Chapter 675 — The Tempered Physique Stirs Up Storms

True God Pang Yu held back his anger and said, "Then I must ask Senior Brother Lou to tie the noose himself."

Lou Yunqu smiled. "Easily said, easily said. But before that, I still wish to see how far the cultivation arts and divine abilities of Taihuangtian and Jingping have come. Junior Brother Qianzhong has been issuing his challenges here for six days and has killed a good many young experts. Might I ask whether Taihuangtian still has any talents of outstanding caliber?"

Lou Qianzhong said indifferently, "In the past few days I killed them with the divine abilities and cultivation arts of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital. These last two days, however, I have used divine abilities learned from the divine ability users of Taihuangtian."

True God Pang Yu was faintly shaken. Looking at this young demon, he recalled the battle between Lou Qianzhong and Yuhe moments ago: the divine abilities used had indeed been those of Taihuangtian and Jingping—he had not employed the divine abilities and cultivation arts he excelled in.

Four days—learning divine abilities from Taihuangtian's divine ability users, and then using them to kill Taihuangtian's divine ability users in turn?

Such innate talent was terrifyingly high!

What was more shocking still was that among those he had defeated was Pang Yu's own disciple, Yuhe!

Before Shen Mu came to Taihuangtian, Yuhe had always been the foremost of Taihuangtian's Seven-Star realm divine ability users; now and again Shu Yao surpassed her, but such occasions were few.

After Shen Mu came to Taihuangtian, the title of foremost changed hands; and once many young elites had flocked to Jingping, whether Yuhe could even hold on to second place was hard to say—yet her strength was absolutely not to be underestimated. She was unquestionably among the very finest divine ability users!

For this Lou Qianzhong to have used Taihuangtian's own divine abilities to defeat Yuhe was something all but impossible to accomplish, and yet he had done it. It showed that the man's foundation was incomparably solid, and even gave one the sense that he had entered the Dao through divine abilities!

For one who has entered the Dao through divine abilities, a single glance at any divine ability or cultivation art is enough to grasp its principles and structure.

The first such heaven-defying figure he had seen was the Imperial Teacher of Jingping, whose understanding of every kind of divine ability and cultivation art approached the Dao itself—talent unmatched in a generation.

The second time True God Pang Yu encountered such a figure was Xu Shenghua, who had walked out of the Suppressing Gods Pagoda—dazzling of person, peerless in elegance.

Apart from these two, Pang Yu had never met anyone of the like.

Not even Cult Master Shen—whose name shook the world and who commanded the foremost sect of both Jingping and Taihuangtian—possessed such talent and brilliance. Shen Mu was master of many things: blade arts, sword arts, medicine, forging, all of them outstanding, among the very best. Yet in divine abilities, Shen Mu had not come near to the Dao.

Shen Mu had entered the Dao through cultivation arts and through sword arts; he was strong in every field, but first in none. Sometimes True God Pang Yu even felt that if Shen Mu had spent less time fiddling and fretting over this and that, his achievements might well have risen beyond what they were today.

And yet it was precisely because of that fiddling that Shen Mu's strength only grew greater and greater. Even the Imperial Teacher of Jingping and Xu Shenghua could not dim his radiance in the slightest; on the contrary, he had eclipsed much of theirs.

"How does one defeat a man who has entered the Dao through divine abilities? And a man who is moreover the disciple of an Emperor Throne powerhouse of the Northern Heaven Nether Capital..."

True God Pang Yu was stewing over this when he saw many young divine ability users hurrying over—many of them, having heard that a demon had come to issue a challenge, had rushed forward to answer it.

Among the crowd was a man of elegant bearing, holding the hand of the girl beside him, a small bundle slung across his back.

Pang Yu's eyes lit up. "Young Master Xu."

Xu Shenghua smiled, but the smile carried a coldness that kept others a thousand li at bay. "True God."

Pang Yu's gaze flickered. "Young Master Xu is the leading figure of Jingping. Are you confident of defeating the enemy?"

Xu Shenghua's gaze came to rest on Lou Qianzhong opposite; it shifted, then moved to Zhe Huali and Qi Jiuyi. "Not very confident. Their cultivation arts are of too high a level—the arts themselves carry the power to grant one enlightenment into the Dao. The art I cultivate has only just begun, and cannot compare with the arts handed down to them by their ancestors and their masters. My chances of victory are not great."

True God Pang Yu knitted his brows. This youth was of a wholly different temperament from Shen Mu: he weighed enemy and ally alike from a wholly detached height, scrutinizing both sides as though he were no party to the matter at all.

He was too detached, and it gave one a rather uncomfortable feeling.

Wang Muran's eyes lit up. "You yourself admit you are no match for him? If I defeat him, will you then concede that you are inferior to me?"

Xu Shenghua said, "In Little Yujing I defeated you in twenty-three moves, and I defeated Dao Master Lin Xuan in five. Therefore Dao Master Lin Xuan is stronger than you. If you can hold out five moves against this Lou Qianzhong, I will fight him."

Wang Muran was enraged, and Dao Master Lin Xuan, not far off, likewise furrowed his brows deeply.

Though Xu Shenghua spoke highly of him, this manner of praising a man was truly hard to stomach.

"Xu Shenghua has spent too long in Cult Master Shen's company and been influenced by him. Even when Cult Master Shen is being modest, he wounds people like this," Dao Master Lin Xuan thought to himself.

Wang Muran sneered, "I hear that when Cult Master Shen defeated you, he did not use a single move—he merely walked, and it dragged you to the point of vomiting blood."

Xu Shenghua sighed, "The stronger my opponent, the fewer moves I use. In my battle with Cult Master Shen, not one move was spent before victory and defeat were decided. He is indeed powerful—the most terrifying opponent I have ever met. I have gained much of late, and I dearly wish to seek him out and contend with him once more to see who is the stronger; it is only that I seldom run into him."

Wang Muran choked with fury, rushed out, and cried in a loud voice, "Lou Qianzhong, do you dare fight me?"

Lou Qianzhong looked at him. "State your name."

"We will speak after we have fought!"

Wang Muran's cultivation had advanced with astonishing speed of late. The collision of Jingping's cultivation arts and divine abilities with Taihuangtian's cultivation system allowed those of surpassing talent to make even greater progress—and Wang Muran was the very foremost of these geniuses!

Add to that the fact that Jingping was extremely open-minded where cultivation arts and divine abilities were concerned: in the various academies and halls of learning one could learn basically all of Jingping's arts and all of its divine abilities. Even Taihuangtian's divine abilities and cultivation arts had been compiled and organized, with Taihuangtian's own experts specially appointed to teach and explain them.

For the past two years Wang Muran had devoted nearly all his time and attention to fusing and mastering Little Yujing's complex system of cultivation arts, and the gains had been immense. In this exchange his figure was swift as lightning, his divine abilities quick as rolling thunder, and the might of every single move and stance was unbelievably great!