Chapter 675 — The Tempered Physique Stirs Up Storms

Lou Qianzhong fended off four moves with the divine abilities he had learned in these few days, unable to gain the upper hand. Frowning slightly, he abruptly altered his divine abilities—they turned incomparably bizarre—and struck out with his palm again and again.

At his first palm strike, Wang Muran's primordial spirit was actually knocked out of his body—and then forcibly dragged back in by Wang Muran himself.

At his second palm, Wang Muran's primordial spirit was shaken out of his body once more, each time farther than the last!

Lou Qianzhong swept out a hand, and behind Wang Muran a dark, sunken rift suddenly split open. His primordial spirit was about to tumble into the rift when Wang Muran roared, his body flying backward at speed, and crashed squarely into his own primordial spirit. Flesh and spirit merged into one, and he vaulted backward into the air, just barely evading the rift and landing beside True God Pang Yu, his face a mask of shock and uncertainty.

Lou Qianzhong did not press the attack. He praised him: "Not bad at all. You are the first to force me to use my true cultivation arts and divine abilities."

Wang Muran steadied his racing heart and said to Xu Shenghua, "Five moves! Your turn!"

Xu Shenghua's gaze flickered. He stepped out from the crowd and walked toward Lou Qianzhong. "If I go up, it may take only one move or two—either I lose, or I win."

His footsteps suddenly became extremely heavy and solid. With each step he set down, the earth beneath him quaked unceasingly and lotus blossoms welled up one after another, slowly opening, their stamens trembling faintly and bursting forth with all manner of runes.

He walked on; the lotuses were left behind him, and the more steps he took, the more lotuses there were in his wake.

After a dozen or so steps, the space behind him had become a world of lotuses. The various runes bursting from the stamens arranged and combined with one another; the runes formed a void, and within the void was a world of floral fragrance.

Lou Qianzhong's expression turned grave. Xu Shenghua's divine abilities had already become a system; the void world behind him concealed divine abilities, and those divine abilities evolved without cease, so that Lou Qianzhong could not tell what move of divine ability Xu Shenghua meant to employ.

For the void world was constructed from the most fundamental runes, and different sequences of fundamental runes formed different divine abilities. To discern from his void world what divine ability he was employing was all but impossible!

"A great divine ability, right from the first!"

Dao Master Lin Xuan's face showed astonishment. He said in a low voice, "Senior Brother Wang, Senior Brother Xu's attainment in divine abilities already far surpasses ours!"

Wang Muran snorted. "If I had fused and mastered Little Yujing's arts, I would not be inferior to him."

Dao Master Lin Xuan could not help saying, "Perhaps you should go consult Cult Master Shen. Behind his back people call Cult Master Shen the King of Rags—his cultivation arts are all mended, patched, and stitched: patch and cultivate for three years, mend and cultivate for three years, stitch again and cultivate three more years. I hear he has built a model of the human body's cultivation arts; it ought to suit your taste quite well."

Just then Xu Shenghua's divine ability erupted. In that single instant the divine ability was so resplendent and bewitching; the void world behind him surged forward, lotuses swaying, runes changing with incredible speed!

Lou Qianzhong took one step back, and behind him suddenly appeared a vast, profound darkness, as though a desolate ruin had come into black night, howling as it engulfed him.

Xu Shenghua was startled. Wherever the darkness shrouded, he could no longer find any trace of Lou Qianzhong.

That darkness was like another layer of time and space, corroding his vital essence, his divine abilities, his very flesh; it seeped into his body, tainting his primordial spirit. His divine ability blasted into the darkness, its might running wild, recklessly pouring out its power—yet it was swiftly devoured by the dark.

Xu Shenghua sprang backward, and as he retreated he struck out with a palm behind him. His five fingers quivered, and at once the air behind him filled with palm shadows and finger shadows—palm lines like mountains and rivers, palm centers like continents beneath heaven, finger shadows like towering peaks!

Lou Qianzhong appeared behind him, seeming in the darkness to be composed of black sand. He passed straight through Xu Shenghua's divine ability and drove a palm into the center of Xu Shenghua's back.

Xu Shenghua grunted and pitched forward. In the darkness a gateway opened, revealing a dim, secluded space; within that space a monster that was neither god nor demon waited at the door, and a steel fork thrust at Xu Shenghua.

Xu Shenghua brought his hands together, and the void world abruptly closed. Blossoms and petals scattered through the sky, engulfing him.

The steel fork stabbed out from the gateway into the void world, clattering loudly, yet it struck nothing. A single petal fell upon the fork, and the void world vanished, Xu Shenghua along with it.

"Eh!"

Suddenly a voice cried out loudly, "Another pseudo-Overlord Body!"

Lou Qianzhong withdrew his move; the darkness receded. Frowning slightly, he looked toward the voice.

At the same moment Xu Shenghua's figure abruptly appeared, as if walking out from the depths of space. His face somewhat pale, he too looked toward the voice.

The gates of Li City stood wide open, and Shen Mu rode out of the city in high, smug spirits atop a majestic dragon qilin—plainly intending to take it for a trot and test its paces. He shouted, "Pi, giddy-up!"

The dragon qilin said, displeased, "Cult Master, I am a dragon qilin, not a horse. Do not call me by my true name—be careful that Ban Gongcuo fellow does not hear it and stab me in the back."

The dragon qilin's stride was exceedingly fast; each step it sprang forth left a string of firelight in its wake. Before its words had even reached the others, it had already carried Shen Mu to Pang Yu's side and come to a steady halt.

Only then did the sound penetrate everyone's ears.

Shen Mu laughed. "My toil these days was not in vain. Senior Brother Xu, Dao Master, Senior Brother Wang—you are all here. Come and see whether my Fat Dragon here is not mighty?"

Wang Muran pursed his lips and said nothing. The big deer beside him said, "Yo yo, mighty indeed. If that figure of his holds its shape for three days, I will pull off my antlers and stick them up my nostrils. Yo—"

The dragon qilin glared at him.

Shen Mu did not mind in the least. His gaze fell upon Lou Qianzhong, and he said gravely, "The Village Head is indeed widely learned and well informed; he was not wrong. The moment my Overlord Body appears, all manner of pseudo-Overlord Bodies come popping out to seize my fate and fortune, hoping to become true Overlord Bodies. Senior Brother Xu, I was not speaking of you—do not take it to heart... Senior Brother Wang, shut your mouth. You are no Overlord Body; you are not even a pseudo-Overlord Body..."

Lou Yunqu, Wei Qingpei, and the others looked Shen Mu up and down and said in low voices, "Venerable King, who is this young man with his nose in the air, riding an unidentified species?"

Fu Riluo smiled. "Does the Nether Capital not possess a Book of Life and Death? If Brother Lou consults the Book of Life and Death, will he not know at once?"