Repaying Blood with Blood

He was angry, but angry as he was, Shi Yi had not lost his reason. While maintaining the Ten Celestial Passages that shone like ten suns, he took out an ancient Beast Bone and Beast Hide from within the Cavern Heavens.

The Beast Bone was the arm bone of some unknown ferocious beast. The Beast Hide looked ancient, mottled with bloodstains, and it gave off a palpitating aura.

These were Stone Village's Ancestral Artifacts. They did not require a high cultivation to unleash their power.

Even an ordinary person could use them to fight someone far stronger than themselves.

They were meant to deal with this Adult Pixiu.

To ensure he would not be bitten to death in a single bite.

Shi Yi lightly pressed the unknown beast's arm bone against his own arm. The bone instantly fused into his arm, the two becoming one.

In an instant, Shi Yi's body grew more than twice as large. He became a three-meter-tall giant, his muscles knotted as an aura of primordial savagery radiated from head to toe.

Before the Adult Pixiu could attack,

Shi Yi said nothing. He pressed the Beast Hide against his chest.

In that instant,

Starlight flashed over his heart as countless intricate and mysterious runes emerged. The Beast Hide slowly fused with the flesh and blood of Shi Yi's chest.

Once the runes were branded into place and became one with him, a terrifying aura erupted, sweeping across heaven and earth like a hurricane.

At this moment, Shi Yi—

With the combined support of the Ten Celestial Passages, Stone Village's first Ancestral Artifact, the Beast Bone, and its second Ancestral Artifact, the Beast Hide, finally possessed the strength to barely contend with the Adult Pixiu.

The most crucial factor was the Ten Celestial Passages. Stone Village's Beast Bone and Beast Hide enhanced their wielder according to their talent and potential.

An ordinary Celestial Passage Realm expert using the Beast Bone and Beast Hide to enhance themselves could at most cross one major realm. That was already the limit their body could bear.

Yet when Shi Yi unleashed the full power of his Ten Celestial Passages, it was enough to rival the Array Realm. With further enhancement atop that, it was no wonder he had the strength to fight an Adult Pixiu.

But—

It hurt! It hurt too much!

Shi Yi could feel every tendon, bone, and piece of flesh in his body crying out in agony. Creaking sounds of unbearable strain echoed through him. The pain was like being sliced alive, enough to make anyone weak-willed lose consciousness in an instant.

Fortunately, Shi Yi was no ordinary person. He had long grown accustomed to hardship and suffering.

In his previous life on Azure Blue Planet, before nuclear war broke out, Shi Yi had been nothing more than a cog in a sweatshop, offering up his precious youth for the powerful and the capitalists.

Did he not want to suffer?

Was he unwilling to suffer?

Only those who had truly experienced hardship knew how bitter it was, and how desperately they never wanted to taste it again.

Only those who lived beneath the sunlight constantly wished to experience the taste of hardship for themselves.

People—

Were just that pathetic.

Those who had never truly suffered always thought hardship was nothing, looking down on those unwilling to endure it.

Only when they truly experienced suffering would they understand that hardship was not something worth praising.

The more Shi Yi hated suffering today,

the more hardship he had endured before.

A few breaths passed.

"Pfft!"

Shi Yi could not help coughing up blood. He could feel that his body had reached its limit. If not for the Willow Deity Method's unceasing growth, his body would have collapsed long ago.

Crossing several major realms in succession was still too much for him.

Fortunately, Shi Yi had been cautious enough.

He had seriously studied the Willow Deity Method taught to him by the Willow Deity, never treating it carelessly. Only then had he been able to forcibly stabilize his body, which was on the verge of collapse, with that unceasing power.

Yes.

Shi Yi did not enjoy fighting and killing. He preferred caution and stability, but that did not mean he feared battle. Once he truly fought, he was a madman—a madman who pushed his strength to its limit from the very beginning.

He was not like those loser Saiyans from Dragon Ball World, dragging things out and constantly giving their opponents chances to grow stronger. Raising his strength to its limit immediately was what mattered most.

"You do have quite a few treasures, but your body cannot sustain this forcibly enhanced strength for long."

The Adult Pixiu saw through Shi Yi at a glance. His current strength had all been raised through the support of treasures; it was not power Shi Yi could possess at this stage.

"Kill!"

Shi Yi had no interest in trading words with the Adult Pixiu. It was obvious that the beast was stalling, hoping to wait until he could no longer hold on before easily taking him down.

"First step!"

A blurry Qilin phantom silently appeared behind Shi Yi. It raised a Qilin Foot high into the air, then stomped viciously toward the Adult Pixiu.

Space was sealed, and time slowed.

Looking up,

all one could see was a boundless foot stomping fiercely toward the Adult Pixiu.

Although Shi Yi's Qilin Treasure Technique was incomplete and only contained the Kirin Steps, the Kirin Steps were not something one could evade just by wishing to. The Adult Pixiu could only take the blow head-on.

The Qilin Treasure Technique. Fortunately, it is only incomplete. Otherwise, I might truly have been caught off guard today, the Adult Pixiu thought in shock.

Yet shock was one thing. Shi Yi's attack was already capable of hurting it.

The Adult Pixiu did not dare be arrogant. Instead, it carefully raised its defenses.

The backward-curving horn atop its head released a brilliant seven-colored radiance that turned into a Seven-Colored Light Shield, firmly protecting its body within.

"Boom!"

The Qilin's first step came crashing down. The earth shook for thousands of miles, but the Seven-Colored Light Shield remained unharmed.

Seeing this,

Shi Yi did not lose heart. Gritting his teeth, he stepped forward once more.

"Second step!"

The Qilin phantom became slightly more solid, no longer quite so illusory. Its power was also twice that of the first step, but unfortunately, the Seven-Colored Light Shield remained unscathed.

"Third step!"

The Willow Deity had once said that with Shi Yi's strength, he could take at most two steps.

But now,

with the enhancement of the Ten Celestial Passages and Stone Village's two great Ancestral Artifacts—the Beast Bone and Beast Hide—two steps were far from Shi Yi's limit. He could still take a fourth and fifth step.

It was also on the third step that the Seven-Colored Light Shield began to tremble.

"Fourth step!"

Divine Radiance began to emanate from Shi Yi's body, like a furnace on the verge of exploding. Yet after this foot came down, fine cracks had already appeared across the surface of the Seven-Colored Light Shield.

"Fifth step!"

The Ten Celestial Passages revolving behind Shi Yi had also reached their limit. Though they were continuously devouring the energy of heaven and earth, they were clearly beginning to consume more than they could replenish.

Yet Shi Yi still took the fifth step. The Kirin Steps rose one level with each step. The second step carried twice the power of the first, while the third carried twice the power of the second.

By that calculation:

One times two equaled two. The second step.

Two times two equaled four. The third step.

Four times two equaled eight. The fourth step.

Eight times two equaled sixteen. The fifth step.

The fifth step carried sixteen times the power of the first.

And beneath the fifth Kirin Step, amplified sixteenfold, the Seven-Colored Light Shield released by the Adult Pixiu's horn finally made a sound like shattering glass.

"Kill!"

Without hesitation, Shi Yi stomped toward the Adult Pixiu. His savage aura and icy gaze sent chills down one's spine, making others afraid to meet his eyes.

At this moment,

he was domineering and ruthless, utterly devoid of his usual gentle and refined demeanor. Within those cold eyes was the arrogance of one who regarded all living things as mere sacrifices.

"This forcibly enhanced strength is ultimately not your own power," the Adult Pixiu snorted.

It could not admit that Shi Yi's aura had just intimidated it. If Shi Yi had been one major realm higher, he would have already wiped it out.

"Power is power. Whether it is mine is unimportant. What matters is whether I can use it!"

After speaking, Shi Yi slowly closed his eyes. Yet at the same time, eyes filled the sky—one Double Pupil after another, staring coldly and arrogantly down at the Adult Pixiu below.

"Double Pupils?"

The Adult Pixiu froze.

It instantly understood that the name Shi Yi had given earlier, Yun Potian, was false.

Double Pupil Users were not cabbages. To date, the only Double Pupil User in the Eight Regions of the Lower Realm was Shi Yi of Martial King Manor, born with Double Pupils and possessing the bearing of a saint.

"Martial King Manor. Shi Yi," Shi Yi said softly.

At this point,

a false name no longer had any meaning. The elders of Martial King Manor had praised him, a Double Pupil User, far too extravagantly. Who in the Stone Kingdom did not know of him?

Even the Tribal Clans of the Great Wilderness had heard a little of the Double Pupil User. They had heard that in Martial King Manor, far away in the Stone Kingdom, an Innate Saint and Double Pupil User had been born.

"Shi Yi. There truly can be no reconciliation between us. We can only fight to the death."

The Adult Pixiu recalled the people it had devoured while avenging its only child. Among them seemed to have been Shi Yi's biological father, Shi Ziteng.

Furthermore, Shi Zhongtian—the culprit responsible for the death of its child—had his only son, Shi Ziling, swallowed by it as well.

Repaying blood with blood.

You killed my child, so I ate your son.