Everyone in the tea hall fell silent, their gazes complicated and inscrutable as they watched Li Xingchen passionately recount his past with bitter indignation.
If what he said was true, then this man truly was a rare genius beneath heaven.
He had entered the Innate Martial Dao at nineteen, shattered through eight gates in a single stride, and attained an Innate cultivation of Eight Apertures. He could be called a formidable figure second only to peerless prodigies like Meng Zhao, even surpassing Han Pu, who possessed the Star Body.
With such talent, yet deliberately concealed and suppressed by his family, unable to give it full rein for years—after all that pent-up resentment, his current displays of outrage were not difficult to understand.
"Meng Zhao, you too are a genius, and a powerhouse. More than that, you are far luckier than I am. You were able to step into the spotlight, to be known by all beneath heaven, standing alongside Shen Tianci.
"This is the glory dreamed of by countless young martial artists across the Divine Continent and the Jianghu Martial Arts World.
"Today, I will fight you to my heart's content. I will let the world know that the Xuzhou Li Family, descendants of the Huangtang Era, also has a prodigy—a prodigy capable of contending with your Southern Shen, Northern Meng!"
As Li Xingchen's impassioned emotions erupted and he vented through gritted teeth, the aura he had desperately kept suppressed exploded with a boom. His terrifying vital force rose like a straight pillar of air, shooting toward the heavens. The surrounding air faintly warped, while strands of tiny yet dreadful sword qi mixed into the aura pouring from Li Xingchen, carrying the might to rend heaven and split earth.
This was the most direct and fundamental reason Li Xingchen had