Chapter 81: You Bite Me, I’ll Bite Too

Slowly he opened his eyes. Milky-white qi streamed through his meridians and over his whole body, and as he sensed his power swelling, a fierce surge of confidence rose within him.

His right fist tightened. In a burst of explosive force, one punch snapped out. A phantom white halo of power struck the distant hillside in an instant. With a thunderous roar, the entire slope shattered open; shockwaves rolled, boulders flew, and thorn-flowers that failed to dodge were pierced through their stems by the flying stones, green sap gushing out of them.

When the dust settled, a pit some ten meters deep yawned on the slope. “What a domineering energy,” Leng Tian muttered. He was stunned that such destruction had come from a single casual punch.

He let his spirit sink back into his dantian, feeling the milky qi already spread as vast as a sea. He had only stirred a sliver of it, and still it was this powerful. If he could gather it all, even a Xuan-grade master would be little more than a joke before him.

Leng Tian tried to draw forth the qi continuously, condensing it into his fist. The milky qi surged through the meridians into his right hand. As more of it flooded in, the meridians began to sting, then throb with a pressure that felt as though they might rupture.
“How is this possible?” He was startled. Even with his current physical strength, he could scarcely bear the impact of this milky qi. Could this new energy be more ruthless than the true essence of a martial contender?

He kept increasing the amount to test how much his meridians could endure. Only when they began to be torn by the ferocity of the force did he finally stop.

“Just this little amount, and I can’t stand it! What kind of power is this—more terrifying than true essence itself!”

Leng Tian released the energy from his right fist; the damaged meridians healed on their own. A heavy shadow crossed his brow. “Then unless I ascend the Platinum Saint Body, I cannot command all of it. But at this stage, even one full transformation of this qi is enough to hold my own against a Xuan stronghold without losing.”

After a long breath, a measure of relief entered him. Yet his face tightened again as he looked up at the azure broadsword still floating above. His spirit brushed it with a faint thread of sense: the same vast, remote atmosphere that coursed through his dantian’s milky qi seemed to cling to the blade as well.

Relying on that link, he lifted both hands and gripped the hilt. For a heartbeat, it felt as though he held the whole world in his grasp, as though one swing could cleave space itself.

The greatsword gave him no crushing force, only soul-sensory resonance. He let out a roar and, with both hands locking the hilt, swung forward.

“Damn—” Youda gasped when he saw Leng Tian raise the azure blade and cry out while slashing toward the lake. Terror flashed through him, and he vanished in an instant, fleeing without a trace.

“Thunk.”

The azure blade crashed into the earth with a brutal thud. The hard ground caved into a human-sized crater, swallowing the sword as well.

“Kh…kh…”
Struggling to his feet, clenched around the azure blade, Leng Tian sucked in sharp breaths. “So heavy…”

“Ah—”
Heaving, veins bulging across his face, he forced the sword out of the packed earth only to find he could not lift it even a hair.

“Hnn…”

The blade hummed, then turned into a ribbon of blue light and shot into Leng Tian’s dantian. Instantly, his hands felt light. He wiped sweat from his brow, feeling his whole body go weak and drained.

“Monstrous weight. Who in their right mind could swing this thing?”

Since the azure broadsword had flashed with world-splitting radiance in the Lianyun Mountains, slaying an Abyssal Demon during the struggle against the Earth Fiend, it had inexplicably slipped into his dantian. Ever since, it had never shown itself again until this day’s ascension, when it suddenly emerged and transformed his power into an entirely new kind of true energy.

Now that it had returned to the dantian and floated silently above the sea of qi, a dim blue halo spread from its blade, spreading across the entire milky-white qi ocean.

Leng Tian could clearly sense that under that light, the boundless ocean of qi was changing—gaining subtle strength. Not by sheer quantity, but by density, by quality.

He gently stirred a wisp of qi into his palm. At once, a milky crescent blade flickered, unstable and ravenous. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Youda floating on the lake’s surface. A faint smile touched his mouth; he flicked his arm, and a handspan-long moon-shaped blade shot out at impossible speed.

“Shit!” Youda shrieked inside himself. As the crescent neared, he dissolved into a wisp of smoke and fled the little lake in panic.

The milky crescent skimmed over the water and flashed. Clear lakewater split in two, revealing a pebbled bottom. Two walls of water rose on either side, and an imperial fish shot out from one side directly into the other. With a violent crack, the opposing walls rushed together in an instant, sending up wave after wave.

The same crescent blade crossed the opposite bank and gouged a long trench through the grassland before shattering against a massive tree. A trunk nearly an inch thick split cleanly in two; yet the halves, barely separated, had not even reached the ground when a faint breeze came and scattered them apart like torn rags.

Leng Tian watched all of it, delighted. Only true essence was supposed to generate such blades, and yet this milky qi could do it with ease. That meant the new qi formed by reaching the Peak of the Heavenly Rank could stand toe to toe with Xuan-level power.

If the Heavenly Rank could match Xuan, then once he entered Xuan—no, as long as he could command all his milky qi, he would likely defeat almost anyone. Only first-rate powers like Du Qingfeng and Yan Nanfui would likely stand in his way.

Leng Tian licked his lips and calmed his excitement. He knew clearly that all of this was thanks to the azure blade in his dantian. Without it, even if he reached the Peak of Heavenly Wrath, he would have only multiplied his qi a few times, never this great a qualitative change.

“Boss, you scared the life out of me. That last move was terrifying. The strange energy inside that milky crescent gave me the creeps!”

Youda appeared suddenly at Leng Tian’s side, pale and shaken.
“Boss, you nearly killed me. That last strike was terrifying. The strange force in that milky crescent gave me the chills.”

As soon as Leng Tian saw Youda come back, a flash of killing intent flashed in his eyes. Crimson light flared in his dantian, and before Youda could react, a cry burst from him as Leng Tian pulled him into the Inferno.

In the Inferno, Youda’s whole body trembled at the rolling thunder. Not far ahead, sprawled on the ground, lay a lump of black charcoal. Yet beneath its inky surface, a pair of green eyes gleamed, staring straight at him.

“Why does this lump feel…so familiar?” Youda peered at it. It seemed known somehow, but he could not place where he had seen it.

Then beneath those slick green eyes, a row of pure white, razor-sharp teeth glinted. The coal-mass gaped wide, vomiting a stream of scorched black breath. A hoarse, furious voice rasped out:

“Accursed human. You dare to insult the noble Sky-Slaying Leopard? I will tear you apart in ten thousand pieces!”

“Boom.”
An arm-thick red lightning bolt crashed down and slammed into its maw, forcing the words back inward.

“Damn! It’s that stupid leopard!” Youda jerked away. Even in the Inferno, he didn’t want to stand close and get caught by collateral thunder.

“Roar…”

Struck by the lightning-punishment, the Sky-Slaying Leopard saw Youda now far away. Its fury had no outlet and found a fresh target before it. It would not let him go.

A black lightning flashed to Youda in a blink. From the leopard’s eyes, two dark, one-cubit blades shot out, aimed straight at his face.

“Damn it—how is this thing still so lively?” Youda immediately dissolved into Void-State and dodged both death-stares.
The space twisted, and he emerged awkwardly in his true form.

“Boss! Why did you do this? I’m your junior! Why break my Void-State for nothing?”

Youda snapped.

Leng Tian’s tone turned icy. “You drank down a thousand imperial fish in one breath, and you made such a show of it. And then you had all the fish bodies fed to thorn-flowers. You and that black lump can go scrub yourselves with thunder-rain!”

A cold shiver ran through Youda, and fear stirred in him. “My luck choosing friends is terrible. Why did I trust that rotten flower to keep my secret? It sold me out almost at once—there’s an old saying: never trust your own kind, for they only devour their kind first.”

“Boom.”
“Boom.”
Two more bolts of punishment lightning came down, knocking both Youda and the Sky-Slaying Leopard to the ground. Though struck, the leopard did not stop attacking.

As Youda fell, it leapt and bit down hard on one of his short legs. “Ah!”
His mouth twisted in pain.

“What kind of teeth are these? They can even bite through my Formless True Body!” Youda tried to claw at the ground and pull forward, scrambling to free himself from the leopard’s jaws.

“Hmm… You think your so-called Formless Shadow Demon is great? Before me, your Formless True Body is nothing but decoration,” the Sky-Slaying Leopard growled. Its jaws locked tight, its pointed teeth flashing with black light, holding Youda’s leg without release.

“Boom…”
Again came a series of lightning strikes, making both bodies convulse. “No… it’s breaking… it’s tearing…”
When the leopard was jolted by the thunder, its muscles seized, and its jaws clenched all the tighter, two rows of teeth boring deep into Youda’s thigh.

The leopard’s bite did not truly wound Youda physically. Its real danger lay in the black light on its teeth, which countered and wore down Youda’s Formless True Body bit by bit, draining his true-body energy.

Unable to break free, fury lashing into his mind, Youda also roared and lunged back at the Sky-Slaying Leopard. His mouth suddenly widened, and two rows of broad flat teeth clamped hard onto the beast’s foreleg wound as he shouted, “You bite me—I bite too!”

Peak of Martial Art, Chapter 81: You Bite Me, I'll Bite You — Completed.