Chapter 458 - Intense Battle of Fifteen Minutes (Part One) (1/2)

In front of the hall on the Qilin Peak, As Steward Hou watched his Old Master, Qilin, walk down the peak, he didn’t stand up immediately to welcome him. As a steward who had followed Qilin from the beginning, there was no need to show any false courtesy between the two. In Qilin’s eyes, Steward Hou was already his old buddy and brother, the relationship between the two wasn’t as simple as the relationship between a steward and his master.

Steward Hou’s attention was completely on Qin Fen, who was lying not far away from his feet. The fact that Qin Fen was unconscious rather than dead even after having been hit by Qilin’s Formless Finger of Disaster already drew Steward Hou’s admiration. And much to Steward Hou’s surprise, he was showing signs of waking up from the coma.

Qilin halted his advancing footsteps as the obsidian-like eys under his straight-as-sword eyebrows flickered with surprise.

Could the Formless Finger of Disaster cast by Qilin with the strength of the fifteen-star level compare with an ordinary martial dao master’s Formless Finger of Disaster!? Few sixteen-star martial artists could achieve such a high-degree off true energy compression and release it.

It would not be an exaggeration to call it a miracle if one somehow made it out alive after having struck by one of those fingers. And if one began to regain his senses just a short while after having been knocked out, then… Song Wendong, looking at Qin Fen’s twitching index finger, felt that it could no longer be called a miracle. Rather, it would be more appropriate to call it nonsensical.

Awake! Song Wendong’s pupil constricted fiercely. But he wasn’t surprised by the fact that Qin Fen could wake up. It was that he found it hard to believe that after he woke up, Qin Fen, who was slowly getting back up from the ground, was exuding a completely different aura.

A powerful aura! No! Song Wendong shook his head lightly. There was no change in his star-class but the air around Qin Fen gave him another feeling, ancient and profound!

Clearly, he is still at fifteen-star but why does he give me an unfathomable feeling? Song Wendong even had an illusion that the person before him wasn’t Qin Fen but rather a divine beast-level martial artist who had suppressed his strength like him!

An absurd thought flashed in Song Wendong’s mind as his pair of dark eyes carefully examined Qin Fen, who rose up with new vigor. At this moment, Qin Fen’s eyes were flickering with nothing but fanatism as if a certain instinct had awoken in him after he had lost consciousness, turning him into someone governed by a simple consciousness. The more Song Wendong observed Qin Fen, the more he felt that this wasn’t Qin Fen.

“This…”

Steward Hou and Song Zhenting were started at the same time as they looked at Qin Fen with great surprise. Qin Fen had the same strength and was the same person, but the aura exuding from his body was completely different!

Song Jia was unable to understand the huge change in the three elders’ expression. In her opinion, Qin Fen was still the same Qin fen, only there was a bit of dullness and fanatism in his eyes; there wasn’t any difference apart from that.

Due to the huge gap in their realm, Song Jia was unable to sense the change in Qin Fen’s aura but how could Song Wendong, the divine beast – Qilin, be unable to detect the change?

“Is this the unwillingness after the defeat, causing the body to reawaken instinctively?” Song Wendong recalled Mercury’s Black Tortoise, the divine beast with extraordinary powers, who would keep on fighting instinctively even if he lost consciousness in a battle. More importantly, he would become several times stronger than before. “Qin Fen would not happen to have this ability, would he?”

“Fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds left…”

Controlling Qin Fen’s body, Master slightly bent Qin Fen’s body; his voice a bit stiff and dry. His hands cracked a few times as he spread his fingers, staring straight at Song Wendong. “Come on, don’t waste time now.”

Just as his words fell, a puff of azure smoke appeared under Master’s feet. Immediately after, he disappeared before Song Jia’s eyes, once more. The ground underneath his feet didn’t burst due to the powerful thunderblast as before, instead, it was like the ground was hit by millions of high-voltage electricity, which directly coked the ground.

“Electric Steps!?” In the sea of consciousness, Qin Fen was surprised by the martial arts cast by Master who was controlling his body at this moment. The Electric Steps, which he was still unable to employ due to the lack of training, was cast as easily as lifting his hand by Master!

Steward Hou’s pupils constricted to the size of the needlepoint as he stared at Qin Fen’s figure, who was standing before Qilin already without causing any tremor in the ground, through his narrowed eyes.

At the same time, Qin Fen’s body turned into an independent luminous body. The true energy mixed in with his flesh, blood, and meridians made his body like jade. His skin was as smooth and bright as a perfect ball of ice-type jadeite, which had an indescribable beauty.

Qin Fen’s palm was the same as the size of an ordinary man, there wasn’t the slightest change in its size. But when he stretched his palm out, completely covering Song Wendong, the majestic body of Qilin before this average-sized palm gave everyone the illusion that Qin Fen’s palm wasn’t hitting the divine beast – Qilin but rather a chicken that had just hatched.

Master’s first move was actually the Heaven and Earth in the Palm used by Qilin before.

Master was using Electric Steps, the higher counterpart of Thundersteps, using Qin Fen’s martial theory very easily. As the blue tendons connected to his feet was infused with the true aura, the power exerted by his feet was far greater than before, like the stamp of an elephant.

As his toes exerted the strength of an elephant, Qin Fen’s calves swelled and contracted as the true energy infused into them converted into the true aura. His lower limb joints burst forth with true aura as his back muscles bulged again and again. His spine seemed to rise and fall like that of a dragon, turning him into a divine dragon that was coming out of the water.

Just as Master cast the Heaven and Earth in the Palm, he used the second level of Converting Energy into Elements, Infusing True Aura into the Body in the blink of an eye, while Qin Fen could only employ Gathering Energy Coagulating Aura!

The reason Qilin’s last Formless Finger of Disaster defeated Qin Fen was because of the difference in their true energy intensity. Although the Infusing True Aura into Body was just a level higher than Gathering Energy and Coagulating Aura, the gap between them could only be understood when one was standing at that level.

When Qin Fen killed a martial dao master opponent in Shengjing back then, it was because his Gathering Energy and Coagulating Aura realm was about to reach its peak already. He had far exceeded that martial dao master who could not even achieve Gathering Energy and Coagulating Aura.

The higher one walked in martial arts, the bigger the difference of one level. It could often turn the face of the entire battle.

In the sea of consciousness, Qin Fen was repeatedly surprised as Master cast the Heaven and Earth in the Palm. As expected, the theoretical master turned out to be a super theoretical master. He can cast the Heaven and Earth in the Palm just after seeing it once, and more importantly, it isn’t much different than when cast by Qilin.

This palm didn’t just cover Qilin in its range of attack, the palm energy had also absorbed the essence of Thundersteps and Electric Steps. There wasn’t just Heaven and Earth in the Palm, there were lightning and electricity as well! There wasn’t a real electric current, but more like the spirit was electric. As he brandished this palm, true aura infused into his body with the sound of billowing thunder, which was even more deafening than caused by Thundersteps. This time, as he attacked Qilin, he brought his palm down with the force of heaven, earth, and lightning!

BOOM!

The moment Master attacked, that aloof and unparalleled momentum around Qilin was swept away by the strength of heaven, earth, and lightning. The previous indifferent and unshakable momentum was no longer there.

Song Zhenting looked at Qin Fen with a grin but he was secretly surprised by this young man who gathered the true energy of Heaven and Earth in the Palm and congealed it into his true aura and infused into his body after waking up suddenly, as if he wanted to break all the limits of the fifteen-star level. This palm could no longer be called the unity of heaven and man. It would be more appropriate to say that heaven and earth were being used by him!

If the previous Qilin maintained the momentum of heaven and earth from the beginning to the end, then Master’s palm was swallowing the heaven with his own strength! Extracting heaven and earth out of Qilin’s body!

It doesn’t matter if heaven and earth belong to you, I am the true master of heaven and earth!

Watching Qin Fen’s attack, Song Wendong became very serious for the first time. For the first time, his body, which had always been in a relaxed state, tensed up! This was quite clear from the solemn look on his face.

Song Wendong, the Qilin, who had fought hundreds of battles, never expected that Qin Fen, who had passed the initial test already after having been knocked out with one finger, would be in such a state of mess after waking up, that he could use the Heaven and Earth in the Palm after just seeing it once, and with such an amazing might at that!

Heart, skill, and body! Heaven, earth, and man, were all in unity! Something that not even sixteen-star, seventeen-star martial artists could do, was actually done by a young, fifteen-star martial artist!

Qilin didn’t just come to praise it, it could even be said that he came to realize that this was the true unity of heaven, earth, and the man!