Chapter 157: Watch Me Push It Back!!

Huan Hai's face flickered between light and shadow as his fingertips glowed; the air grew unstable, trembling with repeated shocks from the dense energy fluctuations, bending light into distorted shapes.

"Boom—"

Compressing immense spiritual energy to its limit, then releasing it in a single explosive burst through pressure.

In an instant, a cyan glow like moonlight shot from his fingertip, surging and cascading with overwhelming spiritual power toward Jia Ji, tearing through sky and atmosphere with a trailing band of cyan light.

【Spirit Bullet】

A technique that condenses one's spiritual energy into a pellet-like form and fires it—simple enough for beginners to unleash, yet its power scales with the amount of spiritual energy gathered by the user.

Yet, under Huan Hai's enhancements and refinements to his Spirit Light Wave Fist, even this basic technique could wield a tyrannical might, unmatched and invincible across the world.

Huh—

Jia Ji took a deep breath, staring at his loosely clenched left hand; blue battle qi surged forth, blazing fiercely. His scalp prickled, a shivering coldness rose from his tailbone straight to his brain, every hair on his body stood on end—but this was not fear, it was exhilaration.

Losing control and blurting out nonsense during battle might be Jia Ji's flaw, but he had no regrets; had he not provoked Huan Hai, he might never have witnessed this Spirit Bullet.

Wait… isn't the shape of this Spirit Bullet kind of like a basketball?

His eyelids snapped open, catching the blurred outline of the Spirit Bullet.

The motion of his eyes opening was too forceful, the light within too brilliant—two red glows burned like fire… signaling his mind had made its decision.

What do you do when your opponent fires a wave?

You fire back at them, of course!

The speeding Spirit Bullet churned the air into waves, shattering every obstacle in its path.

"Come!"

Laughing loudly, Jia Ji swung his arm, thrusting his palm toward the Spirit Bullet, fingers spread wide, knuckles stark, radiating an unbreakable metallic resolve!

In an instant of contact, the Spirit Bullet paused for a negligible moment—then a violent numbness and pain surged from his palm through his entire body, his internal organs and bones jolted as if struck by lightning, veins bulged at his temples, his heart pounded wildly.

Thud! The overwhelming impact forced Jia Ji to stagger back a step; the ground within a yard around his feet sank more than an inch, a ring of dust spreading outward.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the skin of his entire arm, blood spurted from the fissures like streaks of crimson patterns covering his limb.

But that was it.

Pain began to drive his flesh, stoke his will.

Battle qi, the fusion of will and flesh, is the dual manifestation of life in both material and spiritual form—squeezing every ounce of physical and mental strength until the strongest power erupted from every cell.

And the North Star Divine Fist could push this power to its absolute extreme.

A thick, supremely concentrated battle aura exploded and spiraled!

Upon contact with a human body, it would cause blood to spew from every pore; the effect might vary depending on whether contact was tight or loose.

This was Jia Ji's first time using this secret technique, and the target wasn't a human body—it was a highly compressed energy sphere.

But what did that matter?

Just a damn basketball… I mean, Spirit Bullet!

Watch me push it back!!

His gaze, firm as bedrock, revealed unshakable will; between his palm and the Spirit Bullet, blazing light streaked like meteors, brilliant flashes erupted—collision sparked countless rapidly spinning arcs of pure white wind, shredding everything around into fragments.

Two utterly different forces clashed… and merged?

Step! He advanced another step, returning to his original position; his heavy footfall shook the ground, reversing the raging torrent before him, Jia Ji breathed rhythmically, awakening the latent power within his body.

Through mental control, he spun the battle qi in his palm into a massive vortex, generating a spiral shockwave centered on his body, slicing air into circular waves—this secret technique, which unleashed countless spiraling qi currents, was called…

"—'North Star Circular Palm Wave'!!"

A tidal wave of battle qi engulfed the compressed Spirit Bullet, draining its kinetic energy entirely, then hurled it racing far into the distance.

Amid the howling surge of battle qi, the once-silent forest erupted instantly; gales arose from the flattened, barren land, deafening hums and the terrified roars of thousands of birds and beasts echoed across the heavens.

Facing the returning Spirit Bullet like a basketball and the raging, world-destroying column of battle qi, Huan Hai—a non-human-level spiritual adept—possessed exquisitely sharp senses; she knew the sheer destructive force of this attack.

Should she dodge?

With her reflexes and speed, even with her eyes closed, she could evade this straight-line assault easily.

Huan Hai shook her head, standing utterly still as if ignoring the attack entirely—as if the battle qi barreling toward her were not a force capable of obliterating a forest, but merely a gentle breeze brushing her face.

Just as the only two spectators were about to scream, a flat, mirror-smooth wall of spiritual energy appeared at her will, materializing at the last possible instant.

Spirit Light Wave Fist Secret Technique—【Spirit Light Wall Reflection】!

In the next instant, countless azure beams shot outward in all directions from Huan Hai, like tides parting around a reef.

"That's enough…"

She had used only half of this technique—the "Reflection" had not yet been activated; had she wished, she could have pushed the Circular Palm Wave right back. But it was unnecessary.

She breathed lightly twice; the relentless expenditure of spiritual energy and the constant deflection of attacks had left the elderly woman slightly fatigued, tiny beads of sweat trickling from her brow.

Had she gone all out, the power of this Spirit Bullet could have been upgraded another tier, even compressed to the size of a ping-pong ball—but they were not fighting to the death, so Huan Hai had naturally held back.

Though she hadn't lost ground, she glanced at the ruined surroundings, and her mood darkened instantly.

"Is it over?"

Seeing all had calmed, Mu Dan returned with Xue Cai from afar.

"It's over."

This spirit realm employee's ears were sharp—nothing escaped her; she'd heard every word of the earlier exchange.

"Just now, you called Master Huan Hai what kind of cup?"

The female ghost, oar tucked under her armpit, pulled Xue Cai's hand over to Jia Ji's side and asked curiously: "What cup are you?"

Jia Ji's face flushed redder than when he'd unleashed his full power, exclaiming hastily:

"Hey, why are you insulting me? That's filthy language!"

(End of Chapter)