Chapter 46
Chapter 46
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter:
Chapter Title: Duel with Li Tianqing
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chen Shi unleashed his full power, charging toward Li Tianqing. Only then did Li Tianqing realize that Chen Shi's claim of being faster than spells within five zhang was no empty boast!
Chen Shi's speed was indeed faster than his spells. In one step, he arrived before Li Tianqing. His body whipped up a gale of gang qi, his momentum like a prehistoric beast lunging forward, oppressive enough to stifle one's breath!
Even faster was Chen Shi's hand.
He threw out a punch, producing a muffled thunderclap that boomed toward Li Tianqing's head. The fist wind bore down, wrinkling his facial skin and even giving him the sensation of cerebral ischemia.
Cultivators fear thunderous sounds the most, for heavenly tribulations come in the form of thunderbolts, and such sounds can shatter souls.
Even those who have formed golden cores, nascent souls, or primordial spirits must tread carefully against thunder echoing from the nine heavens. Great clans like the Li family have strict rules: during thunderstorms, one absolutely cannot refine golden cores or send nascent souls or primordial spirits out of the body.
Someone in the Li family once sent their primordial spirit out during a thunderstorm and was blasted by lightning, their soul pulverized amid the thunderous vibrations.
Every year in the West Ox New Continent, numerous cultivators refining their golden cores suddenly encounter rolling thunder from the sky—even on perfectly clear days, thunder rumbles from one side of the heavens, sliding across to the other.
Faced with such aberrant thunder, cultivators can only chalk it up to bad luck as their golden cores shatter amid the rumbling, meeting their end.
The thunderous sound from Chen Shi's punch was naturally far inferior to heavenly thunder, but it still dealt a massive blow to Li Tianqing's spiritual will. For a Divine Embryo Realm cultivator with feeble spirit and shaky resolve, merely hearing the thunder would rob them of the courage to resist, let alone counterattack.
Li Tianqing could counterattack.
His Divine Shrine Divine Embryo had been primed during the demonstration of the Six Yin Jade Wheels, bypassing the activation step. Moreover, the Li family's Six Yin Jade Wheels were most ingenious as an art blending offense and defense—the jade wheels forged from true qi could orbit one's limbs, assuming a defensive posture.
Should an enemy strike, they would collide with the jade wheel and be sliced apart by its razor-sharp edge!
Most critically, the jade wheels were intangible, nearly invisible to the naked eye, making them impossible to guard against.
A jade wheel had already activated at his shoulder. Taiyin Spleen Meridian true qi circulated, surging forth with his left hand's Taiyin Earth Seal to meet Chen Shi's fist!
At the same time, Taiyin Lung Meridian true qi flowed, accompanying his right hand's Taiyin Metal Seal as it slashed toward Chen Shi's neck.
These two wheels formed of true qi—one encircling his arm, the other soaring through the air—were marvels of intricacy unlike anything Chen Shi had witnessed.
Yet just as his two jade wheels erupted, Chen Shi suddenly perceived their trajectories and directions.
Composed of true qi, the jade wheels were imperceptible to the naked eye. Even straining his eyes, Chen Shi couldn't discern their sword-qi paths. But he didn't look—instead, through his body's instincts alone, he sensed two foreign presences closing in.
He could even clearly register their origins and speeds in his mind.
This perception was utterly wondrous, as if the true qi forming the jade wheels compressed the air, subtly stirring his body hairs in response, or as if his spirit emanated outward, detecting the invading true qi.
Profound beyond words.
When he first cultivated true blood, every quiver of his body hairs registered in his mind. Now, with his Sacred Embryo Body achieved, this sensitivity had intensified, extending two or three chi beyond his skin!
But Chen Shi had no leisure to ponder. His body outpaced his thoughts: the instant he sensed the jade wheels' paths, he altered his strike. The punch aimed at Li Tianqing's face became a palm, slapping downward with crushing force!
The moment his palm root met the jade wheel's edge, his figure flipped skyward. His right foot stepped forth as if treading the void itself, inverting head-over-feet to evade the other jade wheel slicing at his waist.
From his sole, the Tianquan Star Talisman detonated, starlight suffusing his entire body.
The missed jade wheel spun wildly and returned, tracking Li Tianqing's arm toward the airborne Chen Shi at blinding speed.
Simultaneously, Chen Shi's palm clashed with the jade wheel's edge, ringing out like clashing metal. The intangible jade wheel shattered, unable to endure Chen Shi's might.
Chen Shi had planned to smash this jade wheel and, in his inverted stance, slam his other palm onto Li Tianqing's crown, claiming his life in one strike.
But Li Tianqing reacted too swiftly—if he followed through, his own waist would be severed!
Before Chen Shi's mind could formulate a plan, his body already acted, using the momentum from shattering the jade wheel to flip backward, landing five zhang distant.
No sooner had he touched down than he detected five jade wheels of true qi flying at him from all sides. Their speeds varied wildly—now leading, now trailing, darting left then right; some streaked like lightning, others crawled sluggishly—profoundly arcane.
The errant jade wheel soon rejoined them, six in total.
Li Tianqing advanced with Jade Ring Steps, closing in to slay. His hands and feet wove in bizarre patterns, his six seals shifting simultaneously at ferocious speed!
He trod upon rings large and small, tangent one to another, rendering his footwork impossibly elusive. Commanding six jade wheels at once made his assault perilously lethal!
Chen Shi invoked the Big Dipper Seven Stars, fluidly cycling Tianxuan Steps, Tianji Steps, Yuheng Steps, and more. His form flickered like a specter, darting with lightning swiftness to evade wheel after wheel.
Each step detonated a star talisman, starlight coiling about him, tempering his body and sustaining peak prowess at every instant!
The ground hissed where sharp edges grazed, rocks parting silently with mirror-flat cleavages!
Such was the dread potency of spells!
Yet for all the Six Yin Jade Wheels' refinement, not a hair on Chen Shi was harmed.
In these fleeting moments, Chen Shi was driven back sixteen zhang!
Across sixteen zhang, the Six Yin Jade Wheels whipped to and fro like gales, sweeping all before them. Trees and boulders in their path either burst asunder or sheared neatly in twain!
Chen Shi's steps danced unpredictably as he hurtled forward, only to behold Li Tianqing's silhouette blur—this was the apparition born of Six Yin Jade Wheels encasing his frame, vibrating at utmost velocity.
Chen Shi pressed the assault on Li Tianqing, yet could not pierce the jade-wheel bulwark for the nonce. One careless lapse would sever limb from limb, leaving him trammelled and stifled.
Abruptly, he sensed three jade wheels bearing down on his upper, middle, and lower vitals. He evaded in a flash, hearing three sharp thwacks: a water-bucket-thick tree behind him took three hits, nearly hacked into four at the trunk.
The Six Yin Jade Wheels were the most exquisite technique he had beheld, yet in raw power, they paled against the Submeridian Evil-Cleaving Sword.
Were it the latter, a single sword qi would fell that tree—no need for three.
Chen Shi lashed out with a leg, felling the tree in a thunderous crash. He seized it and barreled toward Li Tianqing!
The thousand-jin trunk weighed nothing in his grasp, his charge undiminished!
Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!
Intangible jade rings flipped and whirled, splintering wood in sprays. Chen Shi flung the canopy; in a heartbeat, the six jade wheels reduced the tree to airborne confetti of bark, shards, and foliage.
Yet through the maelstrom of debris, Chen Shi discerned the six jade wheels' courses crystal-clear.
Before, he had relied on arcane "sensing"—wondrous yet ethereal, inferior to the stark verity of sight.
Eyes enabled swifter reprisal.
The instant he traced their paths, explosive force surged from his feet, propelling him toward Li Tianqing!
His footwork twisted kaleidoscopically, bounding past wheel after wheel. A punch thundered forth, fist wind roiling. Brushing the flying shards, it hurled them shrieking like arrows at Li Tianqing.
Li Tianqing could not evade; shards raked and pierced his face, body, arms, and legs.
The splinters posed no mortal threat. The true peril was Chen Shi's plummeting fist!
This blow would pulverize his skull!
As the fist neared his face, Li Tianqing's form blurred anew—the hallmark of Six Yin Jade Wheels whirling about him!
Simultaneously, Chen Shi sensed a foreign presence rocketing from the left.
Without hesitation, he sidestepped right—and spied Li Jindou's footprints on the ground.
Li Jindou had demarcated the Ghost God Domain with those prints: beyond lay safety, within, the domain's grasp.
"He's clever!"
Chen Shi grasped Li Tianqing's scheme: drive him into the Ghost God Domain, and victory was assured.
To Li Tianqing, entry spelled doom unerring.
Thus, herding Chen Shi inside would end him.
He knew not that Chen Shi had prowled this Ghost God Domain countless turns, intimately as his own hearth. It posed no threat to his life.
But should Chen Shi dwindle to a foot-high porcelain doll, strength evaporated, Li Tianqing could slay him effortlessly.
Even so, prior to that, Chen Shi's fist would cave in his cranium!
Chen Shi's fist halted at his visage, might held in check.
In the same breath, a hand seized his left wrist, yanking back the teetering Chen Shi from the Ghost God Domain's brink.
The Six Yin Jade Wheels froze, hovering at Chen Shi's waist.
Chen Shi righted himself, retracting his fist.
Li Tianqing dissipated his wheels.
Moments later, they sat upon the ground—Chen Shi braced behind with both hands, Li Tianqing listlessly flicking grass blades.
"Killing a friend I've just made... I couldn't bring myself to do it."
"Same here. I have no friends—you're my only one right now."
"I don't have any friends either."
The two shared a smile.
"I killed Li Xiaoding because someone stole my Divine Embryo. I heard he'd transplanted another's to pass the juren exam, so I assumed it was mine."
Chen Shi recounted the antecedents and aftermath of slaying Li Xiaoding.
"Later, I learned I'd gotten the wrong man."
"My cousin was a utter rotter, perpetrating atrocities in Water Buffalo County. Killing him was no loss. The yamen's indictment scrolls on him stacked this high, all buried without trial. Zhuge Jian penned them. Unable to see justice done, he must harbor deep grudge."
Li Tianqing felt Chen Shi's pain keenly—his own clansmen had nearly excised his Divine Embryo too.
"Li Xiaoding's case was yours, so my Seventh Uncle Li Kefa's must be your grandpa's work. Rest easy—I won't speak of it. I won't sell out a friend for scum."
Chen Shi rallied, beaming.
"If time allows tomorrow, I'll take you magao hunting. Magao are a riot. The name includes 'horse,' but they're no horses—just tree-dwelling beasts blending horse and giant monkey, leaping like flyers. Spot one, stay cool, creep under the tree, then loose a sword qi to snap its perch. It tumbles down dazed; rope it, truss it up—done deal."
Li Tianqing blinked.
"Then what?"
"Haul 'em to market for coin. Captured magao behave. Farming peaks draw buyers from ten, twenty li around. Train 'em light, and they harvest crops—just scraps to stave off starvation."
Chen Shi elaborated.
"Prime ones forage solo, return sated to toil. Off-season, heavy lifting. Low chow, high output—hot sellers."
Li Tianqing's eyes gleamed expectantly.
Chen Shi grinned.
"I've hunted magao for tuition cash, but lacking Submeridian Evil-Cleaving Sword, they vault tree-to-tree, vanished in winks. Your Six Yin Jade Wheels shine, though. Teamed up, we'll bag a haul!"
Li Tianqing nodded vigorously.
Their brawl had forged deeper bonds.
Suddenly, radiant divine light erupted from the Kiln Works.
Li Jindou's porcelain doll form bolted out, bedraggled, three ten-zhang-tall kiln workers hot on his heels.
Fleeing wildly, the doll jabbered at Chen Shi and Li Tianqing outside—shrill warbles like birdsong, incomprehensible.
The doll cleared the Kiln Works and landed. Li Jindou's primordial spirit summoned torrents of mana, shrouding the doll. Beneath the spirit's glow, his porcelain flesh reverted bit by bit, Divine Shrine Divine Embryo shedding petrification incrementally.
Chen Shi watched in awe.
Turning porcelain yet battling kiln workers to escape—prodigious prowess.
"His cultivation's vastness astounds; reversing porcelainization? Laudable," Chen Shi mused inwardly.
"Not good!"
Li Jindou yelped. The restored flesh now re-porcelainized!
Cold sweat beaded his porcelain brow.
He cried,
"This Ghost God Domain's horrors overwhelm! I'm wounded—primordial spirit alone can't fend the mutation! Tianqing, Chen Shi, get me back to the village fast!"
But neither comprehended his chirps.