Chapter 261 – What They Call Disparity
Lin Ming was deaf to all the raucous sounds and cheers around him.
‘Allow me three moves? Good. Then I’ll kindly welcome your generous offer. I’ll see if after these three moves, you still have a chance to make one of your own!’
“Match, start!”
The referee announced the long awaited words that the audience had been hoping for. Lin Ming didn’t instantly move the second the match began. Rather, faint purple-hued true essence twined down his right fist, filling with electric flashes and sparks that crackled in the air. There was even the faint sound of a Flood Dragon’s majestic roar!
Fang Qi smiled, his face completely filled with utter confidence. He reached out his hand and drew a line, and a golden symbol appeared out of thin air. During the group stages, Fang Qi had faced off against the Refiner Faction disciple Zhou Yan, and was able to use this symbol to instantly devour the burning flames that were released.
Fang Qi had plenty of confidence that besides the other abnormal direct disciples, there was no one else capable of breaking it. There was a self-contained independent mini-dimension within that could transfer and contain attacks. Only an extreme force that exceeded its capacity could break it, otherwise, there was no attack that could harm Fang Qi.
The reason that Fang Qi had so carelessly said he would allow Lin Ming three moves was because he relied on this small symbol array. If this small symbol array was able to block all three of Lin Ming’s moves, would he still have the face to continue fighting?
Fang Qi was looking forward to that time, and he would thoroughly savor the expression on Lin Ming’s face. It would be just like when he had told Jing Chanyu that he would defeat her within five breaths of time. Even though she had resisted as hard as she could, Fang Qi had still stomped down on any resistance she had. To him, this was truly the best feeling.
At this moment in the audience, Jing Chanyu was nervously wringing her hands together. She also recognized this symbol array, and feared that Lin Ming would follow in her footsteps. If this happened, it would be a serious blow towards his self-confidence and heart of martial arts.
Could Lin Ming break open Fang Qi’s symbol array and end his curse in three moves? At least, he could make Fang Qi panic and wipe that look of disdain off his face!
Holding that s.h.i.+ning symbol array in his hands, Fang Qi laughed and said, “Aren’t you ready?”
“I’m waiting for you to prepare!” Suddenly Lin Ming devilishly grinned, and both of his feet tread the floor, the tiles breaking under his feet, his body becoming nothing but a series of shadows!
Lin Ming’s right fist contained the vast, indomitable tyranny of the power of thunder. 5000 vibrating true essence filaments surged outwards like 5000 vicious Flood Dragons! The air around his brutal fist began to howl and cry as wind itself was torn apart!
Ka ka ka ka ka ka!
The ground began to shake as swirls of air lifted the shattered debris. Furious waves of true essence plowed a deep groove into the stage floor.
A punch shot out.
A fist to overwhelm the heavens and earth!!!
Facing such an unstoppable momentum, even Fang Qi felt inexplicably weak at heart. But he knew that for better or worse, he was still a direct disciple. This spatial transference array was one of the core techniques of the Array Faction – how could it not block Lin Ming!?
Thinking this, Fang Qi regained his confidence. He flung the golden circle symbol out. In the end, he wasn’t too sure, he didn’t dare intercept Lin Ming’s fist at a close distance.
“Hah!”
Lin Ming loudly shouted and his right fist savagely smashed into the golden symbol array, vibrating true essence erupted!
Kacha!
With an explosive sound, a visible fist energy popped open the golden symbol array just like a foot smas.h.i.+ng down on an egg. It was shattered into bits!
Yet the force of Lin Ming’s fist hadn’t even been reduced, it pounded out towards Fang Qi as before!
Fang Qi completely failed!
How was this possible!?
In a panic, Fang Qi quickly pulled out an array disc from his spatial ring. As this array disc appeared, a brilliant blue light s.h.i.+ned outwards.
“Nine Circles of Blue Light Array!”
A solid blue curtain of light fell down in front of Fang Qi, confronting the energy of Lin Ming’s fist.
Bang!
5000 vibrating true essence filaments brutally struck against that blue curtain, sinking into each and every inch of its structure. The blue curtain of light flashed for a moment, and then shattered apart.
Although the force of Lin Ming’s fist had been greatly reduced, even after shattering the blue light curtain, it still pushed forwards!
Fang Qi was shocked, he bit down on his tongue and forced out some blood essence, spitting it onto the array disc. In that instant, another blue curtain of light fell down, except this one had a faint tint of blood red!
Ka!
Lin Ming’s fist energy had been reduced by nearly half. As it smashed down on that blue red-tinged light curtain, there was a loud explosion as half the light curtain broke in half, just barely able to maintain itself.
After creating the light curtains, Fang Qi’s face was wan, his blood tumbling within his body. Because he had to forcibly conjure up some blood essence, he had almost vomited blood. Luckily, he had forcefully swallowed it back down at the last moment. After swallowing back this blood, he was feeling even more sick, he looked completely horrible.
Lin Ming’s eyebrow arched up, “You managed to block it? A direct disciple truly has considerable ability, then… there are two more moves!”
Listening to Lin Ming’s words, Fang Qi’s face was ugly like someone had slapped his mom in front of him. He had actually cheaply promised to allow three moves!
Who wanted to take moves from such a freak! Just a fist had driven him into using the Nine Circles of Blue Light Array – he had even used two! Because there wasn’t enough time to properly draw the second one, he had been forced to use his blood essence!
A penalty of three moves. If this was a private battle, then he could possibly renege on this promise. But now, all of the disciples of the entire Seven Profound Valleys were watching. As a direct disciple, there was no way that he could do this!
Against these three moves, he had to go all out and block them. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the face to stay in the Seven Profound Valleys any longer.
‘It doesn’t matter. That should have been his strongest strike just now. Since he was forced to use his trump card, his consumption of energy shouldn’t have been small. It’s most likely that his next strike will be much weaker. Not only that, but because I had to hastily rush out the defensive barrier, I had a shameful performance. If I’m able to prepare in advance, my situation will be much better. If worst comes to pa.s.s, then I’ll just have to use my hidden card…’
Fang Qi consoled himself like this, and his heart gained a bit of courage.
The entire martial field stadium had turned surprisingly quiet. Those loud and brash disciples that had used array formations to amplify their voices to crazily support Fang Qi did not even utter a sound now. They had thought that Fang Qi would be able to easily block the punch, they didn’t expect the end result to be like this.
Although Fang Qi had held back the tumbling blood in his chest and hadn’t lost face by vomiting blood, the audience was not comprised of idiots. They naturally saw that Fang Qi had eaten a small loss.
“d.a.m.n. d.a.m.n it all! Why aren’t we cheering? We have to support our Senior-apprentice Brother! Cheers!”
“Yah! This time we have to cheer more. That Lin Ming must have used some secret skill in order to have so much power behind his punch. There is no way he can keep doing that! Senior-apprentice Brother Fang will still win even if he allows three moves!”
“Yes! That’s the way! How could Senior-apprentice Brother Fang possibly lose?”
These disciples of the Array Faction roused their strength, and were preparing to cheer out again, when suddenly their voices caught in their throats. Several of the disciples had already shouted, and their strangled cries as they stopped midway were just like a chicken whose neck was being twisted; it was an extremely unbecoming and strange sound.
The reason for this was that on the martial stage, they saw that Lin Ming had gently swiped his spatial ring, and with a flash of white light, a long s.h.i.+ning silver spear appeared in his hand!
The Heavy Profound Soft Spear had come out!
“Weapon? He also uses a weapon?”
“Isn’t Lin Ming a fist-using martial artist?”
“Why would he have a weapon!?”
The Array Faction disciples were stupefied. There weren’t many martial artists in the Sky Spill Continent that didn’t use weapons. However it wasn’t too rare. For instance, Grace Venerate Nation’s Jingchan Duo, Jing Chanyu and Jing Chans.h.i.+, only used their palms and finger shadows.
They had naturally a.s.sumed that Lin Ming was also one of these fist fighting martial artists. Although the attack range was short, fists excelled in flexibility, speed, and accuracy. If used well and supported by a top-tier fist fighting martial skill, it wouldn’t be any worse than using a sword or saber.
But if a martial artist had a weapon, they had most definitely would have spent most of their time cultivating that weapon, a fist would only be secondary.
Could a secondary fist really have such power?
How was this possible!??
It wasn’t!
“He’s bluffing!”
A disciple of the Array Faction stubbornly refused to acknowledge this reality. However, no one seemed to believe him. All of the Array Faction disciples had extremely ugly faces. It seemed that their direct disciple Fang Qi had really… screwed himself over this time.
In the contestant waiting area, Ouyang Zifeng stared at the long silver spear in Lin Ming’s hand. The corners of his mouth and eyes began to violently twitch. “When I fought him, I still wasn’t able to force him to use his weapon?”
Thinking back to when he had taunted Lin Ming about whether he’d be forced to use his sword, he could only ruefully smile.
Because Lin Ming had been regarded as a martial artist of the 36 countries, everyone had looked down on him.
On the martial stage, Fang Qi’s face was already red as a rose. He refused to think of why a martial artist from the 36 countries could be such a monstrous freak. Without a care for his status and pride, he continuously placed five Nine Circles of Blue Light Arrays around himself.
Because he had rushed out a Nine Circles of Blue Light Array a moment ago, he had been forced to consume some blood essence. This time, he would not repeat such a humiliating mistake again. He had prepared these Nine Circles of Blue Light Arrays ahead of time.
The Array Faction had always taken their secondary skills as the most important, thus, the strength of their faction’s disciples was often inferior to the other factions’ disciples. But in terms of defense, they actually surpa.s.sed the others.
The defensive strength of an array formation naturally surpa.s.sed that of a treasure armor.
Looking at the arrays of blue light s.h.i.+elds in front of him, Fang Qi was a bit emboldened.
‘You are powerful, but can your spear break through my five array formations?’
But after thinking for a bit, Fang Qi thought it was better to be safe than sorry. He took out a small array flag from his spatial ring and began to infuse true essence into it in advance, so that he could instantly use it later if he needed to. This small array flag was Fang Qi’s ultimate technique. Although the defensive power of this array formation was strong, there was still a weakness, and that was that it took time to activate. One needed to prepare in advance.
After placing down a series of array formations, Fang Qi had consumed a great deal of energy. But, he also had a special symbol array that was capable of supplementing his true essence. In a battle of attrition, Fang Qi believed that he had a superior advantage.
At this moment, Lin Ming used his spear!
Foundation Spear Technique, first move – Flood Dragon Goes to Sea!!!!
“Roarrr!!!”
The clarion and staggering roar of a Flood Dragon impacted directly towards the sky. Behind Lin Ming, a magnificent Purple Flood Dragon shadow began to condense. After Lin Ming had absorbed the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder, his Flood Dragon Goes to Sea had reached a completely different level. As soon this spear thrust out, it contained the majesty of a boundless dragon!
Coupled with the power of thunder and 5000 vibrating true essence filaments, it truly was capable of sweeping away all! The thick twining purple electric snakes were galvanized by Lin Ming. This spear of Lin Ming contained the great potential of rivers and mountains, it savagely pierced through s.p.a.ce!
Peng peng peng!
In the face of the unstoppable onslaught of the spear, three layers of the Nine Circles of Blue Light Array were instantly shredded apart like paper!
Fang Qi’s complexion completely changed, he hastily waved the array flag in his hands.
Peng!
A fourth Nine Circles of Blue Light Array shattered into shards; the Heavy Profound Soft Spear marched forwards!
Ka!
The long spear fiercely impacted against the fifth Nine Circles of Blue Light Array. Fang Qi’s array flag let out a burst of golden light, and a ma.s.sive number of golden runes rushed out from the array flag, all printing onto the last Nine Circles of Blue Light Array!
How was this possible!?
Fang Qi watched helplessly as the last Nine Circles of Blue Light Array that was reinforced by the golden array flag still cracked! This small crack was like the face of smiling devil, growing bit by bit!