Pfft...
Blood spattered from both men. They jolted and, as if by mutual understanding, used their Internal Force to spring apart. Both had gained something: Wang Tianba had succeeded in Pill Embrace Cross-Legged Sitting, while Li Hansha had entered the state of mind known as Shattering the Void, Seeing God and Not Being Bad. Their sparring match was over.
Gu Chen, whose mind was linked to his avatar Li Hansha's, felt his own mind transform. Perhaps because of that connection, he shared everything Li Hansha had realized. Though he was an ordinary man, he had glimpsed the state of mind known as Shattering the Void, Seeing God and Not Being Bad.
"Dragon Snake" explained this state of mind as breaking through the confusion in one's own mind, allowing one to perceive the divine and sense things before they happened—like a cicada sensing autumn before the wind arrived. Great scholars and Daoists of old who had understood their own nature possessed similar abilities. It was a subtle change in the mind, difficult to describe.
Seeing Wang Tianba and Li Hansha stop, the prison guards in the distance finally breathed a sigh of relief, though their faces remained grim. Were those two even normal humans? They could fell a tree as thick as a thigh with a wave of the hand. A pistol might not even shoot through something like that. Were they monsters?!
Uneasy as he was, the Prison Guard Captain forced himself to stay calm. "Hands up! Don't move! Or else—"
Before he could finish, Wang Tianba and Li Hansha exchanged a glance. The muscles around their gunshot wounds rippled, and their Internal Force pushed out the bloodstained bullets. The bullets fell to the ground with a faint clink.
To Pillaring Grandmasters like them, a pistol bullet was little worse than a cut from a fruit knife to an ordinary person. Their Internal Force and muscles stopped the bullet soon after it entered, preventing it from passing through.
But to the prison guards watching, the sight was a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Even bullets could barely hurt them? Were they still human?!
The viewers in the livestream flooded the screen with Bullet Comments.
—"Damn! I thought it might be true, but they really aren't afraid of guns?!" "Pillaring Grandmasters are terrifying!" "They're practically superhuman, like the superheroes in foreign blockbusters!" "Do you think Immortals might actually exist?" "More importantly, how will the Central Province Official react when it sees this?"...
In the dim night, the two men who had just finished sparring showed no hostility toward each other. They paid no heed to the prison guards braced for a fight, either. Both seemed quite pleased with the result.
"Sparring with you today showed me the way forward in Pill Embracement. I couldn't be happier. The mountains and rivers remain; until we meet again. Ha ha..." Wang Tianba laughed heartily and cupped his fists toward Li Hansha. Then he waved a carefree farewell, turned into a dark blur, and vanished into the woods.
Li Hansha returned the salute, glanced at the prison guards and at the streamers Sun Na and Pan Xiaoli standing nearby, and gave a soft laugh. With one step, he crossed more than twenty meters. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared into the dark night.
Sun Na bit her lip. She had known Li Hansha for only two days, yet their sudden parting left her with a hollow feeling. Perhaps they had never belonged to the same world, but she still felt reluctant to let it end like this.
Dozens of meters away, the prison guards exhaled as the two men vanished. The Prison Guard Captain immediately reported the bizarre incident to his superiors. It drew widespread attention at once, if only because it sounded so outrageous.
But surveillance footage from outside the prison and the damage at the scene backed up the report. The captain's superiors quickly passed it further up the chain.
Meanwhile, footage of Li Hansha's final sparring match with Wang Tianba, the Transforming Strength Great Boxer hidden in the prison, sparked another online storm. This one was even bigger. Their earlier matches had mostly taken place deep in the mountains or in secluded parks. This time, they had fought outside a prison, with even more shocking force. In the end, pistol bullets had failed to stop either of them.
If Pillaring Grandmasters like these harbored ill intent, their terrifying speed and destructive power, combined with the complexity of city streets, would make even a hundred people powerless against them. Only a wide-area weapon could stop them, and the cost of using one would be far too high.
Elsewhere, Gu Chen severed his mental link with his avatar Li Hansha and returned to his own body. He immediately noticed a strange change: his head felt much lighter. The change in his state of mind fascinated him, but being able to perceive the divine and sense things before they happened left him feeling a little unsteady. His body could not keep up with his mind.
That was no great concern. He had Origin Points and could use Refine Falsehood Into Truth on himself whenever he wished. With that assurance, he had nothing to fear.
By his original plan, the script of the Pillaring Vigorous Strength Grandmaster descending the mountain was complete. He had largely achieved his goal. Now he needed to see how the authorities responded. His next plan for Refine Falsehood Into Truth involved them, which was why he had chosen to hold the final sparring match outside the prison.
Before you continue