Chapter 31 #3
The entire hooting and roaring crowd of lickboots and sycophants had grown deathly quiet when Xien Tang stumbled back, glaring at Alex in outraged disbelief.
He blanched, blood coating his granite teeth.
“You think I’m a fool? You think I don’t know what you did?
That was no striker technique!” The titan stumbled upright, shaking his head and glaring at Alex as if he had committed an unforgivable sin.
“No one save the great and glorious Long Wang and his chosen can channel an eight-element strike!”
Alex didn’t bother responding to empty words that meant absolutely nothing before Winds that now howled with the shrieking fury of a super cable that had just ascended to the fifth rung of Divine Silver as Alex shuddered with a breakthrough that had the entire crowd flinching back.
“Dread Lord! That monster would dare to ascend to Gold before our very eyes! You must kill him! I absolve you of all spiritual debt. You must kill him now!”
Xien Tang’s eyes widened in genuine dismay, former mocking granite features now twisted in a desperate grimace as he roared and charged forward, eyes wide with such desperate fury that when Alex felt gravity warp and twist about his foe, the karmic weight of a broken oath somehow channeling into the infernalist before a dozen nearby soldiers screamed and crumpled to smoking ash, Alex wasn’t surprised in the least.
In fact, he had been expecting it. Having pivoted to having multiple date trees right at his back, meeting his foe’s furious attack with one of his own.
Gravity Well partially countered by Storm Wing!
Gravity Well has clipped your arm and OBLITERATED 4 date palms and 67 succulents!
Bullrush!
You have broken free of Earth’s might!
Before Xien Tang could even register Alex’s disappearance, he was already slamming into his foe’s back.
And this time when he struck, Xien Tang did more than snarl and spit blood.
The air rang with the crack of broken ribs as the titan was sent flying.
For Alex was no longer striking with the strength of a Silver.
His fists now thrummed with the might of a Gold.
Channeling ancient boiling seas thick with bitter salts, crackling with Lightning Qi, utterly inimical to any life that failed to understand the might and fury of the world’s most primal storm.
3 out of 8 ascension points spent! Wood, Spirit, and Fire have successfully fused boiling Earth with the might of the storm!
Wind Crane Kung Fu is now Rank 10!
Storm Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 10!
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE FORGED A 9-ELEMENT GOLD-TIER MARTIAL ART!
Primordial Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 1!
YOU HAVE ASCENDED TO DIVINE SILVER RANK 5!
Alex didn’t invest his points according to any tactical formula in the heat of combat.
He let them flow where they were all but destined to go.
All his physical traits went up one rank, Strength and Vitality breaking all normal limits, thanks to his Draconic bloodlines.
Even if the evolution had cost him twelve ascension points, with just five left over from his previous level-ups.
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Alex Hammer
Class – Cultivator: Disciple of the Boundless Path
Rank 5 Divine Silver Cultivation Achieved!
Physical Characteristics
Strength – Gold Rank 1 (290)
Vitality – Gold Rank 1 (290)
Quickness – Silver Rank 6 (190)
Finesse – Silver Rank 5 (165)
Spiritual Characteristics
Scholarship – 14
Perception – 19
Willpower – Bronze Rank 2 (25)
Qi Pool – Silver Rank 6 (190)
Health Points: 3380
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“He did it,” Xien Su said with awed disbelief from the sidelines. “That monstrous Ruidian abomination actually ascended to Gold before our very eyes!”
“Impossible!” Xien Tang roared, spitting blood and panting for breath, glaring Alex’s way.
“You think the tale of our battle ends with your victory? You think the bitter Fox will ever be allowed to shine in the sun? NEVER! He will always be sent back to the foul river from which he spawned, no matter how often he tries to plague our world. The very gods have decreed this!”
Alex clenched his jaw, saying nothing. He held tight to his Sage’s Epiphany, his only goal to commune with the incredible transcendent breakthrough now flooding through his soul.
Why had he never sensed it before?
It made so much sense!
Why Silver Swan Kung Fu hit so much harder when infused with Metal Qi, and Dark Qi as well.
It wasn’t about striking with a single element. It wasn’t even about seeking some rainbow-like harmony.
It was about channeling elemental might in its most primal form.
And for a master of deadly liquid grace such as himself and his beloveds, pushing themselves so far that their Dantians had been forced to shift to a more idealized configuration just to accommodate their unorthodox arts, liquid transcendence was the path he would take, if he would fuse all the elements into one.
And the boiling seas of primal Earth, so rich with caustic salts and roiling magma and the birthing cries of the very world’s Spirit infusing all its treasures, synergized so perfectly with the world he knew and loved, and all its tragedies as well.
Countless forests shredded to ash in the conflicts between himself, his master, and the ancient General who was somehow his eternal nemesis.
And how odd it was that the great forest put no onus on Alex, despite the horrors and tragedies that had occurred.
It made no sense, considering the debt he had incurred when a psychotic Gold had tried so hard to kill him.
But perhaps when it came to divine powers that should know better than to endlessly pick on an isekaid mortal, for those ascended beings, the great forest had no pity at all.
Alex couldn’t help but flash a fierce smile, even as the forest’s fury became his own.
Channeling such fearsome heat with the spirit of darkest vengeance and absolute retribution.
Enough heat to melt the bedrock below seas that now boiled with Alex’s wrath.
Enough heat to set the world ablaze.
Or send a single charging Gold stumbling back with a spinning heel kick that shattered Tang’s jaw in a shockwave that sent half the spectators crashing to the ground, groaning in pain, blood trickling from their ears.
You have critically struck your opponent!
You have shattered all opposing wards!
The storm’s transcendence has become your own.
Primordial Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 2.
“That monster cracked Xien Tang’s jaw!”
“Impossible. Lord Xien Tang’s a Gold and Gao has him warded. We all know that.”
“Look at Gao. The slimy bastard’s spitting blood!”
“Don’t let Gao hear you say that.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Gao’s going to live long enough to worry about us. Come on, let’s go. We both know how these stories end, when the Fox actually manages to steal victory from the righteous.”
The other man paled. “Entire cities burn to the ground.”
Alex flashed his opponent a cold smile. “Come, Tang. What was that you said before? That’s right. It’s time for one of us to ascend and the other to be hurled right back into the River of Souls.”
Xien Tang looked momentarily dazed before glaring at Alex with a madman’s hate. “No! You will NOT best me! I will ascend over your corpse! I will! The righteous always prevail! Always!”
The roaring Gold lurched back to his feet and charged, spitting blood yet no longer holding back, unleashing his Gravity Well power with an inevitability that would not be denied.
Not even Alex’s Storm Wing parry could do more than mitigate the blow, warping space around the snarling monster’s fist just enough to mitigate a dead-on strike that might have obliterated multiple organs into a clipping blow that tore into Alex’s left forearm.
Yet Xien Tang’s look of fierce triumph turned to shocked surprise, suddenly understanding why his opponent had dared to close the distance instead of darting away when a spear-hand strike tore through his jugular in a shower of crimson gore.
You have suffered Serious Wound from Gravity Well. Your left arm is impaired.
You have critically struck your target with Primordial Swan-Enhanced Piercing Strike!
Find Weakness skill check made. Gold-tier defenses have been successfully ruptured.
The tidal wave swamps the earthen embankments with the shattered masts of your foes!
Dark Qi–covered Wood successfully pierces Earth.
Your foe has suffered one Incapacitating Wound!
Xien Tang crashed to his knees, blinking up at Alex in horrified disbelief, gurgling for breath that just wouldn’t come as Gravity Well instantly dispelled.
Desperate hands reached for a flask…
Angle kick successfully strikes target. You have shattered multiple metacarpal bones!
Before it was sent flying, cast off in howling winds, forever out of the reach of Alex’s gasping foe.
Xien Tang’s panicked eyes caught Alex’s own. All arrogance was wiped away by horrified dismay.
“I yield. I yield! The city is yours. The city is yours!”
It was a miracle that Alex could even understand the man’s wheezing garble at all.
But his ability to comprehend all languages, even the gurgled words of a doomed Gold, meant that he did indeed understand the man’s dying plea.
Alex froze as the utterance he would have never expected to hear in a thousand engagements washed over his ears.
And the look in the man’s eyes… he was struck by the desperate fear of someone whose bluster and arrogance had been shattered, snide condescension torn away before the howling winds of a storm that knew neither remorse nor pity.
“Alex!”
Alex froze, his fist shuddering with nature’s wrath stilling inches away from the fallen Gold, slowly turning to catch infernalist Guo’s sneering countenance as he held a serrated knife to a trembling Nili’s throat.
Xien Su stood beside him, with an unsheathed pair of daos before Linnea and Princess Sunlay, both forced on their knees, ankles tied, their bound wrists tight behind their backs.