Chapter 12: Peerless Battle Techniques

A white leg struck out from beneath a pink dress, clashing against a muscular leg clad in beast skin shorts.

Although Senior Sister Qing's legs were long and lithe, they contained an astonishing amount of strength resembling the sharpness of a knife combined with the power of an axe. Qin Mu's legs, on the other hand, were much sturdier, yet they also seemed graceful and light. It was as if they didn't contain much strength at all.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Their legs collided in a series of explosions. Both of Senior Sister Qing's legs instantly received a myriad of kicks. Qin Mu's leg skill was simply too fast for her to react!

The moment Qin Mu's flurry of flashy kicks struck, the astonishing strength in her legs became useless. The strength promptly vanished from her legs as if Qin Mu's legs had devoured it.

"Crap...!"

As Qin Mu continued to kick at Senior Sister Qing, her pained legs began to go numb. His kicks struck her waist, chest, and throat like a storm pounding down against banana trees.

After an onslaught of blows, Qin Mu's body spun in the air as he wound his body up to deliver a back kick. This kick was different from the leg skill he had been using up to this point. His previous kicks sacrificed power in favor of speed, whereas the kick he was currently preparing to unleash contained a startling amount of strength.

Bang!

Qin Mu unleashed his back kick, striking Senior Sister Qing in the face. Her nose flattened into her face and bone fragments flew from her mouth, her chin shattering to pieces.

Senior Sister Qing flew headlong into the ruins like a piercing arrow shot from a bow!

This result proved what Qin Mu believed.

The Heaven Pilfering Divine Legs was the best!

Qin Mu didn't dare to declare it the best in the world, but it was definitely the best in the village.

Even though Senior Sister Qing's leg skill appeared vicious and overbearing, Qin Mu had heavily injured her before she could even touch him!

Furthermore, Qin Mu didn't even use any vital qi, only relying on the strength of his body. Senior Sister Qing, however, had directed her vital qi into her legs to increase her strength and raise the speed of her leg skill. In spite of that, she had been crippled in just one exchange!

The moment he kicked Senior Sister Qing away, Qin Mu felt all of his hair stand on end. An extremely acute sense of danger bubbled up inside of his heart. With no time to turn around, he rushed forward.

Senior Brother Qu had silently appeared behind Qin Mu and unleashed a killing blow! His attack should have struck Qin Mu easily, but he hadn't expected him to be so aware of his surroundings!

Leaping from the back of one strange beast to another, the two of them darted about. Senior Brother Qu's moved exceptionally quickly as he frantically threw strikes at Qin Mu aiming for his heart. Qin Mu spared no effort in sprinting forwards and swinging both his arms to block the attacks.

Thunderclap Eight Strikes, Thousand-Armed Buddha!

Senior Brother Qu couldn't help but be shocked. In spite of the fact that Qin Mu had his back turned towards him, he was still able to block all of the attacks as if he had grown several arms. Senior Brother Qu had never heard about this kind of technique!

Although Qin Mu's Thousand-Armed Buddha wasn't like Old Ma's where rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning accompanied every strike, it still flowed like the wind and was as fast as lightning. Even while he was sprinting across different beasts with his back to Senior Brother Qu, Qin Mu's defense was incredibly solid, preventing the Senior Brother Qu from seizing even the slightest advantage.

"Clang—!"

Qin Mu's scalp went numb at the sudden screech of metal. He immediately glanced down at his arm and saw blood flowing from where he had been injured by a sharp sword.

Qin Mu rolled off the back of the beast he was on and ran under its belly, Senior Brother Qu following him down as well. His hands were empty, but a silver sword flew back and forth around him.

Qin Mu's pupils contracted. Senior Brother Qu's sword control was much better than that of Senior Sister Qing. She had controlled her sword and made it fly several yards away from her, attacking enemies from afar. Senior Brother Qu, however, kept his sword one yard away from him.

This was terrifying and particularly dangerous.

Using sword control in close combat could easily result in a careless wielder injuring themselves. Doing it required remarkable skill and meant that the controller's swordplay was formidable enough to warrant absolute confidence.

Without precise manipulation of vital qi, one would not dare to control their sword in such a way!

"Grandpa Butcher and the others never told me how to utilize my vital qi, and Village Chief never told me how to use Overlord Body Qi," Qin Mu thought. "Under these circumstances, I'll only be at a disadvantage."

Qin Mu's foot abruptly struck a wooden branch that the herd strange beasts must've broken from a tree. Without thinking, Qin Mu used the tip of his foot to direct the tree branch into his hand. This branch came from a willow tree, was around two yards long and about as thick as the length of a thumb.

Gripping the tree branch, Qin Mu moved quickly, his gaze locked onto the blade of Senior Brother Qu's sword. He didn't pay any attention to the Senior Brother Qu's hands.

Qin Mu directed his vital qi in the willow branch, allowing it to course through the wood. However, when his vital qi took up sixteen inches of the branch, he lost touch with his qi beyond that length.

Sixteen inches was way too short. Fighting a flying sword with just that length of a weapon was too dangerous.

Senior Brother Qu rushed forward, his treasure sword circling around him. It seemed as if an invisible swordsman was holding onto the treasure sword, stabbing, slicing, flicking, hacking, and cutting at Qin Mu in extremely intricate ways.

Chi, chi, chi, chi!

With just a few strikes, the willow branch in Qin Mu's hand had been reduced to sixteen inches. As the sword came hacking towards the branch again, it clanged as if it had struck steel.

Relief washed over Qin Mu the moment he saw that his vital-qi-imbued willow branch could actually block the sword. Keeping his eyes on the blade of the sword, the sixteen-inch willow branch became his Pig Slaughtering Knife. He used this stick of wood to unleash the knife skill that Butcher taught him!

Midnight Battle Across Stormy Cities!

Clearing his mind of anything else, Qin Mu threw his heart into executing this knife skill!!

Faster, faster, faster!

Butcher referred to his knife skill as the Pig Slaughtering Knife Skill. The essence of this skill could be described in one word: faster!

Faster than a flickering light and faster than fleeting shadows. So fast that, by the time a user of this skill lifted their hand, the pig's head would have already fallen from its body!

Focusing his heart and mind on his knife, Qin Mu swung the willow branch with reckless abandon. Both he and Senior Brother Qu dashed under the sprinting beasts, metal clanging against metal as they clashed. The enormous legs of the more gargantuan beasts resembled pillars falling from the sky and pounding against the ground. The slightest bit of carelessness on either of their parts would lead to them being crushed into a paste!

Every step the two combatants took seemed chaotic and disorderly, but they actually followed a mysterious rhythm. Whenever the beasts were about to stomp on them, they were always able to dodge out of the way.

As they fought, Senior Brother Qu grew increasingly frustrated and shocked at the current situation.

He was actually getting beaten by this little devil!

The willow branch in Qin Mu's hand was only about sixteen inches in length.

Didn't that mean it was just a short wooden stick?

His sword, on the other hand, was about two yards long. The sword control technique, in which he molded his qi into a thread and used it to control his sword, had been taught to him by Li River's Five elders. Li River's Five Elders were powerful individuals who had broken their Celestial Being Walls and awakened their Celestial Being Divine Treasures. That alone would signify how intricate sword control techniques taught by them would be.

Aside from the sword control technique, Senior Brother Qu was also using a fist technique that Li River's Five Elders had created, which was called the Li River Arts. This fist technique channeled vital qi out of both arms, making it surged forth like the waves of a great river, splitting apart the shore with peerless might.

He hadn't trained it to the level of divine arts, but its power was no small matter. With it, breaking a boulder or crushing rocks into dust was child's play.

Yet, in the face of the little devil's small wooden stick, these two grand techniques were full of flaws. That wooden stick constantly broke through his defense, raining blows all over his body.

Bumps adorned Senior Brother Qu's head, and bruises covered his body.

How could he not be frustrated?

However, he was more horrified than frustrated.

If the wooden stick in Qin Mu's hand were a knife instead...

Senior Brother Qu didn't dare imagine the consequences!

All of this was too terrifying. This teenager's head didn't even reach his chest. He was eleven or twelve at the most! Even if he had started cultivating in his mother's womb, he shouldn't have been able to reach such an obscene level of skill with his frightening techniques.

"The cultivation of his vital qi..." Senior Brother Qu thought to himself, noticing Qin Mu's weakness and calming down. "His techniques may be extremely polished but his cultivation is pathetically weak. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that he doesn't possess a spirit body. He might just be an ordinary human..."

He eventually came to a crucial conclusion.

Qin Mu was an ordinary person. He didn't possess spirit body and hadn't awakened his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure. He had probably cultivated using basic techniques, such as the Daoyin Technique, enabling him to develop a certain amount of vital qi.

However, the vital qi that an ordinary person cultivated contained no attributes, preventing them from unleashing much power. This was the reason why Qin Mu's offensive techniques, although better than Senior Brother Qu's, weren't much of a threat. They didn't have any power behind them.

"The knife skill this devil brat is using should be a divine art, he just hasn't trained it enough to be able to exhibit its power," Senior Brother Qu thought. "If I could get a hold of this divine art..."

Senior Brother Qu's heart began to feel better. Although Qin Mu couldn't use the knife skill to its full potential, he, on the other hand, was still able to show part of its power. If the knife skill was in his hands instead, it would definitely be frightening!

He could tell that Qin Mu's knife skill was a type of battle technique.

The divine arts of battle techniques and sword control techniques were different. Sword control techniques freed up a person's hands, allowed your sword to fly and kill enemies on its own, and help make a person's sword skills agiler. The free hands would then be able to attack enemies at the same time as the sword, resulting in a more varied fighting style.

Battle techniques, however, were different.

Battle techniques followed the most primitive path that required both of a person's hands to control their weapon, allowing their vital qi to surge into the weapon, increase the power of their attacks, and make their divine art much stronger!

A few hundred years ago, when both techniques existed side by side, practitioners who cultivated battle techniques and practitioners who cultivated sword control techniques always butt heads over which techniques were superior.

However, a genius heir to a lineage of sword control users suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started slaughtering strong practitioners that cultivated battle techniques. The practitioners were either killed, crippled or fled from him.

This genius was none other than the number one man below the gods! The one that Eternal Peace Empire had crowned as their Imperial Preceptor!

Few people cultivated battle techniques anymore. Through generations without a successor, top-tier battle technique divine arts were lost. Only low-quality battle techniques were handed down now.

Yet a genuine, top-tier battle technique was still extremely powerful, and Senior Brother Qu strongly believed that the knife skill Qin Mu demonstrated was a real, top-tier battle technique!

"I definitely need to get my hands on this battle technique!" Senior Brother Qu exclaimed inwardly. "Once I subdue him, I'll force him to reveal the cultivation method of this battle technique no matter what!"

Qin Mu's small wooden stick frantically continued to strike Senior Brother Qu who was doing everything he could to try and block them. He couldn't block all of them though, and he received hundreds of hits over a short period of time.

Senior Brother Qu grew increasingly frustrated as his face became more and more swollen and the pain wracking his body intensified. The more frustrated he became, the sloppier his fighting got, causing the number of times the wooden stick struck him to get larger and larger.

It was just a short wooden stick without any power. However, when combined with Qin Mu's strength and the ongoing beating, the damage it caused started to accumulate. Senior Brother Qu's body ultimately took a significant amount of damage from that wooden stick, a damage that steadily increased.

"He's going to beat me to death!" The realization made Senior Brother Qu's blood run cold.