Chapter 42
Chapter 42: Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven
A raging torrent of energy erupted within him, resembling a waking volcano.
It crashed outward in unrelenting waves, its core essence feeling startlingly familiar to Yanghwi.
Immortal qi. This is undeniably immortal qi.
Every sacred herb and spirit pill bore its own distinct nature.
The Great Return Pill of Shaolin and the Supreme Clarity Pill of Wudang mirrored the righteous tenets of Buddhism or Daoism, holding the sacred purpose of pacifying agony and purging wicked elements.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng and the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Pear naturally granted the ultimate extremes of yin or yang qi.
Yet the inherent disposition coursing through the medicinal sphere he had swallowed was purely immortal qi.
The immortal qi radiating from his immortal core resonated harmoniously with the pill’s power, melting into his Harmonious Heaven qi and becoming an undivided whole.
So that was why my immortal core hungered for the elixir so fiercely… Whoa!
Clang!
He met the thrust of the lead assassin head-on.
befitting an operative of the shadows, the attacker’s weapon was an ultra-thin stiletto, far closer to an iron spit than a traditional broadsword or saber.
Bringing the blades together tip-to-tip, he applied sharp leverage to redirect the strike using the fundamental concept of the Pear Blossom technique.
Thwack!
In one fluid, fatal arc, he tore through more than half of his assailant’s windpipe.
Evading the falling corpse as it sputtered crimson fluid, Yanghwi ripped the thin skewer-like blade from the dead man’s fingers and hurled it with blinding velocity.
“Gah!”
The improvised projectile tore straight through the chest of the second assassin charging into range.
That lightning-fast dispatch bought him a precious second to refocus his mind.
First order of business: exterminate these vermin.
Only moments ago, crushing odds and a severe deficit in raw power had made such an ambition unthinkable.
Now, with this ocean of vitality surging within, squashing these pests will be effortless.
— Brother Gu, keep your focus entirely on the valley lord!
Sending the voice transmission, he drove the vibrant Harmonious Heaven qi across his physical frame.
He remained in a youthful vessel. His stamina was modest, his body unhardened, and his reserves of internal strength were pitifully shallow.
Those exact physical limits had kept his combat rank anchored in the lowly third-rate realm, despite his soul carrying every insight and martial comprehension from his previous lifetime.
Even so.
Give me an abundant ocean of internal energy, and almost any physical limitation vanishes!
He activated the Vessel Thousand Steps. Compressing a full thousand paces into one stride was still beyond his grasp, but covering ten paces—or considerably more—was well within reach.
Observing Yanghwi close the gap in a heartbeat, the foremost killer lunged forward with his narrow-point blade.
Stab!
Dodging the needle-point strike by a hair’s breadth with flawless, unhurried precision, Yanghwi buried his own steel cleanly through the killer’s neck.
“Swallowing an elixir doesn’t change the fact that he’s a runt! Swarm him together and tear him apart!”
Do these fools truly forget the old Jianghu warning never to underestimate women, elders, or children?
Killers flooded inward from every angle. Leaving only the zenith and nadir unoccupied, lethal points of cold iron converged upon him from all directions of the Six Harmonies.
“Underestimate a kid, and the only prize you get is an early grave, you dogs!”
A single glowing line flashed through Yanghwi’s perception, linking their incoming trajectories into one continuous thread.
Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords, Fifth Form.
[Hawk Feathers Scattering].
A singular sweep of his edge batted aside the thrusts converging from his flanks and front.
Catching the momentum to pivot around, he grabbed the needle-thin weapon stabbing at his spine with an empty hand.
Though shaped like a spit, the weapon still carried a razor-sharp edge.
With his ordinary physical conditioning, attempting such a barehanded deflection would have cost him his fingers, but palm and bone suffused with Harmonious Heaven qi repelled the lethal edge without issue.
“Drop dead.”
With a brutal pull on the captured blade, he dragged the assassin off-balance.
Yanghwi plunged his sword’s point directly between the man’s eyebrows.
One less nuisance.
He caught sight of the killers preparing a follow-up assault from three sides, his back remaining clear.
He dispatched the center opponent by launching the captured blade through the air, then twisted beneath the slash coming from the left.
“Oops!”
A failed strike in this dance meant immediate execution. The head of the attacker on the left sailed into the sky.
Unshaken by the gruesome fall of his ally, the operative on the right exploited the minuscule opening in Yanghwi’s stance.
The counterattack snapped toward him with inescapable speed and perfect timing.
Yet the sheer mass of Harmonious Heaven qi—swelling tens of times beyond his standard capacity—rewrote the rules of physical possibility.
Slash!
Erupting with true qi, he snapped his torso backward into an impossible right angle.
Slipping beneath the fatal arc while bent almost double, he sliced clean through both legs of the attacker to his right.
“Aaargh, cough!”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?”
“I-it hurts. I’m terrified. Please, show mercy… Cough!”
Silencing the pleading voice permanently, a trace of bewilderment flickered through Yanghwi’s thoughts.
“Terrified?”
The reapers of the Nameless Killing Valley were raised upon the Heartless Art.
They were meant to be unfeeling tools of slaughter, completely detached from human sentiment.
Yet that dying man had wept in genuine dread.
Could this odd transformation be an unforeseen result of the elixir’s influence?
Equally baffled by what had just occurred, another shadow operative barked across the yard.
“Brat. By what sorcery did you shatter the Heartless Art?”
Though the exact mechanics escaped him, Yanghwi projected cold, mocking indifference.
“Dying to find out? Offer your neck here, and I’ll explain it personally.”
“…”
“How monstrous. Moving without impediment after forcing down raw spiritual medicine…”
The killer’s suspicion was entirely grounded in logic.
By standard martial principles, the moment one swallowed an unrefined spirit pill, one had to immediately enter deep meditation to regulate the true qi.
Failing that, the violent explosion of unleashed power would easily rupture the meridians and blow the practitioner apart from the inside.
Had this essence failed to merge so seamlessly with my Harmonious Heaven qi, my body would have turned to mist already.
Furthermore, mastering the concept of mind-directed qi back at the Five Halls of Proper Sound proved to be an absolute blessing.
Without that foundational control, unleashing martial maneuvers of this caliber would have been impossible.
“Unrivaled talent turns the impossible into child’s play, you mediocre insect.”
“Is that the elixir’s power at work? Cut him down instantly, slit his stomach open, and harvest every drop of his blood.”
“It’s pure martial brilliance, not the pill. Stop flapping your lips and bring your necks forward. I’ll butcher every single one of you.”
“…Eight-interval coordination.”
At the command barked by the operative lingering at the back, eight assassins charged Yanghwi in immediate unison.
Their formation was so tight their hands nearly scraped the shoulders of the allies running ahead.
A seamless, single-file charge.
Yanghwi recognized the formation’s purpose the second he laid eyes on it.
Eight-interval coordination.
A literal fraction of a split second broken down.
The name revealed the entire mechanism.
Eight killers unleashing sequential blows spaced apart by one-eighth of a single clash.
A suicide formation designed specifically for disposable foot soldiers to overwhelm an exceptional grandmaster through relentless attrition.
As expected of heartless assassins, throwing their own lives away means nothing to them. You wretches, did you really think I wouldn’t recognize your suicide drill?!
Bzzzzzt!
Yanghwi’s blade vibrated intensely, humming with the frenzied resonance of a hornet’s wings.
As the column barreled forward, he deflected the first blade and severed the vanguard’s neck.
Before the corpse could hit the dirt, the second needle-point blade was already streaking toward the bridge of his nose.
Tilting his head away to dodge the lethal path, he rammed his own sword straight through the second man’s forehead in kind.
Yet before he could even yank his blade free, the third thrust was already tunneling toward his chest.
An endless, overlapping barrage designed to strike before a target could recover their balance or reset their stance.
That relentless continuity was precisely what made mutual destruction maneuvers like the eight-interval coordination so terrifying.
Once the counter-strategy is known, this tactic is just throwing away lives like dogs!
Slipping away from the tip aimed at his vital center, he launched himself backward into a leap.
A fatal convergence capable of trading cannon fodder for a master?
Certainly, if the target foolishly stayed planted in one spot trading blocks and blows, it was lethal.
What kind of idiot would stand still like an iron pillar?
Stab! Slash! Thud!
Gliding backward with evasive footwork, he steadily widened the playing field. As the distance stretched, fatal cracks splintered through the tight timing of the eight-interval coordination.
Forcibly breaking their rhythmic strike windows using empty space.
This was the absolute undoing of any assassin’s suicide march.
Slash! Pierce! Crack!
Cutting down the eighth attacker in succession, Yanghwi snapped his wrist to fling the scarlet fluid off his edge.
“How pitiful. Your numbers are down by half, and not one of you managed to land a scratch on a kid.”
“…”
Having undergone the brutal conditioning of the Heartless Art, their eyes remained devoid of raw terror.
Even if the pill’s immortal qi possessed the power to unravel their mental seals, experience showed that their psychological barrier only shattered once an attack drew blood.
Nevertheless, cold logic told them that pressing the assault meant absolute slaughter, forcing the remaining killers to halt their advance.
Yanghwi gave them no breathing room.
“It’s my turn, you dogs!”
Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords, First Form.
[Arrow Feathers Pierce Rock].
A projectile unleashed with sheer might capable of boring clean through boulders.
The thrust carrying that catastrophic kinetic force smashed through the raised parrying blade, driving the point deep into the killer’s solar plexus.
“Urk?! The agony! It hurts, it burns!”
Ignoring the assassin bawling like an infant, he shifted his sight to the next mark.
Harnessing momentum as though vaulting multiple zhang in a single leap, he slammed a heavy stride forward.
Yanghwi drove his shoulder violently into the falling body.
Thwack! Thump! Stab!
Even as their dying compatriot was turned into a makeshift shield, the remaining killers drove their blades home without a second thought.
The sharp ringing of steel biting into living tissue tore the air.
Before they could retract their buried weapons, he shoved the lifeless barrier downward to pry open their defenses, sweeping his sword in a wide arc.
“Do you wretches possess zero loyalty to your own kind?!”
Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords, Fifth Form.
[Hawk Feathers Scattering].
Fourth Variation, Second Variation, Fifth Variation, Sixth Variation.
Executing the Vessel Thousand Steps, he wove effortlessly through his sequences.
With each dynamic step, his edge drew dazzling ribbons of silver.
A sword dance carrying the brutal lethality of an apex raptor’s talons.
A continuous torrent of chained martial forms decimated the clearing.
“Phew. Only two of you left?”
With the rank-and-file annihilated, only three threats remained alive, counting the valley lord himself.
It felt almost fortunate that these pawns were chained to the Heartless Art.
Had they retained their common senses, raw terror would have sent them scattering long ago.
“Step up. Who wants to go into the dirt first?”
“…”
“…”
Trading a brief glance, the last two killers bolted in opposite directions.
Even stripped of emotion, no living creature welcomed oblivion.
Their basic survival instincts aren’t entirely dead after all.
An unfortunate effort. They were far too slow.
He directed the volcanic reserves of true qi bubbling through his vessels directly into his blade.
Snapping one foot down hard against the earth to generate explosive force, he hurled the weapon forward along the same line of momentum.
Whooosh!
“Aaargh!”
Launched with sickening velocity and crushing momentum, the flying steel punched entirely through the runner’s back. Watching the man collapse, Yanghwi pivoted toward the opposite side.
One lingering rat is nothing, even without a weapon in hand.
Though the last assassin had put substantial ground between them, it meant nothing against Yanghwi’s stride when fueled by the volcanic energy of the elixir.
“Making me run around? What an annoying chore.”
Stamping into the dirt with immense propulsion, he drove his knee forward like a battering ram.
The final assassin crumpled lifelessly, his spine completely crushed by the impact of Yanghwi’s flying knee.
“Whew. That was far too close to the grave.”
Hardly the demeanor one expected from someone who had just wiped out an entire squad of shadow operatives single-handedly.
Yet his relief at stepping away from death’s doorstep was entirely genuine.
Regardless of how sharp his instincts were, downing an unverified pill had been an insane gamble.
Luck had carried him through, but the slightest miscalculation would have scattered his bones then and there.
Now only that valley lord dog remains.
Yanghwi bolted toward the Yu Estate.
Just ahead, Gu Ak and the Master of Nameless Killing Valley remained locked in a brutal clash of blades.
Clang! Cl-cl-clang!
Unlike the earlier phase of the battle, pure desperation now tainted the Valley Lord’s sword forms.
Whenever the valley lord sought a gap to disengage and flee, Gu Ak drove forward with relentless pressure.
“Brother Gu! I’m moving in!”
“Gwahaha! Join the fun!”
At that moment, the Master of Nameless Killing Valley roared in outrage.
“You boast of upholding the righteous path, yet you stoop to ganging up on a lone combatant?!”
“Damn right!”
“…”
“A back-alley assassin lecturing anyone on martial honor? Don’t make me laugh!”
Within a fleeting moment, the two overpowered the Master of Nameless Killing Valley, pressing him to the earth upon his knees.
“Phew. I thought our lives were forfeit, yet look at this outcome. Little Brother, where on earth did that sudden explosion of martial mastery come from?”
Bypassing the question entirely, Yanghwi gave swift instructions.
“Brother Gu. Seal that dog’s acupoints and watch over me for a moment.”
Consuming high-tier spirit medicine demanded immediate stillness and circulating qi.
Only through that focused refinement could the boundless vitality be properly guided into the dantian.
Thinking about it now, the loss is painful. If these wretches hadn’t interfered, I could have meditated immediately…
Yanghwi sank cross-legged onto the earth without delay.
This marked the first time he had ingested an elixir in his current lifetime, and he refused to waste a solitary thread of its essence.
He had to channel every scrap he could muster directly into his dantian.
I’m transforming every last drop into internal energy!
Bracing his focus, Yanghwi launched into the most desperate session of qi circulation across both his lifetimes.
Then, pure astonishment washed over him.
Hold on… What is happening…?
He had engaged in a blood-soaked melee immediately after swallowing the medicine, skipping all initial refinement.
Though essential for staying alive, it was practically the same as spilling divine medicine into the dirt.
Yet right before his inner senses…
The elixir’s immortal qi, which had scattered throughout every muscle and vessel, was flowing cleanly into Yanghwi’s dantian, with not a single droplet lost to the void.
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