Ryu wasn’t going to stand around and let these three elders unleash their specializations. Judging by strength, Ryu knew the last elder had the weakest cultivation so he unleashed his Sage Arts to nullify and disrupt his Qi flow. Since the opponent was in the King Domain like himself, Ryu didn’t completely nullify all his Qi. Nullification requires an equal amount of opposing Qi to work. Ryu only nullified enough to disrupt his attacks.
The moment one elder lost control of his Qi, the gravity formation that was being channeled lessened in strength tremendously. Ryu unleashed the eighth stance of the Drunk Dragon Fist, Conquering All Dragons. This was a long range Qi projection move. Terrifying dragons composed of Qi shot out of Ryu’s fist one after another. A total of five dragons composed of Qi flew out majestically. These dragons were defined and looked almost like a miniature of the real thing. Each dragon was ten meters long.
The elder under the effects of Qi nullification took the blunt force of the first dragon. The dragon superficially passed right through him, damaging his inner organs and Qi channels. If it wasn’t for the fact that Ryu was holding back, he would have been shredded to pieces. Right at that moment, this elder was bound by Ryu’s Absolute Agreement through the Loser’s Concession skill.
Instantly Ryu had complete control of the man, Ryu just ordered him to stay put. He could have used him to get information regarding the other two elders but Ryu was confident he could defeat the remaining two one way or another. It would be a good experience for him.
The elder that transformed into a steel-like man was unexpectedly nimbler than before. However from the way he cuts through air, Ryu knew that he must be extremely durable. Two of the Qi dragons collided with this elder and was only able to force him back a few meters.
This specialization, Metallic Body, grants the user the body of steel comparable to a rank 7 weapon. The pledge is that the user can only use basic Qi reinforcement. This prevents him from using Qi to fly or use any other skill.
The other elder, using waves of crimson red sand actually managed to destroy one of the dragon. It seems like the red sand had an odd property of sapping away Qi. Before one of the Qi dragon got dispersed, Ryu felt some of its Qi getting eaten up by the sand. This specialization, Bloody Sand, is able to absorb Qi. It has great penetrating power since any Qi based defense would be weakened by it. The sand can be manipulated by the user in any way with pure thoughts. The pledge for this specialization is that the user can only channel his Qi into the sand. That leaves him with a very frail human body that can’t even fly. He has to manipulate the sand to carry him around.
“Interesting. I have to try that out later.” Ryu said to himself as he dashed forward towards the elder using Metallic Body. Ryu is intrigued by a long range attack that can sap Qi. As long as it’s not a True Specialization, he can accomplish it given enough time. He sent the four remaining Qi dragons at the elder using the red sand. The elder utilizing the Metallic Body attempted to reunite with the other elder but Ryu intercepted him and the two started a series of insurmountable close combat exchanges.
“Pft.” The elder with the crimson red sand snorted. Although the Qi dragons were intimidating, one had been destroyed already. He ushered the bloody red sand to intercept the incoming dragons. The red sand surged forward like a huge imperious wave and collided with the menacing dragons.
What happened next was completely outside his expectation. The dragons managed to rip through his wall of sand like butter. Unbeknownst to him, Ryu materialized steel within the dragons, giving them a metallic skeletal structure underneath the layers of Qi. This gave them a sturdier base so even if the red sand devoured some of its Qi, the dragons’ construction would remain intact.
The elder panicked like never before, he had sent the majority of the red sand to attack and only retained enough to levitate and maneuver him around. He doesn’t have enough red sand to defend and he can’t use Qi to protect himself since during this specialization, his Qi can only be channeled to the sand. There is also a cool down period before he could start using Qi regularly after his stops using his specialization. It was checkmate, he could only watch in horror as the dragons grazed him as they flew by, causing him to cough up blood.
The Resilient Gaia Sect is known for the earth Qi techniques and palm techniques. Between the two of them was a storm of fists, if an ordinary person saw the fight they would only see a dozen fists flying about at once. Ryu secretly praised the elder as he exchanged blows with him. Although this elder is a far cry from the Shaman Prince or Drunken Master, he was still pretty formidable since his Metallic Body specialization brings out the full potential his sect’s palm techniques. If it wasn’t for the fact that Ryu’s Drunken Dragon Fist was a profound unranked martial skill, he would not be able to hold his own against this elder in a close range barehanded fight.
The Drunken Dragon Fist is the first set of skills Ryu learned instead of abstracting from it. One of the reason is that it wasn’t based on concepts like other skills. It was based on gut feeling along with eight core stances that had dominating and destructive force. Not only that, elemental Qi and Qi output manipulating skills can be stacked on top of it. The Mega-Punch and Mega-Kick skill are Qi output manipulators Ryu learnt from the enormous ape-like beast allows him to condense and explode his Qi outwards, increasing the Qi output by more than five times the regular amount.
There was also a reason why Ryu was using the Drunken Dragon Fist primary now, he didn’t want people to realize that he had inherited the shaman arts from Na’Vi. He only used it in his fight against Du-Bai because he sensed that Du-Bai was an upright person that’s also an unfathomable expert.
The last elder is secretly groaning inside. Although they seemed to be evenly matched at the moment, little by little he sensed that he was losing ground. This was because Ryu tries to understand the essence of the martial arts skills he learns. One crucial fundamental skill is looking at the flaw of the opponent’s movements and taking advantage of that area. Another was being able to use any skills in any position or situation. The elder was using a set pattern and moves, after a while he started repeating while Ryu launched a strike from a new position each time. This made the elder wonder who many sets of moves Ryu has. The correct answer would be infinite because Ryu is spontaneously adapting to the situation after each exchange. Slowly Ryu’s thrust that was getting launched later but started arriving first, allowing him to land blows on the elder’s steel body.
“Ah!” The elder screamed out in agony as he started sensing pain in his chest. This was a huge shock to him since he was extremely proud of his defense. Only the headmaster and the vice-headmaster of his sect could get past his defense. How did this young man injure him? Ryu was able to injure him because he was attacking the same location. The elder obviously opted to run away after realizing he couldn’t win and started sprinting away at the maximum speed he could muster up.
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Ryu watched calmly as the elder ran. With one hand up in the air, Ryu shot a gigantic blazing fireball towards the sky above the retreating elder. The scorching fireball exploded once it was above the elder and suddenly an unnaturally bulky lightning bolt that was meters wide from the sky shot down and struck the elder. The fireball earlier supplied residual heat to the clouds and charged the bolt of lightning.
This was one of the few weaknesses this elder had, his steel body is weak against lightning strikes! His metallic skin charred and he fell unconscious to the ground. His specialization disappeared the moment he fainted and severe burns were all over his skin.
“If you want to live, obey these set of conditions I’m about to give you. If you break them, there will be consequences.” Ryu said to them after he rounded them up. The conditions he gave them were the same as his previous conditions he gave in the past. They could only use their Qi for good. They have leave the sect and start over. They can’t reveal anything about Ryu.
“One last thing… why did you kill the food stall owner and his family?” Ryu asked coldly as he recalled the incident. The storage rings from the elders flew towards Ryu.
“What food stall owner?” The three elder asked with confusion. They didn’t dare to offend Ryu. Although the plan to rob him ended up in a complete failure, they still had their lives. They thought they could always get revenge later. They didn’t know they couldn’t break out of Ryu’s conditions.
Ryu frowned as he realized that the three elders really didn’t know what he was talking about. To their knowledge, the sect had done no such thing.
“Run” Ryu shouted at them out of the blue. An overwhelming dark aura was heading their way at an astonishing speed. It was full of malicious and killing intent. Ryu had not sensed such an evil Qi since Alexis. The elders obeyed and ran, all three were severely injured though so their speed wasn’t even a third of their top speed.
Who was this malevolent person? Ryu wondered as he prepared himself. The injured elders didn’t get very far and they’ll definitely perish if this dark intruder chances upon them. Multiple dark beams shot forward at Ryu and he in return shot the same number of Qi blades to meet them. The dark beams of Qi all crumbled as they met Ryu’s superior Qi blade but the dark Qi didn’t disperse, instead they transformed into several bats that continued to swarm towards Ryu.
Ryu promptly jumped up and launched the feet stance of the Drunken Dragon Fist, Dancing with the Dragons. Ryu’s body spun like a spinning top and a tempest of blurry feet covered every angle, destroying the bats. Just as Ryu stopped spinning, the intruder was only five meters away now. This only allowed Ryu to launch a quick punch against him. The intruder was wearing a blue mask and responded in kind. As the two fist collided, Ryu instantly realized the opponent’s cultivation was higher than his by at least three levels.
Ryu flew back ten meters while the intruder only stepped a few steps back. Wasting no time, Ryu unleashed the Drunken Dragon Fist. Unlike his fight with the elders from Resilient Gaia Sect where he held back, Ryu released the full extent of this martial art to the best of his capabilities.
Ryu’s earth-shattering punch missed the masked intruder by a centimeter as he dodged. However, Ryu didn’t stop there, changing his fist into a claw Ryu slashed horizontally at his face. The intruder attempted to dodge once again but Ryu still scratched the mask. The mask was extremely durable, the claw strike was the Slaying the Dragon stance that is comparable to a real sword strike.
The intruder instantly changed masks, the damaged mask started crumbling away. His speed was so fast that Ryu didn’t get to see his face during the change. A yellow mask was on now. The world round Ryu started distorting and spinning.
An illusion? Ryu was warned about these. He didn’t learn any himself but they are formidable. The easiest way to break out of them is to shatter the concentration of the caster so Ryu gathered his Qi to his lungs and roared out. A deafening roar came out, all the leafs around were ripped from the trees. The earth tremored and the rocks nearby cracked. Ryu held nothing back.
The illusion dissipated and the masked intruder actually retreated a few steps while circulating his Qi to prevent himself from coughing up blood. The last move was unexpected and his inner organs took a blunt hit.
Suddenly Ryu felt a small tinge of pain inside. To his horror, the three elders that he defeated a moment ago had died. They were the reason Ryu stayed to stall this masked intruder. There was someone else around that Ryu didn’t sense but he must be an expert too. The intruder in front of him started changing masks again so Ryu shot a large Qi blade at him. He managed to change his mask to a red one and caught the Qi blade with his bare hands.
“The masks must be giving him different power boosts, he was definitely not this physically strong before!” Ryu said to himself in surprise. With a thought Ryu caused the Qi blade to explode.
Without stopping, Ryu’s knee slammed into the torso of the intruder but somehow he managed to catch it but Ryu’s elbow came down from above. To Ryu’s surprise, his elbow was also caught. The intruder now holding Ryu’s knee in one hand in front of stomach and holding Ryu’s elbow in the other hand above his head, pushed Ryu backwards with a grunt and kicked at Ryu.
Sensing the deadly force behind the kick, Ryu summoned the earth Qi around him and sunk beneath the ground faster than one could blink, dodging the kick. He appeared a few meters away but the masked intruder was already prepared, a dark sickle was already in his hands and a chain was flying towards Ryu. Ryu kicked the chain away but instantly found that the chain is stuck on his feet. The intruder let go of his sickle and it instantly shot towards Ryu. There was no way for Ryu to dodge it but as the sickle neared Ryu, a hidden blade from the sky shot down at an implausible speed.
In the past Ryu usually gathered his Qi over time and launched a surprise attack from above. This move was widely successful because his opponents never expects Ryu’s Qi control’s range to be that far. The farther Qi is from the body, the harder it is to control. The only difference is that the large Qi blade is now condensed into a small blade that contained unconceivable disparaging energy. The moment the sickle struck Ryu in the chest, the Qi blade from the sky stabbed into the intruder’s shoulder.