Skull-Crushing Hand

This time, Luo Zhou's spirit-mark refinement had brought far more than a change in his innate ability.

With each successive burning, his body underwent a powerful transformation.

Although Luo Zhou's cultivation was still at the eighth stage of Body Tempering, his realm had not advanced.

His physical qualities had grown stronger across the board.

His flesh and bones, five senses and meridians, limbs and organs, mind and soul—all had been strengthened and improved.

His strength had increased to fifteen thousand jin. With perfect Devil transformation unleashed, he could exert nineteen thousand jin of force.

Don't assume that was an especially huge amount of strength. This was not Earth from his previous life.

In this world, any random body cultivator or strength cultivator possessed several thousand or even ten thousand jin of strength. Nineteen thousand jin merely placed him at the elite level here; he could not even be called a minor prodigy.

His memory had grown stronger, to the point that he could almost remember anything at a glance. He was dexterous and deft, his body as nimble as a swallow, and even the most complicated movements came easily to him.

His body was robust, his endurance abundant, his qi and blood both flourishing, and his vital essence, energy, and spirit overflowing!

His five senses had expanded, his mental intuition had grown stronger, and his features had become even more refined, radiating boundless charm.

Only his height had inexplicably decreased by an inch, as though he had been refined and shrunk.

How does this even come with shrinking?

The range of Dragon-Slaying Thrust had silently expanded from four zhang and three chi to four zhang and five chi.

It was not merely Dragon-Slaying Thrust that had expanded. Its spirit-attracting range and Instant Step had expanded along with it.

Another major change was that the original enhancement from the Overturning Rivers and Seas Force User had quietly vanished.

It was as though those two immortal offices had never existed, having been completely absorbed by Luo Zhou's body.

With an immortal office attached to him, there was always the possibility of it being revoked, causing Luo Zhou to lose all the enhancements brought by those two immortal offices.

Now that they had been thoroughly absorbed, they had become part of Luo Zhou's body, and their various enhancements would never disappear.

The Curse Master office also slowly vanished, while Luo Zhou inexplicably gained a new innate ability: Death Curse!

Only the Hinoki Force User immortal office remained.

Luo Zhou did not mind. He had a feeling that this was merely the beginning.

His body was the Devil Lord Saint Body. Everything had only just begun.

He began cultivating!

The five body-tempering arts—White Sun, Azure Profound, Purple Empyrean, Black Nether, and Brown Scale—consisted of three hundred and sixty forms. He circulated them through the Greater Celestial Circuit nine times.

Only after finishing his cultivation did he rest.

The next day, Luo Zhou let out a long breath, washed up, ate the leftovers from yesterday, donned his armor, and went into battle!

He put the Eyebrow-Level Staff from Dragon-Slaying Thrust into the Qiankun Bag.

However, he opened the Bintie Club he had received yesterday and hid a Dragon-Slaying Thrust in the place where the dagger was concealed.

The hollow inside the Bintie Club was quite spacious. Perhaps it had been made that way to save materials? He put two more Dragon-Slaying Thrusts inside.

If he happened to encounter a second-order sea beast that pursued him relentlessly, he could strike back and kill it in one blow.

The battlefield was so chaotic that no one should notice, right?

But Luo Zhou thought of Captain Guo and shook his head. If he could avoid using them, he would.

He headed for the eastern city gate. This time, however, he did not join Cheng Peng's squad, but instead met up with Pang Yunhua.

The great battle began.

Luo Zhou joined the emergency squad. Wherever a crisis arose, he went there.

During a lull in the fighting, Pang Yunhua said:

"This sea-beast siege is several times weaker than the one five years ago."

"No way?"

"It's true. Normally, the sea beasts should only launch a siege after another eight or nine years, once they had accumulated enough numbers.

"I don't know why the sea-beast siege began this year.

"For example, the Siege Crabs you killed last time—five years ago, twenty-three of them charged over in one breath. Only then did they break through the grand formation, forcing us to fight a defensive battle on the City Wall.

"This time, aside from the Siege Crab you killed, we haven't seen a single one."

Luo Zhou said, "So that means this is a good thing?"

"Of course. This year's sea-beast calamity shouldn't amount to much, in my view. At most, it'll end in five or six days. They won't break through the City Wall, and we won't need to fight street by street!"

Luo Zhou nodded. This was because the Jellyfish Saint's guardian had feared that Zhang Xianchang would discover something and had triggered the sea-beast siege ahead of schedule.

He wondered what Zhang Xianchang and the others had been doing these past two days!

Never mind that. Battle!

That day, the fighting wore Luo Zhou down until he nearly pissed himself.

He spent practically the entire day in combat, fighting every moment without pause.

Whenever danger struck, he would roll into the fray, charging recklessly and killing those sea beasts.

Almost every cultivator on the battlefield knew that there was such a youth, unbelievably formidable.

He did not walk like a normal person. He rolled across the ground everywhere he went, and wherever he rolled, the Sea Race was crushed.

Some people had even begun calling him the number-one Body Tempering cultivator beneath the Qi Refining realm in Green Ridge City!

When evening came, the battle ended. He obtained eighteen thousand five hundred and thirty-five Broken Spirits in Military Merit Scrolls.

It was not as much as yesterday, because there had been no big catch like the Siege Crab!

Luo Zhou withdrew from the battlefield and honestly went home.

He bathed, ate, and rested...

Then he cultivated. This time, the Fate Points he had accumulated totaled only one thousand two hundred and thirty-one.

He tempered his body and focused his spirit twelve times.

Eight of those times repeatedly strengthened his innate mental power, Rattletail, Insect Emperor, Instant Step, and Keen Hearing.

Rattletail gained another strike, becoming a chained triple attack.

His other innate abilities grew somewhat stronger, but there were no specific major changes.

Rewarding Good and Punishing Evil had wasted one chance.

For the remaining three, he transformed the innate ability Pathfinding Light into the innate talent Light Arts.

Luo Zhou now possessed an excellent talent for cultivating light-type spells.

He transformed the innate ability Death Curse into the innate talent Death Curse.

From this point onward, Luo Zhou also possessed an excellent talent for casting curse-type spells.

With the final chance, Luo Zhou's innate ability Keen Dharma Eye underwent ceaseless change beneath this baptism.

Keen Dharma Eye had come from Meng Junzheng's innate ability.

"Keen" meant sharpness, representing the ability to improve one's eyesight—to see a sesame seed as large as a wheel.

"Profound" meant the deep night, representing the ability to see objects in darkness.

At that moment, this innate ability quietly changed, rising from an innate ability to a trait, and then to an innate talent.

The innate ability Keen Dharma Eye became the innate talent Cosmos Dharma Eye. With himself as the center, the Cosmos Dharma Eye encompassed the space above and below, left and right—everything within the cosmos lay inside its vision!

This meant that all the space around him was within the visual field of the Cosmos Dharma Eye. Night and day, fog and dust—all were meaningless.

At this point, aside from the innate abilities Rewarding Good and Punishing Evil and Flash of Inspiration, everything else had become divine abilities or innate talents.

The range of Dragon-Slaying Thrust immediately expanded from four zhang and five chi to five zhang and one chi!

After obtaining the Cosmos Dharma Eye, Luo Zhou entered a dazed state.

This was the first time he had systematically incorporated omniscience into his cultivation system through the Cosmos Dharma Eye.

It seemed that he had comprehended many things. He slowly rose and began pacing around the room.

As he paced, he performed Overturning Rivers Palm and Treading Sea Fist.

At that moment, however, he neither rolled nor leaped. His footsteps were light and unhurried, advancing three steps and retreating one. He appeared extremely clumsy, dull, and foolish, yet an innate naturalness was hidden within!

Thus, Luo Zhou actually cultivated throughout the night, only waking from his daze at daybreak.

He did not feel the slightest fatigue. Instead, his spirit was vigorous.

He entered battle once again, still serving as the emergency responder.

But this time, Luo Zhou was different from yesterday yet again.

His battles no longer involved rolling across the ground. Instead, he wandered freely through the battlefield, relaxed and at ease, as though he were taking a stroll in the countryside.

Through cultivating the previous night, he had already used the Cosmos Dharma Eye to fuse omniscience into his fists and palms.

Beneath the Cosmos Dharma Eye, he sensed himself, his enemies, and the battlefield. Everything was known!

Everything was under the control of omniscience!

He used all his strength, the Cosmos Dharma Eye, Keen Hearing, Overturning Rivers Palm, Treading Sea Fist, mental power, Rattletail, and Instant Step. With the aid of omniscience, he combined them into one flawless whole.

With a perfect view of the battlefield, he would silently sneak into position, suddenly unleash his strongest force, strike directly at the enemy's weakest point, and kill with one blow.

Overturning Rivers and Seas reached yet another level, its overturning usage pushed to the extreme.

He overturned his own attacks, making them the strongest; overturned the enemy's defenses, making them the weakest; overturned space, arriving the instant he touched it—and killed!

On the battlefield, people saw Luo Zhou move quietly and soundlessly. With the slightest motion, the sea beasts would have their heads explode and die.

It was effortless, as calm as a gentle breeze and tranquil as a cloudless sky!

He was nothing like the image of him rolling all over the ground during the previous two days!

He passed through the fishmen. With a casual sweep of his hand, one large swath after another toppled!

Every sea beast died with its head bursting apart!

When he had first mastered the Overturning Rivers and Seas fist and palm techniques, he could only throw punches according to their forms. That was merely the threshold of mastery.

Rolling across the ground and striking from midair—that was entering the hall.

Now, moving with effortless calm and innate naturalness, he had reached consummate mastery.

Everyone was left dumbfounded!

Someone gave him the nickname Head-Exploding Hand.

But Green Ridge City already had a Head-Exploding Devil, which was inauspicious, so it was changed in the end to Skull-Crushing Hand.

Some people secretly bet that Luo Zhou would inevitably be killed by the Head-Exploding Devil. The struggle over their titles would follow cultivators throughout their entire lives.

But others said that the Head-Exploding Devil only killed Qi Refining cultivators. Luo Zhou was merely at Body Tempering—how many years could he possibly live?

Some people even secretly placed bets!