Crossing the River on a Reed, Great Yan Arc Complete!

"Junior Brother."

"Do not be disrespectful before the Patriarch and Master!"

Seeing Zhang Ge fly into a rage and try to take charge of the Chen Sect while his master and patriarch were still present, Qian Shi spoke up to remind him.

Zhang Ge heard this.

He came back to his senses as well. Alarmed, he hurriedly bowed to Chen Jichuan and Mao Li. "This disciple spoke out of turn."

Mao Li knew his disciple's temperament and did not pay him any mind. Turning to Chen Jichuan, he asked, "Patriarch, how should we deal with the demonic sect?"

"Patriarch!"

"Patriarch, please show mercy and save my father!"

Sun Dajin cried even more miserably. Kneeling on the ground, he crawled forward several steps and seized Chen Jichuan's thigh.

"Sun Dajin!"

"You must not behave like this!"

Qian Shi saw this and shouted sharply.

Sun Dajin was sobbing until tears and snot streamed down his face, and he had now smeared it all over the Patriarch's clothes. It was truly disgraceful.

At that shout.

"Forgive me, Patriarch."

"This disciple did not mean to offend you. It is merely that—"

Sun Dajin seemed to have listened and was about to rise with the momentum.

But at that moment, a sudden change occurred.

Sun Dajin flipped his hand, and a gleaming cold dagger slid out from his sleeve. "Die!"

Dagger in hand.

He stabbed viciously toward Chen Jichuan's crotch.

"Stop!"

"You insolent dog!"

"Motherf*cking—!"

No one in the hall had expected this turn of events. Their minds froze, and they instinctively rushed forward.

Everyone present was an expert.

But Sun Dajin was Sun Biao's son and had trained in martial arts himself. Though he could not compare to the foremost experts of the age, he had still reached the peak of Manifest Force. With a sudden ambush, even Hidden Force experts would struggle to stop him in time.

Sshk!

The blade struck squarely between his legs.

"Seeking death!"

Everyone's eyes nearly split with fury.

They saw the Patriarch thrust out his belly—

Boom!

He sent Sun Dajin flying backward, crashing to the ground and coughing up a mouthful of dark blood.

The Chen Sect experts, Qian Shi and Zhang Ge among them, who had leaped forward all came to a stop.

They were both shocked and furious.

"Dog thief!"

Qian Shi and Zhang Ge stepped forward and personally subdued Sun Dajin, who had landed headfirst on the ground.

Mao Li, meanwhile, supported Chen Jichuan and asked anxiously, "Patriarch—"

"I am fine."

"A mere junior cannot hurt me."

Chen Jichuan waved a hand, his expression unchanged. The dagger was still embedded between his legs. Judging by its depth, it was surely—

"Haha!"

"Patriarch, do not force yourself. This disciple knows that your external arts are formidable, that you have trained your belly and armpits until blades and spears cannot penetrate them. But the groin is the hardest place to train. Even if one painstakingly practices the Chen Sect's Seventy-Two Chen Sect Arts, the Groin-Strengthening Technique can only ward off ordinary punches and kicks. Against sharp daggers and keen blades, it is still difficult to defend."

Sun Dajin's face was smeared with blood. Although Chen Jichuan had merely rammed him with his belly, Chen Jichuan had long cultivated Hidden Force throughout his entire body. That blow had crushed Sun Dajin's nose flat, and the fall had left him seriously injured as well.

After saying such a long stretch at once, his injuries flared up. With a "pfft," he spat out another mouthful of blood.

Though severely wounded.

Sun Dajin laughed recklessly and shouted, "The Divine Church's experts are at the foot of the mountain! With the Patriarch gravely injured, how much of your strength remains?!"

"Damn it!"

"Sun Dajin, you deserve to die!"

Qian Shi was shocked, furious, anxious, annoyed, and hateful.

He had trusted Sun Dajin. Who could have imagined that this boy had long since defected to the demonic sect and had come specifically to assassinate the Patriarch?

For a moment.

He could endure it no longer.

Bang!

He lashed out with a savage kick, striking Sun Dajin squarely in the chest and sending him skidding seven or eight paces across the ground.

"Pfft!"

"Pfft!"

Sun Dajin vomited blood, and it seemed his internal organs had been ruptured.

Qian Shi's martial arts were not the best among his peers.

But he was still the Chen Sect Master. If he had not been mindful of the Patriarch and his master, not daring to act on his own authority, that kick would already have killed Sun Dajin.

"Patriarch."

"Let me kill this wolf-hearted, dog-lunged thing!"

Zhang Ge looked to Chen Jichuan, his face brimming with murderous intent.

Just then—

"The grand Chen Sect bullies a severely injured man."

"If word gets out, are you not afraid that the martial world will laugh at you?"

A light, lilting voice drifted in from outside the hall.

"Who is spouting such wild nonsense?!"

A vicious gleam flashed across Zhang Ge's face as he turned toward the hall entrance.

Bang!

Bang!

Several figures were thrown into the hall. Judging by their attire, they were all Chen Sect disciples. Immediately afterward, quite a few more people strode in from outside, each stranger-looking than the last. Their leader was dressed mostly like a young nobleman, with delicate features and a heroic air.

But who in the hall was not shrewd?

One glance at that person, and they saw through it—

"So it is you."

"A loose woman dressed in a man's cap and robes!"

Zhang Ge was filled with anger and showed no mercy with his words, mocking the woman dressed as a handsome young gentleman.

"Impudence!"

"As expected of a crude boor, speaking without the slightest decorum!"

Someone behind the cross-dressed woman jumped up and cursed. Others made as if to step forward.

With a dagger lodged in his crotch, Chen Jichuan's expression remained unchanged as he looked at the newcomer. "Did you order Sun Dajin to come assassinate me?"

"Correct."

Feng Mingming broke into a smile. Looking at Chen Jichuan, surprise flashed through her eyes before she laughed brightly. "They say the Chen Sect hides a legend of the martial world—the first to cultivate Hidden Force, the first to comprehend inner power, a man who has lived nearly two hundred years and long ago discovered the art of immortality. I am Dongfang Ming, and I have come to Taiqing Mountain to meet you."

"Dongfang Ming?"

"Dongfang Ping's child?"

"Sun Dajin really did defect to the demonic sect!"

"What a demonic sect! It actually dared to bully our Chen Sect!"

Qian Shi, Zhang Ge, and the others did not possess the Insight Art. Hearing Feng Mingming announce herself as Dongfang Ming, they all assumed she was a descendant of Dongfang Ping of the Moon-Worshiping Divine Church.

They became even more enraged.

Their momentum built as they prepared to strike.

At a single command from the Patriarch, they would seize every last one of these people.

"You have met me."

"And?"

Chen Jichuan looked at Feng Mingming and asked.

"Hearing of you was not as good as meeting you; meeting you surpassed even your reputation."

Feng Mingming smiled.

"Then be on your way."

Chen Jichuan smiled as well.

As he spoke, he reached down and pulled the dagger from between his legs.

Whoosh!

He hurled it violently.

That move contained Hidden Force and was bolstered by six layers of inner power. It was swift to the utmost extreme.

No one present had been on guard.

Feng Mingming had not expected that Chen Jichuan, despite his "serious injury," could still erupt and wound someone.

Panic rose in her heart.

She hurriedly retreated.

Behind her, an expert reacted with lightning speed and swung his saber. With a clang, he knocked aside the dagger, but his steel saber gained a notch and his palm went numb.

I have already cultivated Hidden Force, yet I nearly failed to block that strike?!

The "Mad Monk" Yuantong, dressed as a Buddhist ascetic, felt tempestuous waves crash through his heart.

Having retreated behind the others, Feng Mingming's face had gone pale with fright. After the fear passed, towering fury surged within her. She glared angrily at Chen Jichuan. "A grand legend of the martial world actually ambushed a weak woman. Is Old Patriarch Chen not afraid of becoming a laughingstock to the martial world?!"

She was, after all, only a young girl.

Relying on her family background, she had commanded affairs from afar outside. But when truly faced with life and death, her cowardice inevitably showed.

"Patriarch—"

Unlike Feng Mingming, Yuantong, and the others.

When Qian Shi, Zhang Ge, and the Chen Sect members saw that Chen Jichuan was brimming with life and entirely unharmed, they were overjoyed beyond measure.

But Sun Dajin, lying on the ground, stared with eyes wide open and roared in disbelief, "Impossible! Impossible!! No one can block it! And that spot—"

It had clearly gone in!

"Ignorant fool!"

"The Patriarch's skill reached the point of creation itself. He has trained every secret art of our Chen Sect to the pinnacle of perfection."

When Mao Li supported Chen Jichuan, he had already known that the Patriarch was uninjured. Unable to restrain himself now, he boasted, "How could a petty junior like you know the Patriarch's might?!"

Those words.

Made Sun Dajin flush crimson—

He muttered twice, then his fury attacked his heart. Sun Dajin spat another mouthful of blood, suddenly fell flat on his back, and no one knew whether he lived or died.

"What an Old Patriarch Chen!"

"What a legend of the martial world!"

Feng Mingming ground her teeth in hatred as she looked at Chen Jichuan. "I would like to see how you alone can withstand the Divine Church's Four Protectors and Eight Dharma Kings!"

At those words.

More than ten people behind her, including the "Mad Monk" Yuantong, stepped forward in unison. Their momentum erupted, their blood and qi surged, and every one of them had cultivated Manifest Force to its peak. Some had even comprehended Hidden Force.

Chen Jichuan swept his gaze over them.

He had long seen through their true strength.

"All are Level Six."

"As expected of the imperial court. Though war fires burn in all directions, a starving camel is still bigger than a horse. Every expert it raises is among the best."

Chen Jichuan looked at the dozen or so people and smiled.

Years ago, he had already cultivated Hidden Force throughout his body and trained his inner power to the sixth layer. His strength far surpassed that of someone who had only just entered Level Six.

But after passing sixty, his strength had stagnated, and it was difficult to advance even an inch further.

He remained at the Hidden Force level.

For decades without change, he honed his mental strength and skin, adjusted the center of gravity at his spine and tailbone, and made the sinews, bones, and outer membrane throughout his body connect as one. Thus he could unleash Hidden Force, while the primal energy produced by abundant essence within him could pass through his pores and emerge as Hidden Force.

Hidden Force ran through his entire body, regulating his internal organs. He clearly recognized and mastered every organ inside and outside his body, then trained them further.

Even now.

He was still far from having Hidden Force fully permeate his body.

Not only had his internal organs not been fully tempered, but even the four extremities—the teeth, tongue, nails, and hair—remained untouched.

Given his current physical condition.

"Break through Hidden Force?"

Chen Jichuan shook his head. "There is almost no possibility!"

Unless—

"Every ounce of life potential erupts in a battle of life and death."

"Victory or defeat."

"Either way, death awaits."

"But before death, perhaps I may glimpse the realm beyond Hidden Force."

Chen Jichuan had come to Great Yan nearly two hundred years ago. One by one, his old acquaintances had grown old. In this world, he no longer had any attachments. Rather than grow older by the day and drag out a miserable existence, he might as well have one final battle.

Live brilliantly.

Die dazzlingly.

These masters had come at just the right time. Since they were enemies, there was no need to stop at a touch. He could fight without restraint.

"The court?"

Chen Jichuan's words gave Feng Mingming a shock. "How did you know—"

She wanted to ask how Chen Jichuan had seen through them.

But he could wait no longer.

"Come!"

"Come fight!"

"Come and fight me!"

Chen Jichuan's fighting spirit soared to the heavens. He stepped forward, his hand half-clenched into a fist, and hammered it toward Yuantong, the "mad monk" at the very front.

"Courting death!"

Yuantong brandished his precept blade, Hidden Force bursting forth as he slashed down at Chen Jichuan's head.

But Chen Jichuan rolled on the ground.

The blade passed, and so did he.

A fist shot out.

It struck the chest and ribs, driving into the gaps between bone. On the spot, it dislocated his breastbone and drove it into his heart.

A level-six figure.

A Hidden Force grandmaster.

Yet after merely one exchange, he was killed by Chen Jichuan.

"Marble Fist!"

Someone recognized the move. It was precisely the Chen Sect's unique art, Marble Fist, which specialized in striking with the second knuckle of the fist, driving into the gaps between bones.

Every move was fatal!

Once Chen Jichuan made his move, he was like a fierce tiger descending the mountain, his momentum terrifying.

"Ancestor."

"I'll help you!"

Eighty-three-year-old Mao Li's blood boiled as he watched. With a loud shout, he moved to help. Qian Shi, Zhang Ge, and the others also shouted loudly, ready to swarm forward.

Chen Jichuan's resolve to die was as firm as stone. How could he let Mao Li and the others ruin his plans?

"Stand aside and watch."

"Do not interfere!"

His thunderous shout stopped them all.

"Come!"

"Come again!"

And alone, he fought fourteen masters.

Some possessed boundless strength, some were nimble and ever-changing, while others were strange and sinister.

Amid them—

The variations were far more complex than the seventy-two pointed blades from when he practiced the Golden Blade Exchange Palm Technique, to say nothing of the dangers within. Even Chen Jichuan, having caught them off guard and killed Yuantong first, tensed his entire body and dared not relax in the slightest.

He moved with the force of a fierce tiger.

His fleshy palms flew.

His feet stepped through the Small Eight Directions Footwork—flashing, turning, leaping, shifting.

Fingers, fists, palms, elbows, knees, toes—

The seventy-two unique arts were at his command.

Hidden Force ran throughout his body.

Every part of Chen Jichuan's body could serve as a weapon. Every part could take a life.

Two fingers thrust out in the Flower-Twirling Technique, shattering one man's knee and sending him sprawling to the ground.

A palm slashed diagonally—this was the Guanyin Palm. A palm could replace a blade, slicing through iron plates as though cutting tofu. When it landed on a human body, it sheared bone and pulverized flesh on the spot.

Then came the Jade Belt Technique. With a single embrace, it formed a Heaven-and-Earth Ring. Even a Hidden Force master could not break free; waistbones and spine snapped in answer, and his life was extinguished.

When masters exchanged blows—

Every move was lethal.

Victory and defeat were decided in an instant.

Chen Jichuan killed Yuantong first, then darted and sprang about, switching between fists and palms as he slew six more in succession. He fought to his heart's content and killed with rising fervor, frightening Feng Mingming and the others out of their wits.

"Princess!"

"The old monster is formidable. This is not a place to linger!"

A towering man among Feng Mingming's guards cried urgently.

Yuantong and the others had been no weaker than him, yet they had been killed one after another. Moreover, Chen Jichuan alone had acted from start to finish, while a host of Chen Sect masters in the hall were glaring like tigers watching their prey.

If they did not leave soon—

They feared disaster was at hand.

"Go!"

Feng Mingming also knew that a gentleman did not stand beneath a crumbling wall. Seeing that the top masters her father and she had painstakingly recruited were still no match for Chen Jichuan even together, how could she dare remain?

She hurriedly ordered the guards at her sides to escort her down the mountain.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Chen Jichuan was in the midst of slaughter, yet he kept watch over the entire scene.

Seeing Feng Mingming trying to flee, he laughed loudly and seized a steel blade barehanded.

One hand gripped the hilt, the other pinched the blade tip. Hidden Force erupted—

Clang!

The steel blade shattered on the spot. Fragments of steel flew everywhere, first blasting two masters to death before most of the shards shot toward Feng Mingming.

"Protect the princess!"

Seeing this, the guards at her sides rushed forward to shield her, wildly swinging their sabers.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

They blocked every steel fragment.

"Stay!"

Chen Jichuan still did not stop. He dropped into a sideways prone position and rolled forward. This was the Jiedi Technique, also called Eighteen Ground Rolls, a ground-fighting art.

With his body low to the ground—

He flicked out a dagger. It flashed through the air like lightning, impossible for men to intercept.

Feng Mingming was running ahead when the dagger pierced her through the back of the heart and out her chest—

"You—"

"You—"

This Great Yan princess, who had posed as the young leader of the Moon-Worshiping Divine Church, turned around, her almond eyes wide with disbelief. Then she fell to the ground, her breath gone.

In the third year of Jingyan under Emperor Duanzong of Yan.

Feng Mingming, Princess Nanping and daughter of Prince Ji, died at Taiqing Mountain in Lingnan.

That same year.

Chen Jichuan, patriarch of the Chen Sect and myth of the martial world, killed sixteen supreme masters from Great Yan's Black Ice Bureau in succession. Crossing the river on a single reed amid a rain of arrows, he slaughtered eight hundred archers outside Taiqing Mountain.

Three days later.

He died in the Chen Sect Ancestral Hall.

He was one hundred and ninety-five years old.

The following year.

The Chen Sect convened a Heroes' Assembly, led the heroes of the realm, and advanced in two columns from east and west alongside the Moon-Worshiping Divine Church. In the fourth year of Jingyan, they breached Great Yan's capital.

Great Yan.

Had fallen.

This was a combined two-in-one chapter. The evening update was posted together; don't wait tonight.

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