Li Mu was emanating a kind of killing intent that no one had seen before.
He swiftly cast a jade seal. A wisp of cyan light emerged, which then developed into a glowing shield as if a wall made of jade-colored light. The glowing shield covered Bai Xuan and the bodies of the Ning couple, putting them under protection.
When the crown prince decided to send his men to arrest Li Mu’s acquaintances, the first place he came up with was Taibai County. Yet, the defense in Taibai County was beyond their imagination. The crown prince’s force tried forcing their way in but suffered grave casualties. Three Celestial Beings were nearly killed. Discovering that their hands were tied in Taibai County, they headed for Chang’an City and probed for information. Soon, they got some clues and captured dozens of folks. Some of them had just seen Li Mu once or twice, while some had been Li Mu’s real friends.
In addition to Bai Xuan and the Ning couple, several folks living in the Pig-Herding Alley were also caught by them and killed before Li Mu arrived. Some students of the Fengming Academy were also captured, including Lei Yinyin. At the time, they were standing on the deck under escort, still badly shaken.
Li Mu immediately noticed their presence.
Holding up his hands, he shot more jade seals to the deck.
Intangible forces shook the armored soldiers off Lei Yinyin and the other hostages. Jade-colored glowing shields were released, taking all the innocent people into the protective ranges.
During the whole time, Yingshan Snow-eagle stared at Li Mu with a chilling smile but did not stop him.
Because he believed everything was under his control.
In his eyes, Li Mu was already a rat in a hole.
Even though Li Mu had shielded those hostages, what else could he do?
When Li Mu was killed, those hostages got to die all the same.
The frustration Li Mu imposed on Yingshan Snow-eagle those days was neutralized at the moment. Like a cat playing with its prey, the chief eunuch just watched Li Mu make all the futile efforts.
The angrier Li Mu looked, the more pleased Yingshan Snow-eagle was.
When Li Mu had put all the hostages behind his shields, Yingshan Snow-eagle gave a tiny laugh and said, “Well, why bother? They have to die with you anyway.”
Li Mu rolled up his sleeves.
“You got it wrong… They will be there and watch you die.” With that, Li Mu stuck the Samsara Knife in the floor of the deck, lowered his shoulders, and hurtled straight toward Yingshan Snow-eagle.
The floor he stepped on shattered after his foot was lifted.
Bang!
Li Mu’s fist thrust forward.
The Rocking-sky Hammer, the first style of the Zhenwu Boxing!
His internal qi ran through his body. The fist seal he conjured took the shape of a dragon.
Yingshan Snow-eagle snorted. He raised a hand carrying a transparent seal and pushed it ahead.
Boom!
As the fist clashed with the palm, the entire Flying Whale Shuttle trembled violently.
A horrible force broke out from the center of the clash. The shuttle covered in thickly-dotted star restrictions and enhancing magic shuddered in clinks and clanks, as though it would be torn apart from the middle any second.
Yingshan Snow-eagle slightly furrowed his brows. A dark halo rapidly spread out under his feet, which offset the impact of the clash and stabilized the Flying Whale Shuttle.
“Well, do you have the nerve to battle me in the void…” Demanded the Emperor’s Broadsword.
Li Mu lifted his arm and launched another punch as he snarled, “Fu*king ‘well’! Fu*king battle!”
He swore with the four-letter word unscrupulously.
As if having been driven crazy, Li Mu executed the Sky Hammer, the second style of the Zhenwu Boxing, without hesitation.
A hint of wrath flitted across Yingshan Snow-eagle’s bleary eyes. He quickly thrust his palm ahead again, but this time, dark light was swirling in his palm like shimmering mist.
Boom!
The second clash came in.
Li Mu was knocked to the air and shot several hundred meters backward.
The deck under Yingshan Snow-eagle’s feet also crumbled into dust. As a web of cracks spread down the deck, a stream of dreadful counterforce made the bones in his arm crack faintly. At the same time, the blues veins on his palm and the back of his hand stood out like tangled old roots.
“What an overwhelming force!”
Yingshan Snow-eagle was startled.
The fist energy Li Mu produced at the second time was stronger than the first. The punch he just performed rendered Yingshan Snow-eagle somewhat intimidated.
At that point, Li Mu leaped up from a hundred meters away and instantly landed right before Yingshan Snow-eagle.
Flames of indignation were blazing in his eyes, as though he had gone mad.
Here came the Cracking Sky, the third style of the Zhenwu Boxing!
As the seal was fired, a force that could shatter the world transformed into a giant fist and charged forward. The air in its wakes ruptured as if glass-made. Then, carried by a blast of powerful wind, the force crushed the cracked void like an opaque tornado and bore down upon Yingshan Snow-eagle.
The power generated by that punch was even more frightening.
Yingshan Snow-eagle’s bleary eyes exuded light of vigilance. Daring not to think lightly of his opponent, he pressed his palms together before his chest and conjured an odd seal before stretching his palms out. “Illusionary Annihilating Whack.”
He had employed his combating skill.
Boom!
The void quaked.
The fist seal and the palm seal collided again.
After a fraction of a second of stillness, a blinding spotlight burst out. Larges opaque pieces that looked like the fragments of the void spattered and exploded everywhere. Appalling energy fluctuations radiated in all directions. As the energy fluctuations skimmed over, the masts, the deck, the cabin, and the other objects were crumbled into dust within a second.
The armored soldiers on the deck were reduced to dust even before they could let out a wail.
The pupils of the crown prince of the Western Qin contracted rapidly. Fear was reflected in his eyes.
“Shield crown prince!” Yan Ruyun shouted in panic like a startled duck.
Having swept by the impact, he had no idea how many of his ribs were broken. The shining armor he was wearing shattered was shredded as if it was a piece of decaying wood. In a trice, he was mutilated. Disbelief struck in his eyes.
“The mere repercussions of the collision injured me like that?”
“How did Li Mu become so mighty?”
Scores of imperial Executives and the heads of the sects on the expedition all dashed to the front of the crown prince and cast their shields to ward off the horrible power waves. Each of them looked terrified.
Li Mu was merely a Celestial Being. How could he pull such a fierce fight with Eunuch Yingshan? And the mere repercussions of the fight almost made them spill blood. If they fought Li Mu head-on, perhaps they would be killed in just a second, wouldn’t they?
Everything on the deck of the Flying Whale Shuttle was ruined in an instant.
Yingshan Snow-eagle’s sleeves also crumbled into ashes, revealing lime-colored arms.
How eerie the arms were! Like the riverbeds running down completely dried land, black veins were distinctly visible under his wrinkled, dehydrated, lifeless skin that resembled dried up orange peels.
The arms shouldn’t belong to a living man.
“You don’t deserve such power, do you?” Yingshan Snow-eagle bellowed in both shock and wrath. He goggled at Li Mu. His demonic eyes began to emanate black, thin mist. Then, he remarked in a deep voice, “Have you gotten a hold of Yue Mountain Faction’s secret treasure?”
“Da*n you!” Li Mu roared as he raced forward again.
He always hurtled back after being thrown to the air, as if he did not know about pain or fatigue. In a flash, he was back to the battlefield again.
“Well… Super Illusionary Annihilating Whack.” Yingshan Snow-eagle yelled, his killing intent raging.
He had been completely provoked by Li Mu. Having his palms pressed before his chest, invisible forces started to assemble. The Spiritual Qi in the environment formed a dense, invisible energy grid, which then wrapped around Yingshan Snow-eagle. That activated the power of heaven and earth within several kilometers. The chief eunuch summoned the power with his combating skill and launched his mightiest lethal strike.
Li Mu, however, showed no sign of dodging.
He decided to give tit for tat. Propelling the qi of the Southern Fire Emperor and the Eastern Wood Emperor, the natural qi of the fire and the wood element circulated his body. Then, he lifted his hands from his waist and made windmill motions clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. The circles he drew stacked in the order of their size. It looked that he was folding the tail of a peacock. After that, his palms approached each other and formed an oval hollow in front of his chest.
Yingshan Snow-eagle slapped his palms together. The Bloody Giant Dao materialized before him. As he motioned, the blade plunged to Li Mu.
That was Yingshan Snow-eagle’s trump card.
He was hell-bent to kill Li Mu.
Yet, Li Mu charged at him on his own accord. His left hand was immersed in a pool of cyan light, his right hand holding a fiery ball of fire. The oval hollow crushed into the brilliance of the lethal strike Yingshan Snow-eagle launched and directly embraced it. As if there was another world in that hollow, the horrible power of that strike was sucked into the bottomless pit. Then, Li Mu’s hands started moving in rotations, as though he were turning something over…
“Zhenwu Boxing— Grasping the Bird’s Tail!”
Li Mu’s robes instantly fell into small pieces. Streaks of blood fanned out across his muscles, especially the muscles on his arms, as though the veins could not stand the inconceivable pressure and burst open…
Eventually, the power he just took in turned over and swiveled. Next, Li Mu reached out and threw Yingshan Snow-eagle’s most lethal strike back to him as Murong Fu’s famous rebound strike would do.
“Ahhhhh… You old dog, go to hell-hell-hell!”
Li Mu growled like a maniac.
He raced over.
The horrible power in his arms thrashed, then, broke out. It stabbed at Yingshan Snow-eagle like a divine sword.
The Grasping the Bird’s Tail was a style that embedded offense in defense, like fighting fire with fire.
The first three styles of the Zhenwu Boxing were all potent punching skills, only the fourth one contained delicate Taoist Sense and optimized the soft power to scrape a win. That was attuned to the balance between Yin and Yang. So, the martial truth in the fourth style was the most profound.
Since Li Mu proceeded to the fourth style of the Zhenwu Boxing, he had not used it in real battles before. That was because he had not gained a thorough understanding of the Fist Intent it embodied. In particular, if he employed that style recklessly when dueling someone stronger than him, he might easily fail to fully constrict the opponent’s power, which would cause him to be injured instead.
But on that day, driven by a mad, demonic fury, Li Mu banished all those distracting thoughts and exercised it without scruples. That happened to enable him to perform that style in a perfect way.
The power that the Grasping the Bird’s Tail cast back was doubled.
The more potent the enemy was, the more powerful the power that style bounced back would be.
“What?” The astonishment Yingshan Snow-eagle was caught in was beyond words.
“What in the world is that?”
Weeks ago, he had had a taste of Li Mu’s Zhenwu Boxing. Though he could tell that art was cleverly designed, it did not impose any threat to him due to Li Mu’s lack of strength. Therefore, Yingshan Snow-eagle had reckoned it was an art beneath him. But when Li Mu performed the same punching method again on that day, he had a strong feeling that he could be hurt.
But, Li Mu wanted to attack him with his own skill?
How childish!
Yingshan Snow-eagle sneered.
He put his cultivation method in motion. Meanwhile, he lifted a hand to gently stroke the coming force as though calming a pet. Clearly, he attempted to re-tame the power that he had produced before.
However—
Whizz!
A thread of orange light as thin as a needle that had blended in that power suddenly attacked. Yingshan Snow-eagle did not notice its existence before. When he realized what happened, his defensive Cultivation Method was triggered automatically. But it was too late to block the needle-like beam nevertheless.
Next, Yingshan Snow-eagle’s body stiffened.
“Emperors’ Fire!” Li Mu bellowed.
That was his strongest power.
The energy the Emperors’ Fire carried exploded inside Yingshan Snow-eagle.
He sensed his body was blown apart, but he no longer had any power to withstand the destructive force blowing at him. Like a piece of decaying wood in a surging flood, he was sent flying backward.
“Drop dead!” Li Mu growled. Like a flash of lightning, he instantly caught up with Yingshan Snow-eagle and swung another punch squarely in his left cheek.
That punch sent the Emperor’s Broadsword who had overawed the Western Qin flying again.
