When Lin Xiao's words, brimming with boundless madness and chilling killing intent, rang through Death Valley—a place long since utterly steeped in blood and flames—like a boulder cast into a tranquil lake, time itself seemed to have had its pause button pressed at that very moment.
Whether it was the Heavenly Martial Society remnants who had long been scared out of their wits and were now huddling, shivering, behind Wu Tianxiong, or the Yellow Class Nine students who had just been forcibly dragged back from the brink of life and death and were gazing fervently at that godlike, towering back, everyone's mind fell into complete blankness at the same time!
He... What had they just heard?!
Come... come claim death?!
Lin Xiao actually dared to say such insanely arrogant words—words enough to invite heaven's thunder—to Wu Tianxiong, the undefeated war god who had already raised his aura to the Half-step Spirit Movement realm, enough to make heaven and earth change color?!
Had he truly gone mad?!
Or did he really possess some terrifying trump card capable of contending with gods?!
"Hehe..."
"Hehehehahaha!"
After three breaths of deathly silence, Wu Tianxiong, floating in midair like a humanoid sun, finally could no longer hold back. He burst into an uninhibited laugh that was even more crazed and dripping with mockery than any before!
His laughter rolled back and forth through the narrow valley like peals of thunder, making even the blazing golden flames sway violently and the incomparably hard black mountain rocks tremble and shudder!
"Good! Good! Good!"
"What a fine 'Come, claim death!'"
Wu Tianxiong laughed so hard he doubled over, tears nearly spilling from his eyes.
He slowly reined in his laughter. Those eyes, long wholly replaced by dazzling golden light, looked down upon the lean figure on the ground as though he were a tiny ant that did not know whether it lived or died. His voice held the merciless indifference of a god judging a mortal.
"Lin Xiao, I admit it—your 'courage' is something I, Wu Tianxiong, have never seen in my life!"
"What a pity..."
"Before this absolute power capable of crushing everything!"
"Your laughable courage and your despicable schemes are utterly worthless!"
"Now, I will let you see for yourself!"
"The enormous... gap between you and me, like a chasm beyond crossing!"
"I will let you be thoroughly..."
"Ground into ash by my supreme Imperial Dao power amid the deepest despair and terror!"
Boom—
The instant the final word, "ash," left his lips!
Wu Tianxiong moved!
He no longer used those flashy, wide-ranging attacks from before. Instead, he drew all that terrifying golden Spiritual Energy, capable of burning mountains and boiling seas, into his body. He transformed into a streak of golden lightning that the naked eye could not catch, tearing across the less-than-hundred-zhang distance between them in an instant at a horrifying speed beyond the speed of sound. Then, in the simplest, most direct, and most domineering manner, he drove his enormous fist, already completely enveloped in brilliant golden light, ruthlessly toward Lin Xiao's seemingly frail head!
There was no flourish to this punch.
There was only pure, ultimate power and speed!
Where the fist wind swept, even space let out a violent wail under unbearable strain!
Visible white shockwaves spread madly in every direction from his fist!
It was as though even heaven and earth could not bear this supreme divine might that was about to transcend the mortal world!
It was over!
The moment that golden fist, like a meteor from beyond the heavens carrying endless destruction, entered their sight, Shi Lei, Su Yue, and every remaining member of Yellow Class Nine all had the same two icy words filled with utter despair rise in their hearts!
Too fast!
Wu Tianxiong's punch was simply too fast!
So fast that their thoughts had not even recovered from that earth-shattering opening stance before the destructive blow, capable of instantly blasting all of them into pulp, had already arrived before the face of their sole hope—Lin Xiao!
This was a crushing blow from a higher dimension with no suspense whatsoever!
He could not dodge it!
Nor could he block it!
Yet just as everyone instinctively shut their eyes, unable to bear witnessing the bloody scene about to unfold, Lin Xiao's face—at the absolute center of this storm of death—remained as still as an ancient well, without the slightest change.
His eyes, bright as imperial stars in the ninth heaven, were even calmer, without a single ripple.
It was as if the oncoming blow was not a lethal iron fist capable of flattening mountains in an instant, but merely an insignificant breeze brushing his face.
At the one ten-thousandth instant before that golden fist of destruction touched the tip of his nose!
His body finally moved!
He did not retreat.
Nor was he foolish enough to attempt to block it head-on.
Instead, at an extremely strange and tricky angle wholly contrary to the principles of human mechanics, he shifted his body slightly to the left by less than half an inch!
That half inch!
A half-inch distance so negligible that anyone would have considered it insignificant, even entirely ignorable!
Yet it made Wu Tianxiong's certain-kill punch miss by a hair's breadth as it grazed past Lin Xiao's nose, like an impassable heavenly chasm!
Boom!
A deafening, terrifying explosion rang out!
Wu Tianxiong's horrifying fist force, enough to grievously wound even a Spiritual Movement Realm expert in an instant, struck the incomparably solid black mountain wall behind Lin Xiao squarely!
The entire valley shook violently!
Savage cracks like spiderwebs spread wildly outward in every direction from his fist!
A terrifying fist crater, more than three zhang across and bottomless to the eye, appeared before everyone!
Silence.
The entire battlefield once again sank into deathly stillness.
Everyone froze in place.
Like mortals witnessing a miracle descend, they merely stared blankly with boundless horror and disbelief at the lean figure standing unscathed before the terrifying crater.
He dodged...
He... he had actually dodged that godly punch that even light could not catch?!
How... how was that possible?!
"You..."
Even Wu Tianxiong, the attacker, finally had the first violent flicker of something called "shock" appear on his face, which had always borne arrogance and indifference!
He slowly withdrew his fist. His eyes, burning with blazing golden flames, locked onto the strange youth before him, who had shattered all his understanding again and again. His voice was full of endless confusion and incomprehension.
"How... exactly did you do that?!"
He did not understand!
He truly did not understand at all!
For that punch just now, he had raised both his speed and strength to a terrifying level that made even his own heart tremble!
He could say with absolute certainty that within the entire Body Refinement Realm, there was absolutely no one capable of taking head-on—or dodging—his seemingly unsolvable strike!
Yet this ant before him, whose cultivation was clearly only at the Body Refinement Eighth Level, had... somehow done it!
And by a bizarre method he could not comprehend in the slightest!
"Very simple."
Facing Wu Tianxiong's furious question, filled with self-doubt, Lin Xiao merely calmly brushed the corner of his robes, which had picked up a trace of dust from the violent fist wind, and spoke blandly.
"Because your 'Imperial Dao,' in my eyes..."
"Is riddled with flaws."
"Wh... what?!"
Lin Xiao's words were like a thunderclap from the ninth heaven, striking Wu Tianxiong until he was scorched inside and out, his mind utterly blank!
Riddled with flaws?!
The invincible fist intent derived from the Great Sun Burning Heaven Art, the finest body-refining cultivation art in the royal city—an art capable of sweeping through those of the same rank and killing above one's level—had actually... actually been judged "riddled with flaws" by this country bumpkin from some frontier town?!
This...
This was simply the most absurd and laughable joke he had ever heard in his life!
"You! Are! Dead!"
A towering fury even more horrifying and violent than before instantly washed away the last shred of reason remaining in Wu Tianxiong's mind!
He no longer had the leisure to think about how this youth before him had dodged his attack!
Only one thought remained in his mind!
That was—kill this damned ant who did not know the height of heaven or the depth of earth!
Tear him completely to pieces in the cruelest, bloodiest fashion!
"Die! Die! Die!"
Wu Tianxiong fell completely into madness!
His towering body, like an iron pagoda, turned into an undying golden afterimage!
His pair of iron fists, blazing with golden flames, were like twin hammers of judgment from the divine realm. Carrying a terrifying might sufficient to shatter the void, they transformed into a sky-filling barrage of deathly fist shadows that completely covered every area within a hundred zhang around Lin Xiao!
Yet in the face of this indiscriminate, tempestuous assault that could drive even a peak Body Refinement Ninth Level expert into despair, Lin Xiao's figure remained like a lone boat drifting amid raging waves. He looked as though he might capsize at any moment, peril lurking at every turn, yet he always managed, at the most critical and impossible moments, to narrowly evade the deadly fist edges that could have blasted him into pulp with strange, tiny movements that wholly defied common sense!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A string of dense, scalp-numbing explosions continuously erupted around Lin Xiao!
The incomparably hard black mountain rock beneath his feet had long been smashed to pieces and reduced beyond recognition by the violent fist wind!
He was like a peerless dancer walking upon a blade's edge!
With death as his accompaniment!
With destruction as his stage!
He performed a magnificent waltz enough to leave even gods speechless!
"H-How... how can this be possible?!"
In the distance, the Heavenly Martial Society remnants, already trembling in fright at the horrifying battle scene before them—a scene like gods and devils dancing in chaos—watched that strange figure remain at ease beneath their president's mad, world-destroying assault. His robes had not even been touched. Their worldview, already overturned countless times, was once again ruthlessly shattered and remade!
They simply could not understand!
They completely could not understand anything happening before their eyes!
Why?!
Why was their invincible president, whose attacks conquered all before them, wielding an unmatched Imperial Dao capable of sweeping through the entire outer academy, being restrained at every turn before Lin Xiao, whose cultivation was clearly far beneath his, like a clumsy bull with strong limbs and a simple mind?!
On the other side.
The members of Yellow Class Nine, who had already retreated to a safe area, watched that familiar back strolling leisurely through the sea of fist shadows, drifting like an immortal. The hearts that had been filled with endless worry and terror finally began to settle.
What replaced them was a fervor and worship born from the depths of their souls!
Though they likewise could not understand exactly how Lin Xiao was doing it, they knew one thing with absolute clarity!
That was—their Chief Instructor was creating an immortal myth without precedent and without successor!
A supreme legend in which someone at merely the Body Refinement Eighth Level confronted a Half-step Spirit Movement expert head-on and remained undefeated!
"Why?! How... how are you doing this?!"
After attacking for so long without success, and with both his stamina and Spiritual Energy beginning to drain heavily, Wu Tianxiong finally could not restrain himself any longer. He let out an unwilling roar filled with boundless frustration and madness!
He was about to go insane!
He felt like a pathetic brute who had exhausted all his strength swinging a mountain-splitting axe, trying to crush a fly to death!
No matter how hard he tried, no matter how wildly he attacked, he could never touch so much as a hair of that damned fly, which kept flying before him and taunting him!
That stifling feeling of strength with nowhere to use it nearly made his chest explode from rage!
"Have I not already told you?"
Facing Wu Tianxiong's nearly broken, frantic questioning, Lin Xiao finally spoke after once again dodging a deadly whip kick that could have snapped him in two at the waist, doing so from an extremely tricky angle.
His voice remained as calm as ever, yet every word was like an invisible blade steeped in deadly poison, stabbing viciously into Wu Tianxiong's proud self-esteem, already riddled with holes!
"Because your 'Dao' is too 'upright.'"
"So upright that it is foolish."
"Every punch and every kick of yours is filled with so-called 'imperial dominance.'"
"Broad and sweeping, pressing ever forward."
"On the surface, it looks incomparably fierce and invincible."
"But in truth..."
A cold curve full of endless mockery slowly rose at Lin Xiao's lips.
"It is as stiff as a stone in a latrine!"
"You...!"
Wu Tianxiong was so enraged by Lin Xiao's viciously humiliating words that he nearly spat out a mouthful of blood!
"And I..."
Lin Xiao gave him no chance to speak further!
After dodging another heavy punch from Wu Tianxiong, who had exposed a huge opening because his mind was in turmoil, he did not retreat. Instead, he advanced!
Like a peerless ferocious beast that had lurked for a long time and finally bared its fatal fangs, capable of tearing the heavens apart!
"What I cultivate is the fusion of the strengths of countless schools..."
"The art of killing!"
Boom—
The instant the final word, "killing," fell!
A terrifying aura, wholly unlike Wu Tianxiong's supremely yang and rigid Imperial Dao aura—an aura filled with endless coldness and chilling killing intent—erupted from Lin Xiao's seemingly lean body like a Nine Nether demon mountain that had lain dormant for billions of years!
Those eyes of his, which had always been calm as an ancient well, were instantly filled completely with an eerie blood-red color!
And his seemingly fair, slender right hand had, at some unknown moment, transformed into a streak of black lightning that the naked eye could not possibly catch!
It came from behind yet arrived first, in a terrifying manner even stranger, more devious, and deadlier than Wu Tianxiong's earlier attack!
It pierced through the golden fist shadows that filled the sky!
Like a life-taking venomous snake from the Nine Nether Hells, it silently struck Wu Tianxiong's chest, where the exhaustion of his old strength and the failure of new strength to arise had exposed a fatal opening!
"One Finger Annihilation, fused with the Heaven-Turning Seal..."
"Ten thousand paths return to one..."
"Reverse! Mortal! Dust!"
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