My path was mine to walk

"Lin Yan! Watch out!"

Leorio's cry sounded especially piercing in the empty stone chamber.

Facing Johns's savage claws, which struck like a battering ram, Lin Yan remained so calm he seemed almost indifferent.

After completing Foundation Establishment and forming his dantian embryo, his five senses had undergone a qualitative transformation.

In his eyes, Johns's movements, so fast they left afterimages, seemed to drag through a viscous liquid. Every contracting muscle, every bulging vein was clearly visible.

This was the spiritual perception of newly awakened divine sense at Foundation Establishment-a crushing advantage born of ascending to a higher level of life.

At the thousandth of a second before Johns's claws, powerful enough to pierce steel plates, reached Lin Yan's face.

Lin Yan moved.

His movement was not fast. It could even be called slow. He merely tilted his head slightly to the left.

"Whoosh-"

Johns's savage claws swept past with a shrill rush of air, barely grazing the tip of Lin Yan's nose. The wind swept his fringe back, revealing his utterly tranquil eyes.

A flicker of bewilderment crossed Johns's eyes as his strike missed. He could not understand how an attack delivered with all his strength could possibly miss.

But he was a murderous maniac with countless battles behind him, his fighting instincts ingrained in his bones. He powered through his waist, forcibly twisting his body in midair, and folded his other arm into an elbow strike, smashing it toward Lin Yan's temple from an even trickier angle!

The strike was fast, vicious, and so close that there was nowhere to dodge!

Below the platform, Leorio's heart nearly leaped out of his chest. He could no longer bear to watch.

Yet Lin Yan's body seemed like a weightless feather.

Pivoting on his heels, he leaned his upper body back slightly and shifted his center of gravity backward, once again narrowly evading the deadly elbow at an impossible angle.

Throughout it all, his feet never left their original position.

"Roar!"

Missing two attacks in succession utterly enraged the inhuman beast.

His massive body became a black whirlwind. His arms swung like two enormous iron hammers as he unleashed a storm of attacks on Lin Yan!

Claw strikes, elbow strikes, knee strikes, whipping kicks...

Every part of his body became a lethal weapon, stirring up fierce gusts that completely engulfed Lin Yan.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The entire arena became a demolition site.

Every missed attack slammed into the floor or walls behind Lin Yan, shattering the hard stone slabs and sending fragments flying. The entire arena trembled faintly.

The spectators below watched with pounding hearts, their mouths hanging open. They even forgot to breathe.

"Is... is he even human?" Leorio's voice shook as he stared at the devastated fighting area. "Can Lin Yan... can he hold out?"

"I don't know..." Kurapika stared fixedly at the fight, cold sweat already seeping from his forehead. "He's too fast... all I can see is a blur of fists and Lin Yan constantly dodging."

He could not make out what was actually happening within that onslaught. He only felt that Lin Yan was like a tiny boat in raging seas, liable to be swallowed by those savage attacks at any moment.

"No. Look more closely."

Killua's voice carried a trace of astonishment that even he failed to notice.

"At what?" Leorio asked urgently.

"Look at Lin Yan's feet." Killua's catlike eyes narrowed to slits, his voice filled with disbelief. "He's been dodging this whole time, but from the start until now, his feet have never moved beyond a three-step radius!"

"What?!"

Once he pointed it out, Kurapika and Leorio noticed that strange fact as well.

"He isn't simply dodging!" Killua lowered his voice further. "He's making tiny adjustments to his body, moving with the air currents stirred up by those punches! He... it's like he knows where the next attack will land!"

This was the embodiment of Taoism's Going with the Flow.

Within Lin Yan, his dantian embryo slowly rotated. True qi surged through his meridians like a mighty river, flowing throughout his limbs and body to support every minute adjustment.

Amid the countless blurred fists and flying stone fragments, Lin Yan resembled a little boat in raging seas, seemingly on the verge of being swallowed at any moment. Yet the tiny patch beneath his feet remained steady as a rock.

He was like a master chess player who had already foreseen every variation over the next dozen moves before his opponent placed a piece.

Under the coverage of his divine sense, Johns's savage attacks were no longer threats, but the currents of the wind and the gaps between waves.

All he did was follow the course of those winds and waves, gently guiding his little boat into the safest opening.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

The frenzied assault continued for a full minute.

Johns's breathing grew labored. His beastlike eyes were bloodshot, and his attacks began to slow, little by little.

Raw explosive power was certainly formidable, but it also consumed tremendous stamina.

Lin Yan, meanwhile, maintained deep, steady breaths from beginning to end.

As one waned and the other held strong, the balance of victory quietly began to tip.

"Roar!"

Johns sensed it too. With a defiant roar, he squeezed out the last of his strength and hurled another punch at Lin Yan's face.

Lin Yan once again turned slightly aside, letting the fist pass.

But this time, he did not continue dodging.

He stopped.

Now.

A barely perceptible gleam flashed through Lin Yan's eyes. During this minute or so of letting Johns feed him attacks, he had completely grasped the beast's rhythm and the way he exerted his strength. He had also found the tiny point where the flow of that strength caught.

Time to strike back.

Watching Johns lunge again, leaving an enormous opening from overcommitting his strength, Lin Yan slowly raised his right hand.

He did not form a fist. Instead, he made Taoism's most basic Sword Formula Finger gesture.

-His index and middle fingers pressed together like an invisible, keen-edged sword.

This was not a sword move, but a method for concentrating the true qi within his body to an extraordinary degree and projecting it outward.

His dantian embryo suddenly spun faster. Vast amounts of true qi surged along the three yang meridians of the hand, gathering furiously at the tips of his index and middle fingers.

The spectators below abruptly held their breath.

"What is he doing?"

"Is he going to use two fingers against claws that can tear through steel?"

Only Killua felt a sudden chill shoot up his spine.

In his vision, the air before Lin Yan's joined fingers seemed scorched by an invisible, intense heat. The light warped strangely, visibly distorting before his eyes!

That was not sword qi. It was not even merely Nen!

It was a terrifying phenomenon created by compressing a peculiar energy beyond physical limits!

Those claws, powerful enough to rend steel, had already reached Lin Yan.

Lin Yan did not retreat in the slightest. His gaze remained calm as his Sword Formula Finger, carrying an edge that made the skin prickle, met the attack at a speed that seemed slow but was actually lightning-fast.

His target was neither Johns's claws nor his fist.

It was the tiny gap beneath Johns's armpit, exposed as his muscles strained to their utmost while he swung his arm!

That was where the three yang meridians of the hand converged-the crucial hub through which the entire arm's strength passed!

"Break."

Lin Yan softly uttered a single word.

At that moment, fingertips and flesh collided in an uncanny clash.