Zhuo Guteng held Ma Jun tie suspended a hundred meters away, quietly observing the spectacle of the younger generation of warriors challenging the old guard.
A hundred feet high in the vast sky, the encounter between two titans required no preamble; their auras clashed and interwove, creating the illusion of two primeval behemoths locking eyes.
The warriors of the Holy Martial Hall craned their necks, watching the bizarre scene unfolding above them in astonishment. The former miracle warrior of the Holy Martial Hall was now challenging a Martial Venerable! This was something countless young warriors across generations had failed to achieve; today, he had done it!
Qin Fen faced the strongest warrior of the Holy Martial Hall, a supreme expert wielding the Duwo Qi. His internal Gang Qi surged violently, causing his entire body to tremble slightly as he abruptly stepped forward into the air.
With that single step, the eyebrows of the Holy Six Stars twitched in unison; not one of them perceived any precursor to Qin Fen’s movement. They only witnessed the air behind his foot suddenly compress and explode, and his figure was instantly upon the Martial Venerable.
In that instant, Qin Fen’s body experienced a bone-stretching, tendon-tautening transformation. His muscles swelled in rapid succession, his body abruptly becoming stronger and larger than Bo Guteng’s. He expanded rapidly both vertically and horizontally, like an ominous, sky-shrouding cloud, completely eclipsing the Martial Venerable’s line of sight, giving the overwhelming impression that the heavens themselves were about to collapse.
“Fast! Fierce! Savage!” Bo Guteng praised internally, channeling all his power into his eyes, terrified of missing even a sliver of the exchange between the two. His focused gaze resembled the crude steel column of a pile driver, slamming toward the Martial Venerable’s “slender” body.
Fengshen Bang! Qin Fen understood clearly that against this veteran, top-tier powerhouse, any petty trickery would be useless. It was better to unleash everything at once! His feet trod on the air as if stepping on solid ground; the surrounding atmosphere compressed like rock. He launched a Dragon Cannon Stomp, kicking the compressed air into an explosion, unleashing the might of Ten Dragons and Ten Elephants to violently propel his opponent, resembling a divine dragon taking flight.
His feet exploded against the rock-like air, while his waist simultaneously twisted and lashed out. True Qi flooded his body, permeating his blood and marrow. His blood vessels, synchronized with the drumbeat of his heart, created the clamor of a million phantom armies charging forward, roaring and rumbling like ten thousand bolts of lightning churning in the clouds.
Simultaneously, his neck arched high, his chest thrust forward like a descending deity, his spine undulating ceaselessly like waves—a grinding sound, “Gala-la,” signaling the power of accelerating gears.
The moment Qin Fen moved, he pushed the Fengshen Bang to the zenith of its power since its creation. Ten Dragons, Ten Elephants, Heavenly Dragon Fold, Thunder Step Dragon Cannon—an unprecedented explosive force erupted.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...
As Qin Fen charged, the air he displaced roared like a hundred cannons firing in unison. The instant his arms rose, he stirred the atmospheric currents overhead, sending chaotic energy scattering everywhere. The Martial Venerable’s previous imposing stance, the aura of ‘I am the firmament,’ instantly vanished under the sweeping tempest.
The Fengshen Bang, now bolstered by a significant leap in martial cultivation, reached an almost unbelievable level. The sheer, unimaginable critical strike shattered the equilibrium of their opposing auras, unleashing an irresistible, vast power.
If their auras were previously evenly matched, with the Martial Venerable’s Cangqiong Qi blending with his martial power to create a self-contained domain, then in that moment, his world was utterly pulverized by Qin Fen’s seemingly purest display of violence.
What is a god? What is a demon? They are merely powerful beings conjured by human imagination. They can summon wind and rain, ascend and descend at will, receiving the worship of multitudes. But what do people worship—the god or the demon? Neither! What humanity bows to is the power of gods and demons.
What is that power? The power to benefit humanity? No! What people venerate is merely the violence of gods and demons. While they pray for divine protection, they are fundamentally praying that the gods and demons do not choose to destroy them.
Gods and demons are, in essence, the purest representatives of violence! Their elevated status stems not from benevolence or any other virtue; if you strip away the veneer, they possess only one defining characteristic: incomparable violence in the eyes of humanity!
If gods and demons lost the power to destroy humanity, yet retained their ability to summon wind and rain for mankind’s benefit, people would not worship them; instead, they would subjugate them as they do cattle and livestock.
Within the light-form training, after grasping the concept of trusting himself over trusting power, Qin Fen also understood the essential nature of the divine and demonic path: it is predicated on violence. They possess absolute violence! The foundation of his own martial path lies not in lofty transcendence or the vastness of the Heavenly Dao; its essence is violence!
The invention of martial arts was never about physical fitness, nor was it about winning respect through virtue! The creation of Wu (Martial) is the act of slaying the enemy! Wu is the unique medium through which violence can be maximized!
Violence! Shattering! Crushing! Destruction! This is the true essence of the Divine Fist Doctrine! To annihilate any enemy standing in one's way in the most violent manner possible—that is the Divine Fist Doctrine.
To hell with the firmament! To hell with the Heavenly Dao! I will use violence to utterly destroy them all!
Peng, peng, peng, peng, peng, peng...
Facing Qin Fen’s extremely violent assault, the Martial Venerable’s sword-like eyebrows knitted together, displaying a rare gravity. His neck suddenly straightened, and the sharp light in his eyes surged ceaselessly!
Qin Fen’s Fengshen Bang had interpreted the concept of violence to a new level: use violence to break momentum, use explosive power to annihilate the enemy!
The moment the Martial Venerable stiffened his neck, Cangqiong Qi flooded his entire body. His voluminous martial robes suddenly billowed and inflated, emitting a series of pa-pa-pa vibrations. Though his physical size did not increase, the surge of power made him appear to inflate rapidly in an instant!
Over a hundred streams of Cangqiong Qi erupted and spewed forth from his acupoints, shooting out in a dense barrage like arrow rain in all directions. This further agitated the turbulent air shattered by the Fengshen Bang. He raised his left elbow, like an impaling spear aimed upward, fiercely blocking Qin Fen’s earth-shattering punch.
Boom!
A concussive blast rivaling a hundred-thousand-ton explosion radiated outward from the two figures, creating a visible ring of impact energy. Bo Guteng was forced to unleash a full-power Nuclear Fusion Fist against the energy ring, using the resulting recoil to flip upward and clear the shockwave.
To outside observers, Qin Fen’s punch seemed capable of breaking the moon into fragments, yet the Martial Venerable managed to parry it with a single elbow!
The super-nanofiber battle suits on both combatants were instantly shredded to dust, only to repair themselves in the next moment, appearing completely undamaged.
“Is this the Cangqiong Qi comparable to Qilin? A top-tier expert of the Holy Martial Hall!”
Qin Fen was unsurprised that his Fengshen Bang punch hadn't taken down the Martial Venerable; rather, he felt deep admiration. Had any one of the Holy Six Stars tried to meet that punch, Qin Fen was one hundred percent certain he could have turned them into bloody paste! Unless they dodged, that outcome would have been certain death! Even bio-beast fusion could not have saved them!
After bracing against the Fengshen Bang with his elbow, the Martial Venerable’s elbow abruptly spun repeatedly, twirling like a spear forming a spiral force to wrench the Fengshen Bang away. His body lunged forward in a close-range assault, his left hand forming a hammer, swinging back toward Qin Fen’s head!
Simple, direct, devoid of flashy maneuvers or feints. Having reached Qin Fen’s level of strength, the Martial Venerable knew that executing false moves would be less effective than launching genuine attacks.
In that rapid shift, every cell in Qin Fen’s body became electrified! His purpose in coming to Earth was not to show off his martial prowess before the Holy Six Stars, but to find the strongest opponent to test the limits of his own power, hoping to glean insights that would push him further.
Master, even now, offered no explanatory guidance in the martial path; all progress had to be forged through personal exploration. Qin Fen understood this was Master’s way of looking out for him.
While sparring with Master and the others in the mental space was exhilarating, it lacked the true scent of life-or-death struggle. Qin Fen needed that feeling, and that sensation could only be found in reality.
The instant the Martial Venerable moved his left hand, Qin Fen felt his entire bright world abruptly plunge into absolute darkness!
Cangqiong Qi! This was the Martial Venerable’s supposed Cangqiong Qi! The qualitative change had reached an almost mystical level; the moment of attack made his opponent feel as if they faced the vast, infinite firmament, unable to discern any target endpoint.
“Stimulating!” Existing between life and death, only excitement surged in Qin Fen’s heart—unstoppable excitement.
He retracted the right punch midway and suddenly drove it straight down! His forearm snapped vertically downward, using the elbow as a pivot point to sweep across the top of his head. The sensation of darkness vanished instantly, as if the massive black curtain draped over his eyes had been slashed away by that very elbow.
Qin Fen’s elbow smashed into the Martial Venerable’s left hammer-hand. His left hand, kept near his waist, simultaneously shot upward in a straight line, delivering the most perfect uppercut in boxing.
The Martial Venerable pulled his hammer strike back, simultaneously raising his right knee in a horizontal sweep, slamming hard against the arm delivering Qin Fen’s uppercut! Close-quarters striking—the Tiger-Style Knee Draw of New Thai Boxing!
Qin Fen pulled his rising left fist inward and downward, hooking sharply! It transformed into a hand-blade slicing toward the Martial Venerable’s thigh!
The Martial Venerable’s sword-like eyebrows rose, and a low “Yi,” escaped his lips. He slightly adjusted his knee angle, colliding with Qin Fen’s hand-blade. The clash of their forces pulled both attacks back slightly, yet neither combatant retreated an inch. They immediately began employing close-quarters martial techniques, pitting speed and ferocity against each other.
For a time, the warriors on the ground of the Holy Martial Hall instinctively covered their ears; the sheer vibrational force traveling through the atmosphere was almost unbearable.
Bo Guteng widened his eyes, shaking his head vigorously, trying to follow every move in the aerial battle. He found it impossible to track it all! He would see one exchange, and it would take him a thousandth of a second to comprehend the true intent behind the strike.
In mere seconds, the flurry of battle, dense as a rainstorm, abruptly ceased in the sky.
Qin Fen retreated a hundred meters, his enlarged body shrinking back to normal. His super-nanofiber battle suit showed no signs of damage, and no one could discern the final outcome of their exchange. The only certainty was that even if Qin Fen had lost, he hadn't been defeated nearly as badly as the Holy Six Stars had been by him.
“Not bad,” the Martial Venerable said, stretching his arms and looking up at the sky with a laugh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun. You are better than I imagined, which surprises me. Let’s go find Qilin.”
That was it? The crowd watched Qin Fen fly away without looking back, utterly bewildered. The previous roaring clamor of the Holy Martial Hall instantly vanished into dead silence. Everyone exchanged bewildered glances.