"Actually, if you want to buy time and recover, you don't need to dance around with words. I'll give you time to return to your peak, so you can at least understand how you die."
Feng Jiu said, "I'm different from other assassins."
"Other assassins believe in taking your life while you're weakened, using every means at their disposal."
"But my way of assassination is to walk through the front door and unleash unrivaled might."
"If you ask me, those who attained the Dao throughout history were the strongest assassins. On their path to attaining the Dao, they slaughtered the world's prodigies, and in the end, all the world could do was bow helplessly and hail them as emperors."
Feng Jiu said calmly, "Life-Killing Great Arts, techniques for killing people-all flashy nonsense, not much use. Killing for killing's sake means you've already gone astray."
"Once I enter divine prohibition, I can roam freely through heaven and earth. Who could I not kill if I wanted to? Why would I need those petty tricks?"
"I think so too." The young Sacred Body nodded as he sat straight down, took out spirit medicines, and refined them.
One dared to say it; the other dared to believe it.
One possessed tremendous boldness, and the other dared to take him at his word.
Indeed, Feng Jiu did not strike. He watched as the young Sacred Body's blood and vital energy surged. The sound of scripture recitation rose endlessly from his Five Great Secret Realms, his flesh recovered, and his primordial spirit shone brilliantly.
Though they were opponents, both possessed extraordinary bearing.
A short while later, the Sacred Body rose to his feet again. He had recovered to his absolute peak.
He had even surpassed his former peak, his essence, energy, and spirit reaching an entirely new height!
Hell's frenzied pursuit had proved useful after all.
Relying on his own abilities, the young Sacred Body had maneuvered through one deadly calamity after another, never daring to relax for even a moment. His mind and will had been hammered to their peak.
Once his blood and vital energy recovered, that spiritual transformation carried over into his flesh, making him more harmonious and fluid, his whole being unified.
In that instant, he changed, becoming like a war spear poised to pierce the heavens!
"Oh? Are you ready?"
Feng Jiu watched calmly.
The Sacred Body said nothing. He merely raised his fists slowly. An overwhelming fist intent raged, and hazily, six vast universes appeared, shone, and were opened into existence!
Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist!
He opened with the strongest ultimate art with which the Sacred Body Lineage had swept through the Desolate Ancient Era, unleashing the full physical potential of his unparalleled Sacred Body. Even the Supremes of the forbidden zones would have found it a headache.
Boom!
Mountains and rivers shattered; heaven and earth crumbled. The young Sacred Body moved, as though he would break the void and pulverize the river of stars!
Heaven collapsed and earth split, ghosts wailed and gods howled. In the Great Wilderness, unknown to the world, the most terrifying clash below severing the Dao erupted!
"Excellent fist art! Excellent physique!"
Feng Jiu spoke, his entire body radiating a strange light. The surrounding void became "mottled," as though filled and assembled from pixels. Crystalline fragments surfaced from time to time, reflecting corners of heaven and earth in a bizarre, kaleidoscopic spectacle.
"But... slow! Far too slow!"
With a soft sigh, he vanished from the all-encompassing lock of that fist intent, as though he had blended his light with the dust, coexisting with all things, present everywhere.
But the young Sacred Body understood that this supposed omnipresence did not exist. It was merely a manifestation of divine speed. Yet it was too fast-so fast that he could not catch even the slightest trace.
I should have understood...
The Sacred Body was startled but not panicked. Earlier, someone had already shown him up, approaching without his knowledge and leaving writing on his back.
At the time, he had just escaped a deadly calamity, and his mind had relaxed, leaving an opening.
Even so, it was terrifying enough!
"Of all the divine abilities beneath heaven, speed alone cannot be overcome!"
Feng Jiu's voice echoed among the mountains and rivers, each word measured and unhurried. He seemed less like someone fighting a peerless prodigy to the death than someone taking a spring outing, admiring mountains and seas.
He had the right to be so relaxed.
To him, there would be no suspense in this battle. It was destined to be a one-sided rout.
Even though this Sacred Body was astonishing, having once fought his way out of Hell's all-encompassing net, tempering his flesh to an extreme until it flowed with dazzling radiance, while his Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist seemed to drive the birth and rotation of six universes, like an Immortal King descending into the mortal world.
But...
Did he have any idea how much of a cheat countless calamities and reincarnations amounted to?!
Through reincarnation after reincarnation, Feng Jiu had died again and again, staking his life on exploring the various possibilities of Nine Secrets: Xing. He had engraved the mysteries of time upon his Wheel of Life and condensed a manifestation, almost transforming into a Time Divine Body. He had reached the pinnacle of speed, displaying something utterly beyond what this cultivation realm should allow!
Looking back, he saw the piled bones of his own corpses behind him.
Feng Jiu was confident that even if a Saint came in person, they would be dazzled for an instant. Even a Saint would be moved.
"I can roughly guess your intention. You're coveting the Assassin Heavenly Court's core inheritance, Xing of the Nine Secrets?"
"Who knows how many people like you there have been throughout history? One more makes no difference, and neither does one less."
"But I wonder-are you unlucky, or fortunate?"
"You're about to truly witness the brilliance of this one of the Nine Secrets."
In an instant.
Ripples of the utmost profundity swept across the sky, as though crossing mountains and seas, reaching everywhere without exception!
In a daze, the young Sacred Body saw a beam of light enter his vision, accompanied by an unimaginably powerful fluctuation that swept over him, exceeding the limits of his perception!
Pfft!
Blood burst outward, golden droplets scattering. He suffered an unimaginable wound as a short blade sliced through his flesh, nearly cutting him in half at the waist!
At that moment, the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist, the Indestructible Golden Body... all seemed nonexistent, unable to serve any purpose whatsoever!
Speed!
Speed taken to the absolute extreme!
You... saw me?
Very good.
My blade has already cut into you too!
This was an invincible mechanism: always striking first, always moving with effortless freedom, becoming a ghost within time, ascending to heaven and descending into the earth, capable of anything!
As long as he was fast enough, he would always crush others. Only Feng Jiu would get to beat people up; no one else would have a chance to strike back!
"Hmm, your flesh is rather tough. Are all Sacred Bodies this physically strong?"
With a soft sigh, Feng Jiu spoke with a trace of bewilderment. "By my calculations, that slash should have taken half your life. How did it fail to even cut you in half?"
He muttered to himself, sensing that something was not quite right.
He had forged his blade from immortal tear green gold to compensate for his weakness in offense.
Possessing speed alone while lacking striking power would not do.
Thus, he had not forged a heavy artifact. Bells, pagodas, cauldrons, and the like were not for him. He had devoted himself solely to forging a blade, one that did not need to be too long. Paired with his ultimate speed, he would dare to kill even kings!
Yet his first strike seemed to have gone poorly. He had failed to kill a Sacred Body instantly.
And, too hard-
An extraordinary divinity seemed to lie within that bloodline, resonating with his flesh, making it sturdy and imperishable!
"Let me see your blood, the source of your life..."
Another slash came, as though leaping free of the void's restraints and breaking time's shackles, divine beyond divine, astounding the ancient past and dazzling the present!
But...
"Kill!"
Golden light blazed. The young Sacred Body roared, countless manifestations appearing as he spread them open: Splendid Mountains and Rivers, the World Divine Tree, a golden ocean, the Immortal King Descending into the World...
Everything connected, transforming into a golden realm that sought to freeze eternity!