Yan Nu because she didn't want him to smash himself to death against the rocks.
Yet the wondrous water touched him and with a splash boiled instantly, turning straight into boiling water!
It even sent up towering, scalding steam!
Shen Leling was terrified, afraid Yan Nu would be boiled done, yet Yan Nu was completely fine, his skin showing no trace of scorch marks.
Carrying boundless internal Qi and heat waves, he blasted violently into the rock.
This strike was earth-shattering, the air expanding instantly to kick up terrifying ripples.
In an instant, fragmented stones scattered and dust flew! The stone wall became covered in cracks, shattering rapidly.
"What!" Mr. Feng was shocked to discover that this giant rock was actually being blasted open before him.
This time he wasn't holding back; he truly couldn't block it!
Before you continue