Chapter 476 7: It's Just an Exploration Level

A striking Fist Seal was left on it. He had clearly relied on this manganese-steel alloy inner armor to block the previous strike, dissipating most of the impact.

"This is Fortress Mountain City!"

The angry roar echoed, laced with a chilling intent.

Yan Xiong stomped his left foot, shaking the very ground. Cracks tore through the stone floor, snaking all the way to Lu Chao's feet.

The surrounding ground caved in by several inches. Yan Zhengfeng and the others stumbled, losing their balance as they were horrified by the absolute might of the Peak Exploration Level.

And right in the center of it all...

WHOOSH!!

A fierce gale surged forward. In the exact moment Yan Xiong stomped the ground, his eyes glared with fury as he threw a devastating punch.

His dense, brown Qi Flame clearly possessed some kind of berserk property. As if transforming into a colossal mountain of solid rock, he drew his right arm back like a bow, erupting with a Martial Skill as he launched a punch straight at Lu Chao's chest.

"Even a tiger must crouch before me!"

"And even a dragon must coil—"

BANG!!

A punch that struck later but arrived first brutally interrupted all his furious shouting.

Lu Chao's fist slammed dead center into his opponent's chest, striking exactly into the same dent on the alloy inner armor.

HUMMM!

In that split second, Yan Xiong's eyes filled with shock and rage. He felt waves of violent power rushing into him, as unstoppable as a landslide or a tsunami.

His arms trembled. His internal vitality churned violently, causing even the layer of Qi Flame covering his body to flicker unsteadily.

His body was actually knocked out of his control. Stumbling backward, he shattered the stone bricks beneath his feet with every heavy step.

Yan Xiong thought in disbelief, "How is this possible? According to my Qi sensing, he's a veteran at the Exploration Level at best. The very first punch could be excused as him taking the initiative, leaving me no time to react. But this time... how on earth did he do that?"

SWOOSH!!

As the thought flashed through his mind, a dark shadow blurred before his eyes. Lu Chao's eyes were profoundly deep, locked in a state of absolute focus. With his neural reaction speed doubled, the entire world slowed down in his vision, playing out like a slow-motion video dropping frames. In the span of a single breath, he had already arrived right in front of Yan Xiong.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!!

A fierce gale scraped past his ears. Yan Xiong's heart turned cold as he realized something was terribly wrong.

"Get lost!!"

Without a shred of hesitation, he forcefully suppressed his flickering Qi Flame. Stomping his legs down like twin stone pillars, he stabilized his center of gravity and arrested his backward momentum.

The Qi Flame around his body erupted in a frenzy. He threw his fists forward, raining blows like a barrage from a divine machine gun.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!

This was the full-powered assault of a Peak Exploration Level. In just a single second, over a dozen punches were thrown.

Every punch drained the surrounding air, striking with the relentless force of a crashing heavy truck and sparking a volley of deafening sonic booms.

In response...

TAP!

Lu Chao planted his feet firmly, his dynamic vision sweeping left and right.

He was clearly standing in his original spot, not moving an inch.

Yet, every single fist phantom brushed past his shoulders, whipping up trails of white air currents that tore through the sky.

"This..."

The warlord soldiers stared with wide eyes. Yan Zhengfeng, who could barely keep up with the flurry of punches, wore a look of utter shock and bewilderment.

Being the closest, Yan Xiong's pupils shrank to pinpricks, overcome by sheer disbelief. He could see it more clearly than anyone else: in that briefest of instants, his opponent had actually made over a dozen micro-adjustments to his posture.

Every single shift perfectly evaded a Fist Seal, as if all his attacks had been completely predicted in advance.

"Is this all you've got?"

Before he could recover from his shock, a calm voice rang out from right in front of him. A crimson sun seemed to rise within Lu Chao's eyes. Empowered by the Observation Method, he clearly perceived every twitch of Yan Xiong's muscles and every shift in his aura. In this state of absolute focus, his neural reaction speed was practically infinitely amplified in this very moment.

"Damn it!"

With eyes full of shock and fury, Yan Xiong barely managed to react. Shedding every trace of underestimation, he completely squashed all his hesitation.

FWOOSH!!

As streams of air rushed into his body, wisps of white vapor gathered at the tip of his nose.

His body suddenly swelled!

RIP! TEAR! Amidst the sound of shredding fabric, his clothes visibly burst apart piece by piece, and his brown general's overcoat was ripped away by the wind.

Veins bulged out thickly, winding across every inch of his body like writhing earthworms.

He had clearly unleashed a special Martial Skill. His height shot past two meters, turning exceptionally burly. He looked like a massive, heavy boulder of bronze—utterly barbaric and exuding an immense, oppressive pressure.

"Let's see how many of my moves you can dodge!"

BOOM!!!

Amidst his furious roar, he violently swung his palms, clapping them forward together as if bringing two massive palm-leaf fans slamming into each other.

The resulting gale plowed through the ground, kicking up a flurry of stone debris. It forced the surrounding warlord soldiers to retreat again and again, instinctively raising their arms to shield their faces.

The air in front of Lu Chao was instantly compressed to the point of detonation. The invisible air pressure morphed into a terrifying strike that actually pinned him firmly in place, rendering him entirely unable to move.

He could only watch as those massive, fan-like hands clapped together, smashing straight toward his head.

"Oh no!"

Seeing this, Yan Zhengfeng and the others turned pale, wanting to rush forward to help.

However, the warlord commander who had been injured earlier took the opportunity to step up. Even with blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, he glared fiercely and blocked their path.

"Haha! Die!!"

Yan Xiong roared with laughter. All his previous doubts and wariness vanished in this instant.

With his killing move fully formed, he slammed his palms down without a shred of restraint. The strike was about to hit Lu Chao's head, aiming to smash it open like a watermelon.

In the face of this, Lu Chao's gaze remained utterly indifferent. Unbeknownst to anyone, an invisible aura around him had transformed into a howling gale, shooting straight into the sky.

"How stubbornly foolish."

BOOM!!

The ground caved in, blowing out a shallow crater several meters wide. Activating both his Frenzy State and the Thunder Extreme Secret Skill simultaneously, he violently tore through the oppressive air pressure and thrust out his arms.

BOOM BOOM!!

The air shrieked, letting out a deafening, ear-piercing scream as if unable to bear the burden.

Yan Xiong's pupils shrank, a flash of utter astonishment passing through his eyes.

Before he could snap out of it...

BAM BAM!

Lu Chao's ten fingers hooked like claws, catching the clapping motion of those massive, fan-like palms perfectly.

He redirected all the kinetic impact straight into the ground, causing the surrounding floor to undergo a secondary collapse as cracks spread outward with a continuous series of sharp snaps.

"You..."

Yan Xiong's expression changed slightly. He clearly felt a wave of Rebound Force surging toward him—an unstoppable, barbaric energy that rampaged up his arms and flooded into every part of his body.

Because of this, he was momentarily frozen in place. In the very next split second, before he could even react, Lu Chao unleashed the power in his wrists, violently twisting them outward.

CRACK!!

Yan Xiong's face drained of color as a muffled groan escaped his lips.

Right before his eyes, his wrists were snapped cleanly in half, followed instantly by an agonizing, bone-deep pain.

"And you think you have the right to lecture me about rules?"

As the cold words drifted into his ears, cold sweat beaded down Yan Xiong's face. He looked at the man standing before him.

Those profound eyes were bone-chillingly cold. Draped in a black trench coat, Lu Chao looked down upon him like a god of death, suffocating him with the undeniable sensation of impending doom.

Instinctively, a trace of retreat sparked in Yan Xiong's mind. He wanted to struggle backward and put some distance between them.

However...

HUMMM!!

A searing, explosive wave of Spiritual Shock blasted into him, striking straight into his core. Lu Chao's eyes turned entirely crimson, as if a fiery red sun had risen within his mind, blooming with a stellar ring.

Affected by this, Yan Xiong grunted heavily. His body swayed. An excruciating pain tore through his mental sea, as if his brain had been brutally smashed by a sledgehammer. Immediately after, before he could muster any further response...

BOOM!!

Lu Chao swung both arms outward, executing a twin strike straight at his opponent's ears.

He used the exact same move Yan Xiong had just attempted, aiming directly for the temples on both sides of Yan Xiong's head.

[Barbarian] had long since been passively activated, allowing him to clearly pinpoint the weakness of the man before him—a flaw similar to the singular vulnerability found in traditional hard body martial arts.

"A Peak Exploration Level?"

THUD!!

His fists, seemingly forged from solid alloy, smashed brutally into Yan Xiong's head.

The dense Qi Flame was forcibly shattered in that instant. Like a hot knife through butter, his fists drove onward and slammed precisely into the opponent's temples.

"Is still just an Exploration Level."

THUMP!!

Blood sprayed through the air as Yan Xiong instantly fell to his knees.

With his Martial Skill broken, his eyes visibly flooded with bloodshot veins. Blood continuously leaked from his nose and mouth.

His burly frame shrank rapidly, deflating like a punctured balloon—an obvious backlash from having his technique forcefully shattered.

Then...

THUD!

His upper body collapsed, crashing heavily into the ground.

His body spasmed violently, his eyes already rolling to the back of his head. He was clearly critically wounded and on the verge of death.

Yet, Lu Chao's eyes remained frigid. He lifted his black leather shoe and stepped down firmly on the man's head.

This entire sequence unfolded far too fast, completely surpassing everyone's expectations.

All the warlord soldiers stood frozen in place, utterly horrified. Even Yan Zhengfeng was dazed and shaken by the sheer magnitude of the display.

And right in that very instant, as if discerning Lu Chao's killing intent and realizing he truly meant to execute Yan Xiong right there and then...

"Special Commissioner Chen, wait!"

A deep, low voice rolled in from afar. Like a booming clap of thunder, it echoed squarely in everyone's ears.

However, Lu Chao ignored it entirely. As if utterly determined to extract a price, he prepared to carry out Yan Xiong's execution.

Suddenly, the sky darkened.

WHIZZ!!

A streak of Qi Flame tore through the air, as dense and solid as an arrow.