*** "Who are you?" Zhou Heng's gaze swept over the man blocking his path. He was a burly fellow in his thirties. Though it was only early February and bitterly cold, he stood bare-armed, his muscles knotted like rock.
His blood vitality soared to the heavens, and his aura was utterly domineering!
Blood Refining Realm!
And not an ordinary Blood Refining Realm fighter, either. He was a peerless expert at the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining!
"Kid, did you think you could kill people from White Jade Valley and just stroll away?" the burly man said in a low voice. His words boomed like rolling thunder.
White Jade Valley!
That was right. With the Black Water Hall's name behind him, White Jade Valley hadn't dared to come knocking. And the rule forbidding violence within Fengyu City had been established jointly by the Three Great Sects!
Besides, Zhou Heng was on good terms with people from Black Water Hall and had even caught the attention of the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion. Someone like him could only be quietly done away with!
That was why they had ambushed him along the road!
To be safe, they should have sent a Spirit Gathering Realm expert. That way, Zhou Heng wouldn't have had the slightest power to resist!
Thinking of this, Zhou Heng shook his head and laughed. He knew his own strength, but White Jade Valley didn't. Wasn't a Twelfth Layer of Body Refining expert enough? Forget the Twelfth Layer—even someone at the Tenth Layer would have been sure to win!
The burly man saw Zhou Heng's smile and immediately bristled with anger. This damn brat actually dared to sneer at him. He was truly asking to die.
"You can still laugh? Good. But it won't be long before you can't even cry!" The burly man darted forward and reached for Zhou Heng. He had orders to take Zhou Heng back alive, so he couldn't kill him; otherwise, he'd be punished instead of rewarded.
Zhou Heng used Flying Cloud Steps, darting diagonally aside and slipping past the man by the narrowest margin. He evaded the grab.
"Oh?" The burly man's strike missed, and a trace of surprise crossed his face.
In his eyes, a mere boy at the peak of the Ninth Layer of Body Refining should have been easy to capture. Yet his attack had missed, which truly startled him.
"Hmph. You dodged once. Do you think you can dodge a second time?" He reached out again to seize Zhou Heng.
"Looking for death!" A murderous glint flickered in Zhou Heng's eyes. The two of them had never met and had no grudge against each other, but their positions were opposed. There was no way he would simply let himself be captured.
With a clang, his sword left its sheath. Flying Waterfall Sword Technique!
"What!" The burly man retreated several steps, but several white marks still appeared on his arm.
Flying Waterfall Sword Technique was one of the Nine Spirits Sect's three strongest martial skills. After Zhou Heng had improved it, its power was naturally even greater. And Zhou Heng's strength had surged as well. With a single sword stroke, even someone at the peak of the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining could be hit!
It truly deserved to be one of the Nine Spirits Sect's signature arts. Even against a stronger opponent, it could still land a blow!
The burly man's carelessness had played a part, but without the technique's absolute intricacy, how could Zhou Heng have managed it?
"Flying Waterfall Sword Technique?" Surprise flashed in the burly man's eyes. "How could you have learned the Nine Spirits Sect's signature art?"
The Crimson Flame Heart-Burning Palm of White Jade Valley was much the same; it was practically an art reserved for the sect master.
"That's none of your business!" Zhou Heng smiled faintly and swept his sword around.
"Hmph. Flying Waterfall Sword Technique is powerful, no doubt. But you're only at the Ninth Layer of Body Refining. The gap between us is far too great!" The burly man shook out his arms. "You can't possibly break through my defenses!"
"Ha! Once I capture you, my valley will gain another peerless art!"
Laughing loudly, he swooped toward Zhou Heng like a hawk and attacked again.
Zhou Heng used Flying Cloud Steps, his sword slashing as fast as lightning. Again and again, he struck the burly man.
Flying Waterfall Sword Technique was exceptionally intricate. Zhou Heng had only reached the Ninth Layer of Body Refining, and only then had he truly brought out its power. Unfortunately, the difference in strength between him and the burly man was just as obvious. His sword landed as if chopping at stone, leaving only white marks. It couldn't even break the skin!
At first, the burly man dodged a couple of times, but he couldn't keep up with the nimble swordplay. In the end, he couldn't even be bothered to evade. He let Zhou Heng strike him again and again, guarding only his eyes, ears, lower body, and other vital spots, while pressing Zhou Heng step by step. He meant to crush him with the gap in their cultivation.
"Kid, this is what a difference in realms looks like!" he crowed.
Zhou Heng remained calm. An opponent at the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining was the perfect whetstone for him. He couldn't afford to pass up the chance.
"Time to end this!" The burly man suddenly snatched out a hand, astonishingly fast, and caught Zhou Heng's sword before he could pull it back. "Did you really think I couldn't deal with you? Flying Waterfall Sword Technique is certainly intricate, but you've used it seven or eight times right in front of me. Did you think I wouldn't pick up on its patterns?"
He yanked hard. Zhou Heng's sword slipped from his grasp, and the burly man snapped it into seven or eight pieces with a series of sharp cracks!
That was the power of the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining!
"Kid, come back with me obediently, and I'll spare you some pain!"
Zhou Heng sighed and took the Frost Cold Sword from his back. He carefully unwrapped it, layer by layer. "You could've lived a little longer."
"What?" The burly man laughed furiously. "You think you can kill me?"
As he spoke, Zhou Heng finished unwrapping the sword, revealing the Frost Cold Sword.
Seeing that Zhou Heng still had another sword, the burly man's face twitched. He had taken all those blows from Zhou Heng just to find the right moment to seize his weapon. Who would've thought Zhou Heng had brought a second sword?
What kind of person carried two swords?
He wasn't even a dual-wielder!
With a clang, the Frost Cold Sword left its sheath, giving a clear, soft ring. It had been sealed away for too long, and seemed to be protesting to Zhou Heng!
The burly man's expression changed. With his keen eye, he could tell at a glance how sharp the sword was!
"Scared?" Zhou Heng asked calmly, as if he were talking about something utterly ordinary.
"Hmph, you're just a puny Ninth Layer of Body Refining fighter!" The burly man's gaze turned fierce. Though he acted disdainful, he didn't dare lower his guard in the slightest. He raised both fists and adopted a strange offensive stance.
"This is Tyrant Fist!"
He circulated all his True Essence Power. His voice rumbled like thunder right beside their ears, loud enough to shake a person unconscious. "It may not match Flying Waterfall Sword Technique, but it's among the very best of the mid-grade martial skills!"
"With the power of my three higher realms behind it, one punch will blow you to pieces!"
"The young master ordered me to bring you back alive, but he never said you had to be in one piece!"
The burly man roared and thrust out a fist. True Essence Power surged wildly, compressing the air into a wave that hurtled toward Zhou Heng.
Thousand Tyrant Shadow Strikes!
Boom! Boom! Boom! He kept punching at Zhou Heng from a distance, forming one wave of compressed air after another. Like a roaring sea, they crashed toward Zhou Heng in surging succession!
He feared the sharpness of Zhou Heng's sword, so he used his True Essence Power to attack from a distance. But the strength of someone at the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining was already terrifying. Even the force of his punches alone was enough to shatter Zhou Heng's body in an instant!
Zhou Heng snorted. He sprang forward, and his divine sense instantly unfurled. The situation on the battlefield appeared in his mind in precise detail.
Seventy-four waves of compressed air were bearing down on him from different angles!
He used Flying Cloud Steps and advanced instead of retreating!
His body slipped like a fish through the waves of compressed air. He carved a path through them as surely as if he were walking through a mountain of blades!
"How is that possible!" Watching Zhou Heng steadily close in, the burly man was overcome with indescribable shock.
He knew no attack could be flawless. There would always be a gap, or a flaw. But by making a technique flow smoothly, one could shrink that flaw again and again, even conceal it!
Tyrant Fist had flaws, but for it to be ranked as a mid-grade martial skill, those flaws had to be incredibly subtle! More importantly, he was using it with the cultivation of the Twelfth Layer of Body Refining, while his opponent was only at the Ninth Layer!
In the face of an overwhelming gap in power and speed, those so-called flaws should have been negligible. A weaker opponent could never seize that one-in-ten-thousand—or even one-in-a-billion—chance!
Yet here he was, facing a freak who seized the nearly imperceptible flaws in every move and charged straight ahead, smashing through all resistance!
In the blink of an eye, Zhou Heng had reached him!
It was the result of Flying Cloud Steps working in tandem with Zhou Heng's keen, meticulous divine sense. Neither alone would have been enough.
Third Form of Heaven-Soaring!
Sword intent surged wildly, and the True Essence Power in his body was rapidly drained. Zhou Heng swung a sword that seemed capable of cleaving heaven and earth asunder, its brilliance dazzling!
One slash swept through!
Pfft! Blood sprayed ten feet into the air. The slash had cut the burly man clean in half at the waist!
Zhou Heng promptly dropped onto his backside. The Heaven-Soaring Nine Styles weren't something a human could wield. Even though he had already mastered their secrets, a single sword stroke had still drained all his strength.
If he used Flying Waterfall Sword Technique, then with the Frost Cold Sword in hand, he would certainly have won. But winning wasn't the same as killing!
His actual cultivation was only at the Ninth Layer of Body Refining. If the burly man had tried to escape, Zhou Heng wouldn't have been able to catch up. So he had to kill him with a single blow!
Since his opponent had intended to take him back to be put to death, Zhou Heng had nothing more to say. There was only one word: kill!
Mercy toward an enemy was cruelty toward yourself. Once he struck, he would show no mercy. Zhou Heng had understood that when he first set foot on the path of martial arts.
He searched the burly man's corpse, but aside from a few banknotes, there was nothing else. He counted them and found that they added up to more than five thousand taels. But when he saw the mark on the notes, Zhou Heng's mouth twitched.
They had clearly been issued by the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion!
He put the banknotes away. He was in dire need of money, so he had no qualms about taking the dead man's wealth. After taking a deep breath, he continued toward the Heaven-Leveling Mountain Range.
One day, he would settle his feud with White Jade Valley once and for all!
Three days later, he returned to the Cold Pool of the Absolute Valley. His True Essence Power had now reached its peak, and he was ready to break through to the Blood Refining Realm!
"Oh? What audacious fool dares trespass into this seat's cave?" A voice like a broken duck's quack rang out, and a black donkey appeared before Zhou Heng.
"It's you, you despicable donkey!"
"Your grandpa! I'm a divine donkey!"
The black donkey lunged at Zhou Heng and tried to bite him.
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