Chapter 77: The Ba Burns All Living Things (4000-word apology bonus chapter)

The morning wind blew across the harbor, causing the ship sails to flutter.

Yet there were always a few wisps that, unsatisfied with the swaying of the sails, tried to stir the sea surface to create ripples; but the ocean was too deep, and the wind passed by powerlessly, even getting swallowed up by the undulating waves if it wasn't careful.

Like a fish overestimating its own strength, provoking an opponent it shouldn't have.

The morning light was more composed than the wind, lacking such desires, quietly spilling over the various boats and landing on Xu Qing, who was walking back with a calm expression.

Whether killing a person or killing a fish, for Xu Qing, the moment the other party revealed murderous intent toward him, the outcome was already sealed.

He wanted to live, so any existence that threatened his life touched his red line.

He knew that between one life and another, while still alive, things were not the same.

The schoolteacher in the slums had once mocked this difference; he told the children, including Xu Qing, that in a prosperous age, those in power would still use a fig leaf to cover it up, but in chaotic times, this was already a deeply ingrained realization for everyone.

But as Xu Qing walked his path, he also learned that this world was, to a certain extent, fair.

Because after death, everything is stripped away, and the final outcome leads to one direction.

Dying in an alley no one knows about is no different from dying in a pool of wine piled with jewels.

"The Second Prince was right; it is indeed very fishy." Xu Qing withdrew his gaze from the sunrise, walked into the cabin, washed his body, and lay down only after the fishy smell was gone.

Today was not a day for duty, so he didn't need to report to the Homicide Department; at this moment, he felt a sense of relief, as if a thorn had been removed, and he felt he could have a good sleep.

But before sleeping, Xu Qing sat cross-legged, took out the bamboo slip, crossed out the four characters "Mermaid Youth," and looked at the Jin Gang Sect Ancestor ranked first, deep in his eyes, killing intent rose.

"Soon..."

Muttering to himself, Xu Qing took out the storage bag that the mermaid youth never had the chance to open.

He was very curious about what items were stored inside.

So, after weighing it in his hand, Xu Qing narrowed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then his spiritual energy erupted instantly and surged into the storage bag; it was not as difficult as he had imagined, as the imprint on the storage bag had actually dissipated long ago after the owner's death.

This allowed Xu Qing's spiritual energy to flow in smoothly and view the items inside.

After a while, Xu Qing couldn't help but gasp.

"So wealthy?" Xu Qing muttered; although there were only a hundred or so spirit stones in this storage bag, there were a full twelve spirit notes imprinted with the Sixth Peak's mark.

Each one was worth one hundred spirit stones.

Such a sum made Xu Qing's heart beat faster; after all, this was wealth he had never possessed before.

But he understood that for the sake of safety, he could not exchange these spirit notes in the short term.

So, after calming down, Xu Qing checked the other items; besides the spirit stones, there were three or five heavy treasures in the storage bag, and with a wave of his right hand, two talisman treasures also appeared before him.

One was yellow, the other was blue.

The appearance of these two talisman papers emitted fluctuations that shocked Xu Qing, and looking at the marks on them, they were actually eighty or ninety percent new, clearly not used many times.

Xu Qing sensed them and determined that of these two talisman treasures, the blue one was for defense, and the yellow one was for attack.

"If that fish had opened the storage bag..." Xu Qing narrowed his eyes; he could imagine that if such a situation had really occurred, although he could still kill it, the cost to finish the battle quickly would have been immense.

"So the use of the shadow can actually be more varied." Xu Qing lowered his head and glanced at his own shadow, a cold glint flashing deep in his eyes, his mind recalling the moment the mermaid youth was entangled by the shadow, when it seemed to have come alive for an instant.

"Was it an illusion?" Xu Qing narrowed his eyes, looked deeply at the shadow, raised his hand to touch the place on his chest where the purple crystal was embedded, and a cold light flashed in his eyes; he had felt it many times and knew that the purple crystal had a restraining and suppressing effect on the shadow.

Regardless of whether it was alive or not, Xu Qing felt he should suppress it first to test it.

So he tried to channel his spiritual energy into the purple crystal; the process was a bit stiff, and Xu Qing succeeded only after several attempts, and the moment he succeeded, purple light shone all over his body, forming a suppressing force that roared toward the shadow on the ground.

The shadow twisted instantly and faded a little.

Xu Qing looked carefully and felt satisfied in his heart.

He didn't want to waste effort guessing whether the other party was alive; even if his guess was wrong and the shadow had no possibility of coming alive, at most he would only waste some spiritual energy, so he operated it several more times, stopping only after continuous suppression.

Finally, he withdrew his gaze, looked up as if nothing had happened, and put away the two talisman treasures before him.

Then he checked the storage bag again and finally took out two items; the former was a sea chart, which was marked in great detail, far more comprehensive than the standard sea charts for Seventh Peak disciples.

It even marked the location of Mermaid Island, and after checking it, Xu Qing felt that the value of this item was likely no less than the talisman treasures.

After all, for disciples who cultivate by the sea, the more comprehensive the sea chart, the lower the risk and the greater the harvest.

Information, in many cases, has even greater value than spirit stones.

And the last item was one he paid even more attention to than the talisman treasures, because this item... he had seen it, and he also had one.

It was a palm-sized metal block, like a box, yet not a box.

Looking at the metal block in front of him, Xu Qing opened his own storage bag and took one out as well.

His metal block was obtained from Ma Si at the scavenger camp, and later, Fatty also coveted this item and deliberately gave Xu Qing a chance to strike, but ended up regretting it.

Now, after placing these two metal blocks together, Xu Qing observed them carefully and found that no matter how he looked at them, they were exactly the same.

"What exactly is this?" Xu Qing was very curious in his heart, his eyes slowly narrowing.

He had been to most of the shops in the harbor during these days and hadn't seen this kind of item, but whether it was Fatty's greed back then or the mermaid youth's collection in the storage bag now, it all showed that this metal block was not as ordinary as it appeared on the surface.

"I must find an opportunity to explore the purpose of this item." After pondering, Xu Qing put everything away, looked at the sky outside, lay down on the small bed, and closed his eyes to rest.

The rest time was not too long; two hours later, when the afternoon outside had passed, Xu Qing opened his eyes and stretched; his spirit was good, and his physical state was quite full.

Most importantly, after experiencing last night's strike and today's relaxation, he had a strong feeling that his Sea Mountain Art... was on the verge of a breakthrough.

"The seventh level is already the Great Perfection; what will happen after the eighth level... I don't know if I will have the combat power to kill the Jin Gang Sect Ancestor by then." Expectation appeared in Xu Qing's eyes; he felt that his Sea Mountain Art had taken a very long time to go from the seventh level to the eighth.

It was as if the Sea Mountain Art had been brewing some kind of transformation all along, and until today, he felt the aura of an impending breakthrough.

So Xu Qing sat cross-legged, opened the Dharma boat's spiritual gathering array, took out spirit stones to replace the old ones, closed his eyes, and began to cultivate.

Time passed, and while he was immersed in cultivation, the afternoon slowly went by; until the moment night fell, Xu Qing, who was sitting cross-legged, suddenly shook, and his entire body's flesh and blood tightened abruptly at this moment, as if contracting.

Inside his body, the sound of bones growing could be heard, and blood vessels bulged instantly, spreading across his refined body like ferocious pythons; while looking shocking, a majestic force of blood and Qi also surged within him with every heartbeat.

With every beat, the blood and Qi grew stronger; as the increasingly dense blood and Qi gathered around Xu Qing, the phantom of the Kui above his head also manifested, letting out a silent roar toward the sky, its expression twisted, as if enduring a great tempering, as if transforming!

When ordinary people cultivate the Sea Mountain Art to the Great Perfection of Body Refining, the Kui phantom will be fully mature, but Xu Qing's Sea Mountain Art's Kui phantom had already reached Great Perfection in advance at the seventh level, and then he followed the technique to cultivate, but he himself didn't know what would happen, nor did he know what changes the eighth level of the Sea Mountain Art would have after the breakthrough.

But he could feel that during this time in Seven Blood Eyes, as he cultivated the Sea Mountain Art, his physical strength was growing, so he also wanted to see what would happen after this growth reached its limit.

After all, the cultivation of body refining is the accumulation of strength, speed, and recovery.

In fact, even the creator of the Sea Mountain Art likely never imagined that someone would be like Xu Qing, reaching perfection in advance, so even that person would not know.

After all, the Sea Mountain Art, a low-level technique, was prepared for those with foreign substances in their bodies; no one had ever cultivated the Sea Mountain Art like Xu Qing, without any foreign substances in his body.

And at this moment, as time passed, more and more blue veins appeared on Xu Qing's body, his skin seemed to crack inch by inch, and while a large amount of blood overflowed from within, even denser blood and Qi seemed to want to burst his body apart!

It was as if Xu Qing's body had become an earthen jar, and the blood and Qi inside were erupting, on the verge of shattering.

But just at this moment, the purple light bloomed in advance for the first time during Xu Qing's cultivation, spreading from his chest, permeating his whole body, and while rapidly repairing him, it was also compressing with all its might.

While making his body more refined, an intense, indescribable pain roared through Xu Qing's body and mind.

His bones were shattering, his flesh and blood were collapsing, and his whole body seemed unable to hold on, but the light of the purple crystal continuously repaired him during this coverage.

Cycle after cycle, the blood and Qi grew stronger; even the array of the cabin could hardly cover it, causing a lot to diffuse outward; looking from afar, the Dharma boat where Xu Qing was located seemed to have been dyed blood-red.

As the dense blood and Qi continuously diffused toward the surroundings, it also attracted the attention of the disciples in the Seventy-Ninth Harbor; as they were all shocked, Xu Qing, inside the Dharma boat, suddenly opened his blood-red eyes.

The moment his eyes opened, a heaven-shaking roar, containing the syllable of a single word, exploded in Xu Qing's mind like heavenly thunder; this earth-shattering sound caused Xu Qing's whole body to shake violently, and the Kui phantom above his head also let out an even stronger roar at this moment, its illusory body tearing apart directly, revealing... a newborn body!

The tall body, entirely cyan, exuded a sense of violence and carried an incomparably eerie feeling; all the visible skin was withered and cracked, filled with clear fissures like dry land, a head of messy, withered hair draped over his shoulders, and a pair of crimson eyes carried madness.

The fanged mouth and the black, lightning-wreathed horn on its head all revealed its ferocity and cruelty; as it roared toward the sky, it seemed to want to tear apart the firmament covering the heads of all living beings.

As if the poles had reversed, what appeared around it was no longer water vapor, but a black flame, burning in all directions, as if it could burn everything.

To be precise, that was not fire, but a state where all things withered after absorbing water vapor to the extreme!

"Ba!" A sharp glint appeared in Xu Qing's eyes as he whispered; this word was the syllable that had just echoed in his mind, and it was also the shadow of blood and Qi that appeared on its own after the Sea Mountain Art broke through its original level!

Surpassing the Kui!

The Xiao can move mountains, the Kui can shift seas, the Ba burns all living things.

And at this moment, as Xu Qing spoke, a power far more vigorous than before erupted within him, spreading throughout his body.

Xu Qing raised his head and stood up abruptly; the refined physical strength contained within his slender body broke through its original shackles at this instant, reaching a realm that surpassed the Qi Condensation level!

The Dharma boat's protection could not hold on at this moment and shattered with a bang, and even the cabin was the same, with much of it shattering.

This caused the disciples in the Seventy-Ninth Harbor who were paying attention to this place to have their expressions change completely, their eyes widening, their hearts pounding, and their minds roaring as they all looked toward Xu Qing.

Xu Qing was silent; he also didn't expect that his breakthrough in the Sea Mountain Art this time would cause such a big commotion; besides... he could feel that his Sea-Transforming Scripture was also circulating in his body along with the eruption of the Sea Mountain Art, as if it were also about to break through.

"Congratulations, Senior Brother Xu Qing!"

"Congratulations, Senior Brother!"

Amidst Xu Qing's silence, the disciples on the surrounding Dharma boats, all breathing rapidly, cupped their fists toward Xu Qing and spoke respectfully.

Respect is due to strength.

The title of Senior Brother is the same.

Being able to cause such a commotion during cultivation, and even causing the protection of a level-six Dharma boat to collapse, one could imagine his power; especially Xu Qing at this moment, in their eyes, the pressure he emitted was so strong that it made them tremble intensely from their bodies to their minds!

That was a kind of pressure... from a powerhouse!

I'm crying, I actually mixed up chapters 74 and 75.

Life is always full of surprises; I originally planned to go out on a date with Lu Chong this afternoon...

It seems I am destined to be a writer; just as I thought about relaxing, I was hit back by my own actions... I can only tearfully decline the invitations from a group of young ladies.

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