Chapter 65

Creak, he stomped flat the soda cans scattered on the mountain path; Zhou Shuo gazed at the distant arena, his face full of playful amusement. The Zhengyi Grand Ritual began today, the first two rounds are already over, now it's the top sixteen showdown, and at this moment most of the Quanxing members have gathered down the mountain, while the remaining more than half have hidden themselves on Longhu Mountain, relying on the ability of the domain painting poison.

Domain Painting Poison, nicknamed the Thousand-Faced Person, its ability is to transform shape using qi, altering one's own or another's appearance with qi. At this moment Zhou Shuo has not returned to his original appearance; instead he looks thin and small with prominent cheekbones. However, this is not due to borrowing the Domain Painting Poison ability, but by manipulating his muscles. The ability of Domain Painting Poison has a limitation: except for himself, anyone whose appearance is altered cannot use their own qi, otherwise the disguised form will instantly disintegrate.

Because the Luotian Grand Rite has already entered the top sixteen round, Zhou Shuo is now rushing to the back mountains of Longhu Mountain. The so-called back mountains are also an undeveloped area, the venue for the Luotian Grand Rite's supernatural competition. Here three arenas resembling coliseums have been temporarily built. The top sixteen match is about to start, and people are beginning to flood into the venue.

"Zhang Chulan, Tang Wenlong, Zhuge Qing, Wang Ye, Feng Shayan, Jia Zhengliang, Xiao Xiao, Feng Baobao, Liao Fan, Ling, Zhang Lingyu, Lu Linglong, Deng Youfeng, Feng Xingyu, Wang Bing, Ye Xiao." Zhou Shuo did not rush to follow the crowd into the venue, but stood outside the sound-quality field, looking at the list of top sixteen on the door. Hu Jie has already been eliminated; he was spotted by a disciple of Lu Jin among the Ten Elders, who noticed a flaw and captured him. This is not an accident.

This Luotian Grand Rite is a major event. On the surface it appears to be convening all supernatural beings to select outstanding talent as heir to the Celestial Master, but in reality there are undercurrents. Furthermore, as Lu Jin of the Ten Elders took the Divine Heaven's Scroll from the Eight Extraordinary Skills as the champion's prize, three of the Eight Extraordinary Skills have successively appeared in the world. This tournament was deliberately convened; its first goal is possibly Zhang Chulan, who may possess the Origin Flow of Qi, and its second goal is to attract everyone's attention, to ferret out those with ulterior motives. Whether it is Zhang Chulan or the Divine Heaven's Scroll, they are both bait, bait for the Quanxing.

Zhou Shuo looked at the list of top sixteen, his gaze sweeping over the three names "Xiao Xiao, Ling, Lu Linglong", and a faint smile curled his lips. These three are disciples of Lu Jin among the Ten Elders. For this Luotian Grand Rite, aside from the host Celestial Master's mansion and the nationwide organization Which All Pass, it is the Lu family that is most concerned, not only sending people but also bringing out the Divine Heaven's Scroll.

"Please, those whose names are called, quickly step forward: Zhang Chulan, Tang Wenlong, Feng Baobao, Xiao Xiao, Liao Fan, Ling." A voice full of vigor suddenly rang throughout the venue; the match has begun.

"Eh! This voice, not using a broadcast, what pure strength, and this venue—it was only recently erected, good, knowing how to transform supernatural beings into productivity." Zhou Shuo listened to the vigorous voice announcing, while entering the match arena of Feng Baobao and Xiao Xiao, and simultaneously glanced over the entirely wooden arena. The arena's form resembles a coliseum, completely built in the undeveloped mountains; without massive machinery it couldn't be completed, and there are no construction traces here, so the arena was entirely built by supernatural beings using their abilities, showing that their thinking is not backward or hidebound.

Zhou Shuo walked onto the viewing platform of the elliptical arena; the match in the field had already begun. Among the two combatants, Feng Baobao was indeed that Sichuan lass he had previously glanced at, while her opponent, Xiao Xiao, was a man wearing a blue robe, with a folding fan inserted at the back of his neck, resembling a teahouse scholar or storyteller.

"Who do you think will win this match?"

"I don't know."

"It should be Xiao Xiao!"

"It's definitely Xiao Xiao; that guy in the first two matches used the 'exhale qi' technique to blast his opponents' souls straight out of their bodies."

"But Feng Baobao is also very strong!"

Zhou Shuo opened his Heavenly Hearing and Heavenly Vision apertures, watching the match while gathering the sounds within the arena into his ears, extracting the information he needed from the spectators' remarks.

The two figures in the arena kept dodging; Xiao Xiao in his blue robe occasionally inhaled and exerted power, emitting a 'heng-ha' two-tone sound during the pursuit, exhaling a wave of true qi that kicked up dust—this should be the 'exhale qi' capable of blasting a person's soul out of the body. Using Heavenly Hearing, the sound indeed carries a force impacting the soul; it's a fine technique.

"Feng Baobao!" After glancing twice at Xiao Xiao's technique, Zhou Shuo lost interest and turned his gaze to Feng Baobao, who repeatedly approached Xiao Xiao. This lass wore Which All Pass's brown work uniform, her messy hair covered by a duckbill cap, gripping a flashing cold-light sushi knife. Her movements seemed frantic, yet each time she narrowly avoided the exhale qi, but consequently Xiao Xiao repeatedly kept his distance, preventing her from closing in.

"What are you going to do now?" Zhou Shuo watched the figures spiraling and chasing amidst the constantly flying dust, unable to help curling his lips. Faced with such a soul attack, this lass also knows she must not be hit, so she repeatedly tries to close in and settle it, but the opponent is no fool—he keeps his distance, exhaling heng-ha; this seems like a tug-of-war.

Supernatural beings' stamina in ordinary conditions exceeds that of normal people, whether endurance or recovery. After a period of meaningless tugging, the two both stopped and began to consider their strategies; this is a match, not a slaughter, so such mutual pause to think is allowed.

After a few seconds of separation, Feng Baobao put away her sushi knife, then lowered her stance. Zhou Shuo instinctively sharpened his focus, seeing the lass's body surge with visible true qi; she hooked, kneaded, and flung her hands, launching a ball of blue flame-like qi. Sure enough, she unleashed a big move. A thought flashed in Zhou Shuo's mind, but when Heavenly Hearing caught the name of the technique spoken by the opponent, he almost jumped straight down from the viewing platform.

"Did I hear wrong? I must have misheard, it's an auditory hallucination." Zhou Shuo slightly shook his head; he was sure it was a hallucination—how could a girl possibly have such a technique name?

Just as Zhou Shuo thought he was hallucinating, the true qi ball released by Feng Dingbao in the arena was dodged by Xiao Xiao; then Feng Baobao consecutively released several true qi balls, all dodged by Xiao Xiao one by one. When he was about to counterattack, Feng Baobao unleashed another wave of big move, and the name of this move let Zhou Shuo confirm he was not hallucinating.

"Consecutive creampie." With a tone lacking much fluctuation, the girl planted her stance, repeatedly striking outward from empty air, one after another true qi balls emerging from nowhere. Zhou Shuo stood on the viewing platform, unsure what to say; he had not misheard—one true qi ball is a 'creampie', and multiple consecutive true qi balls are 'consecutive creampie'. This technique of condensing true qi into balls and throwing them is called the 'Creampie Series'.

"Haha, it's the Awei Eighteen Styles I helped Baobao develop, I'm damn, Xu San, what are you doing?"

"This girl is really interesting."

"Wow, so strong."

"If we compare qi to money, everyone else is thinking about how to budget carefully."

"But this lass just now planned to rush up and smash the opponent with a gold brick; it seems the rumors are true— the company's temporary workers are all extraordinary."

Countless streams of sound flowed into Heavenly Hearing; Zhou Shuo steadied his mind, turning his gaze from the match in the arena whose outcome had already been decided, toward several distinctive figures. Xu San, who had once been seen with Baobao on the same path, was now beating a curly-haired ruffian youth; this youth should be Xu San's younger brother Xu, the guy who taught Baobao the Awei Eighteen Styles—Awei Eighteen Styles, Awei, AV, I'm screwed...

Zhou Shuo glanced over the curly-haired ruffian youth, then turned back to the arena; his gaze swept across the crowd of spectators, passing over a handsome and cute pair of brothers, then fixed on the three elders on the nearby viewing platform. All three elders had white hair; the two standing ones kept white beards, while the one seated in a wheelchair had sharp eyes. These three were exactly the ones who, amid the earlier clamor, used the metaphor of comparing qi to money to evaluate Baobao's behavior.

"Huh?" Zhou Shuo hadn't yet had time to pay attention to those three elders; involuntarily his gaze shifted. The match's outcome had not yet been decided; Xiao Xiao, who should have been drowned by the true qi balls and lost, was standing there in a posture about to faint. After a moment of stupor, he gritted his teeth and cursed, "Damn, I've been tricked."

"So that means this creampie lacks power." Zhou Shuo watched Xiao Xiao gritting his teeth in pain, couldn't help curling his lip, and turned his gaze to the ruffian male Xu Si standing on the opposite side of the arena.

"Hey, Baobao, can't the creampie be given more power?" The ruffian youth shouted from the spectator stand, making Zhou Shuo a little unable to resist wanting to go up and beat him. Damn, what a ridiculous name, the shame is off the charts, giving such a technique to a girl.

"Can't plug it, I've only ever hit soda cans." The girl's gaze remained steady, without a trace of shame, her words carrying a Sichuan accent.

"No problem, we can try forced……" The ruffian youth hadn't finished speaking when an elbow struck his head, swallowing the remaining two characters.

"Spirit and flesh united—why worry about this?" Zhou Shuo watched Xu San striking the ruffian male, secretly giving a thumbs up, while also looking at the battle in the arena. He remembered that when he previously fought this lass, her reaction was clearly spirit and flesh united; although she didn't have surging essence, qi, blood, and spirit, she should also not fear this kind of soul attack.

"Nothing's wrong, Old Four, his resistance doesn't work on me." The lass said in Sichuan accent to the ruffian on the platform, then launched another attack. Xiao Xiao seemed provoked by her words, stomping his foot to inhale and then exhaling exhale qi with a 'ha', but the girl flickered with fantastical footwork, avoiding two exhale qi head-on, and when Xiao Xiao inhaled for the third time, she leapt to his side, palms together pushing his chest.

The girl's push had substantial weight; Xiao Xiao's exhale qi originated from the dantian, the qi rose exactly to the lungs, being shoved hard into the lung cavity, the rising breath not exhaled, it immediately exploded in the lungs, two spatters of blood sprayed from Xiao Xiao's mouth, while his feet dragged two trails of dust pushed far away; after standing, he clutched his chest and coughed up two more mouthfuls of blood, his eyes wide in shock as he stared at the girl.

"Is the win decided this time? Can there still be a comeback?" Zhou Shuo tilted his head slightly; Feng Baobao had seen through Xiao Xiao's exhale qi trait, the true qi spraying from his mouth—although it appears broad in coverage, the closer you get, the weaker the airflow, leaving gaps to slip through; this is the way of combat in the arena, seeking the opponent's technique's characteristics to achieve victory—now can Xiao Xiao still turn the tables?