Taiji Grinding Disc!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

A massive water dragon and fire dragon came roaring toward them, and the two riders on the Golden Winged Eagle were instantly alarmed.

Ye Feng didn't waste a word. He leaped straight from the eagle's tail feathers, True Essence surging out like wings as he flew aside.

At the Xiantian Lifeform stage, cultivators of the Qi Refining Path refined True Essence within their bodies, while body refiners cultivated divine power.

True Essence could control magic treasures and flying swords. It could also be released to form sword qi, saber qi, and all sorts of other shapes.

The Body Refining Path was different. At the Xiantian Lifeform stage, divine power could not be released from the body; it could only be stored within the divine body.

But Heaven always left a sliver of possibility. Although divine power could not be released, different body-refining techniques cultivated to the Xiantian Lifeform stage would condense Divine Patterns on the body, granting extraordinary abilities of their own.

Some could summon the thunder between Heaven and Earth; others could control rocks, earth, hurricanes...

The Chiming Nine Heavens Map drew upon the power of the two Supreme Stars, Taiyin and Sun. Once one entered the Xiantian stage, one could control water and fire, and with tremendous might—enough to slay ordinary Xiantian Lifeforms outright!

"Break!"

A Red-Gold Copper Staff suddenly appeared in the burly figure's hand. He leaped from the Golden Winged Eagle and charged at the roaring water and fire dragons, one staff in each hand, intending to shatter the dragons formed from Heaven and Earth's power with brute force.

Unexpectedly, the massive dragons swept around him in two arcs and instantly coiled around the Golden Winged Eagle behind him.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The water and fire dragons swirled around the eagle, forming a massive Water-Fire Taiji Diagram in the blink of an eye.

"Cawww!" The great demon Golden Winged Eagle shrieked in pain, frantically beating its wings as it tried to break free.

But as the Water-Fire Taiji Diagram spun, it became like a massive grindstone. It not only exerted a terrifying suction force, but its water and fire also contained endless cold and scorching heat.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The Golden Winged Eagle's metal-like body was useless. It was instantly scorched and frozen, and then the Water-Fire Taiji Diagram's invisible grinding force descended, tearing it to pieces in midair.

"Eagle!" Seeing the water and fire dragons bypass him to kill the spirit beast he used as a mount, the burly figure flew into a rage. He glared toward Zhou Hao and was about to charge over and fight him.

But the mountain's ruins were now empty. Zhou Hao was nowhere to be seen.

Ye Feng, who had leaped away from the Golden Winged Eagle first, was also startled to see the great demon killed so easily.

"Good thing I'm quick-witted. Anyone who cultivates the Chiming Nine Heavens Map to the Xiantian stage is a monster. I'll leave that murderous fiend to deal with him," Ye Feng thought.

"I'll capture that woman first, then kill those commoners. No matter how monstrous that man is, this is bound to distract him. That woman is clearly very close to him. If I take her hostage, I'll be invincible."

He came from a powerful clan. It wasn't one of the dominant forces on the Great Wild Plains, but he had grown up surrounded by schemes and calculations. Later, he became a disciple of Motai Xiao and distinguished himself among his fellow disciples, cultivating to the late Xiantian stage. He naturally had his own strengths.

Before considering victory, first consider defeat!

That was the creed Ye Feng had held to for years. It had helped him escape danger many times and slay enemies stronger than himself.

Still in midair, Ye Feng swept his gaze around, intending to seize Xiangcao first.

But before he could spot her, he saw Zhou Hao, his whole body wreathed in flames, darting toward him like an arrow.

"Not good!" In his panic, Ye Feng swung his long sword, sending out sword qi. He also roared, "Commander Yuan, save me!"

"Save you? Even if the King of Heaven himself came, you'd still die!" Zhou Hao shouted.

He had already seen the devastation wrought upon the Iron Ox Tribe. The clean-cut wounds and the furrows carved into the ground by sword qi immediately told him that the young man before him, sword in hand, was responsible for the slaughter.

He thought of Zhamu, the honest man who had given him the Cold Iron Dagger. When Zhou Hao had offered to trade a Wild Ox for it, Zhamu had refused again and again. In the end, unable to turn him down, he had even told Zhou Hao to come eat at his house if he ran out of food—his wife was the best cook...

Now Zhamu had been cut in half.

And the Old Blind Man, who always squinted but whose eyes turned as sharp as an eagle's whenever he picked up his Ironwood Bow. Now one of his arms was broken, and he would never draw a bow again.

And Qingshi, and one Iron Ox Tribe member after another, their bodies shattered, their eyes still open in death...

"Die!" Zhou Hao clenched his right hand into a fist and unleashed a cannon punch, striking Ye Feng squarely in the chest.

Crack—boom!

Ye Feng's body was like porcelain. Zhou Hao shattered it with one punch.

Limbs flew in every direction, leaving only his head to sail toward the fallen members of the Iron Ox Tribe.

The lingering light in Ye Feng's eyes was now filled with terror and disbelief.

"Well killed!" Iron Ox rushed forward and poured all his hatred into his right leg, kicking Ye Feng's only intact remnant—the head—while it was still in the air.

Pop!

Like a bursting ball, red and white splattered in every direction!

Ye Feng, a late-Xiantian-stage expert of the Black Hand Tribe, was dead!

It might have seemed to happen slowly, but battles between experts unfolded at astonishing speed.

From the moment Zhou Hao controlled Heaven and Earth's power to form the water and fire dragons and kill the great demon Golden Winged Eagle, to the moment he appeared before Ye Feng and smashed him with a punch, not even one breath had passed.

The burly figure had only just landed over there, standing where Zhou Hao had been a moment earlier.

"Now it's your turn," Zhou Hao said coldly.

He had brutally killed the culprit behind the Iron Ox Tribe's losses, and the grief and rage in his heart had eased somewhat.

But the man before him had first interrupted his chance to comprehend the Dao, then appeared alongside a Xiantian Lifeform from the Black Hand Tribe. If he didn't kill him, enemies would keep coming without end.

Zhou Hao had killed the great demon bird first to cut off the man's escape route.

Even a Xiantian Lifeform cultivator of the Qi Refining Path could use True Essence to control magic treasures, but couldn't make himself fly. Body refiners couldn't even release their divine power; they could only run along the ground using movement techniques.

Zhou Hao had cultivated the foremost God-Devil Body Refining technique, the Chiming Nine Heavens Map, to reach the Xiantian Lifeform stage. His mortal body had been shed, leaving him like a Xiantian god or devil born of Heaven and Earth.

His strength and speed both far surpassed those of body refiners at the same stage.

And then there was the Taiji Grindstone, which he had created by using that trace of True Meaning of Water and Fire he had comprehended earlier.

Even if Motai Xiao, the strongest member of the Black Hand Tribe, came now, Zhou Hao was determined to kill him too!

"The Chiming Nine Heavens Map is impressive, but you've only just reached the Xiantian stage at the fourth level. If you'd reached the fifth, even I wouldn't dare claim I could beat you."

Through the dust billowing from the shattered mountain, the burly figure walked out at an unhurried pace. His speech had sounded halting at first, but as he continued, it became increasingly fluent.

"Ape demon?" Zhou Hao was startled when he saw that the figure's exposed face belonged to an ape. "Why can't I sense any demonic aura from him?"

When beasts gained intelligence, they could absorb the primordial energy of Heaven and Earth and become demons. Once a demon transformed and entered the Xiantian stage, it became a great demon.

Although Xiantian great demons could take human form, they couldn't conceal their demonic aura unless they had a special technique for hiding it.

But the figure before him had an ape's face while standing upright, unlike a monkey with its back hunched. His hands and feet were clearly human, and he had no trace of demonic aura. Zhou Hao couldn't tell what kind of creature he was.

"Could he be a human-demon hybrid?" Zhou Hao wondered, then said, "Even if I've only just reached the Xiantian stage, that's more than enough to deal with you, monkey."

The Chiming Nine Heavens Map was universally acknowledged as the foremost God-Devil Body Refining technique. Even if those who mastered it couldn't claim to possess the overwhelming ability to defeat opponents of a higher stage like true gods and devils, they could still crush powerful cultivators of the Qi Refining Path at the same stage.

Even among body refiners, someone who reached the Xiantian Lifeform stage through the Chiming Nine Heavens Map was comparable, even at the initial level, to someone at the late stage of an ordinary body-refining technique.

The man had used neither divine power to break up Zhou Hao's attempt to comprehend the Dao with his Copper Staff nor when he tried to shatter the water and fire dragons earlier. Clearly, he wasn't at the Purple Mansion stage.

As long as he wasn't at the Purple Mansion stage, who was stronger would be decided in a fight!

The face of the man Ye Feng had called Commander Yuan twisted into a grimace.

He was a human-demon hybrid, born after an ape demon raped a human woman. His limbs and body were no different from a human's, but his face was that of an ape.

His mother abandoned him in the wilderness just after he was born. He grew up in the mountains among wild beasts, and so he was bloodthirsty by nature, behaving like a demon.

Later, a powerful figure from the Fire Worship Sect took him in and gave him the name Yuan Lie, modeled after an ancient great sage of the demon race. From then on, he began his path of cultivation. He had also been lucky enough to discover a God-Devil Body Refining inheritance in an abandoned cave dwelling.

When Yuan Lie completed his training and reached the Xiantian stage, the first thing he did was slaughter his entire maternal clan.

And because he had an ape's face, he hated being called a monkey more than anything.

Zhou Hao had first killed his spirit beast, and now he had insulted him. Naturally, this stirred the bloodthirsty madness within him.

"Roar!"

Yuan Lie roared. The clothes covering his upper body burst apart, revealing blood-red demonic patterns all over him.

His already thick arms swelled and lengthened until, without even bending down, he could touch the ground.

For a moment, Yuan Lie's savage aura soared to the skies. Holding a Red-Gold Copper Staff in each hand, he looked just like a long-armed demon god.

"You look even more like a gibbon now." Zhou Hao deliberately spoke to unsettle him. At the same time, he willed the two Divine Patterns on his back into motion.

Water and fire dragons appeared out of thin air where Yuan Lie stood, swirling together like a massive grindstone descending to crush him.

This was the Taiji Grindstone, a technique Zhou Hao had created by comprehending the True Meaning of Water and Fire while pursuing the Dao, then combining it with the Taiji Fist he had practiced.

Its grinding force made it several times more powerful than simply controlling water and fire. Zhou Hao had also practiced the Visualization Technique since childhood, and his soul was far beyond that of an ordinary person. He had possessed spiritual awareness even before he began cultivating.

Now, his control over water and fire was far more powerful than that of others who cultivated the Chiming Nine Heavens Map.

As for the name of the move, it was just like the Internal Martial Arts techniques Advance Crushing Fist, Step-Up Splitting Fist, and Golden Rooster Shakes Wings. It didn't matter if the name sounded good; what mattered was its power.

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

The Taiji Grindstone descended upon Yuan Lie, its immense force making it seem as though an actual grindstone were spinning and crushing him.

"Ha!" Yuan Lie roared. His two arms, swollen to several times their usual size, swung the Copper Staffs outward. With a loud boom, he smashed the Taiji Grindstone to pieces.

The water and fire still left burns and frostbite on his body, but blood glimmered across the demonic patterns, and his wounds healed completely in the blink of an eye.

After body refiners reached the Xiantian stage, their bodies naturally shed their mortal forms, becoming like the legendary God and Devil Body.

Divine power was stored within their bodies. Even if an arm was severed or the body split in two, they could restore themselves by expending some of that power.

That was why body refiners dared claim they could crush cultivators of the Qi Refining Path at the same stage.

If Ye Feng, who had died earlier, had been a late-stage Xiantian body refiner, he wouldn't have died even with only his head left.

"To kill him, I have to strike a vital point," Zhou Hao thought.

For most God-Devil Body Refining techniques, the head was the vital point at the Xiantian Lifeform stage, because it held the source of the soul and was of utmost importance.

Even with the foremost technique, the Chiming Nine Heavens Map, the entire body only became free of vital points upon reaching the perfection of the Xiantian stage. Other techniques required the Purple Mansion stage.

Zhou Hao's gaze shifted slightly. Six pitch-black flying knives shot out from his body, becoming six streaks of cold light as they whistled toward Yuan Lie's head.

"Die!"

Whoosh! Finally got it done before work.

Who signed Ye Feng up as the character who wanted a gruesome death? He's dead.

There'll be another update tonight! I should be able to finish around eight.

I have to head to the shop. Thanks for all the support, guys.