I Can See Your Combat Power

Chapter 974: Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Eight: Breakthrough

It’s really only Tang Luo’s fault, after unlocking the Undying Battle Body’s top fifth-ranked Divine Storage, he obtained the divine ability Yin-Yang Grinding.

This ability, which allows the fusion of the physical body with Spiritual Power, made Tang Luo almost forget about the task of Spirit Qualifying his body, as he focused solely on strengthening his physical form. By the time he was at the peak of the Fierce Realm and ready to Spirit Qualify his body, he was caught off guard.

Yin-Yang Grinding can indeed help Spirit Qualify the body, but as a divine ability, it also needs to be driven by Spiritual Power.

Common uses such as external release and retraction, trapping, and shattering a soul for combating spirit bodies are manageable, but to refine the body, its energy consumption is dozens to hundreds of times greater than that of exterminating spirit bodies.

For a body as strong as his, Yin-Yang Grinding would require a continuous output of Spiritual Power that has undergone a secondary qualitative change.

In simple terms, it means first injecting ten thousand units of Spiritual Power to activate the divine ability, then constantly “adding fuel” to ensure its continuation. Considering the strength of his body at the time, Tang Luo did some quick calculations and concluded that he simply couldn’t afford such a drain on his Spiritual Power.

It became quite clear at this point, even with the Yin-Yang Grinding ability, it was as good as not having it at all. Or to put it another way, for the short term, this skill was of no use.

And because of the uniqueness of his body, he was particularly afraid that, just like breaking through the Fierce Realm, his body would skip the step of Spirit Qualifying and directly reach the King Realm.

If that happened, he would really be called the weakest in the King Realm. It wouldn’t just be about fighting a Saint King-level powerhouse, he would even struggle against a regular King Realm.

So, there were only two paths before him. If he hadn’t found another method to Spirit Qualify the body by the time he was at the threshold of the King Realm, he would have no choice but to use Yin-Yang Grinding to temper his body — accept the loss of Spiritual Power, it was better than having no other option.

Of course, the best outcome would be if he could find a new method of Spirit Qualifying the body, so he wouldn’t have to waste Spiritual Power on such a meaningless task.

…

Lian Pass City, Clear Water Street

Just as Tang Luo had anticipated, the commotion at the Lotus Tavern couldn’t be hidden from the residents on the same street. Barely after Tang Luo left, the news of Thirteen Protectors being annihilated spread throughout the neighborhood.

The feeble commoners who usually swallowed their grievances now exhibited brutal behavior. They gathered with iron shovels and hoes, completely surrounding the Lotus Tavern.

However, the young man who grew up in the brothel had long since lost the naiveté of staking his life on chance. Carrying the corpse of Wu Fifty-Eight, he quietly slipped away through the back door.

Having cleared enough space, he finally had room to flee, and his destination was very clear — the west gate of Lian Pass City.

Thanks to Wu Fifty-Eight’s careful guidance over the years, the young man was no longer the malnourished figure he was when they first met. A life of hearty eating and drinking had made him as strong as an ox.

If he weren’t carrying a corpse on his back, maybe he really could have escaped from the city. But life, after all, is devoid of ‘ifs’.

Faced with a group of enraged Lian Pass citizens, the young man simply strapped Wu Fifty-Eight’s corpse to his back and firmly grasped the long knife in his hands, charging forward undaunted.

The saying goes, when a man is willing to die, ten thousand cannot compete. In a situation where there’s not a huge disparity in individual strength, courage determines the outcome of the battle.

In a sense, it’s not that no one could stop this young man, but rather that nobody wanted to be the one to die, even if only one person stood in front, as the young man’s long knife swung down. Those who had no regard for their lives could rush in, and the young man, now surrounded, would naturally have nothing but a dead end ahead of him.

But no one had been prepared for this, so a comical scene unfolded on the main street, where a crowd had encircled a young man, only to be chased down the street by him wielding a knife. As he pushed through, the sheer force knocked over the people following behind, making it look as though the young man had felled dozens with a single slash.

In this manner, the young man unbelievably broke through the encirclement and, carrying a corpse, he strode away into the distance.

It wasn’t until he reached the run-down temple in the woods outside the Lian Guan City that the young man finally set down the body of Wu Fifty-Eight. He dropped the chipped long knife in his hand and then leaned against the wall, sitting down to catch his breath in great gasps.

The knife wound on his chest, which had appeared mild to the eye, had already stopped bleeding and scabbed over, but it burst open again during the violent escape.

The young man, accustomed to injuries, knew that if he didn’t attend to it, he would bleed out and follow in Brother Wu’s footsteps.

Just as he was carefully undoing his clothes to tend to the wound, he suddenly heard a noise outside the temple door. He swiftly turned around, bringing his long knife up with a flick of his toes, and when he faced the temple door, he already had the long knife in hand, held horizontally in front of him.

The young man also saw clearly that the source of the noise was a tall man wearing a bamboo hat, a brown kasaya, and arhat shoes with six holes, who appeared to be a wandering monk.

“Fortunately, it’s not the pursuers.”

The young man let out a long sigh of relief in his heart, yet his expression did not change. He did not lower the long knife but instead shouted at the newcomer, “Who are you, and why are you here?”

The tall monk walked into the temple and stopped three yards from the young man, then took off his bamboo hat to reveal a blue-black face: “I am Gu Han, here in Lian Guan to find an old acquaintance.”

“Looking for an old acquaintance?” The young man was full of confusion. “If you’re looking for an old acquaintance, what are you doing in this decrepit temple? Not far east is the city of Lian Guan!”

“No need,” Gu Han grinned, showing a row of white teeth and chuckled, “I have found whom I was looking for.”

As Corpse Monk spoke, he cast his gaze towards the body of Wu Fifty-Eight next to the young man.

“Even if it costs me my life today, I won’t let you touch a hair on him!”

The young man bellowed furiously, and with the knife, he swung down toward Gu Han’s forehead. However, the tall monk neither dodged nor evaded, allowing the blade to fall.

The sound of a ‘clang’ rang out, and the young man felt as though he had struck a slab of iron, his entire right arm going numb, yet he still clutched the long knife tight.

The tall monk, despite being struck by the knife, was not angered. He simply nudged the blade on his forehead aside and said with a smile, “If Little Eighteen knows from the underworld that he has a brother willing to risk his life for him after death, he would be very pleased.”

“Clang clang”

Upon hearing Gu Han’s words, the young man threw his knife aside, turned around to kneel, and cried uncontrollably, “Master, Brother Wu was driven to death by someone’s cruelty. Please seek justice for him!”

In all of Lian Guan, only the great protector was known as Brother Wu, and even the other brothers didn’t know Wu’s real name. Only the young man knew, because once Wu Fifty-Eight had mentioned to him that his surname was Wu, given name Fifty-Eight, and he was the eighteenth in his family.

He said if anything unexpected happened to him, and someone came to Lian Guan City looking for Eighteen, the young man was to lead that person to a certain place.

Back then, the young man had thought the boss was just talking nonsense, but upon hearing the tall monk’s words, he knew that this monk was the person the boss had been waiting for!