Chapter Ninety-Five: The Decisive Battle
Li Yi stood where he was, watching Shen Yu’s aura surge violently upward.
As one of the sacred lands, Jade Pool naturally knew more than most, and He Panpan looked on with admiration as well. “There are vanishingly few in this world who can truly merge body and weapon as one. His talent is terrifying.”
Wan Jianyi’s expression remained unchanged. “You seem very interested in that fellow.”
He Panpan smiled faintly. “And you don’t seem to like him much.”
“Not really.”
Wan Jianyi said indifferently, “I just hope you find a dao companion soon. Otherwise, those uncles and masters back on Kunlun keep urging me to go to Jade Pool and propose on your behalf.”
He Panpan laughed. “That sort of thing is naturally borne by a man. If you found a woman you liked, wouldn’t that solve this trouble as well?”
Unlike the rumors that called them a heaven-made pair, Wan Jianyi and He Panpan in truth harbored no such feelings for one another.
Wan Jianyi seemed to think of something, and his voice softened. “I think I really have.”
He Panpan was startled, then teased, “To be chosen by the Wan Jianyi of Kunlun, what immense fortune that girl must have.”
For some reason, the young Daoist’s brows drew together slightly. He turned toward Shen Yu and gave a strange, cold snort.
On a low hill not far away, Yun Qing watched all this from afar, faint white mist swirling in her pupils.
From the notes written by Jiang Zhouyao, Yun Qing had come to understand the origin of these eyes. More importantly, she had now grasped a crude first use for them.
For instance, she could see through the essence of most techniques and spells in this world and make them her own.
Jiang Zhouyao coughed lightly. “These two will surely be the strongest opponents you meet when you go to the Academy in the future. Especially Li Yi. His path suits what you’re learning very well. Study hard.”
The white mist in Yun Qing’s eyes deepened as she nodded.
...
The spiritual energy around the lakeshore gradually settled back into calm.
Li Yi grinned broadly, looking exceptionally pleased.
This plain-looking man had grown up in a small town on the northwestern frontier, with neither great fortune nor miraculous treasures to his name.
In his youth, his life had consisted of only two everyday things. One was taking odd hauling jobs with his younger brother in town; the other was practicing boxing.
It was not until that cold night many years ago that his life changed.
That was when he met an old man who kept his hands tucked in his sleeves, looking every bit like a weather-beaten elder from the northwest.
“What’s your name?”
“Li Yi.”
“Like boxing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to become the strongest boxer in the world?”
“Yes!”
And so, that very night, he was taken in by the nameless old man as a disciple.
After a long journey, it was only when he entered the famed, towering city walls that he learned who the old man truly was, and how great his prestige had been under heaven.
It seemed that overnight he had become a renowned immortal in the world, the object of everyone’s gaze.
But his life did not change all that much.
The two daily things became one.
To this day, he still remembered the two things his master had told him when teaching him to box.
“We martial men have never borrowed strength from heaven and earth the way the Three Teachings do. We rely only on the fists in our own hands.”
“If one punch is not enough in a fight, then ten. If ten are not enough, then a hundred. If a hundred still fail, then strike with ten thousand.”
So Li Yi spent ten years throwing punches beneath mountain waterfalls, ten years throwing punches in the depths of the sea, and another ten years roaming the world. Day after day, year after year, he did not know when it had happened, but he found himself throwing fewer and fewer punches. Looking back only then did he realize that in his generation, it had become hard to find anyone who could withstand even a single blow from him.
An invisible might rolled off Li Yi’s body, and the broken stones on the ground began to tremble faintly.
“Since we stand in the same realm, I will not hold back.”
Li Yi clenched both fists and said in a deep voice, “And in fights within the same realm, I have never lost.”
Shen Yu’s expression remained calm as he stepped forward.
He had once told Lu Caiwei.
He was invincible within his realm.
If that was so, then it meant he had truly not lost in three thousand years.
The two figures vanished from where they stood at the same time.
Two streaks of light flashed across the sky, collided, and then broke apart at a touch.
Bang...!
A series of continuous impacts rang out.
Those with lesser strength could only catch glimpses of fierce flashes of light and surging spiritual energy in midair.
As the two streams of light rose rapidly into the sky, one technique after another was unleashed. The dozens of disciples of the Dao Sect all looked delighted and excited.
“Look, Brother Shen Yu is using the Hall of Clear Laws’ strongest binding spell!”
“Not only that, he even has the movement art of the Peak of Forgetting Oneself. That speed is unbelievable.”
“Summoning wind and rain really is one of the strongest arts. What an overwhelming display.”
Dao Sect secret arts bloomed one after another in Shen Yu’s hands, and cries of admiration kept rising from the crowd. A few others, however, looked utterly stunned.
Li Yi of Azure Emperor City was one of the top three on the current Rising Clouds List. Even with his realm suppressed, he was still one of the outstanding figures among his peers.
And yet Shen Yu, in the midst of battle, was not only failing to fall behind in the slightest, but was faintly seizing the initiative.
This was not what many had first expected. Or rather, it was the exact opposite.
Boom!
The two streaks of light crashed straight down from the sky into the water at the lakeshore.
The surface of the lake began to churn wildly like storm-tossed rivers and seas, and then two enormous water dragons shot up from the water.
They spiraled and collided with tremendous force.
The next instant, one of the water dragons shattered, and a figure in a blue robe was the first to be flung out of the water.
Shen Yu slammed into the huge willow tree by the lakeshore.
Li Yi followed like a ferocious beast. He leaped high, then clenched his right fist and drove it straight down into the willow.
Boom!
The willow tree, large enough to take several people to embrace, shattered with a deafening crack. The ground trembled violently, and countless disciples instinctively raised their hands to steady themselves.
A brief hush fell.
Just as everyone thought the battle was over, another thunderous impact erupted.
Amid dust and broken branches, this time it was Li Yi who was sent flying backward, his body skidding across the ground and leaving a deep furrow behind.
Light burst forth, and sword intent flared.
The two resumed their desperate struggle in that narrow stretch of ground.
Countless blue bricks and black-polished stone railings exploded apart, while fierce sword qi and boxing intent clashed head-on.
Shen Yu was blasted into the water, sending spray skyward.
Li Yi crashed into a massive boulder, scattering chips of stone in all directions.
The two were evenly matched.
Countless disciples who saw this scene were so shaken they could not speak.
Though neither had employed too many earth-shattering techniques, the ferocity of their exchange was already far beyond the limits of their present realms.
Was this the contest between the strongest of the younger generation today?
If the two of them were to enter the upper three realms at the same time and fight with all their might once more, how magnificent and tumultuous would that scene be?
Countless people waited in anticipation.
Li Yi’s right fist struck Shen Yu’s chest, while Shen Yu’s sword cleaved across the space before Li Yi.
Both were sent flying backward at once.
“Marvelous!”
Li Yi rubbed his chest and laughed. “Over the years, I’ve met many people with higher cultivation than mine, but none of them knew how to fight. You’re an exception.”
He paused, then said solemnly, “To force me to this point, you really are strong.”
The moment his words fell, a thick, overwhelming presence, heavy enough to crush a person to death, burst forth from within Li Yi.
He bent his knees slightly, and the muscles of his right arm swelled violently.
Streams of spiritual power coiled around the entire arm.
In an instant, Li Yi’s entire right arm was shrouded in golden light.
His boxing intent spread through heaven and earth, faintly accompanied by the roar of tigers and the cry of dragons.
Wan Jianyi narrowed his eyes. “It’s time to decide the victor.”
Countless people subconsciously held their breath, staring fixedly at the field.
The wind raged madly.
Shen Yu stood upon the snowy shore of the lake, his whole being seeming to merge into heaven and earth.
Neither the edge of his blue sleeve nor the loosely bound black hair at his back stirred in the violent wind, just like his Dao heart at this moment, its锋芒 hidden within.
Facing such a ferocious attack, Shen Yu only quietly switched the wooden sword to his left hand.
Back then at Sky-reaching Cliff, he had done the same.
Yes, because what he was best at was not the sword.
In the war of his first emergence, he pointed his right hand toward the heavens and summoned Purple Firmament Heavenly Thunder, which shattered rivers stretching for ten thousand miles.
In the Northern Frontier, when he fought the fiends, he used the spell of drawing the earth as a prison, reducing countless demons to ash.
Between heaven and earth, beyond the roar of tigers, there came another sword cry that rang across the lakeshore.
The clear chirring of the Jingqing Sword.
Li Yi’s gaze was unwavering as he said calmly, “I have one punch. It decides life and death.”
Shen Yu stepped forward and murmured, “Be.”
As dark clouds blanketed the sky, countless bolts of lightning struck with violent force, and the heavens looked as though the end of the world had come.
A thick purple divine thunder kept gathering and transforming, and the might of annihilation descended over everyone’s heads.