Millya's Death

After Millya finished speaking, she and Chen Xu stared at each other wide-eyed.

"That's it?" Chen Xu's face was full of bewilderment.

"I'm not a Martial Artist. Knowing this much is already pretty good." Millya pulled up the covers, planning to get a good night's sleep.

"Eight tonight. We'll meet at the foot of Azure Illumination Mountain."

Chen Xu recalled what Hall Master Cheng had said: once a ranked martial art reached a certain level, changes would occur in a martial artist's body and mind.

Through those changes, a martial artist's physical abilities and spiritual presence would undergo a massive improvement. After that improvement came the so-called [Martial Form] realm.

Putting the two together, the so-called change was probably the mind interfering with reality—or, rather, one's aura affecting reality.

But when he activated Tiger Might, he could already make people feel fear. Could that not count as interference?

Lost in thought, he left the guest room and prepared to leave the inn.

He might as well use this time to visit the last Clearwind Martial Hall.

Azure Illumination Mountain.

Azure Illumination Mountain was no different from the other mountains in Jinning Commandery. Normally, only nearby residents climbed it. After the murder spree involving the mentally ill man, most of the surrounding residents moved away, leaving the area increasingly desolate.

As they walked along the creaking stone path, two long shadows stretched beneath the moonlight.

"A powerful Martial Artist is buried here. I don't know what mechanisms are inside. When I discovered this place, I wasn't strong enough to dare go deeper.

Azure Illumination Mountain got its name during the Great Qi era, though I can no longer remember the exact year."

"Great Qi was the dynasty before the Great Abyss?"

"That's right. They say that was the height of martial arts, but most information has been lost due to the imperial court's suppression."

Millya led Chen Xu to the cliff at the summit of Azure Illumination Mountain.

"Look where the moonlight is shining."

Chen Xu raised his head and followed the moonlight downward.

The moonlight spilled over the bluestone extending beneath the cliff. Below that was a stretch of darkness, impossible to see through.

"So that's what Azure Illumination meant?" Chen Xu raised a brow. He had thought there was some special significance behind it.

"The entrance is beneath that bluestone." Millya shone her flashlight around and took out the tools she had prepared from her backpack.

She was far weaker than Chen Xu and needed equipment to enter the cave.

With a light leap, Chen Xu landed beside the bluestone and shone his flashlight inward.

It was empty and silent, like an ordinary cave with nothing remarkable about it. Only a long passage led toward some unknown place.

"There aren't any mechanisms outside. Otherwise, I would have been buried here during my last visit." Millya ducked into the cave, with Chen Xu following close behind.

The passage bore obvious excavation marks. It was certainly not naturally formed.

After walking for around two minutes without encountering any mechanisms, the two entered a stone chamber of roughly a hundred square meters.

Stone tables, stone stools, stone beds...

Everything in sight had been carved from all kinds of stone.

"Ah!" Millya screamed. Chen Xu looked toward the sound and saw a black shadow gnawing at something on her body near one of the rooms within the stone chamber.

Even though she wore [Assault Glory], the rest of her body had no protection. Caught off guard, the reaction speed of an ordinary person held her back, and she could not even defend herself in time.

After struggling slightly, chewing sounds came from the shadow on her body. An ordinary person with weaker nerves would probably have been scared out of their wits.

That afternoon, she had still been immersed in the joy of obtaining [Assault Glory], dreaming of the future. By nightfall, she had met her end in a rarely visited mountain cave. The unpredictability of fate was truly lamentable.

When the flashlight shone over, the shadow was not some four-legged monster at all, but a naked man with long, unkempt hair.

Yet he was doing something only a mindless beast would do: devouring his own kind.

The powerful beam from the flashlight left him temporarily unable to adapt, and he retreated into the room.

Looking at Millya's wide-eyed, unseeing expression, Chen Xu sighed softly.

This was the gap in strength. If it had been him, even an ambush would not have caught him helplessly. He would not have been subdued in a single blow, left without any power to resist.

"Lu Long?" Chen Xu called out tentatively.

The room fell silent at once. Perhaps because he had not spoken for a long time, the man spat out several sounds before finally croaking hoarsely, "You know me?"

It really was him. Chen Xu's expression shifted slightly. In the memories of his predecessor, the last news of that mentally ill man was that he had fallen off a cliff. Yet when the search party went to the bottom the next day, they found no remains.

If not for that, so many people would not have fled the area.

"A mentally ill man who killed sixteen people in one night. It was on the news."

A bronze hue covered Chen Xu's entire body as he clenched his fists. From what he had just seen, Lu Long moved far faster than he did. In numerical terms, his speed was at least 5. He would be troublesome to deal with.

Upon hearing that, a hoarse, desolate laugh came from the room. "I never thought that the final memory Lu Long would leave the world would be like this. Ironic—truly ironic!

But so what? When I appear before the world again, I will be a newly reborn Martial Artist—Lu Long!"

The two seemed to share the same thought as they struck like lightning.

A tremendous collision echoed through the stone chamber, its reverberations unending.

Chen Xu threw dozens of punches in succession. Lu Long slammed into the stone wall, then sprang away and moved around him.

Realizing that he was at a disadvantage in strength, Lu Long's years of experience made him swiftly choose the strategy most favorable to himself.

"Your flesh must be very chewy." As Lu Long moved, he tried all kinds of words to make Chen Xu feel fear, or at least distract him for an instant.

He also had some desire to converse. Enduring loneliness was painful. Even with a heart devoted to martial arts as firm as iron, he occasionally felt lonely.

He would first beat this man into a serious injury, then vent himself slowly until Chen Xu bled to death.

"So the rumor that this place has [Martial Form]-level martial arts is true." Chen Xu's gaze tracked Lu Long's movements, like a fierce tiger seeking the right chance to hunt its prey.

"It is, but you won't get the chance to see it!" Lu Long's palms darted out like venomous snakes as he launched a rapid series of attacks.

Chen Xu held his left arm in front of him. Tiger Might at level six erupted with full force, and together with Tiger Howl Fist in his right hand, he forcibly traded injury for injury.

Lu Long's hands struck Chen Xu's left arm, and pain shot through both of them. It felt as though he had not hit a human body, but a steel plate with astonishing defensive power.

"Doesn't hurt at all!" Seeing this, Chen Xu felt even more at ease. Apart from a few areas such as his eyes, he simply stopped defending and charged toward Lu Long through the storm of attacks.

You can hit me countless times, as long as I catch you once...

"Monster! You've trained your hard-body technique to such a level!"

If the parents of Jinning Commandery knew that the murderous monster they used to frighten children was calling another human a monster, who knew what they would think.

Sensing that Lu Long was considering a tactical retreat, Chen Xu flashed forward and blocked the passage.

If he let this guy escape, wouldn't all those hits have been for nothing?

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