Chapter 293.12: Imperial Martial Tournament - Part 12

Li Wenyou had already signaled the start of the match. However, both contestants didn't move.

As Lu Fengxian came out empty-handed, Luo Song waited for him to bring out a weapon.

"Where is your weapon, Ding Bu? I don't like killing an unarmed weakling!"

"Oh, please. I only need one finger to beat a snotty wench like you. If you want me to use one hand to fight you, you should at least bring a heaven-grade weapon."

"Your overconfidence will be your downfall!"

Since Lu Fengxian was so arrogant, Luo Song decided to attack first. She probed his strength with an earth element strike with her hammer.

Lu Fengxian stood still. His eyes glanced at the bright red spot and the red lines on the hammer while he pointed his finger, aiming at the bright red spot. Then, he coated his finger with his Life Qi, turning his finger to be as sharp as a sword.

Lu Fengxian used his sword Qi with his finger!

BOOM

Luo Song's hammer contacted something, but the weapon feedback was odd.

Lu Fengxian's index finger penetrated into the sky-grade hammer. A second later, the weapon cracked, expanding spider web lines, and crumbled.

When the hammerhead fell off from the shaft, it revealed the bloody finger of Lu Fengxian. The fingernail sunk into the flesh, and the finger bent backward.

Yet, Lu Fengxian was unperturbed. He simply glanced at the broken finger and chuckled.

"I guess my current body isn't ready to receive an element attack head-on. Well, I guess you earn my respect for forcing me to use my sword Qi."

Lu Fengxian's injured finger shone in silver light as his Life Qi activated his physique ability. The broken bone, cracked fingernail, and bloody wound were healed. He then wiggled his finger, testing if it was still working.

The self-restoration ability belonged to his special physique, which he had learned from a scripture when he was an immortal.

...

Morning Star Scripture

Lu Fengxian obtained it from a demon's tomb by chance during a mass expedition of a human cultivator alliance. He hid it from the others and read the scripture when he was alone.

The scripture recorded the secret of War God Physique and how one could obtain the strongest body of the Proud Demon, Lucifer.

War God Physique specialized in physical invincibility, bursting power, and regenerative ability. There were seven levels of mastery, and each level unlocked the next stage of physical evolution.

In Lu Fengxian's case, who was a 3rd-stage cultivator and had unlocked the first level of the scripture, his natural physical defense was on par with a nascent soul cultivator. However, he lacked life essence to fuel his physique, so he could still be injured when he was attacked by an elemental technique.

Had Lu Fengxian had life essence, he could have unlocked the second level. Then, his body would have been immune to basic elemental Qi, and his physical attack would be as strong as elemental attacks.

When the scripture practitioners combined its physique capability with other physical techniques, they could bring out destructive power, worthy of the title War God.

In short, this scripture and its secret were extremely, brokenly overpowered, and it didn't belong in a mortal world. It was considered a myth-grade item, desired by fate gods and dao gods.

And yet, Lu Fengxian had already memorized everything.

...

Luo Song stared at her broken weapon in astonishment. She was confused about how a weak 3rd-stage cultivator broke her sky-grade hammer with just a finger.

"HOW!?"

Lu Fengxian sneered and scoffed, "Have your father ever taught you about Death Perception and weapon intent? I guess not."

"Death, what?"

"I guess I have to show you the difference between a real cultivator and a 3rd-rated trash who only relies on cultivation base and raw strength."

Lu Fengxian's eyes sharpened and glared at Luo Song. He unleashed his killing intent for the first time.

The air around Lu Fengxian distorted as if he had used Miaomiao's killing domain. However, the distorted space focused on Luo Song, creating a 30-meter wide dome around her instead.

Luo Song suddenly couldn't move. She stared at Lu Fengxian as if she had seen a ghost.

From her point of view, Lu Fengxian had transformed into a colossus heinous monster beast with thousands of fangs and grotesque disproportion head, torso, and twelve limbs, exuding the aura of a 7th-stage beast.

The beast roared and jumped toward her.

"KYAAAA!!"

In a panic, Luo Song screamed and kicked the ground, flying away from the ring.

As soon as Luo Song flew above the open-aired stadium, her vision was restored to normal.

Lu Fengxian laughed and waved his hand at her, "So much for your arrogance. How come you run away from a 3rd-stage weakling? I haven't done anything to do yet."

"..."

Luo Song stared at Lu Fengxian in disbelief, unable to understand what had happened.

The vision she saw was so real. She could even smell the beast's bad breathe and hear its groan. Yet, it suddenly disappeared.

"What just happened?"

"What just happened? You ran away from me, that's what happened."

"..."

Meanwhile, the spectators started yelling, thinking that she threw the match.

"GET BACK THERE AND KILL DING BU, YOU BITCH!!"

"I BET 1,000 REFINED STONES ON YOU!! YOU'D BETTER NOT THROW THE MATCH!!"

Boooooo!!

The stadium erupted. Everyone booed at Lou Song and threw random objects into the arena.

Luo Song's face reddened in embarrassment and shame. She glared at Lu Fengxian, blaming him for the humiliation.

"That was an illusion or a mind attack, right? You tricked me!"

Lu Fengxian chuckled, "You only saw your heart devil and your greatest fear. If you can't handle that much, you're no match for me."

"Insolence! Your arrogance has just spelled your death!"

Luo Song was serious now. She spread her large bat wings, and brown miasma fume was released from her body.

The gas moved around as if it was alive. It expanded and covered the entire field, including Lu Fengxian.

The thick miasma gas prevented the crowd from seeing the arena, they complained again.

"I can't see anything!"

"This succubus gas again! Don't inhale it!"

"Dammit! I should have brought a barrier artifact or a gas mask!"

"Remove the fog! We can't see shit!"

Luo Song ignored the complaint and flew into the gas, hiding her presence and her Qi. Yet, she could see everything within the miasma, including Lu Fengxian.

'I see you, but you can't see me! Let see if you can handle my power!'

Luo Song activated her trump card - Petrification Miasma!

Unlike normal succubi, who used their pink miasma to charm men or control them, Luo Song's miasma had another property and usage due to her original race.

She couldn't charm men like the other human-turned-succubus. However, her dwarf bloodline allowed her to use earth element Qi with the succubus' natural ability, turning them into a unique weapon.

When her victim inhaled the brown miasma, Luo Song could petrify their blood, Qi, and essence, transforming them into stone statues and killing them in the process. The petrified victims could also be converted into mud golems, stone golems, stone gargoyle, or stone warriors, depending on Luo Song's imagination and mood.

Moreover, Luo Song could recover her Qi, injuries, and stamina as long as she stayed inside her pseudo domain of brown gas. In other words, this gas-covered area was now her playground.

Now, Luo Song forced the brown gas to enter Lu Fengxian's orifices, trying to destroy him from the inside. The gas entered Lu Fengxian's lungs, stomach, eyes, noses, and ears as Luo Song had commanded.

Lu Fengxian just stood there, inhaling the gas!

Sensing that the brown gas had entered Lu Fengxian's body, Luo Song grinned.

'It's over, you trash! Now, die!'

Luo Song sent her command to her brown parasites inside Lu Fengxian's body!

.

.

.

Nothing happened.

'Huh?'

Luo Song was confused. She ordered more parasites to enter his body.

Lu Fengxian didn't resist. He simply stood still, but he gazed toward her direction.

'He can't possibly sense me, right?'

Luo Song ordered her gas to petrify Lu Fengxian again.

Yet, she couldn't feel the response. For some reason, she could no longer sense her tiny creatures within Lu Fengxian's body.

'What!?'

At that moment, Luo Song realized that all parasites in Lu Fengxian's body had either died or been digested. She couldn't manipulate them anymore.

Then, she heard Lu Fengxian's obnoxious voice.

"Thanks for the food. I was wondering where I should look for an earth element crystal. Your Qi will do."

WHOOM

Suddenly, Lu Fengxian's body generated a whirlpool, sucking the brown miasma into his dantian. He inhaled everything and converted the parasites and earth element Qi into his power!

The gas that had covered the entire arena disappeared into Lu Fengxian's stomach!

Then

BOOM

Lu Fengxian's cultivation base suddenly increased. From a 3rd-stage weakling, his strength jumped to the late-stage essence gathering realm!

The breakthrough process was completed in 10 seconds!

"IMPOSSIBLE!!"

Luo Song, Li Wenyou, and the crowd was dumbfounded. None of them had ever seen a cultivator breakthrough by using his opponent Qi to boost his strength before, and Lu Fengxian defied all logic!

...

Miaomiao had been paying attention to Lu Fengxian's skills from the beginning. He had guessed that the ex-god protagonist should have a game-breaking cheat ability, but Lu Fengxian's feat was beyond Miaomiao's expectation.

It reminded him about 200%-difficulty 3rd-stage and 4th-stage clones, who could suddenly gain a new power or increase their cultivation base during combat.

'First, he can definitely see the death points or use sword intent. Secondly, he can use the killing domain better than me. And now, he can break through in mid-combat. His foundation, experience, insight, and potential should be the same as those clones.'

Miaomiao sighed and leaned his back against the sofa, 'I guess I'm lucky that his story doesn't involve hunting me or harming my family. It would have been a nightmare to be an enemy of that OP protagonist.'

Protagonists in wuxia novels were categorized into many types, but their stories centered around three common story plots - Counterattack, revenge, and invincibility.

[Counterattack] was simply face-slapping tropes. Protagonists were usually underdogs or unpopular guys. Thus, many villains underestimated them or find trouble with them, resulting in getting face-slapped by the MCs when they were forced to show their strength.

[Revenge] was self-explanatory. Sometimes, Villains harmed the protagonists' friends, family, or lovers in the early story. The protagonists would slowly get stronger and overcome their weaknesses. Next, they would exact their revenge against the hateful villains, completing a plot circle.

The last part was common in most web novels - the ultimate plot armor, aka the [Invincibility]. Sometimes, protagonists could be excessively overpowered to the point that they couldn't get stronger anymore. Yet, they continued their adventure and stories, provoking villains left and right. Afterward, they went through the loops of "Counterattack" and "Revenge" with the additional perk of being invincible throughout the stories.

Not many protagonists had this "Invincibility" perk. But when they had one, not a single villain had a chance to defeat them. Everything in the story or combat scene turned into a face-slapping scene.

Comparing to Xie Tian, the dead man lacked this "Invincibility" trait since he was a native cultivator who started from zero. He only had [Luck], but he didn't have [Experience] or the [Supreme Cultivation Technique]. As such, his "Invincibility" was incomplete in his early story.

On the other hand, Lu Fengxian came with extra boosts from the start.

Miaomiao was afraid that Lu Fengxian had this "Invincibility" perk in his early story since he possessed the [Supreme Cultivation Technique], [Experience] from the higher realm, and [Ultimate Fortune], which made his character in the category of the infamous "OP MC" trope.

Catching up with Lu Fengxian's growth was impossible. Defeating him with Miaomiao's current strength and resources was also impossibru. Ganging on him with all nascent soul cultivators and Zhao Bao might be viable, but the sacrifices and potential casualties wouldn't worth it.

Miaomiao couldn't think of a way to defeat this man with his current strength, allies, and resources!

'Well, fuck. If I can't be his enemy, be his friend! I just keep being on his good side like how I showered the Ma Clan with fortune. Nothing can go wrong by being a protagonist's friend!'

Ding

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