"Can you stop shouting?" Mu Chen said calmly. His voice was not loud, yet it possessed a strange, penetrating quality that cut through the cacophony of the thousand clashing disciples below.
He stood up from the ornate golden chair with a slow, leisurely grace, as if he were merely rising from a nap in a quiet courtyard rather than presiding over a vertical battlefield.
Beside him, even Nibi, who had been intently watching the frantic struggles of the other cultivators with a critical eye, turned her head to look at Lu Feng. There was a visible flicker of irritation in her amber depths.
She had been having a perfectly good time judging the mediocre performances of the outer disciples, and this loud, green-clad intruder was disrupting her entertainment. She let out a soft huff, her five tails twitching in a rhythmic dance of feline annoyance.
"Mu Chen, you are looking for death!" Lu Feng roared, his face contorting with a mixture of wounded pride and manic determination.
This was not merely a fight for a platform; for Lu Feng, this battle was the ultimate stake for his dignity. He was the favoured genius of the Southern Domain, a man who was going to win here and then choose sword peak.
He held nothing back.
A violent, dark green life energy erupted from his body, expanding into a swirling storm of spiritual pressure. The sheer weight of his aura caused a visible ripple in the air, sending a wave of oppression washing over the thousands of disciples fighting on the lower stone platforms.
At the middle stage of the Nascent Soul realm, Lu Feng's cultivation had already far surpassed the vast majority of his peers. He was a mountain among hills, and as his power flared, the golden light of the pyramid seemed to dim beneath the emerald hue of his Qi.
Whistle!
The air shrieked as Lu Feng moved. In a blink, he appeared directly in front of Mu Chen. The dark green life energy coiled around his fist like a striking serpent, condensing into a point of terrifying density. A strong wind howled around him, the friction of his movement heating the air into a searing gale.
Mu Chen watched the punch coming toward his face with the same detached curiosity one might show a falling leaf. He simply extended a single finger to meet the full force of Lu Feng's assault.
The collision was silent for a fraction of a second before the world seemed to scream. The fabric of space between the finger and the fist buckled, and a massive shockwave travelled outward in a perfect circle. The surrounding mountains echoed with the thunderous impact before they crumbled, and the shockwave struck the disciples still engaged in combat mid-air.
Those caught in the invisible ripple felt their protective barriers shatter like glass. Bones cracked, and dozens of cultivators coughed up mouthfuls of blood as they were thrown downward like broken kites.
Mu Chen flicked his finger slightly— measured, controlled but effortless movement.
Lu Feng felt an irresistible force surge through his arm, and he was sent staggering back, his heels skidding along the ancient stone until he reached the very edge of the golden platform.
Mu Chen remained exactly where he had stood, his feet having never moved an inch. He idly stroked Nibi's fur, the cat purring softly as she leaned into his touch, her eyes never leaving the stumbling Lu Feng.
"Still want to try?" Mu Chen asked.
High above the clouds, the lords of the peaks watched the display with narrowed eyes. Wu Hong, the massive, iron-skinned Peak Master of Hongya Peak, let out a low whistle of appreciation.
"His physical strength seems more impressive than his soul," Wu Hong observed, his voice like the grinding of mountains. "It looks like he has cultivated inner strength. His constitution is rare; he is perfectly suited for the path of body cultivation."
As he breathed, a dull, thunder-like sound emanated from his body; the roar of his blood as it flowed indicated the immense strength of his physical body.
Mu Chen's actions were, once again, fundamentally misunderstood by the elites. It wasn't their fault—within their understanding, such feats could only be achieved by those who had refined their bodies into living weapons.
At the pinnacle of body cultivation, one could attain an undying body.
"In this old man's opinion, body cultivation arts can easily dull the mind," the White-browed Elder countered, shaking his head slowly. His long, snowy brows fluttered in the spiritual wind. "Brute force is a crude tool. His soul power is far more suitable for the delicate complexities of formations and runes."
His intention was quite clear to the other masters; he had already placed Mu Chen in his sights and had no intention of letting the boy be wasted on a path of mere physical violence.
Down on the platform, Lu Feng's face was pale. He frowned as he felt a persistent trembling deep within his marrow. The impact had left his arm numb and his spiritual sea turbulent.
However, instead of recognizing the insurmountable gap between them and stopping, his pride proved to be his undoing. His fighting spirit, fuelled by an arrogance, was aroused to a fever pitch. He would not be the genius who was defeated by a finger.
"Fingers of Destruction!"
Lu Feng's profound Qi burst forth in a desperate explosion. A beam of brilliant light rose from his dantian, piercing the heavens and causing the clouds to scatter. High above the golden platform, the energy condensed into three gargantuan, spectral fingers. They were so massive that they seemed to tear the very sky away, looming over the ceremony like the hands of a vengeful god.
The giant fingers were covered in intricate, ancient patterns that glowed with a sickly green light, exuding a sense of profound antiquity and vicissitude. The spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth began to boil in response to the technique, as if the fingers of the apocalypse themselves had descended to carry out a destructive and violent sentence.
Space warped and distorted around the descending monuments of energy.
The lower stone platforms, which had been reinforced by the arrays to handle the competition of nascent soul experts, began to rumble and groan. As the three fingers descended, the golden platform—the highest and most durable of them all—began to fissure. Cracks spread like a rapidly growing spiderweb, stopping cleanly short of Mu Chen as if that space simply did not belong to them.
Mu Chen looked up at the three fingers falling toward him, their shadows darkening the day. He didn't look worried. In fact, he looked almost bored as he reached up and scratched behind Nibi's ear. The cat purred in contentment, closing her eyes as she enjoyed the show of lights and the tactile comfort of his hand.
Around Mu Chen, countless translucent needles took shape—fine, nearly invisible, yet impossibly sharp. They rose.
Puff. Puff. Puff.
The needles collided with the massive fingers, and the result was instantaneous. They did not struggle or push; they simply pierced through the energy as if the concept of resistance did not even exist. The gargantuan monuments of Qi shattered into a million golden particles, dissipating harmlessly between heaven and earth like falling stardust.
Lu Feng was hit by the immediate backlash of his shattered technique. He coughed up a thick spray of crimson blood and fell to his knees, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps.
He clutched his chest, desperately trying to circulate his spiritual energy, which was now running wildly through his body. He knew that if he failed to calm the storm within himself in the next few moments, the uncontrolled Qi would destroy his meridians.
Mu Chen looked down at the kneeling genius and asked, "Satisfied?"
In Mu Chen's mind, this should have been the end. Surely, after seeing his greatest technique popped like a bubble, Lu Feng would have learned the depth of the gap and stopped himself. But he had underestimated the sheer, blinded madness of a man whose entire identity was tied to being "the best."
"Mu Chen... you made me do it!" Lu Feng hissed. He endured the pain and forced his trembling hands into a series of complex hand seals.
Dark green Source Qi surged out of the void itself, drawn by the sacrifice of Lu Feng's own life essence. It formed a number of green stars, each the size of a mountain, floating high in the atmosphere. They eclipsed the sun, casting a sickly, apocalyptic shadow, giving everyone present a terrifying feeling of imminent doomsday.
Mu Chen let out a long, weary sigh. This was no longer a competition; the boy had become an annoying, buzzing bug that simply wouldn't go away.
Mu Chen was in front of Lu Feng. There was no ripple of movement in space, no blur of speed — he was simply there.
He slapped Lu Feng across the face.
Pah.
The sound arrived a half-second late, as if even noise needed time to process what had occurred.
Before Lu Feng could even process what had happened, he was launched into the air, thrown off the golden platform with such force that he became a mere speck against the clouds. Several teeth flew out of his mouth, trailing arcs of crimson blood through the sky.
The "Green Stars" technique, deprived of its anchor, dispersed instantly in mid-air. Ordinarily, such a sudden interruption would have caused a fatal backlash, but instead of destroying him, his spiritual energy, which had been running wildly toward self-destruction, was suddenly and forcefully calmed, forced back into its proper channels.
Boom!
Lu Feng landed heavily on the tenth silver platform which luckily happened to be vacant, the impact cracking the reinforced stone beneath him. His body lay there, twitching sporadically as his mind tried to catch up with the reality of his displacement. He managed to push himself up with great difficulty, his face swollen and his eyes vacant. He looked up at the golden platform, far above him, but this time, he didn't roar.
The slap seemed to have finally knocked some life into his dead brain cells. The blind arrogance had been physically ejected from his skull.
"I... I admit defeat," Lu Feng said, his voice raspy and humble. He slumped down onto the silver platform.
Lu Feng would likely still hold this position. Even though he had lost to Mu Chen, to every other disciple in the outer mountains—with the possible exception of Shen Xi—he was still an insurmountable wall.
Mu Chen nodded, a small smile appearing as he looked down at Nibi. "Looks like the slap is truthfully the most powerful technique in the world,"
Nibi let out a long, affirmative meow of agreement, her tails swishing with satisfaction.
Mu Chen turned his gaze toward the second silver platform. Shen Xi was there, waving at him with a mischievous smile. She sat leisurely, runes and defensive formations already layered across the entire platform. Anyone foolish enough to step onto it would not leave without paying a heavy price.
As Mu Chen turned back toward the golden seat, the deep cracks on the golden platform repaired themselves instantly until the stone was as smooth and unblemished as if the battle had never occurred. Under the gaze of the ten thousand, the master of the Golden Peak sat back down.