Break Ten Thousand

Break Ten Thousand

Experience gained for killing an Eighth-Rank Martial Artist: +500

Experience: 7318

A pleasant sound rang out in his mind.

Looking at his experience points once again breaking past the seven-thousand mark, Lu Zhaojin looked toward Chen Kang and the others, thinking that he could surpass ten thousand today.

Everyone who had appeared here was connected to him in one way or another.

Uncle Chen had originally not been, but now he was.

Facing the flying spear, Lu Zhaojin neither dodged nor evaded. With his left hand, he grabbed the spearhead, and the shaft seemed to transform into a long whip as it lashed toward Chen Kang.

Smack!

Even the armor Chen Kang had condensed from true qi could not withstand it. It shattered from the blow, and the spear shaft crashed heavily onto his arms. As though he had been struck by a monstrous beast, he flew backward with a crisp crack of breaking bones.

Chen Kang hit the ground.

Lu Zhaojin leaped up and appeared above Chen Kang. The Sword Qi he slashed out was like a flood dragon emerging from the sea, lunging to bite Chen Kang.

At the same time, he raised his left hand high, gripping the spear. As Chen Kang resisted the Sword Qi, he fiercely drove it down.

Chen Kang could not divide his attention. Resisting the Sword Qi had already consumed most of his true qi, and the material used to forge this spear was no ordinary one. That thrust instantly shattered his true-qi armor and pierced through his waist and abdomen.

Chen Kang's face turned deathly pale. He blasted apart the Sword Qi and clutched the spear tightly, preventing Lu Zhaojin from driving it farther in and causing greater injury.

Uncle Chen arrived belatedly at this point and launched a flying kick, but Lu Zhaojin dodged it.

Letting go of the spear and retreating, Lu Zhaojin also slashed out a stream of Sword Qi toward Uncle Chen.

Uncle Chen shattered it with a kick. The aftershock of the clashing true qi made Chen Kang stagger back two steps. Had Uncle Chen not grabbed the spear shaft, he might have fallen onto the ground.

However, Uncle Chen was not acting out of kindness either. He forcibly pulled out the spear, paid no heed to Chen Kang's condition, and charged at Lu Zhaojin with the weapon in hand.

Uncle Chen's killing intent was like towering waves. Every spear thrust he launched at Lu Zhaojin targeted a vital point. "Do you know who the man you just killed was?"

Lu Zhaojin knocked aside the thrusting spear with the Hundred Refined Sword. Uncle Chen took the momentum to close in, kicking at his face. "He was a member of the Yanling Chen Family. You ignorant, benighted mountain savages can just wait for the Chen Family's fury to burn you all to ashes."

Lu Zhaojin punched the foot away with force, his expression calm, without the slightest ripple. "You sure do prattle on."

He did not know how great a force the Chen Family was in Yanling Commandery, but he did not particularly care. If they came knocking, he would simply kill them.

Uncle Chen had not expected this backwoods youth to possess such audacity. With such strength, even among the Chen Family's younger generation, Lu Zhaojin would rank among the best.

Since that was the case, he could not be allowed to live.

In the past, when the Chen Family encountered such gifted youths, their principle had always been to recruit them if possible. If not, peaceful coexistence would naturally be best. Otherwise, they would suppress them to the death.

Lu Zhaojin had killed Chen Jingyi, and he was merely a backwoods man from Mount Qi. That was defiance of the Chen Family. No matter how outstanding his talent, he was still only a prodigy who had yet to rise.

The Chen Family had strangled no small number of prodigies in the cradle.

A trace of pleasure arose in Uncle Chen's heart, as though he could see a rising new star falling at his own hands.

Without realizing it, he gripped his spear more tightly.

Lu Zhaojin took in the change in his opponent. Though he did not know what thoughts had prompted it, he knew they could not be anything good for him.

He still found it somewhat troublesome to deal with someone at the Late Seventh-Rank.

The other man not only surpassed him greatly in the amount of true qi he possessed, but also had extensive combat experience. He was nothing like Chen Kang.

With the beginner-level Golden Body Technique, Lu Zhaojin naturally was not afraid of him. But as time dragged on, his true qi would run dry, and his strength would eventually be exhausted as well.

By then, even if he won miserably against Uncle Chen, how would he deal with the people from the Dingshan Sect?

Lu Zhaojin could not help turning his gaze toward Chen Kang, who was regulating his breathing. He planned to kill him first and take the experience points, then see whether these corpses had any cultivation techniques on them.

Because of the affairs of the two commanderies, Mount Qi's standing in the martial world had grown ever more bleak. There was nothing worth staying for, so many martial artists had left. By now, cultivation techniques on Mount Qi were exceedingly scarce, and those martial forces that possessed them treated them as family heirlooms, never selling or copying them for outsiders.

There was actually another way to obtain cultivation techniques.

That was to join the Dingshan Sect.

However, he had already offended the Dingshan Sect, so that route was naturally closed to him.

Then he could only seize them by force.

Lu Zhaojin thought that once today's matter was fully settled, it would be time to leave Mount Qi. As for whether to go to Yanling Commandery or Luoshui Commandery, he had still been considering it. But now, it seemed Yanling Commandery was no longer an option.

With the Chen Family there, he would find every step difficult in Yanling Commandery.

Uncle Chen did not know what Lu Zhaojin was thinking. He stepped forward, bent at the waist, gathered his strength, and thrust out his spear.

Chaotic Shadow Spear.

Uncle Chen had only thrust once, but in Lu Zhaojin's eyes, dozens of spear shadows appeared, densely packed together. It was impossible to tell which was the real spear and which was the true killing blow.

Lu Zhaojin had no time to distinguish them either. His plan was to shatter every spear shadow. The real one would naturally reveal itself.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, such an approach would be extremely difficult, utterly impossible to accomplish.

Lu Zhaojin had attained the perfected realm of the Gale Sword Art and possessed considerable attainments in the way of the swift sword. Even so, breaking through to ten sword strikes in an instant was difficult.

The Hundred Refined Sword spun in Lu Zhaojin's hand, turning into layer upon layer of sword shadows. They seemed chaotic and disordered, yet every strike shattered one spear shadow.

Until a crisp ring of metal striking metal sounded out.

The Hundred Refined Sword knocked aside the spearhead, revealing Uncle Chen behind it, a trace of astonishment on his face.

Amid his rapid sword movements just now, Lu Zhaojin seemed to have caught hold of a flash of inspiration. He faintly sensed signs of breaking through to eleven sword strikes in an instant.

Yet that flash of inspiration was as slippery as a loach. Just as he was about to grasp it, it slipped away from his palm.

Lu Zhaojin felt somewhat bereft, but in an instant, he stopped regretting it. When the cart reached the mountain, there would be a road; besides, he had the system. Once numerous cultivation techniques were added to him and he absorbed the strengths of a hundred schools, he would surely be able to create a method unique to himself.

Meteor Spear.

Uncle Chen's spear was indeed incredibly fast, like a meteor flashing through the darkness.

Clang!

Lu Zhaojin responded with a swift sword as well.

But the Hundred Refined Sword's material was ultimately inferior to the spear in Uncle Chen's hand.

A nick appeared in its blade.

And Uncle Chen had no intention of stopping. That meteor-swift spear art, infused with dense true qi, transformed into a meteor shower that blanketed him.

Lu Zhaojin swung his sword, Sword Qi crisscrossing as it wove a dense sword net that swept up the entire meteor shower in one net.

But the Hundred Refined Sword could not hold out either. Nicks appeared one after another, and it had already become a serrated sword.

Not bad, actually. If this struck someone, then when it tore through them, would it not rip out a huge chunk of flesh?

As Lu Zhaojin resisted Uncle Chen's spear, he retreated with the momentum. His opponent did not notice that the direction of his retreat was actually bringing him closer to Chen Kang.

By the time Uncle Chen realized it, it was already too late.

Borrowing the force of the spear thrust his opponent had made, Lu Zhaojin leaped toward Chen Kang and slashed out several streams of Sword Qi from above him.

Chen Kang was already severely injured, with little true qi remaining. How could he defend against Lu Zhaojin's sudden attack?

He only managed to blast apart one or two streams of Sword Qi.

Several more struck his body, leaving long, thin sword wounds. Blood flowed as though it cost nothing, nearly dyeing him into a man of blood.

Chen Kang was a tough man. Even such pain did not make him cry out. He merely suppressed a groan and forced himself to remain standing.

Uncle Chen did not know why Lu Zhaojin wanted to kill Chen Kang, but seeing him actually ignore him to kill someone else made his eyes turn bloodshot, gleaming as though flames of fury burned within them. "Die!"

Uncle Chen circulated all the true qi in his body and gathered it into this spear. Putting all his strength into it, he hurled it out. This strike was bound to shoot Lu Zhaojin dead.

Lu Zhaojin's sword showed no mercy either. True qi surged forth, and a sharp intent spread through the air, making him seem like a keen sword himself, his edge fully exposed.

The silver-white Sword Light carried a bitter chill as it completely severed Chen Kang's life. His head separated from his neck, and blood sprayed out like a gushing spring.

Because the Hundred Refined Sword was covered in nicks, the wound was not smooth.

At that moment, the spear Uncle Chen had thrown also flew before him, crashing solidly into Lu Zhaojin's chest. Like a kite with its string cut, he was sent flying free, rolling across the ground.

But—

The notification that rang out in his mind was like heavenly music.

Experience gained for killing a Seventh-Rank Martial Artist: +5000

Experience: 12318

The host's experience points have exceeded ten thousand. Hidden function unlocked: when killing enemies, if luck erupts, various items may drop.

Killing a Child of Destiny guarantees an item drop.

10,000 experience points may be consumed to upgrade the Brute Ox Stance.

10,000 experience points may be consumed to upgrade the Gale Sword Art.