At first, the two were still exchanging strikes against each other. However, when Li Mu threw off his upper outer garment and started to fight seriously, he completely tipped the balance of the confrontation. No matter how hard the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being executed his Heaven-sword Sixteen Styles, he failed to suppress Li Mu. Further, the constant striking, in turn, wore him out. But Li Mu, who had stripped to the waist, maimed the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being with only two punches, leaving him spilling blood out of his mouth.
How pathetic that scene was!
Numerous people appeared to have just witnessed the shattering of the tale of the old Great Master accompanied by the rise of a new legend. In the martial arts circle, the old would certainly be superseded by the new. As the senior legendary cultivators faded, the younger generation would come up. No one could play the leading role forever.
“Today, when twenty years passed by, Heaven-Sword Celestial Being’s strength has boosted considerably, but he is still not the match of Li Mu.”
“Yeah, Li Mu is now fully-fledged.”
“Heaven-Sword Celestial Being is already at the peak of the Great Master Realm. But Li Mu defeated him quite effortlessly. He claimed that he even had not released all of his power. Is, is he already a peerless master in the Natural Realm?”
“Whoa! Li Mu is not someone to pick on.”
This time, the audience stand was no longer silent. The bigshots from assorted associations and institutions began to put their heads together and to exchange shocked looks. Experts from the military troops like Cai Zhijie and Zhou Yiling, however, were watching the battle with a grave face, because they had realized how weak they were in front of Li Mu’s punching skill. They found his skill utterly flawless, which crushed the opponent solely with his overwhelming strength.
Li Gang, the magistrate of Chang’an, seemed absorbed in thought. “Up to now, this evil spawn of mine hasn’t displayed his magical power or exposed any internal qi. Does that mean he still has more ace cards held in store?”
Ning Rushan, the great general, showed a flash of relief on his face. Actually, he was starting to ponder over something else. “Nonetheless, Ning Jing marrying a maid of Li Mu’s mother is a good sign for our Ning Mansion.”
By contrast, the disciples of the Heaven Sword Martial Club all turned ashen-faced.
The reason they had been able to be so overbearing and dominating in the city of Chang’an for all those years was exactly the power of the Heaven Sword Martial Club. And the source of that power mainly came from the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being, who was now spilling blood out of his mouth and had one palm severely injured due to Li Mu’s blows… The battle was totally a disaster for them.
Zhang Chengfeng, who was known for his Heaven-breaking Legend Sword, was observing the combat with a steadily gloomier look.
Although he was not so much as flurried, he was still hit by pangs of trepidation as he watched Li Mu’s performance. If he went reckless and tried to kill Li Mu at all costs to avenge the dead Zhang Chuixue on that day, perhaps he and many other elders of the Heaven Sword Martial Club would have been cold bodies.
“I should have known better than provoking Li Mu.”
“Well, now that I already made him my swore enemy, it’s no use regretting about those things.”
“Whatsoever, today, we must kill Li Mu. Otherwise, our Heaven Sword Martial Club will be finished!”
Meanwhile, Zhou Dedao, the president of the Dafeng chamber of commerce who was also sitting at the audience stand, was soaked in cold sweat and busy wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead. His fear after getting into a conflict with Li Mu was much stronger than what Zhang Chengfeng was feeling. As he saw Li Mu could be so intimidating, he came to realize that if Li Mu was not in a hurry to rescue another maid in the Heaven Sword Martial Club that day, his Dafeng chamber of commerce and his Zhou’s mansion would have been reduced to ruins by now.
At this point of the battle, everyone reckoned they already had a winner.
Even Li Mu was under that impression.
In truth, he had had high hopes that this duel would be tough but excellent.
However, Heaven-Sword Celestial Being’s performance was fairly disappointing to him.
At the same time, he was also considering if his strength was enough to outperform any of the peerless masters in the Great Master, given that the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being represented the strongest power in that realm.
But—
“Hahaha…” As blood kept oozing out of his mouth, the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being gave a fit of derisive laughs and yelled, “We’re not done here.”
Li Mu narrowed his eyes and asked, “What’s up? Do you really want me to kill you?”
As a matter of fact, the Heaven Sword Martial Club had built an underground maze to hide the living people and beasts they used as the practice targets of their disciples. That was very much inhuman. Li Mu figured the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being could not be ignorant of that. Perhaps it was an evil tradition passed down from the time the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being was in charge. Of course, Li Mu did not deem himself as a selfless savior, but if the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being was too senseless to fall in his hand, he would not mind chopping this bloody evildoer into a pile of mince.
The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being, instead, burst out laughing. “Kill me? Boy, you’re counting your chickens before they are hatched.”
“Oh? You still got some energy to spare? Then, what are we waiting for? Bring it on!” Li Mu rejoiced at his challenge.
He was hoping that this time the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being would show him more powerful strength so that he could be compelled to go all out and know the upper limit of his power. Only by that could he improve, which was actually the real reason he agreed to do the duel.
Clank!
The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being cast aside his quadruple-rimmed unique sword.
His face revealed a trace of viciousness.
Then, a red pill fluttered out from his chest pocket.
The pill looked as if it was made of congealed blood. There was light swiveling inside it while releasing wisps of blood in all directions. The wisps of blood quickly permeated the place. In an instant, pungent smell of blood flew around the entire arena, as if it was bathed in blood. Meanwhile, howls and shrieks of countless creatures flew out from this thumb-sized pill.
It seemed wicked and eerie.
Those with profound cultivation on the audience stand, including Li Gang, all altered their expressions slightly as they saw that red pill. They seemed to have understood what was going to happen next.
But when the red light of that red pill shone, the ten thousand spectators all went quite dizzy and sick, almost about to vomit.
“What’s that?” asked a spectator curiously.
“Is it the ace card of the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being?”
“An elixir? Can it boost his power?”
There were rounds of murmurs among the audience.
But Lei Yinyin, a huge fan of Li Mu from the Fengming Academy, suddenly felt her heart had shot up to his throat. At once, she shouted, “You thick-skinned b*stard! How can you dose yourself every time you can’t get an upper hand? You…” Before she could finish his words, her peers next to her rushed over and covered her mouth. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, zip it up and don’t cause more trouble!” They hissed to her.
Far away on the entrance tower of the Heaven Sword Martial Club that was ten more meters in height, the owner of the Xiongfeng Martial Art Club and her old paul, the Marvelous Mathematician, were watching the drama while drinking plum wine and eating cooked melon seeds. Mannerless as always, the two were tossing the peels everywhere.
“Boss, why did we climb up here to watch the battle. It’s a bit too far from the scene,” complained the Marvelous Mathematician.
“Are you silly? This way people will see we’re out of the ordinary,” replied the owner of the Xiongfeng Martial Art Club.
“But will the men of the Heaven Sword Martial Club get angry if they spot us dropping litter on their entrance tower?”
“Hum, if they don’t, I won’t want to come here at all.”
“Seems that Li Mu is quite strong.”
“Of course. He is the one I chose…”
“But he didn’t choose you, boss.”
“What did you say? Get off! How dare you make fun of me? I’m just saying he is the one I chose to get on our side…”
“Eh, boss, you want to give it a second thought. You might be able to trick anyone, but not this Li Mu. Don’t mess with him, because you can’t beat him.”
Halfway through their silly and petty conversation, the owner of the Xiongfeng Martial Art Club abruptly threw away all the melon seeds in her hand and showed an extremely astounded look on her pretty and delicate face. “Oh my god, that is… the Mighty Blood Elixir? That darn Heaven Sword Being has concocted such wrenched stuff?”
“Mighty Blood Elixir? Is it an evil pill made with the blood of the hearts of ten thousand living people as the legend has it?”
“Yes! Now, Li Mu is in trouble.” The expression of the owner of the Xiongfeng Martial Art Club grew somber.
…
“This elixir was made of tens of thousands drops of the blood of my heart, which is named the Mighty Blood Elixir. Actually, I didn’t mean to use it today. But, boy, you leave me no choice.”
The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being announced his ace card with a hideous look.
Li Mu simply curled his lips in contempt.
“Ten thousand drops of the blood from his own heart?”
“Who are you kidding? If you take that amount of blood from your heart, how can you live till now?”
The so-called Mighty Blood Elixir was emitting a rather sinister aura. Faint cries of thousands of creatures could be heard from it. It contained dense killing intent. Since Li Mu had been practicing the Xiantian Skill, he was exceptionally sharp to that aura. He could tell it was probably a forbidding dark art that was achieved by slaughtering countless innocent creatures.
It reminded Li Mu of what he had seen in that underground maze—heaps of corpses, furnacing burning bodies day and night… The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being must have started from the wrong path and already sunk into the pool of evil.
In fact, Li Mu’s speculation was correct.
The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being only said that to spare himself from unnecessary questions and accusations from the bigshots on the audience stand.
Given the dark art of making the Mighty Blood Elixir, once he told the masses the true story of how he produced it, he could incur public rage and his reputation would be rotten.
Anyway, few of the spectators knew what it really was, except for those sharp-visioned and well-informed bigshots. As long as those important figures did not fixate on it, it was fine with the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being. Hopefully, they would only keep it to themselves.
“Today, I will let you know what real power is.”
The Heaven-Sword Celestial Being opened his mouth wide and directly swallowed down the Mighty Blood Elixir. It looked like he just gulped down all the struggling and whining souls of innocent creatures.
In an instant, he seems reddened by blood. People could see a patch of scarlet skin appeared on his face and then rapidly spread to every inch of his skin. It was a creepy red color, as though he was painted with the blood of the wronged souls suffering in hell.
At the same time, the injuries the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being had was recovering at an amazing speed. The missed flesh on his palms grew back in the blink of an eye. The blood he spilled on the fighting ring before also sprang to live and leaped up to the air before turning into drops of blood and converging into his mouth like swallows flying to their nest.
Li Mu did not take the opportunity to attack his opponent. Instead, he watched, observed, and tried to feel the proceed with great interest.
He was intrigued by such a change of power.
After all, every the mystical change in battles was a sign of a secret skill and embodied a certain principle of the martial arts. It was one of the many forms of power in nature, so it must appear with a reason.
What is actual is rational.
“But, that’s really gross. He swallowed down the blood he spat out.”
Li Mu was amazed.
At that scene, the ten thousand spectators, including the great figures and experts, all started to worry about Li Mu. They could not help but sympathize Li Mu for his lack of experience at such a life-and-death fighting ring. Obviously, the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being was preparing a startling move, but Li Mu did not take advantage of this. When the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being finished absorbing the power of that Mighty Blood Elixir, it was highly possible that he would turn the tables.
Thus, the spectators could not understand why Li Mu was still so composed at this critical point.
But everyone could sense that the aura of the Heaven-Sword Celestial Being was booming like mad.
