Chapter 280: A Fist Beyond Time

Above the life-and-death chessboard, as Ji Donglai's figure settled safely into his seat.

In the distance, the antimatter was about to burst into a dazzling firework.

But before the explosion, Xiang Hongtu's eyes had already contracted to the size of pinpoints.

The instant his body registered the sense of crisis, he almost simultaneously transformed his Heart Image into a Domain and expanded it outward, covering this Fang Tian Di.

The next moment, the Fang Tian Di covered by the Domain completely vanished from Xiang Hongtu's eyes!

……

Time rewound to three days earlier, on the seventh floor of the Great Zhou Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion.

Baixiaosheng sat facing Fang Can and the others, an expression of contemplation on his face.

"You want me to pick which of the strongest martial artists among the existing Fourth-Turn warriors of the various nations has the strongest inheritance… that's honestly rather hard to choose."

"Because every inheritance, taken on its own, has some way to be countered—but those Fourth-Turn warriors are obviously aware of their own inheritance's flaws, and will do their utmost to patch the gaps."

"Take the warriors of 【Blazing Nation】—because their bodies are too fragile before transforming, they carry a dozen or so life-preserving sacrificial artifacts on them at all times."

"Whether it's the Fourth-Turn 【Saintly Essence As Ever】 at the extreme of defense, or 【Azure Lightning Film】 at the extreme of speed, the users of all of them are doing their utmost to patch their flaws."

"But if you forced me to pick the strongest Fourth-Turn martial artist… I think it should be Xiang Hongtu."

"Within his Heart Image Domain, his speed is faster than teleportation and even light!"

"Below the Sixth Turn, the only way to dodge his attacks is to never, at any moment, give him the chance to land a hit on you."

"Add to that the two lives granted by 【Yin-Yang Holy Embryo】, plus the strength, speed, and defense of a peak Fourth-Turn state—he should be the most vexing Fourth-Turn of them all."

"What? You're asking what his inheritance actually is?"

At this moment, Baixiaosheng said with a solemn expression: "The name of Xiang Hongtu's inheritance is—【Mummed Reverse Flow】"

……

Great Chu, Yonghao Year 47, the Imperial Palace!

Eighteen-year-old Xiang Hongtu knelt bare-chested before his father emperor, blood streaming down his back, covered in whip-marks.

Outside the hall, ceremonial cannons thundered and the whole city celebrated; inside the hall, however, the chill was bone-deep, unbearably cold.

This should have been the celebration for Xiang Hongtu's winning first place in the Grand Tournament of the Nations, breaking through to the First Turn on the very same day, and being conferred the title of Crown Prince.

But while outside gongs and drums thundered to the heavens celebrating the Imperial Prince's victory, the atmosphere inside was unusually frigid.

The reigning Chu Emperor, robed in a black dragon robe, gripped the young Xiang by the neck and hauled him up, fury barely contained in his eyes.

"Unfilial wretch!" The old Chu Emperor hurled the bloodstained whip to the ground and delivered another vicious slap:

"With such heaven-given talent, you refuse the royal clan's secret 【Slow Accumulation, Late Burst】 and instead insist on creating your own trash inheritance, 【Time Delay】! What were you thinking?"

The so-called 【Time Delay】 that Xiang Hongtu had created himself.

It allowed him to store the damage dealt by an attack within the opponent's body.

The damage inflicted now could, through 【Time Delay】, erupt a full day later—but when it erupted, there was no amplification effect whatsoever.

By every measure, this inheritance was pure trash and garbage, utterly useless.

Faced with his father's scolding, his kin's incomprehension, and his peers' mockery, Xiang Hongtu offered no defense.

Instead, in a dark corner, he silently licked his wounds and devoted his entire mind to the martial path.

Because he had defied his father emperor's will, that very day this fallen genius was exiled to the shores of the Endless Sea.

Unless summoned by imperial edict, he was never to set half a step into the capital for the rest of his life.

To this, Xiang Hongtu offered no resistance, silently setting out on the road toward the seaside.

No one knew that he had also set a prerequisite condition for this inheritance.

The eruption time of 【Time Delay】 was tied to physical constitution and mental strength.

The stronger the body and spirit, the shorter the time before the damage erupted.

In essence, this was actually a time-type inheritance.

Perhaps now, with only a First-Turn body, he could only make the damage erupt a full day later.

But people were constantly improving!

So long as he kept stepping forward, accumulating bit by bit, surpassing his self of the previous day each day.

Once he reached the Second Turn, the Third Turn, or even the Fourth Turn in the future, he would absolutely be able to throw punches fiercer and swifter than light itself.

He believed in his own inheritance and his own talent.

This was merely a small disadvantage in the early stage; what he currently lacked was simply enough accumulation.

The martial path is the art of sacrifice.

Only by paying a sufficient price can one obtain the corresponding achievement.

The poorest fate is begging; as long as one does not die, one will eventually rise.

Therefore, Xiang Hongtu staked his entire first half of life on it, gambling solely for that one morning of possible bloom.

Those ordinary men fixated only on immediate gains because they had no confidence in reaching the strongest.

But he firmly believed that so long as he kept walking, there would come a day when he reached the Fourth Turn, the Fifth Turn, or even the very peak.

From then on, after his exile.

On the deserted coastline, Xiang Hongtu began a life of self-tempering for decades on end, like an ascetic cultivator.

Solitude honed his spirit until it was like a bitter sea that never ran dry.

And wounds gave him a body of adamantine indestructibility!

When Xiang Hongtu was 25, his inheritance upgraded from 【First Turn · Time Delay】 to 【Second Turn · Time Extension】!

The strengthened inheritance, combined with his ascetically honed spirit and will, shortened the damage's delayed eruption time from one day to three minutes!

And when Xiang Hongtu was 55, his inheritance upgraded from 【Second Turn · Time Extension】 to 【Third Turn · Time Instant】!

At this moment, the eruption time of his damage shortened from three minutes to zero seconds.

This also means that, after spending 27 years of his time,

he has formally stepped onto that track which other martial artists occupied from the very start.

Now, he can finally begin from the starting line.

And ever since becoming a Third-Turn, he was surprised to discover that, in the process of using the 【Time Instant】 inheritance, the speed of his punches grew faster and faster.

From the speed of delayed attacks at the very beginning, it changed into shortening the speed of attacks.

At 55, having just entered the Third-Turn, he could throw a punch at 10 times the speed of sound.

Ten years later, while maintaining the original damage, a single punch was raised to 1000 times the speed of sound.

Twenty years into the Third-Turn, the instant of throwing a punch reached 5000 times the speed of sound.

Thirty years into the Third-Turn, Xiang Hongtu's punching speed had already far surpassed light itself.

Compressing a single punch into 0.0000000000……0001 seconds!

Finally, when Xiang Hongtu was 90, reaching the peak of the Third-Turn with nowhere further to advance,

the speed of his punches could no longer be measured by time.

From the damage caused by his punch being delayed by 0 seconds, it evolved into the time of the punch itself being 0 seconds.

Just as the name 【Time Instant】 suggests.

His fists were so fast they seemed to teleport through time! He had already exceeded his original goal.

"But…… it's still not fast enough! This degree alone is far from the limit!"

In Xiang Hongtu's resolute eyes, there was a trace of greedy anticipation.

It should still be able to get faster!

Now, having only reached the peak of the Third-Turn, he could already throw punches that leap through time.

Then what heights could the self of the Fourth-Turn, Fifth-Turn, Sixth-Turn reach?

Martial artists are just like this — going mad to the extreme in a single aspect!

To grow stronger, Xiang Hongtu would rather cast aside all worldly desires, forever demanding upward, forever climbing upward.

Carrying a greed that refuses to accept the status quo.

Xiang Hongtu gave up the idea of immediately returning to the capital to prove himself and once again be Imperial Father's good son.

His goal now was to seize from his father the title of Great Chu's First Baturu!

One year, two years, five years, ten years……

Winter departs, spring arrives, another sixty springs and autumns pass.

The entire world seemed to have completely forgotten his existence.

Only bitterness and solitude kept him company throughout.

During these 60 years, his spirit and body no longer had any improvement, and the speed of his punches did not change either.

It seemed his peak was forever frozen on that night 60 years ago, when he threw the punch that leaped through time.

But even without any further improvement, he still, without tiring, above the Endless Sea, threw punches toward that endless coastline for more than 11 shi-chen every day!

Finally!

On a certain afternoon when he was 150, after countless hundreds of millions of punches,

when he threw his fist once more, he clearly perceived the difference in this punch of his.

At the instant he threw his punch, within his line of sight, the entire world turned pitch-black for roughly 0.1 seconds!

During those 0.1 seconds, he lost his sight, hearing, and touch; there was only the throwing of punches reduced to instinct.

By the time he came back to his senses again, that pitch-black world had already vanished.

He lowered his head to look at the two hands with which he had thrown the punch, and a trace of disbelief flashed through his eyes!

"Is it an illusion? Why does it feel like this punch…… reversed time?"

At this point, his realm formally stepped into the supreme rank of the Fourth-Turn!

At the same time, an unprecedented Fourth-Turn inheritance was also born along with it!

Xiang Hongtu named it — 【Undarkness Backflow】!

On the same day, Xiang Hongtu returned to the capital, the Emperor perished, and he ascended as the Chu Emperor!

The dynasty name 【Mingguang】!

……

The viewpoint returns to the present; with the threat of the antimatter nuclear bomb behind his head,

he could feel that the antimatter had already detonated, with surging energy erupting from within.

Xiang Hongtu did not hesitate, letting his domain expand outward, and activated 【Undarkness Backflow】!

Klang—

As the inheritance of 【Undarkness Backflow】 unfolded, the originally multicolored world instantly turned pitch-black before him.

At this moment, within Xiang Hongtu's perception, there was neither sound nor color.

His entire being was as if banished into pure void.

But he knew clearly that this was merely under Undarkness Backflow — light and sound were also backflowing, no longer reacting with his body.

The entire world, apart from him, everything was flowing backward.

The lethal flames of the detonated antimatter bomb began to converge, the shattered restraining shell was mending, and everything that had just been in this stretch of heaven and earth was rewinding outside his perception!

After these years of bitter training since stepping into the Fourth-Turn, the time he could backflow had extended from the initially imperceptible 0.1 seconds to 0.3 seconds.

Once the 0.3 seconds ended, he would return from the backflowed past to the present.

But his operations within this backflowed time would not vanish; instead, they would spread to the present and erupt all at once.

It can be understood as: his fist backflows through time to strike the enemy 0.3 seconds ago, but since the past cannot be changed, the damage spreads to the present and explodes.

This is the effect of 【Ignorance Reverse Flow】; its essence is simply the ultimate upgraded version of 【Time Delay】.

The past cannot be changed. Within this reversed flow of time, the dead cannot be resurrected; everything can only be left to be resolved in the present.

Feeling the world devoid of sensation and awareness, Xiang Hongtu let out a cold laugh.

At this moment, only 0.05 seconds had passed since Ignorance Reverse Flow activated.

(End of chapter)