Chapter 804: Strength and Technique

In the air, Li Fei, who was being pulled by thousands of transparent threads, suddenly drew in his limbs and forcibly snapped many of the threads.

"How can this be?"

Qi Zhou was extremely astonished.

His 【Thread Pulling】 did not rely purely on brute force to tug at a target; it contained extremely complex techniques, such as force-deflection, force-neutralization, force-absorption, and conduction.

Therefore, even if the target's own strength was greater than the force of 【Thread Pulling】, it was very difficult to break free from the restraint.

Li Fei was currently within his 【Domain of a Thousand God-Sent Shadows】, where he would be suppressed by the Martial Dao Domain, and the power of 【Thread Pulling】 had been significantly enhanced.

So, under normal circumstances, it was impossible for Li Fei to break free from the control of 【Thread Pulling】.

But now, the power Li Fei had erupted with was simply astonishing!

If what Qi Zhou had restrained just a moment ago was a giant elephant, then now it had turned into a flood dragon!

Before the strengthening of the Flying Sword Body, Li Fei's body could withstand a limit of 580 units of Blood Fury power; after entering the "Blood Demon State," it became 1160 units.

Including his original physical strength, it was roughly equivalent to 1300 units of Blood Fury power.

After the Flying Sword Body was strengthened, Li Fei's own physical strength was equivalent to 300 units of Blood Fury power; entering the Blood Demon State, his physical constitution improved significantly, reaching over 500 units of Blood Fury power.

Just now, in the Martial Dao Domain of Qiu Zi'an, Li Fei had not used 【Blood Fury】; he had only entered the "Blood Demon State," relying on his own physical strength and internal energy to fight Qi Zhou's clone.

But now, he had utilized 【Blood Fury】.

After the Flying Sword Body was strengthened, what improved the most was not physical strength, but the body's defensive power and endurance.

Li Fei's endurance limit in his normal state increased from 580 units of Blood Fury power to 1000 units!

In the "Blood Demon State," the endurance limit became 2000 units of Blood Fury power.

Added to his original physical strength, his limit of raw physical power exceeded 2500 units of Blood Fury power!

After such a long time of exploration, Li Fei roughly understood that 1 unit of blood soul converted into Blood Fury power could roughly allow an ordinary person to lift about 600 jin of heavy objects more.

However, lifting strength and explosive power were not the same thing; there was also the issue of an explosive coefficient and the degree of force exertion.

The stronger the control over one's body and the more perfect the force-exertion technique, the higher the explosive power would be.

An ordinary person might be able to lift 100 jin, but they might not necessarily be able to throw a 100-jin punch.

A trained fighter could throw a punch close to or even exceeding their own body weight.

A martial artist could naturally double this on that foundation; if they possessed strength-type extraordinary abilities, they could even throw a punch over a dozen times their own body weight!

Li Fei's control over himself was naturally at a master level.

Although he did not have strength-type extraordinary abilities or divine powers, he was a Flying Sword Body; his physical strength could naturally condense together, equivalent to a "sword tip."

Therefore, his "explosive force coefficient" was second only to those martial artists who possessed strength-type divine powers.

Being able to lift 750 tons meant he could erupt with a punching force exceeding 10, 00 tons!

The golden light on his body surface, which originally gave people a feeling of being indestructible like diamond, had now become sharp and exposed; the whole person looked like a peerless precious sword.

Besides being sturdy, the Flying Sword Body inherently possessed the characteristic of sharpness!

Li Fei completed a twisting movement in the air.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sonic booms sounded one after another as one transparent thread after another was snapped by him!

He fell from the air and returned to the ground.

The 【Thread Pulling】 driven by Qi Zhou had a comprehensive pulling force of about 3000 tons, but at any single point, the force was not that great.

When Li Fei erupted with ten-thousand-ton-level explosive power, combined with the sharpness of the Flying Sword Body and the characteristic of highly condensed power, he concentrated most of his strength on one part, forming absolute crushing power locally!

No matter how these threads deflected, neutralized, or conducted the force, they could not block this explosive power and were naturally snapped.

Li Fei repeated this; with the twisting movement, he continuously transferred his power to the next part, thereby successively snapping most of the threads.

"It's actually physical strength? How is that possible?"

Through 【Thread Pulling】, Qi Zhou sensed that Li Fei was currently relying mainly on physical strength, which astonished him greatly.

From Martial Artist to Martial Master, then to Dao Foundation stage, from physical strength to Innate Qi, then to internal energy, and finally to high-level internal energy fused with various types of Innate Qi.

The path to becoming stronger for low-to-mid-level martial artists could be relatively simply viewed as the continuous increase of absolute strength.

Whoever had stronger power and faster speed had the advantage.

But starting from a Martial Dao Master, absolute strength was no longer the core pursuit of a martial artist.

Various divine powers were the key to dominating victory or defeat.

No matter how strong your internal energy was or how high your attack power, if I unleashed an 【Indestructible】 divine power, what could you do to me?

Or, facing a Martial Dao Master with the 【No Distance】 divine power, even if you could blow up a mountain with one punch, what was the use if you couldn't hit your opponent at all?

Therefore, at high realms, the vast majority of martial artists would no longer purely pursue greater output and faster speed.

From Martial Dao Master to Grandmaster, the increase in absolute strength was not significant; what truly produced a qualitative change was the way of utilizing energy, which was the Martial Dao Domain.

Qi Zhou's 【Thread Pulling】 could generate a maximum pulling force of over 3000 tons, which was actually already quite sufficient.

It was not that he had never encountered Grandmasters with strength-type divine powers; after the two Martial Dao Domains clashed, both of their divine powers would be affected.

In such a situation, it was also very difficult for a Grandmaster with strength-type divine powers to forcibly snap his 【Thread Pulling】; after all, these threads were actually very hard to break with brute force, and in the end, it was still a contest of the strength of their respective Martial Dao Domains.

As for Martial Dao Masters with strength-type divine powers, there was no need to consider them at all.

Once the Martial Dao Domain was opened, any divine power was useless.

This was the first time Qi Zhou had encountered someone who did not rely on strength-type divine powers yet possessed such terrifying strength!

Is this even a human?

He was simply a humanoid exotic beast—no, even more terrifying than an exotic beast!

Even those large seventh-grade exotic beasts absolutely did not have this kind of explosive power like Li Fei!

Those large seventh-grade exotic beasts weighed about a hundred tons; without using strength-type divine powers, it was absolutely impossible for them to strike with a force a hundred times their own body weight.

"Is this also a special trait brought by the Dao Body? Super-strong vitality and physical strength?"

Qi Zhou could only attribute all these incredible phenomena to the "Dao Body."

With a thought, another clone rushed toward Li Fei.

This clone smashed through a wooden house, bringing with it an air shockwave, and charged toward Li Fei aggressively.

The controlled barbarian warrior wore a bronze ghost mask, his bulging muscles tearing through his leather armor, and sixteen sonic boom rings were raised between his flipping palms.

In an instant, Li Fei was surrounded by a boundless sea of fire, and sixteen fire dragons came tearing at him!

Boom, boom, boom, boom—

Li Fei let these fire dragons tear at him, and at the same time, he was struck by sixteen palms on his body, emitting thunderous explosions.

He stood where he was, immovable as a mountain, only the ground beneath his feet continuously collapsing downward.

Holding his blade in both hands, he slashed horizontally; under the blessing of terrifying power, he almost instantly tore through the flames before him and the clone's protective internal energy!

But just as the blade edge was about to touch the opponent's waist, hundreds of transparent threads appeared out of thin air on the Ghost Slaying Blade, and a huge pulling force suddenly emerged, pulling in the direction of Li Fei's slash.

The blade edge was pulled off by three inches, and then it tore through an afterimage.

The barbarian warrior wearing the bronze ghost mask flashed and completed a displacement within the sea of fire, instantly arriving behind Li Fei.

Li Fei intended to take a step forward to dodge the attack from behind, but hundreds of transparent threads suddenly appeared on his left leg, pulling forward along with his force, which instead disrupted his movement rhythm.

In that very instant, the clone behind him swung its right arm, and its right palm slammed heavily onto the back of Li Fei's head; the towering sea of fire condensed into a fireball and then exploded in its palm!

Boom—

Without the suppression of Qiu Zi'an's Martial Dao Domain, the combat power of Qi Zhou's clone had clearly improved by a grade.

More importantly, Qi Zhou could utilize 【Thread Pulling】 at critical moments to interfere with Li Fei.

Facing an opponent of the same realm, he certainly couldn't "hard-control" them, so this fighting style was actually what he was best at.

With 【Shadow Concealment】 covering it, Li Fei had no way to detect in advance where 【Thread Pulling】 would appear and could only remain passive.

He was blasted flying forward, smashing through two stone pillars carved with totems.

He propped himself up with one hand and sprang up, completing a turn in the air while slashing downward with the blade in both hands.

This time he still failed to hit the clone, but the shockwave from the Ghost Slaying Blade had already parted the sea of fire!

The clone appeared behind Li Fei once again, repeating the same trick, and slammed another palm toward the back of his head.

Li Fei tilted his head back violently, actively using his head to collide with the opponent's palm.

The clone's hand bones were snapped instantly, and the palm turned into a pulp of flesh!

Qi Zhou intentionally chose a flexible fighting style, not letting the clone go head-to-head with Li Fei.

But Li Fei's current strength was too terrifying; a graze meant injury, and a touch meant death!

Using the back of his head to break the opponent's attack, Li Fei twisted his body and turned to sweep his blade horizontally behind him.

At the critical moment, threads appeared again, intending to pull his body to continue rotating.

But he forcibly stopped the momentum of the rotation and simultaneously lifted his right leg, kicking the clone!

After figuring out Qi Zhou's fighting style, he chose to intentionally hold back his strength, using forty percent and keeping sixty percent in reserve.

In any case, even if it was only forty percent of his power, it was still a giant force that was difficult for Qi Zhou's clone to resist!

Pa—

This kick first struck the clone's lower leg, as if kicking into a lump of mud; the flesh and bones all exploded, and then the force spread all the way upward.

Li Fei kicked this clone to pieces with one leg!

And just as he was kicking, a figure suddenly rushed out from the sea of fire behind him.

This body no longer had flesh; the entire skeleton was as red as a soldering iron, and it held a heavy hammer in each hand, slamming them heavily onto the crown of Li Fei's head!

At the same time, the surrounding sea of fire seemed to be swallowed by a whale, crazily concentrating toward the spot where the twin hammers were striking, forming a huge vortex of fire.

Controlling two clones simultaneously!

This was a method Qi Zhou had never revealed before.

He had always waited until one avatar was shattered before controlling a new one, leading people to mistakenly believe he could only control one avatar at a time.

But in reality, this was not his limit.

Li Fei was hammered heavily into the ground by the dual hammers; the soil and rock layers beneath his feet were as soft as tofu, shattering and collapsing one after another!

Having taken this blow, the Golden-Thread Jade-Scale Armor on Li Fei's head showed damage, but the golden light on his body surface had still not been broken.

Hidden in the shadows, Qi Zhou frowned slightly.

The avatars he controlled all used Profound Scene-level Dao energy, plus the reinforcement of the entire small world's power, so their attack power was not weak at all.

How could they have failed to break through Li Fei's defense?

Aside from the 【Indestructible】 divine ability, Qi Zhou had never seen a defense harder than this!

He let out a cold snort, suddenly abandoning control of the avatar that was reduced to nothing but bones, actively dissipating the mental focus he had placed upon it.

Li Fei charged out from the large crater and easily smashed that avatar to pieces.

Then he saw two figures rushing toward him; these two avatars were on his left and right, and when they were only a hundred meters away, they attacked simultaneously.

On one side was a sea of raging fire, and on the other, a surging ocean of waves.

One fire and one water, one yang and one yin, one hard and one soft.

Two completely different artistic conceptions merged together, centering on Li Fei's position, and began to rotate at high speed like a Taiji diagram.

Li Fei immediately felt pulling forces, suppressing forces, cutting forces, spiral forces, and more coming from all directions—hundreds of different forces acting upon him!

Not only that, but thousands of silk threads also latched onto him once again.

This time, Qi Zhou did not use his avatars to attack Li Fei, but instead controlled two avatars simultaneously to unleash two different types of control-based Dao energy.

The combination of two control-based Dao energies, plus the restraint of 【Silk Binding】, once again formed a "hard control" on Li Fei!

The ground where Li Fei stood kept collapsing downward; he felt as if he were in the eye of a storm formed by hundreds of tornadoes, and every time he swung his blade, he was simultaneously pulled and decomposed by forces from dozens of directions.

Even with his terrifying explosive power of ten thousand tons, it was difficult to break free from such multiple controls.

Furthermore, these external forces were frantically wearing down the golden light on his body, as if hundreds of high-speed rotating drills were grinding a single diamond at the same time!

In just a few short seconds, cracks appeared in the golden light on Li Fei's body again.

No matter how strong the Golden Body Jade Marrow was, it was ultimately not a defensive divine ability; even martial arts could break through its defense.

If it were a divine ability like 【Indestructible】 or 【Thorn Shield】, these two styles of Qi Zhou's Dao energy would not have been effective.

But against Li Fei, they had a miraculous effect!

This was the reason Qi Zhou had suddenly changed his strategy.

"Although the Body of the Great Dao is powerful, it ultimately cannot break the shackles of one's realm."

Qiming's assessment of Li Fei surfaced in Qi Zhou's mind once again.

Just as the golden light on Li Fei's body was about to shatter completely, the energy within his body finished forming the seal.

Vajra Seal · Dragon Elephant!

Previously, his super-limit power could only reach a little over 2, 00 units of Blood Rage power.

But now, his super-limit power would exceed 5, 00 units of Blood Rage power!

If ten thousand tons of explosive power wasn't enough, then he would use twenty thousand.

You have technique, I have brute force!

Boom—

The earth shook.

The vortex formed by water and fire was cut open from the middle, and immediately after, the two avatars exploded into two masses of flesh and blood!

Li Fei "looked" at the Ten Thousand Blood Pearl inside his body; this super-limit attack just now had only consumed a little over 100 units of Blood Soul.

"It really worked!"

He couldn't help but reveal a smile.

Previously, when he used a super-limit attack, because the power exceeded his body's limit, a single use would consume over 500 units of Blood Soul.

Now that his super-limit power had doubled, theoretically, the damage to his body should also double.

But last night, while strengthening his Flying Sword Body, he had specifically used the Heaven-Mixing Compass to perform relevant analysis:

"How can I minimize the damage to my body when the power exceeds my own limits?"

The final answer obtained was: when power is over-limited, concentrate the Blood Rage power in the body into specific parts, and then perform targeted strengthening on these parts to make them more "resilient" to the nature of Blood Rage power.

In this way, although Li Fei's super-limit power had doubled, the damage he sustained was significantly reduced.

"Come again—"

He held his blade in one hand and shouted loudly.

(End of chapter)