“I don’t care who you are! Eat my blade!”

“Come again?”

****

Before anything else, a large jagged bone was already barrelling towards my direction to cleave me in half.

The oaf actually threw his blade at me.

Shing! Pling!

The minute I drew my saber, it crashed into the bronze blade creating an explosion of sparks.

The beastly man donned an expression of shock as I’m guessing he didn’t think my slender frame held the strength necessary to wield such a bigger than life saber before using it to block his attack.

Shu!

Through the corner of my eye, I could see the Zhendong beetle scurrying towards me. Its several legs were scurrying along so quickly that they appeared like a blur.

Vrrm!

The somatic essence in the brute’s body also surged like a roaring river. Its density far above the likes of whatever technique fostered the somatic essence of any demon I’ve come across.

If you’re wondering why the gentleman who currently has a hate boner for me doesn’t have his cauldrons out, it’s simply because he isn’t going all out.

It’s something I was confused about for a while until I saw his expression. It was filled with ecstasy and gave me PTSD (Panda Traumatic Stress Disorder).

The saber strike I let loose landed on the shell of the Zhendong beetle, only to leave a shallow white mark in its wake.

“If you don’t take this seriously, you’re going to die here, boy! Hahaha!”

The maniacal laughter of this idiot echoed endlessly in this stone forest, as he dashed towards the beetle in a headlong collision.

Boom!

A reverberative shockwave spread out that caused cracks to appear in the stone pillars hundreds of meters all around.

“Guh.”

I staggered back a little under its effect. This shockwave made each wave feel like it had a hundred such waves compressed into each fluctuation.

Pu Ci!

I could see the giant’s cleaver shudder at an insane speed before that palpitation travelled to his back, causing it to explode in a geyser of blood!

“Ack!”

He coughed up blood in response and I came to realise that these people have an ungodly amount of blood in their bodies.

Even though the blood loss was copious in volume, the smile on his face intensified even more. Masochism at its finest.

Also, from here I came to know that this Zhendong beetle is a peak rank four magical beast.

“Is this person an idiot?” I asked myself under my breath, wait I forgot where I was for a second there.

Magical beasts are known to outclass cultivators in the same realm in one or more ways. So a rank four magical beast which is in the same realm as a Core Formation expert (Martial Adept) can square against a lower-tier Core Flame Evocation expert (Martial Master) due to either their insanely high natural defences if they have it, their greater speed OR their unholy levels of strength.

It mostly depends on what they specialise in and it can clearly be seen that this species of beetles specialise in defence.

Combined with the fact that each of its attacks were imbued with a series of high-intensity vibrations, this made even its relatively average levels of strength in an attack extremely dangerous.

As such, even though this brute was powerful in his own right, this head-on collision ended up with the giant at a disadvantage.

This deadlock was dangerously temporary and could end up in his death if it wasn’t dealt with correctly.

Rumble!

The ground between the beetle and the brute violently shook as they both looked in a particular direction where they saw the earth splitting towards them like the maws of a dangerous beast intending to swallow them both!

“Earth Severance!”

Don’t judge me for shouting out the name of the attack. One, I did it after the attack was released and it is loud enough already so no one’s being made aware here. Two, I did it because it seems to match the moment, being badass and all.

The giant was too injured to get out of the way, so he moved his cleaver from the pincer of the beetle before placing it in front of the incoming attack instead. He drove the somatic essence and forced it into the cleaver to bolster his defences.

The beetle, being as stupid as it was, didn’t try to defend against the attack, but tried to attack the giant man instead. It was most likely because he was right in front of it, but this would prove to be the wrong choice.

Before the beetle could do anything to him, the attack arrived, opening up a large chasm below the two.

The beetle bore the brunt of the blow as it fell into the abyss. The giant’s blade was firmly planted into the ground. One could even see the somatic essence that encased it. This was most likely what caused the encroaching chasm that threatened to engulf him as well to stop short of doing so.

“Hm, I thought it would have given a bit more damage. Well, it is the first time I am using this technique, I guess, so maybe I need more practice.”

Something came to mind when I executed that technique. I know for a fact that I never used that technique before. However, due to the fact that I asked the goddess from back in the Anima palace to give me either ungodly or unholy talent in cultivation, this must be what that resulted in.

I have so been pimped out by the goddess. However, it still seems that I need to practise a teeny bit more to bring whatever I learn to perfection… that’s fair.

The giant looked around and saw that the beetle had disappeared before placing his sights on Long Di.

“You took my prey away!” he roared.

“I have a strong feeling you don’t know what the word prey means,” I wasn’t going to stick around here and take this.

One reason was due to the fact that there was a disturbing ability of the Zhendong beetle that I didn’t want to witness, and the other reason was that I didn’t want to deal with this muscle brain.

After all, a roided-out citizen wasn’t a model citizen.

“Since you took my prey away, I‘ll just turn you into one,” he licked his lips as he looked at me.

“You have a hole in your back. How can you be smiling?” I asked him.

“This old thing?” he pointed to his back wound.

“That was given like five minutes ago. So about as far along as your intellectual maturity. Plus, why do you wanna fight a minor? Pick on someone your own size.” I was playing the minor card… don’t judge me.

“Don’t try to trick me. You’re using the bronze saber that belongs to the bronze seat of the Iron Body Forge Sect, aren’t you? You’re strong to get your hands on that.”

As soon as he said this, I realised I messed up. I remember that I was told not to go around parading with this thing since the Iron Body Forge Sect is pretty famous and well known. If I am known to be in possession of this thing, it could be problematic if they send someone after me, which they probably will.

“I don’t suppose you’ll keep this a secret, will you?” I asked him.

“Entertain and live beyond that and I’ll consider it!” he roared.

With those conditions, I became fully aware that death was the most likely outcome here and as a result, set my sights on it, but not wholeheartedly. I wanted to use this idiot as a whetstone for tempering my somatic essence which can be done through battle as well, and to also bring my understanding of the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven method to another level.

He was not qualified to kill me, so I would use this opportunity to better myself.

D-Duum!

My cauldrons burst into being as I fully ran the Foundation Forge Body Tempering Art at full speed.

“That’s more like it!” an exhilarating grin was plastered on his face as he got the opponent in me that he wanted.

D-Dum!

All nine of his own cauldrons erupted as he entered battle mode. Six were high-grade whilst three cauldrons were medial-grade.

Two cauldrons, in particular, had their own pearls affixed in their grooves.

“Hm?”

Regarding my own cauldrons, there was an odd sight that I took notice of just now. I realised that all nine of my caldrons, though they possessed the cores, were dull.

Even the two star cores were dim. There was no difference between the star cores and the normal cores, despite the normal cores being an even weaker version of themselves.

So absent were their luster that they appeared nearly see-through and were nearly inconspicuous to the naked eye.

It was the inconspicuous nature of the pearls that the brute, being as simple-minded as he is, overlooked, leading him to believe that Long Di was only a 9th Duan Cauldron Forging expert.

“So you’re a Martial Disciple, huh? Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you!”

The giant was put off a bit by Long Di’s black crystalline cauldrons, but didn’t pay much attention to them since all he wanted was a good fight.

Boom!

The giant launched from his original spot at an unreal velocity. With his cleaver in hand, he planned to sever Long Di at the waist!

Plink!

Sparks erupted as the bronze sabre came to block it!

Long Di flew off the side under the power of the blow!

Ju! Ju! Ju! Ju! Ju! Ju!

Long Di dug his saber into the ground to slow his forceful travel, creating a scarring ditch in return.

Not giving him a chance to rest, the giant hounded Long Di as he kept hacking away with his cleaver!

“Come on, fight! Fight me already! Get my blood boiling, boy!”

Spittle kept flying as he shouted. There were techniques to his movements, only a chaotic madness driven by overwhelming strength!

‘I can’t keep backing down at his pace or he’ll back me down to death, well… theoretically. I need to find an opening to use the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven,’ Long Di was only using somatic essence at the moment, and as much as he hated to admit it, the brute before him was more advanced in that regard.

The giant was vicious in his pursuit, not giving Long Di any sort of breathing room.

Shing!

Suddenly, Long Di’s saber lit up with a soft glow.

The giant’s eyes opened in shock. “Saber intent!?”

Using this rare momentary distraction, Long Di took full advantage of it, ‘First variation, nine tempers!’ crying out in his mind, Long Di wheeled the saber in his hand, before unleashing a flurry of slashes!

“What the…!” the giant was caught off guard by the sudden counter!

Boom!

The giant crashed into the ground with a deafening rumble!

“So that’s it. It’s still a bit… off,” Long Di held the saber as he tried his best to compose himself.

What he had just used was the First variation of the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven.

The Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven was truly magical, as not only was it able to a near unparalleled forging method. It could also be used as an offensive type martial technique. After all, the Hellfire Forge Clan could never have been a top force so many years ago without being powerful in their own right!

Long Di was well aware of this, and what he wanted to do was to use this brute to polish his understanding of the Breaking Mundane Forging Heaven method. It was magical enough where if Long Di was able to land one blow on his opponent, then this meant that he could land one blow on himself.

As it stood at the moment, Long Di was able to land one blow out of nine. So he had eight more to go.

Bam!

The giant erupted from the crater that Long Di helped him create. As he stood there, there was a welt size bump on his forehead and his eyes were spitting fire as he stared at the eleven-year-old before him.

“What was that move!” he asked through gritted teeth.

“The first temper of nine,” Long Di answered.

This didn’t answer the giant’s question. In that move from Long Di, he felt a horrifying weight bear down on him. That level of strength was not something that someone who’s below the core formation realm should be able to muster.

“How are yo-”

Boom!

He quickly found that he could spare no more time on this as Long Di launched himself in his direction!

“Do me a favour and stand right there,” Long Di said whilst flying towards the giant. “I’m gonna unalive you a little bit.”