This Dharma Form Hurts My Back—Pay Me More!

"Fifth Layer of Qi Refining?!"

Zuo Xiaoqing landed not far away, a strange light appearing in her eyes. "You weren't at Qi Refining, Fourth Layer. You hid your strength!"

"I just broke through and hadn't had the chance to tell you yet. Senior Sister, that doesn't count as breaking the rules, right?" Ye Xingchen shook out his slightly sore arm and grinned.

Zuo Xiaoqing slowly straightened up. There was no reproach in her eyes. Instead... a feverish battle intent emerged.

She licked her rosy lips, and her cold eyes gleamed so brightly that it was frightening.

"Good. Now this is interesting."

Zuo Xiaoqing slowly undid the weighted clasps around her wrists.

Clang.

Two black metal rings fell to the ground, smashing two deep pits into the rock.

Everyone sucked in a breath.

Those were... Deep-Sea Sunken Silver?!

Each one weighed at least five hundred pounds!

She had been fighting while carrying a thousand pounds of weight?!

"The warm-up is over."

Zuo Xiaoqing rolled her neck, her gaze brimming with aggression. "Now, let me see whether you're still hiding anything."

Boom!

An aura several times more violent than before burst forth from within her.

"Holy shit, Sixth Layer of Qi Refining!"

Ye Xingchen's pupils contracted slightly as he felt the suffocating pressure bearing down on him.

If the earlier Zuo Xiaoqing had been a crouching leopard, then the current her, freed from her weights, was practically an awakened Archaic Tyrannosaur.

That force of blood and qi had vaguely condensed into tangible ripples in the air, making even the waters of the pool around them tremble.

Damn it, how is this a spar? Ye Xingchen cursed inwardly. How could such a tiny body hide such terrifying power?

"Again!"

Zuo Xiaoqing gave a crisp shout, and her figure vanished from where she stood.

Fast—so fast it was beyond the naked eye's ability to catch!

Every hair on Ye Xingchen's body stood on end. Instinctively, he leaned backward. A purple afterimage brushed past the tip of his nose, and the gale it raised cut against him like knives.

Before he could straighten himself, Zuo Xiaoqing twisted her center of gravity in midair with eerie agility and brought down a flying axe kick with the force of thunder and ten thousand bolts.

"Tai Chi, Circular Turn!"

Ye Xingchen crossed his hands and thrust them upward like lightning, a gentle yet resilient force surging from his palms.

Bang!

Amid the dull collision, the rock beneath Ye Xingchen's feet instantly shattered.

"Hiss—"

He sucked in a sharp breath. It felt as though two iron pillars weighing ten thousand pounds had smashed into his arms. Even with Tai Chi's force-dissipating technique, that tyrannical impact still bored into his meridians.

One force could subdue ten thousand techniques!

Before an absolute gap in cultivation, any technique seemed somewhat stretched thin.

"If this is all you can do, then you won't be taking those five pills." Zuo Xiaoqing's attacks came like a tide—fists, palms, fingers, elbows—every strike weighing over a thousand pounds and pounding the air until it boomed.

Ye Xingchen was like a lone leaf of a boat stubbornly holding on amid raging waves. He pushed his Tai Chi Step to its limit. He shifted and dodged within inches, and though he looked miserable, he never allowed her to strike any vital point.

The muscular body cultivators around them watched with their eyes wide and jaws slack.

"This kid... actually held on for thirty moves against Senior Sister Zuo's full-power outburst?"

"What kind of footwork is that? It looks so light and drifting, yet it can evade such dense attacks?"

"Don't be fooled by how happily he's dodging. Senior Sister Zuo's aura is still rising. If this kid can't bring out a counterattack, he'll be worn to death sooner or later."

In the arena, Ye Xingchen had realized this as well.

His blood and qi were being consumed rapidly, and the spiritual energy within him was nearly depleted.

"Sure enough, a rich woman's money isn't easy to earn."

A fierce glint flashed through Ye Xingchen's eyes. Since he could not defend, then he would attack!

Borrowing the force of Zuo Xiaoqing's heavy punch, his body shot backward over ten meters.

"Senior Sister, I'm very hard, so be careful!"

"...?" Zuo Xiaoqing.

Ye Xingchen took a deep breath, stomped both feet hard against the ground, and his spine rippled like a great dragon.

Rather than charging at Zuo Xiaoqing, he began rapidly circling the open ground. His hands formed hammer grips as he viciously swung them down at empty space!

The first hammer!

A dull explosive boom actually rang out from the empty air.

"What is he doing? Forging iron against the air?" The observing disciples were utterly bewildered.

But Zuo Xiaoqing's eyes narrowed. She sensed that with Ye Xingchen's hammer strike, the flow of air around them seemed to have been disrupted, and a strange rhythm was gathering around him.

The second hammer, the third hammer...

Ye Xingchen grew faster and faster, his body turning into a blurry shadow across the arena. With every hammer swing, his aura surged another notch. The shattered stones around him were actually drawn in by that invisible force and spun madly around him.

Chaotic Wind Hammer Method!

Using qi as a hammer, borrowing the momentum of heaven and earth, stacking strength heavy enough to crush ten thousand tons!

"Trying to build power?" The battle intent in Zuo Xiaoqing's eyes surged wildly. Not only did she not interrupt him, she clasped her hands behind her back and stood quietly where she was, allowing the storm to take shape around Ye Xingchen.

What she wanted was the strongest strike!

The tenth hammer, twentieth hammer, thirtieth hammer...

The wind rose.

The waters of Black Dragon Pool seemed to answer some summons, transforming into streams of water arrows that were swept into that wildly rotating vortex.

"Forty-fifth hammer!"

The entire arena fell silent, leaving only the deafening howl of the violent wind.

The muscular onlookers had long since retreated a hundred meters away, their faces filled with terror. This power had already reached the Ninth Layer of Qi Refining!

"Forty-eighth hammer!"

Ye Xingchen's eyes had completely turned crimson. He felt as though his body were a powder keg on the verge of exploding.

Now that he was unleashing the Chaotic Wind Hammer Method with all his strength, it was several times more terrifying than before.

The final hammer came out!

"Forty-nine hammers—become one!"

The ground beneath Ye Xingchen instantly caved into a massive crater. His entire body became like a burning meteor, crashing toward Zuo Xiaoqing with a horrifying pressure that tore through the void.

At that instant, the air was compressed to its limit and gave off a piercing shriek, as if an invisible colossal hammer were about to smash every living thing in this world into dust!

Faced with this attack infinitely close to the Foundation Establishment Realm, Zuo Xiaoqing moved.

She did not dodge. Instead, she slowly closed her eyes.

A slender finger lightly touched her forehead.

"Release."

Her cold voice was clearly audible amid the howling gale.

Bzzzz—!

A dazzling purple divine radiance erupted from her forehead and shot straight into the sky.

Then, before the horrified eyes of everyone present, an illusory figure several zhang tall slowly emerged behind Zuo Xiaoqing.

The figure's face was blurry, yet it exuded an authority that stood above all living beings. Clad in violet-gold battle armor and wielding a massive longsword, it looked like a deity that had crossed time and space from an ancient battlefield.

"That's... an Innate Dharma Form?!"

A shriek warped out of tune rose from the crowd.

"How is that possible?! Only mighty experts of the Nascent Soul Realm can condense one! Senior Sister Zuo, she..."

"I understand now. A special physique. Senior Sister Zuo must have a special physique. Only after a special physique awakens is it possible to possess a Dharma Form."

"Monsters... two monsters!"

Zuo Xiaoqing opened her eyes, and her pupils had turned a pure purple.

The phantom Dharma Form behind her moved in sync. Its massive illusory longsword lightly slashed down toward Ye Xingchen's violent hammer strike.

Rumble—!!!

Two utterly terrifying forces collided violently in midair.

For a moment, all of Black Dragon Pool seemed as though heaven and earth were collapsing. The shockwave from the explosion hurled the pool water dozens of meters into the air, while the surrounding trees were instantly uprooted and ground into dust.

White light swallowed everything.

Once the water mist filling the sky dispersed, everyone eagerly looked toward the arena.

Ye Xingchen knelt on one knee. The web between his right thumb and forefinger had split open, blood dripping down his arm and dyeing the broken stones on the ground red. He panted violently, his long robe already tattered beyond recognition and exposing his lean, muscular torso.

And opposite him.

The Dharma Form behind Zuo Xiaoqing had vanished. She still stood quietly, though her face was slightly pale, and an extremely faint trace of blood hung at the corner of her lips.

She lowered her head and looked at her sleeve.

The cuff on her left sleeve had actually been shattered at one corner by the aftermath of that hammer strike.

"You... won." Zuo Xiaoqing spoke, a barely detectable tremor in her voice.

It was not merely because Ye Xingchen had taken a strike from the Dharma Form, but because at the very last moment, she had discovered that Ye Xingchen had held back some of his strength.

Ye Xingchen struggled to raise his head, then grinned, revealing a mouthful of blood-stained white teeth. "Senior Sister... can those five pills... have two more added? That Dharma Form... smashed my back until it hurts."