Chapter 346: The Experts of Nine Levels

Before long, the sword-carrying middle-aged man had delivered all three palms against the Black Moon Yin Elder.

Though the Black Moon Yin Elder was sent flying in every direction, without question he had received all three and emerged completely unscathed.

"What martial art is this?"

The sword-carrying middle-aged man furrowed his brow, then immediately drew the iron sword from his back and brought it slashing down toward the Black Moon Yin Elder.

"Wait... three strikes have passed... you cannot break your..."

The Black Moon Yin Elder's expression changed sharply, but before he could finish his words, the middle-aged man's heavy and overbearing blade descended like a thunderbolt, coming down on his skull.

Clang.

A deafening clash of metal rang out.

The middle-aged man's blade, capable of splitting an entire street of Taixuan City in two, hit the Black Moon Yin Elder's head and met something like an impenetrable lump of iron.

This not only made the large man who had followed up to watch flinch, but also put a look of clear shock on the middle-aged man's face.

He naturally knew exactly how much killing power had been in that seemingly casual strike of his, yet it had still failed to take even a single hair from the Black Moon Yin Elder. That was genuinely difficult to believe.

As for the Black Moon Yin Elder himself, he had actually been startled when the middle-aged man came at him with the sword outside the three agreed strikes. After all the man was a swordsman, and a sword's killing power far exceeded a palm strike.

He had not been certain whether he could hold it.

But the final result had let out a breath of relief: Li Musheng's thread of martial aura was formidable, and even a drawn weapon had proven no threat.

"Truly astonishing body-hardening arts."

The middle-aged swordsman exclaimed in admiration, his gaze fixed intently on the Black Moon Yin Elder, seemingly greatly intrigued.

The Black Moon Yin Elder did not explain, and only said with a dark expression, "Four strikes have now been delivered. You have not managed to harm this old man. It is time to make good on the agreement."

With that, he ignored the man and began searching the second level on his own.

The Black Moon Yin Elder understood that even if he struck, he could not overpower the man quickly, so he simply completed his search and moved on to the next level.

The sword-carrying middle-aged man made no attempt to stop him.

And after the Black Moon Yin Elder searched every small hall and found nothing, he said nothing further, turned with a dark expression, and went directly up to the fourth level.

"That old fellow's body-hardening arts are genuinely formidable. But how far do you think he will make it?"

The large man suddenly spoke, looking at the middle-aged swordsman.

"If he can take my full sword strike without a scratch, the fifth level should be no problem."

"That is what I figured too. But I still want to follow along and see for myself. I have a feeling something is off about this old fellow."

With that, the large man and the middle-aged swordsman exchanged a look, and then the two of them vanished in unison and followed toward the fourth level as well.

The days of guarding the Mystic Mechanism Palace were nothing if not dull, and visitors attempting to clear the levels were rare.

The Black Moon Yin Elder was not exactly clearing the levels, but the middle-aged swordsman had observed that the elder's actual martial cultivation was well below his own. What was formidable was only that single protective body art.

But what puzzled him was that the Black Moon Yin Elder's protective art seemed highly unusual, and throughout the entire exchange he had never detected any sign of true qi or vital energy circulating through the elder's body.

This had made the middle-aged swordsman quite curious about him, and he wanted to follow and see what happened.

And so going forward, the Black Moon Yin Elder repeated the same tactic, using the agreement of three palms to trade for the right to search each level going up.

Level four, level five, level six... all the way up to the eighth level.

The Black Moon Yin Elder absorbed the three palms or four or five punches from the guardian of each level, and without exception came out unharmed every time.

This not only left each guardian thoroughly astonished, but also left the Black Moon Yin Elder with an ever-growing retinue of followers.

Not a single guardian on any level had held back even slightly, all striking with full force, and yet none of them could damage the Black Moon Yin Elder in the slightest, which made every one of them curious about him.

They all wanted to see how many levels of the Mystic Mechanism Palace this body-hardening art could carry him through.

But the Black Moon Yin Elder continued to exceed everyone's expectations and predictions with every level.

From the middle-aged swordsman's initial estimate of the fifth level, to the sixth level, then the seventh level, he defied the crowd's assumptions at every turn, arriving at the eighth level without a single mark on him.

And for the Black Moon Yin Elder himself, his own astonishment was arguably no less than that of the Mystic Mechanism Palace's gathered experts.

He had originally thought that Li Musheng's power would be able to push him perhaps through five or six levels at most.

But in no time at all, he had made it all the way to the eighth level on the strength of nothing more than a single thread of martial aura Li Musheng had left inside him.

Just as he had repeatedly survived the attacks of the martial world experts and broken the assumptions of the Mystic Mechanism Palace's guardians one by one, Li Musheng's unfathomable depth of cultivation had risen ever higher in his mind to a level that left him genuinely shaken.

After all, Li Musheng himself had not been present. A single thread of his martial aura had been enough to carry the elder all the way to the eighth level.

If the man personally acted, what would that look like?

And so the Black Moon Yin Elder, who had originally doubted Li Musheng could possibly pass through the nine underground levels unimpeded, now found himself thinking the man had probably already cleared all nine by now.

...

At the same time, after Li Musheng had taken Zhao Muning down through the underground passages, the guardians on each underground level were naturally no match for him.

Without exception, each was disposed of the moment they came into view, the experts barely getting a single word out before Li Musheng subdued them casually and moved on.

Then on each level, Li Musheng simply set the guardians to searching the level for the blue-robed Daoist's Elder Sister on his behalf.

Because the nine underground levels of the Mystic Mechanism Palace were quite different from the nine above, the sealed chambers and subterranean halls on each level covered an enormous area.

Searching alone would have been tedious. Having this crowd of experts do the work for him was considerably more efficient.

And the various martial world experts from Great Xuan who were imprisoned as guardians on each underground level naturally did not dare resist.

After all, every one of them had been subdued by Li Musheng in a single move. If he wanted to kill them, it would be trivially easy.

Unless they wanted to die, there was no question of defying Li Musheng's instructions.

At the same time, they were also deeply shocked. They had no idea when the Great Xuan martial world had produced such a terrifyingly powerful young expert.

They themselves, veteran figures of long renown in the martial world, were no better than insects before this young man.

"Young hero, the guardian of the ninth level is an absolute top-tier expert who once made all seven of Great Xuan's major sects tremble at the mere mention of his name. He is known as the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit."

"His power is extraordinarily terrifying. He is not a demonic cultivator, but his manner of killing is as random and savage as any demonic cultivator's."

"Word is that three of Great Xuan's major sects once attempted a joint attack to surround and kill him, but the outcome was never made known to the martial world. No one would have imagined he ended up inside this Mystic Mechanism Palace."

A round, smooth-talking fat elder spoke up, having attached himself to Li Musheng's side as they headed toward the ninth underground level.