Chapter 27: The Bare-Handed Duel Between the Two

"Warriors of the gods! People of strength possessing heroic muscles!" (Dwarven Language, all following text is in Dwarven Language)

"May our god bestow upon them the immense power that only your great might can contain!"

"Let them manifest the beauty of strength!"

"Unleash the destruction of power to your heart's content!"

"Shake the souls of all who witness!"

These brief words were loudly proclaimed by that Wild Priest. Fortunately, the other party was using the Dwarven Language, which the humans present could not understand; conversely, some Dwarf Warriors on the other side revealed mischievous smiles at the corners of their mouths.

Because compared to other formal Church Priests, this Wild Priest, who had realized how to communicate with the gods and borrow power on his own among the miners, used prayer words that were truly too simple and direct. Although the ordinary prayers of large religious churches were already simple and direct, his prayers were so simple that they were a rarity.

Why is it said that this Wild Priest's prayer words were too simple and direct?

Because his prayer words completely lacked any designation or constraints regarding the object of the blessing. This resulted in the people facing the front of the Metal Box he held up not only having the strength of 'Shishou', a believer of the God of Strength, greatly enhanced, but also Jier, who possessed the Power of the God of Strength of the Dwarves, having the Power of the God of Strength accumulated within his body activated, causing his strength to be greatly enhanced as well.

His bones temporarily became tough, his entire body's muscles felt filled with power, and a sensation of being able to overturn a great mountain flooded his mind.

Jier's eyes widened in a daze, because this change was something that completely exceeded his expectations.

At the same moment, after 'Shishou' had his strength enhanced and saw Jier stunned, he didn't care why he was dazed and directly kicked off the ground, throwing a punch. It was clearly just a simple swing, but the force and the sound of the air shaking it brought made the surrounding onlookers feel panicked.

But Jier quickly regained his senses, subconsciously pressing down to steady his body, and threw his own right fist out.

First came a crisp sound of impact, followed immediately by a vast, booming noise like a great bell at the top of a Church being struck at close range.

The air at the point where the two fists met suddenly expanded outward, and then a sharp, explosive sound spread from there in all directions.

All the onlookers felt their skin go numb, then their eyes involuntarily squinted, followed by a slight discomfort in their chests and a faint buzzing sound gradually rising in their ears.

Jier and 'Shishou' kept their fists pressed together, seemingly not moving at all.

However, the ground at Jier's feet clearly had footprints pressed downward, and his legs were also pushing hard against the ground at this moment. It was the same for 'Shishou'; the front of his foot touching the ground was even shaking in a small range, carving out two small pits.

Both men had their mouths pressed down, teeth clenched, brows furrowed, and their respective right arms were faintly trembling.

Subsequently, Jier pulled his empty left fist to his waist to gather strength and threw it out; 'Shishou' immediately opened his left hand to catch it. Another loud bang erupted, and the air even produced visible ripples where their fists and palms met.

Jier began to breathe heavily, letting his left fist be gripped by the opponent, while the Life Energy within his body circulated rapidly, increasing Jier's physical strength and power many times over.

'Shishou's' eyes changed; in his heart, he piously declared the name of the Dwarven God of Strength, using the Divine Grace and favor bestowed upon him by the god once again.

A bronze-colored shimmer radiated from his entire body, and he looked as if he were cast from fine bronze.

The next moment, Jier withdrew his right fist, and 'Shishou' simultaneously withdrew his right fist. As soon as they retracted, they released, and the two pairs of fists continued to clash.

Bang, bang, bang, bang; boom, boom, boom, boom—explosive air blasts rang out continuously in the air. The speed was not fast, but after each clash, the onlookers felt increasingly uncomfortable, as if the fists in the arena were not hitting each other, but hitting the people around them.

Even the ground beneath the crowd was trembling slightly at this moment.

The child in the arms of the Herbalist Zuojigela began to cry loudly, and many small animals in the surrounding Village flew up in anxiety or fled outward.

"Not bad..." Jier managed to spit out a word during the breathing interval of the battle.

And 'Shishou' responded silently to every punch that now required careful handling.

"But I am not... the me from before!"

Jier shouted, causing the Magic Beast Magic under his control within his body to activate the Power Amplification Magic Bracer on his left arm.

The Metal Bracer on his left arm immediately emitted a faint glow as the magic mechanism activated. Once the Magic Tool was activated, Jier immediately felt his strength increase by another large margin.

One must know that he was already increasing his current physical strength by more than twenty times through various methods of enhancement; adding another 1.2 times to his entire strength at this moment meant he was at five times his original, normal physical strength.

In this instant, Jier's strength clearly overwhelmed 'Shishou'. He began to step forward amidst the continuous clash of fists, while 'Shishou', struggling to stand his ground, looked at Jier in disbelief, his feet involuntarily being pushed back inch by inch.

He knew he had to change his way of fighting, or he would surely lose.

Unable to care about the safety of the surrounding people, 'Shishou' stirred his fists inward, forcing Jier back for an instant, then slammed a punch into the ground. His fingers grabbed a large chunk of connected earth, lifted it up, and pushed it toward Jier's face.

But Jier simply smashed both fists upward simultaneously, immediately shattering the half-man-high clod of earth, and lunged forward, striking directly at 'Shishou's' previous position.

But 'Shishou' was no longer in that spot.

He quickly made a small jump backward, retreating to the side of the Dwarven onlookers, and shouted to Jier: "I concede! Stop the fight!"

But this was the first time Jier had fought an opponent bare-handed with his own body so freely, without having to worry about life or death. Therefore, he shouted: "The place is too small, let's go over there and continue!"

After speaking, he stepped forward, caught the opponent by the shoulder while 'Shishou' was caught off guard, and threw 'Shishou' directly outside the overnight Yingdi.

Jier then jumped on the spot and followed him.

While 'Shishou' was still in mid-air, he let out a breath: "Since you want to go, then let's fight to our hearts' content!"

A person with great power, drowning in the destructive force of absolute strength—this is a difficult hurdle that everyone who possesses this power finds hard to avoid.

But sometimes, one doesn't necessarily have to control this impulse; indulging in releasing it is also a method of management.

Once Jier and the other left, the crowd on the sidelines instantly felt much better, and only then did they dare to breathe deeply. When the two were clashing most intensely, some people had even held their breath and covered their ears, yet still felt incredibly uncomfortable until the two moved away.

"How terrifying, is this still a Human?" a Warrior muttered, trembling all over.

"That guy 'Shishou' is worthy of being someone valued by the gods; I reckon none of us are a match for this kind of strength," one of 'Shishou's' companions sighed.

"And they were doing this empty-handed; I don't even dare to imagine what kind of destruction they could cause if they picked up weapons."

The crowd leaned forward one after another, looking into the dark depths of the Cunzi not far away, and began to whisper.

As soon as 'Shishou' landed, he kicked and snapped a fruit tree several meters high nearby, lifted it, and blocked Jier in mid-air like a broom.

Jier chuckled, a dark shadow blooming for an instant on his shoulder, and his whole body suddenly gained a downward force. Before he could land in a normal parabolic arc, he plummeted straight down in mid-air.

Once he landed, Jier grabbed a stone bench from outside a Farmer's wall nearby, spun half a circle, and threw it at 'Shishou'.

With a series of crashing and booming sounds, thanks to the stone bench smashing the tip of the fruit tree, 'Shishou' had the opportunity to adjust the tree trunk in his hands, using the elastic trunk to deflect the heavy stone bench.

Immediately after, Jier charged up.

'Shishou' threw the remaining half of the fruit tree wreckage at Jier, but Jier casually punched it, shattering it into a large cloud of wood chips, and then Jier charged in with a punch.

Taking the punch head-on, 'Shishou' retreated, smashing directly through the Wooden Wall of the farmer's house and falling into the interior.

Jier wanted to pursue, but a series of animal cries and roars came from inside the house, followed immediately by cries of begging for mercy. The next moment, a leopard with its front leg twisted was thrown out by 'Shishou', heading straight for Jier's head and face.

Jier didn't even look, casually swiping it aside, causing the incoming leopard to deform and twist as it fell to the ground nearby.

Jier then prepared to charge in, but one after another, wooden chairs, an entire wooden table, a rough and heavy wooden cabinet, and even two wooden doors were thrown out from the hole in the wall.

Jier shattered these one by one; even when they were thrown with force, they could not slow Jier's pace by even the slightest bit.

And when Jier stepped into this Villager's home, Shishou actually exerted force to twist the wooden beam of the cabin, thrusting it directly toward Jier.

Jier also grabbed onto it with both hands to hold it back, and the two of them used this object to wrestle right there on the spot.

The wooden floorboards were crushed underfoot, and both men then sank their feet deep into the solid foundation beneath the house.

Creak—creak—

The sturdy tree trunk serving as the house's main wooden beam could not withstand the strength of the two, first emitting tiny cracking sounds on its surface, then some fragile spots began to spew out wood shavings and dust like a mist, and finally, the beam shattered from the middle.

The two men, who were exerting force, quickly moved straight toward each other; their feet crushed the floorboards, and the spot in the middle that had shattered did not stop for a moment, with the wood shavings that had shattered first exploding outward, while the newly contacted wood naturally could not withstand the force of this collision, following in its footsteps and shattering as it failed to hold up.

In the end, Jier and Shishou's palms, separated by some tightly compressed wood, slammed fiercely into each other.

"Ha!" Jier's whole body shook as he exhaled and shouted.

Shishou let out a muffled grunt; the blessing of strength bestowed upon him by the Priest of the God of Strength was rapidly fading, and the Divine Grace and Divine Power he had accumulated over these days were almost exhausted.

This forced the usually stubborn Shishou to speak with difficulty: "I lost."

Jier laughed, and just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, the farmhouse, which had been severely damaged and even had its main support beam violently removed, finally could not hold up and collapsed downward with a boom.

It buried both Jier and Shishou inside.

"Lord Jier!"

"Shishou! You fellow, you're too reckless! I knew it, as long as there is a battle you participate in, there will be houses collapsing!"

Both the Human and Dwarf sides rushed out from the overnight Yingdi, heading straight toward the ruins that had kicked up a large cloud of dust after the collapse.

But the collapsed ruins trembled, and then half of the relatively intact wooden roof was pushed aside from underneath; in the light of the Torches, Jier and Shishou were revealed, both covered in gray.

The two who had demolished an entire house with bare-handed fighting looked completely uninjured, though Shishou looked listless, while Jier's state remained the same.

"Geez, covered in this gray, I'll have to fetch water to bathe! Sorry, Shishou, I caused you to be a mess with this dust too. As an apology, how about I fetch the bathwater and boil it later?"

Shishou patted his head and his beard, shaking out quite a bit of wood shavings and dust, as well as some dirty things he didn't know what they were: "Isn't that what you should do?"

Seeing that the two were fine, everyone finally set their hearts at ease.

Only then did they have the mind to exclaim that the two could destroy a house just by fighting; it was truly exaggerated.

Many Dwarves only then realized just how powerful Jier and Shishou were, and how exaggerated their strength was. An average Dwarf Warrior could almost never last a single round against them before being killed.

Meanwhile, the Warriors under Jier continued to look at Jier with awe, taking the initiative to busy themselves fetching well water and boiling it in the large iron cooking pot, preparing for the two men covered in gray to clean up.

While waiting for the water to heat up to a suitable temperature for bathing, Jier and Shishou sat casually on the ground, and the surrounding people consciously kept their distance from the two of them.

This self-awareness did not come from respect, but from a natural fear of power and destructive force. Even Weier, who had always thought highly of himself, had a much quieter voice when he spoke to Jier just now.

"Hey, Shishou."

Jier simply lay down on the ground, his body spread out; he was covered in gray anyway, and it wasn't much cleaner than the ground. He turned his head and called to Shishou, who was sitting casually on his side nearby.

"What is it with you again? Haven't had enough? Then I can't keep you company; I can still accept the Priest's Prayer, but the special Divine Power from the great God of Strength requires me to accumulate it daily. I can't use it anymore recently," Shishou said helplessly.

He had finally managed to accumulate some strength again recently, but just those few moves just now had used it all up.

Usually, when he fought Monsters, he basically had intervals of a few seconds, and using it for one to two seconds each time was completely enough. But when fighting an opponent like Jier, who was flexible and whose strength was not weak either, he had to consume strength every single moment.

This led to the strength that could be used for a long time being consumed in one or two minutes.

"I mean, in that kind of special enhanced state just now, the destructive power of bare hands is really quite limited." Jier's words actually made Shishou turn his head.

The Dwarf thought for a moment and felt it made some sense. So he said: "It is indeed not as good as when I use weapons. It has to do with our bodies not being as sturdy as weapons, and the size of the attack range, right?"

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