Xu Ziqing flew onto the fighting stage and examined his opponent.
It was a woman, and a very tall one.
Ordinary women, even those considered tall, rarely reached more than seven chi. Du Linglong stood nearly eight chi high, half a head taller than Xu Ziqing himself.
She wore fitted black clothing that accentuated her perfectly proportioned, striking figure. Her skin was ivory white, and the portions exposed to view had the smooth sheen of carved jade.
Her features were also flawless. She did not possess a soft, delicate beauty, but a strange kind of perfection: adding the smallest amount would have been excessive, while taking anything away would have diminished it.
Yet the most beautiful part of her body was neither her face nor her skin.
It was her hands.
Every finger was long and slender, every curve of flesh full and smooth. She had no fingernails. Her hands were clean and unadorned, with snowy-white backs and pale-red palms that came together in an extraordinary beauty.
This was Du Linglong of Flying Immortal Peak, a female cultivator unlike any other.
The instant she stepped onto the stage, she attracted everyone’s attention and a great deal of discussion.
“What an unusual female cultivator!”
“Look at her aura! It’s so perfectly integrated, so harmonious and natural, like a complete piece of uncarved jade. I wonder what method she’s cultivating!”
“Wait, she’s not holding any magical treasure! Does she intend to fight barehanded?”
“A female cultivator relying on her physical body to defeat an opponent? She must be extraordinarily confident in herself!”
Yet despite the many comments, hardly anyone seemed to know who she was or where she had come from.
Those with a practiced eye could tell, however, that she was at middle Foundation Establishment, only a hair’s breadth from the next stage.
With such distinctive looks and cultivation, why had no one heard of her before?
Then someone said, “Flying Immortal Peak… That name sounds familiar.”
“Any peak with the character ‘Immortal’ in its name must have produced an ascended immortal!”
“I know the names of all the major peaks, yet I’ve never heard of Flying Immortal Peak. Still, the fighting-stage records can’t be false!”
The spectators were puzzled. Above them, Perfected Qiu He stroked his short beard and said calmly, “Flying Immortal Peak was the peak where Du Qingzhi lived before ascending. After generations of decline, the Du family no longer possessed any experts at the Spirit Transformation stage or above. The sect therefore reclaimed that major peak, leaving the family only two middle peaks and several smaller ones. But as descendants of an ascended immortal, Du Qingzhi’s bloodline still calls itself the people of Flying Immortal Peak. The sect permits it…”
That explained it, and everyone understood.
On the stage, the two opponents prepared to fight.
Xu Ziqing turned his palm and raised his Steelwood Sword. Then he flicked a finger. With a clear metallic ring, a green radiance spread along the blade, lending it a gentle quality.
After so many bouts against genuine cultivators, Xu Ziqing had acquired more battle awareness and understood his sword techniques more thoroughly than before.
He no longer needed to adopt a formal starting stance. A mere thought was enough to activate the artistic conception of Spring Rain.
Opposite him, Du Linglong slowly opened both hands and abruptly closed them into fists.
In the instant her fingers clenched, it seemed as if she had seized the very air around her, producing a fierce disturbance.
Countless currents of air appeared to be compressed into those delicate fists, making the hearts of onlookers pound!
Thump! Thump!
Du Linglong’s fists suddenly turned from jade white to dark red.
It seemed that all the vital blood in her body had converged within them in the blink of an eye.
Her whole body became shrouded in a tremendous aura. Her presence seemed to disappear, leaving only those two fists before everyone’s eyes.
They moved at the same instant.
Xu Ziqing shook his sword, his figure flowing like a rolling cloud. In an instant, he aimed the blade toward Du Linglong’s throat. Endless killing intent accompanied the wind of the sword, blending with a soft breeze and drifting like willow catkins. The green sword-light was supple and continuous, containing the gentle tenderness of spring. As the sword move unfolded, it almost made people lose their will to fight, leaving them open to the killing intent hidden within that delicate spring rain.
Du Linglong, however, remained completely calm. Her feet did not leave their places, and her fists stayed tightly clenched.
At the instant the sword tip almost touched her throat, she suddenly punched with her right fist!
Ding-dong!
A clear, melodious sound rang out, like spring water running over mountain stones.
Du Linglong’s fist collided with the Steelwood Sword, yet instead of having her skin and flesh torn open, she remained entirely unharmed.
All the tender feelings of spring and spring rain carried upon the Steelwood Sword dispersed in that instant.
The wind of her punch had shattered them!
Before the spring rain could finish falling, the grass seeds could not germinate.
Xu Ziqing’s Sprouting Formula had not yet been launched, but the move was already interrupted because its artistic conception could no longer take shape.
He had no time to stare in surprise. While Du Linglong’s right fist blocked the Steelwood Sword, her left fist rose from below and struck fiercely at his abdomen!
Instinctively, Xu Ziqing gathered true essence over his dantian, creating a thick protective layer.
The fist did not penetrate the barrier outright, but part of its force seeped through, causing a violent shock within Xu Ziqing’s body!
He drew a sharp breath and used the force to retreat rapidly.
A dull pain spread through his dantian, and his internal organs had suffered injury.
What kind of fist art was this? How could it be so formidable?
On the viewing platform, everyone was startled to see Xu Ziqing struck.
In his previous matches, although he had not won every fight easily, he had never suffered much injury. Yet now, in his first contest against the victors of the other fighting stages, he had already been hurt!
This Du Linglong was truly exceptional.
Qiu Ze and the others had limited experience and could not identify the fist art she used. They all looked toward Perfected Qiu He.
But this time even Qiu He shook his head. “I haven’t seen it before either.” After considering the matter, he turned toward his eldest disciple. “Yun’er, do you know?”
Qiu He had limited aptitude and had needed more than four hundred years to achieve Golden Core. His personal experiences could no longer compare with those of his eldest disciple. Openhearted as he was, he did not feel humiliated by asking Yun Lie for an explanation.
Yun Lie did not disappoint him. “The Linglong Seven-Killing Fists.”
At that same instant, Luo Yao paused.
A voice had suddenly sounded within his sea of consciousness. “That’s the Linglong Seven-Killing Fists!”
Someone was transmitting a message directly to his spiritual sense.
The voice was familiar. Luo Yao froze briefly, then raised his eyes toward its source.
The voice spoke again. “What are you looking at? So what if this young master is the one telling you!”
It was Du Zihui, just as Luo Yao had expected.
Hearing the man’s stubbornly defensive tone, Luo Yao felt none of his old disgust. He smiled and replied, “Thank you for explaining.” Then he asked, “Is Fellow Daoist Du Linglong a member of your family?”
Du Zihui appeared confused by his friendliness, then turned his head away and snorted. “Linglong is my older paternal cousin. Don’t you dare get any ideas about her!”
Luo Yao fell silent. Who said I had any ideas about her?
But he now had some understanding of Du Zihui’s temperament. He sighed and asked, “If it isn’t too much trouble, could you tell me about this fist art?”
Du Zihui was bad-tempered, but Luo Yao was not getting angry at him, so some of his fury subsided. After muttering, “You certainly seem worried about that Xu Ziqing,” he began explaining what made the Linglong Seven-Killing Fists so powerful.
The art had an extraordinary history.
As everyone knew, humans possessed seven emotions: joy, anger, worry, thought, sorrow, fear, and shock. The Linglong Seven-Killing Fists made use of a Linglong body to connect the seven apertures and extinguish those seven emotions.
The technique had been created by the Du family’s founding ancestor, Du Qingzhi.
Among Du Qingzhi’s wives and concubines, one woman had possessed a Linglong body. Du Qingzhi was a passionate man who treasured each of his consorts. In that era, the Linglong body was considered an excellent cultivation furnace physique, but because spiritual energy escaped through its seven apertures, its bearer could not cultivate and had a lifespan less than half that of an ordinary person. How could Du Qingzhi bear to see the woman he loved suffer such frailty? He therefore created a fist art specifically tailored for women with the Linglong body, allowing them to cultivate with twice the results for half the effort.
That consort bore Du Qingzhi a child. Though their first child was a boy, the family preserved the fist art in case a girl with the Linglong physique appeared among later descendants. It had been passed down through the generations until Du Linglong.
Du Linglong had been born with a Linglong body and a stubborn nature. She suffered greatly from the constitution as a child. Her family doubted she would even survive long enough to grow up, so they did not give her a proper name. They simply passed down the fist art as their last resort.
Du Linglong cultivated through terrible hardship. When she finally mastered the first fist of the Linglong Seven-Killing Fists, her health gradually improved. After that, she trained even more diligently and gave herself the name “Linglong.” She was a formidable female cultivator of exceptional perseverance and unshakable will.
The Linglong Seven-Killing Fists possessed tremendous power. Even cultivators whose cultivation exceeded hers often found it difficult to face her in battle.
Given that Xu Ziqing had now encountered Du Linglong, Luo Yao thought the match would surely be a hard one. Du Zihui, however, was convinced that Xu Ziqing would lose.
Du Zihui transmitted, “Cousin Linglong just threw two punches. The first was the Thought-Killing Fist. It extinguished the longing carried by his sword, breaking the Spring Rain Sword Art. The second was the Shock-Killing Fist. Its fist conception penetrated him and struck the kidney meridian, leaving him unable to move freely.”
Luo Yao was surprised.
All people possessed the seven emotions. If the Linglong Seven-Killing Fists really could extinguish them, it would give its practitioner the advantage in a great many battles. Against someone with vastly superior cultivation, perhaps it would have little effect. But when the opponents were at similar levels, overturning that advantage would be extremely difficult.
On the stage, Du Linglong continued attacking with increasing force. Every swing of her fists stirred rolling waves of true essence and fierce currents of air.
Such a domineering fist art seemed unlike those ordinarily used by women. It was even wilder and more ferocious than the techniques of many male cultivators who specialized in heavy weapons.
Every one of the sword arts making up Xu Ziqing’s Four Seasons Sword Art was connected in some way to the seven emotions.
The Spring Rain Sword Art contained longing; Summer Thunder was passionate; Autumn Wind was plaintive; Winter Snow was lonely.
Likewise, his four-character sword formulas overflowed with the joy, anger, sorrow, and grief of life. All their different artistic conceptions evolved from the seven emotions.
Consequently, Du Linglong was now suppressing Xu Ziqing at every turn.
Du Zihui explained smugly, “That punch was the Sorrow-Killing Fist. Any move born from grief will be countered by it… This one is the Joy-Killing Fist. It suppresses techniques that contain delight… Cousin Linglong’s strongest move is probably the Worry-Killing Fist. An opponent who grows worried during a prolonged battle may become angry and draw out hidden potential. But this fist removes that worry and traps the opponent instead, like a spider binding its prey in silk so it cannot escape…”
Luo Yao listened to Du Zihui’s voice transmission while worrying about Xu Ziqing.
Then, almost without realizing it, he looked toward the white-robed Perfected One seated nearby.
Yun Lie’s gaze had been resting on Xu Ziqing the entire time.
Yet his expression remained completely unchanged.
Was he simply exceptionally skilled at concealing his feelings, or did he truly have such confidence in his junior brother?