"Get out of my way!"
The moment his treasured saber left his hand, Zhang Shuheng thrust out his left hand, opening his fist into a palm and striking straight at Li Xian's face.
Li Xian shifted aside, easily avoiding the palm strike.
Before Zhang Shuheng could retrieve his saber, he lashed out with his foot and kicked it away.
Zhang Shuheng noticed this too, and his right foot followed with a kick.
But almost as soon as he moved, exerting force through his waist, Li Xian sensed it. He bent the right leg that had kicked the saber away and blocked, his knee meeting Zhang Shuheng's incoming shin like a hunter waiting by a stump for a rabbit.
Force always worked both ways.
When a fist struck an opponent, the finger bones suffered damage too.
The same principle applied here.
When Zhang Shuheng launched a kick at Li Xian, only to slam his comparatively slender shin squarely against Li Xian's thick kneecap...
Thud!
Amid the dull impact, Zhang Shuheng's expression visibly contorted.
Pain like that...
He had never endured it again since becoming commander of the Prince's Residence Guards and enjoying wealth and glory.
Fortunately, the limited angle had prevented Zhang Shuheng from putting his full strength into the kick.
Otherwise, that violent collision would certainly have snapped Zhang Shuheng's shin on the spot.
His kick had failed, and his balance had even faltered slightly, but Zhang Shuheng reacted extremely quickly.
He circulated his qi through a full cycle.
With a low roar, a heavy punch followed from point-blank range, hurtling straight at Li Xian's face.
With so little distance between them, he decisively abandoned every flashy maneuver. Gathering the force of an explosive surge of blood and qi into his fist, he struck head-on, intending to shatter finesse with strength.
Yet as he gathered his strength like Primordial Unity and threw that punch, Li Xian's arm swept out to meet it.
His arm rotated slightly, his five fingers spread wide. Like cloth enveloping a stone, he boldly wrapped Zhang Shuheng's thunderous fist in his hand.
The instant he enclosed Zhang Shuheng's fist, his slightly rotating arm abruptly transmitted a spiraling force into that fierce, domineering punch.
It was unmistakably a method of overcoming hardness with softness!
Under that rotating force, more than half the power of Zhang Shuheng's frontal punch was neutralized. Using his fist as a pivot, Li Xian then flung his entire body sideways with the leverage of four ounces moving thousands of pounds.
His body, weighing over eighty kilograms, was hurled four or five meters away.
Zhang Shuheng immediately exerted force through his waist, twisted his body, and circulated his qi through a full cycle, swiftly recovering his balance. Even so, after landing, he could not help staggering back three steps!
"Commander, watch out!"
A startled cry rang out.
Zhang Shuheng had only just steadied himself after those three backward steps when Li Xian came charging in with great, meteoric strides.
As power erupted beneath his feet, he shot toward Zhang Shuheng like an arrow released from a bow. His arm, like a war saber capable of cleaving through anything, shifted through countless variations before chopping straight down at Zhang Shuheng's head!
"Saber technique!"
Zhang Shuheng's eyes widened as he stared at Li Xian's arm cleaving down like a war saber, and he immediately reached out to intercept it.
But the moment he tried, he realized he could not stop it. The trajectory of this slash was too elusive, its speed too great!
Seeing the knife-hand descend, he could only gather his strength and brace his arm across his body to withstand the slash head-on.
Bang!
Force reverberated!
The power protecting Zhang Shuheng's arm was directly shattered by the force within Li Xian's descending knife-hand!
Crack!
The sound of his ulna breaking came together with agonizing pain that shot straight into his brain!
Even as the penetrating force "cleaved" through his ulna, it drove his arm hard into his chest. The remaining force battered his body, forcing him back another three steps.
"Palm technique!"
The next second, the same voice rang out.
Li Xian's single palm danced: forward palm, reverse palm, supporting palm, rising palm, chopping palm, sweeping palm...
A dazzling blur!
Zhang Shuheng was dazzled by the sight.
He could not keep up with the precise changes in Li Xian's palm technique at all.
By the time he could finally make out Li Xian's palm, it had already struck before his chest.
This is bad!
Ignoring the injury to his right hand, Zhang Shuheng swiftly turned his palm to intercept it.
But the force within Li Xian's palm technique was like a mountain torrent and a tsunami. It instantly swept aside the palm blocking his body, then tore through him like a blade splitting bamboo, battering his internal organs.
His newly steadied body was sent flying backward again beneath that force. This time...
Both feet rose nearly two feet off the ground.
"Leg technique!"
Li Xian charged forward in great strides!
Under Zhang Shuheng's somewhat terrified gaze, Li Xian charged forward, catching up with his backward-flying body in an instant. Then he leaped into the air and launched a flying kick straight at his heart.
Li Xian's saber force and palm force had already utterly shattered Zhang Shuheng's strength. Now suspended in midair with nothing to push against, he had no time to block the force of that charging, leaping kick.
"No!"
Bang!
Force powerful enough to shatter solid timber struck Zhang Shuheng squarely in the chest through that kick.
The force pierced through!
His heart abruptly ruptured!
Zhang Shuheng's entire body involuntarily doubled over, and the force passing through him tore the back of his robe to shreds on the spot.
This guard commander of the Prince's Mansion, who had attained an impervious body and risen to the first-rate ranks of the martial world, flew over ten meters and slammed heavily into the wall of a shop beside the street.
Cracks instantly spread across the wall where he struck, throwing up countless motes of dust.
Li Xian landed, looking disappointed.
"Saber technique! Palm technique! Leg technique! Fist technique! All an utter mess!"
He did not even need to step forward to deliver another punch.
Splat!
A mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs sprayed from Zhang Shuheng's mouth.
He stared fixedly at Li Xian, his eyes filled with resentment and unwillingness.
His injuries...
His heart had ruptured completely!
He would not survive!
Perhaps it was because he was about to die.
As he looked at that youthful face, the resentment and unwillingness in his eyes faded a little.
He thought of himself.
Back then, before entering the Prince's Mansion, he too had been so spirited and full of ambition.
He had begun training in martial arts at fourteen, achieved internal organ refinement at twenty, and undergone blood exchange and marrow washing at twenty-five. Afterward, the Prince's Mansion had entertained him as an honored guest and appointed him commander of its guards.
With funding from the Prince's Mansion, he had trained diligently in saber techniques, palm techniques, fist techniques, leg techniques, and movement techniques. He could be called an all-rounder.
At twenty-nine, he had comprehended primordial unity, attained an impervious body, married a commandery princess of the Prince's Mansion, and become its second most important figure, subordinate only to the commandery prince.
Even the heir, Yan Kaigui, had to warmly address him as brother-in-law when they met.
Back then, he too had shone so brilliantly, brimming with confidence and basking in boundless glory.
But over these past few years, he had never managed to achieve blood and qi mastery...
In the end, it had exhausted his spirit.
Coupled with his success, fame, and pampered life, the time he spent training had dwindled day by day.
Thinking it over, it seemed he had never again fought a life-and-death battle against someone at the same level since entering the Prince's Mansion?
Even when he occasionally faced such opponents, he had held every advantage, fighting the few with the many.
And now, today...
He had finally paid the price for his choices.
Just like the opponents he had beaten to death during his rise, when he was at blood exchange and marrow washing, today he would meet the same end they had.
Beaten to death by a younger, more dazzling martial prodigy.
"One day... cough, cough... you'll end up... just like me..."
Zhang Shuheng stared at Li Xian.
"I know."
Li Xian appeared quite calm. "Those who kill will themselves be killed! I've long been prepared for that, and..."
He paused. "I'm waiting for that day to come! Either I become invincible beneath the heavens and claim the pinnacle of strength, or I become a stepping stone for the strongest! That is a martial artist's ultimate destiny! And the most perfect ending!"
Those words...
Plunged Zhang Shuheng into profound despair.
The Prince's Mansion had actually offended a madman like this? Someone who regarded being beaten to death as a perfect end!?
Unfortunately, no matter how desperate or crazed he became, it was already too late.
With his heart and its vessels shattered, the foremost expert of Prince Yue's Residence, the guard commander with an impervious body, finally fell utterly silent in agony.
(End of chapter)
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