Chapter 119

Chapter 119Fwoosh!

When Pablo’s fists shot out, the sound would come a beat later, sending shockwaves. Every consecutive attack was faster than the speed of sound.

It was possible for even upper Degree External Force Tier martial artists to keep up with such speeds, but that didn’t mean they could consistently maintain it. Even if someone trained their body to the peak to be able to move that fast, there was a limit to how much their bones and muscles could physically handle.

But Pablo repeatedly swung his fists as if that limit didn’t exist, and Leonard couldn’t dodge the barrage. So, he held up the sword in his left hand, pointing it straight up. The sword energy turned crimson, and the power concentrated into the tip.

Five Elements Style

Vermillion Bird Twelfth Form: Brilliant Flame Blade

The technique was something between a slash and a jab, and the sharpness made Pablo shift his fists so that they only grazed past Leonard.

Leonard retreated back onto the sand, and Pablo’s strikes left scarily deep craters on either side of him. Leonard was already immune to attacks from normal swords and sabers and was close to achieving the Vajra Physique, and not even he could get away from that destructive power unscathed.

But even if there’s a massive difference between our physical strength, he’s basically using Wind Fist. If I aim for a single point like I did just now or break his flow, I’ll be able to defeat him without much trouble.

Leonard’s swords and martial arts abilities weren’t so weak that they would fall to fist arts that weren’t even imbued with energy, let alone augmented energy.

Besides, the only reason he’d let himself get pushed back this far was because the beach was a better place to fight than a deck. Since Pablo’s punches were strong enough to send sparks flying all about, fighting near the ocean gave Leonard one less thing to worry about.

It would also allow him to use water arts and catch his opponent off guard.

“Just as I thought. You’re a little different from Herman. Your Aura can change colors and elements, and your sword is honed with so much experience someone of your age can’t possibly attain. I’m starting to wonder who you truly are,” Pablo said in a low, ominous voice as he followed Leonard onto the sand.

He didn’t expect an answer, but the boy gave him one anyway.

“Really? What a coincidence. I’ve been wondering about your true identity as well,” Leonard taunted, trying to provoke him.

“My true identity?” Pablo scoffed. “Everyone in Atlantis knows who I am. I am a member of the Council and the captain of Moby Dick. An unwelcome outsider like you can’t even begin to compare to my status.”

“Hm. Do you think Christopher Conrad thought that too?”

“...”

At the mention of that name, Pablo’s face went as stony as a statue.

“You know the drug that let him recover from fatal injuries and gave him power that surpassed his limits? As he was dying, he told me that you’re the one who gave it to him.”

Of course, Pablo would never admit it. “You’re a dirty young man. Are you resorting to slander and insulting my honor because you don’t think you can defeat me in a fight?”

“Honor? You don’t have any left. You’re quite famous for what you did eight years ago. So much so that even an outsider like me found out immediately.”

“Is that what Frances told you? Indeed, it’s tragic. Something must have gone wrong in her head from the grief of losing her father.”

“You’re the one who’s messed up in the head. There’s no way a Rank A expedition team wouldn’t know how powerful the beings of the Rifts are, yet you still decided to join hands with them. Oh, or maybe you were never an explorer in the first place and only came here as their spy.”

“That’s—” Pablo shut his mouth. Leonard had spoken so casually that he had forgotten for a moment that Leonard shouldn’t know this information. “I can’t let you live.”

Pablo’s enormous aura flared even stronger, just as he’d done before. His Domain stretched to 150 meters around him.

It was thirty more meters than the Sword Emperor Yeon Mu-Hyuk’s.

The size of a Domain wasn’t a direct equivalent to one’s strength, but he was clearly superior to Leonard. A Domain didn’t simply represent an area where a martial artist’s power peaked, it represented the area in which they could kill an opponent of equal strength.

But to put it simply, considering how powerful he was, Pablo could kill a Transcendence Tier master even outside of that range.

■■■ Fist

In the mere moment when a chill went down Leonard’s spine, Pablo raised his fist without a sound and punched.

The strike was completely different from all the other ones he’d used so far. Even though a massive amount of power was concentrated into a single point, his fist moved as smoothly and discreetly as a snake.

Clang!

Leonard reflexively met his attack with his sword, activating his sword energy to knock it away. Though it wasn’t augmented energy, his Five Elements Sword Qi was so powerful now that it wouldn’t be overwhelmed even if it clashed with augmented energy one or two times.

After Leonard parried the blow with his sword, Pablo’s punch was pushed off its trajectory and deflected upward, only grazing a few of Leonard’s hairs.

The shock of his punch shot straight into the sky, piercing through a passing cloud before evaporating.

He’s stronger than a Creation Realm martial artist, perhaps in the lower end of the Profound Realm...

Leonard could immediately estimate his power. He picked up the sword that had been stabbed into the ground. Pablo was not an enemy he could defeat with the Five Elements Sword Qi alone. As soon as he realized, four augmented sword energies lit up.

Five Elements Sword Qi

Augmented Energy Assimilation

Four blades glowed brilliantly as one. Not even Pablo could deny their power, and he stopped in his tracks.

It was time for the real battle to begin.

Both Leonard and Pablo instinctively sensed this, and their bodies accelerated by hundreds of times. Their vision turned black-and-white, and they could not hear. Since they were moving faster than the speed of sound, they would not feel the vibrations in their eardrums.

There’s still no end in sight. This will be a difficult battle.

If Leonard used the Five Elements Augmented Qi against Pablo, their fight would end within one hundred exchanges, but if his opponent could match his technique, Leonard would be overwhelmed by Pablo’s physical strength.

And Pablo had more than just a high output of power. Leonard was certain that his punch just now was superior to the Fist King’s and the Divine Monk’s. He felt a strange sense of foreboding, but either way, Pablo’s martial arts were intricate and masterful.

Pablo’s techniques differed from strong fist arts and exquisite fist arts. Though they carried an enormous amount of speed and destructive power, it was hard to see them coming, and their trajectories were also difficult to read. The irregular flow of his attacks would allow him to quickly land a fatal attack.

If I had to put a name to it, I would call it hidden fist arts. It was a very fitting name for Pablo.

■■■ Fist

Three ■■■

His opponent punched with both fists, as if to say that he wouldn’t give Leonard any space to ponder. Pablo’s fists began to glow with dark green light.

He was using augmented energy. It was hard to even guess how much Aura he was using, but the energy completely enveloping his fists made one look like a ball of light. Its power would be on a completely different level from the longer-distance attack he’d just used.

Leonard’s four swords fell into position in response, assuming the Reverse Four Sword Mirage Formation, a technique that performed the Four Sword Mirage Formation, which typically required four swordsmen, in reverse to use as a defensive stance.

———!!

Ablaze with sword energy, Leonard’s blades didn’t even get damaged, even though Pablo had attacked him seriously this time.

Three consecutive punches imbued with augmented energy would overpower four swords, but Leonard could easily reduce the power of his attack to a quarter using the Four Sword Mirage Formation.

But just as he was about to, Pablo’s fists began to fly faster and stronger as if in response.

What?! Leonard’s eyes widened.

Sure, Pablo was at the very peak of the Transcendence Tier, but it was as if the Tiers didn’t matter to him. A human body couldn’t handle movements that intense, and the overload should break his bones and wreck his organs.

Leonard hurried to ready his swords and assumed the Four Sword Mirage Origin Return Formation to create a shield, then retreated a few steps back, evening his breath.

It didn’t take long for it to break, but the few moments it bought him were precious.

I see. His methods are almost primitive.

Even a Transcendence Tier martial artist couldn’t raise their speed and strength beyond their regular limits without heavy consequences. Even though he was moving hundreds of times faster than the rest of the world, Pablo’s body was visibly falling apart in real time. His flesh would rip and his bones would break and protrude through his muscles before resetting to their proper place.

His regenerative abilities, which should not be possible for humans to have, fixed his mangled body and even neutralized the rebound force of his attacks, which would have killed an average person instantly.

His regeneration is several times stronger than Conrad’s. He might even be on par with a Chaos Demon.

Monsters of that caliber could regrow their heads even if they were cut straight off, yet Pablo was on a similar standing with them. Even Leonard, who had witnessed all sorts of demonic and heretic arts, was speechless.

Even the Blood Demon Dokgo Hwang, whose life force was immense and unmatched, would soon die if his head was cut off.

Leonard’s thoughts stopped there. He held up his sword against the fist approaching right before his eyes.

Taiji Five Elements Sword Formation

Now with five swords, Leonard smoothly deflected Pablo’s augmented fists. They were amplified with a deluge of True Innate Qi, and there was no way that Leonard would simply let them hit him head-on.

While Pablo was using powers granted to him by a being from the Rifts, Leonard was also receiving the full help of the Five Elements True Dragon Ring writhing within him. His incomplete Five Sword Style was now stable, and he was recovering energy five or six times faster than usual.

Still, I won’t be able to overpower Pablo if I don’t use the Five Elements Augmented Qi, so it will be hard to win like this...

But he could stall him.

Leonard was sure of this. His eyes grew hazy as he mentally detached, perfectly separating his body and soul.

He’d already realized at the very beginning of their fight that there was little to no chance that he would win against Pablo in a head-on fight. Without using the Five Elements Augmented Qi, how could he defeat a monster who could overpower two Transcendence Tier martial artists simultaneously, a master fighter who not only had brute force but was also more skilled than the Fist King and the Divine Monk?

So, Leonard detached from his consciousness and entered his Mindscape.

* * *

“Have you actually lost your mind?” the heart devil demanded, sounding immensely exasperated. It gave Leonard a death glare.

It was a reasonable reaction. Because the heart devil had been created in Leonard’s own Mindscape, it could partly peek into his thoughts. It knew that he was needlessly making the battle difficult when he could easily win, and it also knew that he was planning to fight the heart devil, which had superior abilities, so that he could reach the next stage.

Leonard summoned five swords and took two into his hands.

“It’s the logical decision,” he said calmly.

“Logical? Don’t make me laugh! You’d be able to defeat him within ten exchanges if you used the Five Elements Augmented Qi, but you’re putting your life at risk! Not only that, you want to fight me in your Mindscape when you barely have any attempts left? If it’s death that you want, just give me your body and die!” The heart devil’s expression was twisted, and it no longer had that constant smirk on its face.

It made sense that it was nervous. It only had nineteen more chances to steal Leonard’s body, but if Leonard was physically killed by Pablo while he and the heart devil were fighting, that was it. The boy was already making continual progress, and other than Heaven’s Annihilation, he had already overcome almost all of the heart devil’s techniques. The heart devil had continued to drag out the fights, defeating Leonard with pure strength so that he didn’t have a chance to break through Heaven’s Annihilation. But apparently, all these efforts had gone to waste.

“Listen. There’s something I realized after reaching the Tenth Degree External Force Tier,” Leonard said. Despite the fact that the heart devil’s demeanor made it seem like it would kill him at any second, the boy was calm. “The principle of the Creation Realm and the principle of the Transcendence Tier are almost the same. They require a martial artist to unify their essence, energy, and spirit into one.”

But Leonard’s essence, energy, and spirit were too all over the place.

Since he was part of the Cardenas bloodline, his physical abilities and constitution brought him closer to the essence of a dragon than a human.

Since the Five Elements True Dragon Ring amplified his energy, he could use techniques that should be restricted to the Profound Realm despite the fact that he hadn’t even reached the Transcendence Tier.

Since he inherited the memories of his past life and went through the experience of sealing Rifts, his soul had matured even more.

He would typically have to waste at least a few years to synthesize even two of them, but all of them were trying to surpass the boundaries of a mortal, so it would take at least thirty years for him to harmonize his essence, energy, and spirit into one using normal means. It wasn’t that he was lacking in any aspect, it was that he had too much.

I never thought I would be able to feel it in a fight. If he tried to adjust all three of them at once, they would refuse to align. And if he tried to adjust them one at a time, the other two would also be adjusted, making them disharmonized again.

But when the Five Elements True Dragon Ring classified Pablo as an enemy, an idea had flickered through Leonard’s head like a bolt of lightning.

He could turn his misfortune into an advantage.

“Ah.” The heart devil caught on to Leonard’s thinking after only a short explanation. “You will push your body to the limits and take advantage of the Five Elements True Dragon Ring’s abilities to continue fighting with Pablo in the physical realm. And you do not need to explain why you wish to fight me right now. I assume you want to bring your essence, energy, and spirit to their peak to reach the next level?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re not going to combine the Three Treasures to break through the threshold and reach the Transcendence Tier, you’re going to combine them after you reach it. This is a little different from orthodox methods, don’t you think? That’s a method that heretic, demonic, and niche sects tend to prefer.”

It was right. Orthodox sects’ martial arts required one to proceed brick by brick to build a stairway to the top, while heretic and demonic sects tried to use poles or ladders to reach a higher level. Those who were successful could reach their goal several times faster than an orthodox martial artist, but there were more of them who died young due to qi deviation. That was typically how it went.

“There’s no right or wrong path for a wanderer to take. Ultimately, all rivers run into the sea,” Leonard said.

He knew very well that at a certain point, orthodox, heretic, and demonic techniques became indistinguishable. The highest level one could reach using safe methods was the Creation Realm. After that, all martial artists, regardless of sect, had to risk their lives to proceed step by step. It was only a matter of how fast one reached that level. S~eaʀᴄh the novёlF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“All right. Then shall we get started?”

The heart devil sensed his determination and flared his power without further ado.

Heavenly Demon Cultivation Method

Asura’s Royal Dance

Mighty God Statue Manifestation

When the statue, which was over a hundred feet tall, made its appearance, the Mindscape shook violently. Leonard was already as strong as a Transcendence Tier martial artist, but the heart devil was so frighteningly powerful that not even Leonard’s inner world could withstand it completely.

His five swords immediately lit up with the Five Elements Augmented Qi and cut through the heart devil’s attack, which was about to crush his head into the ground.

There was only one way for the heart devil to defeat Leonard now: by using distractions.

“You have nineteen tries left.” The heart devil’s dry voice echoed throughout the Mindscape. “If you cannot defeat me in that time, you will die.”

Realizing what strategy his opponent was using, Leonard’s swords began to move frantically.

Boooooom——!!

He responded to the Asura Statue by using the Yellow Dragon First Form: Cloud Dragon Momentum Shift. It was more stable than when he’d used it outside of the Mindscape.

Asura’s Royal Dance

Final Finishing Death Strike

Heaven’s Annihilation

And then, Leonard was faced with the technique that had killed the Sword Emperor Yeon Mu-Hyuk.