All Body Refiners

Fang Mushan gripped his long spear and thrust forward fiercely. The spearhead was like the agile head of a dragon, carrying a fierce gale as it plunged straight into the heart of the enemy formation.

The spear moved with his body, and his body turned with the spear. Every sweep left behind a blur of light and shadow.

The tassel whirled like glimmering dragon scales, its cold gleam piercing.

With Xu Yun, a first-stage master, dead, Fang Mushan's extraordinary talent made him seem unstoppable before these soldiers whose formation had fallen apart.

Wherever he went, enemies fell one after another—some sent flying by the spearhead, others swept down by the shaft. For a time, cries of agony rang out without end.

But soon, an old soldier shouted, "Form up!" Despite several men being killed or wounded in quick succession, the wavering soldiers forcibly formed a semicircular formation, long spears in front and swords and shields interspersed behind them.

Seeing this, Fang Mushan could not help but hold back. His spear sprang and darted left and right, but achieved little.

A battlefield was unlike the martial world's one-on-one duels. Attacks came from every direction, and without caution, even a Great Accomplishment Martial Master of the External Three Harmonies could lose his life.

Fang Mushan gritted his teeth.

If I were fully armored, these people would be nothing but chickens and dogs...

Yet though they were called chickens and dogs, the thirty elite soldiers Zhang Shuyang had dispatched were all, at the very least, initiated in martial arts.

Strictly speaking, the fact that Fang Mushan had fought alone for so long was enough to show how astonishing his physique was.

On Xu Yunfan's side, he braced himself with one hand and leaped out of the hole. Casually grabbing the longsword at Xu Yun's waist, he swung it at Yang Gan above him.

He naturally did not know how to use a sword, but the effect of his extraordinary arm strength allowed him to wield the longsword with the force of a heavy weapon.

Yang Gan narrowed his eyes. His hands hung at his sides as he stood completely still, merely tilting his head slightly and allowing the longsword to fall onto his shoulder and neck.

Clang!

A sharp ring of metal on metal sounded, and Xu Yunfan was shocked to discover that the sword in his hand could not sink in even the slightest bit.

Only then did Li Haomiao's leisurely voice drift up from the underground pit.

"This man cultivates Black Body Iron Armor. Once mastered, the skin and membranes all over his body are like a suit of armor, while his veins bulge like green pythons coiling around him. Ordinary blades cannot harm him. If you had a heavy hammer in hand, beating him would be effortless."

Hearing Li Haomiao belittle him so completely, Yang Gan's eye twitched.

Just as he was about to speak, Xu Yunfan suddenly raised his leg and drove it straight at his groin. The attack was so fierce that even the air let out a low howl.

"What swift, ferocious power!"

Yang Gan's pupils contracted sharply. The kick came too suddenly and too fast for him to be careless in the slightest.

Years of combat experience made him instinctively snap his thighs inward, barely blocking the lethal strike.

"Why are you squeezing your legs together like a woman?"

A mocking sneer hung on Xu Yunfan's lips, but his hands did not slow in the least.

Before his words had even faded, he decisively released the sword, clenched his hand into a fist, and stepped forward. His fist, carrying a whistling wind, swung straight toward Yang Gan's temple.

For body-refining arts, unless one had cultivated to the utmost limit of skin tempering and displayed the Golden Skin State, there would always be weak points.

More often than not, those weak points lay in vital areas of the body—the eyes, groin, back of the head, navel, temples, and the like.

Hearing Xu Yunfan's cutting mockery, shame and anger flashed through Yang Gan's eyes.

The way he had blocked that kick really had looked somewhat like a coy young woman. For this burly man who stood a full 1.9 meters tall, it had struck directly at his sore spot and deeply wounded his pride.

"You're courting death!"

Yang Gan roared. Facing Xu Yunfan's heavy punch, he advanced rather than retreating.

He suddenly raised one large hand and brushed it aside, precisely blocking Xu Yunfan's attack. At the same time, he bent his other arm into an elbow, like a sharp battle axe, and viciously drove it upward toward Xu Yunfan's jaw.

If that blow landed solidly, even if Xu Yunfan was not injured, he would be left dizzy and disoriented.

Xu Yunfan suddenly understood, inwardly annoyed that his combat experience was still far too lacking.

If both sides were body refiners, then as long as one could batter the other senseless and slow their movements, one could easily strike their vital points and kill them in a single blow.

The two instantly fell into a fierce melee. Fists and kicks flew, and aside from their vital areas, they abandoned all defense elsewhere. Both used every trick they had and attacked with all their strength.

The longer Yang Gan fought, the more alarmed he became.

His body-refining art had already reached great accomplishment. Ordinary swords could not harm him at all, and punches and kicks were little more than scratches to him.

Yet Xu Yunfan's fists struck like thousand-pound war hammers. Every blow jolted his organs until they churned violently, leaving him in extreme discomfort.

He had no choice but to begin defending. Otherwise, as his organs suffered more and more shocks, he might truly be beaten to death by Xu Yunfan.

Though his body-refining art had reached great accomplishment and his skin was as hard as iron armor, he had only mastered the first stage. He had dabbled in tempering his tendons and bones, but was still far from the External Three Harmonies, let alone his blood, marrow, and organs. His internal organs remained fragile and delicate, and he naturally could not withstand repeated hammer-like impacts.

Xu Yunfan keenly noticed the change in Yang Gan's attacks. Seeing him constantly block the punches and kicks aimed at his chest, how could he fail to understand that Yang Gan feared the hammer-like force of his fists?

At once, he cast aside all reservations and unleashed a frenzied barrage of punches at Yang Gan, like a storm of wind and rain.

With the effect of his extraordinary arm strength, every punch weighed as heavily as a thousand pounds, like a mountain crashing down.

Yang Gan was beaten back step by step. In the end, even the arms he used to block had gone numb, his blood and qi flowed poorly, and his movements had slowed considerably.

"Wait, I have something to say!"

Yang Gan could finally endure no longer and had no choice but to speak.

If this continued, he might truly be beaten to death on the spot by Xu Yunfan. The thought of retreat had already arisen in his heart.

But Xu Yunfan turned a deaf ear. Instead, his fists became even fiercer, every swing seeming to tear through the air and produce an eerie, bone-chilling howl.

Yang Gan was both alarmed and furious as he tried to break away from the fight.

How could Xu Yunfan let him escape so easily? Seizing the instant Yang Gan stepped back, he flashed forward and closed in, wrapping Yang Gan in a tight grapple.

Then he drove force through his waist and abdomen, erupting with astonishing power. He actually lifted the nearly three-hundred-pound man into the air before violently hurling him down.

Thud!

With a muffled crash, Yang Gan slammed into the ground. He groaned, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Yet his movements were not affected in the slightest. He swiftly twisted his body and kicked free of Xu Yunfan's hold, then rolled several times across the ground before getting back to his feet.

That still didn't kill him!?

Xu Yunfan was filled with shock. At last, he understood why Li Haomiao had said that martial artists who cultivated body-refining arts were all troublesome like dog-skin plasters.

At the same level, if one did not have a divine weapon or sharp blade in hand, then so long as the other party guarded their weak points tightly and did not suffer severe injuries, one could only wear them down until their strength was exhausted.