Chapter 150: Why Keep It Alive? To Use as a Mount?

WHOOSH!

Dust and air currents swirled at the entrance of Heaven-Hiding Valley. Numerous disciples and Elders of the Celestial Demon Sect watched the dust-filled crater, where Teng Zijing let out groans of pain as he slowly crawled to his feet.

Yun Feifei raised her head to look at the handsome Daoist standing with his hands behind his back on the twenty-zhang-tall cliff. Even though she had heard about his rapid growth in strength over the past one tael years, hearing about it was nothing compared to seeing it. The impact of witnessing it firsthand was unparalleled.

In a daze, the memory of her suffering a loss at his hands over two years ago—when she was only in the Half-step Grandmaster Realm—felt like it had happened just yesterday. Yet time had flown by, and now, this man could smash the seventh most powerful expert in the world into the ground with a single punch.

“AH!”

A piercing screech, like a divine bird howling at the sky, erupted from Teng Zijing as he climbed out of the crater. He was covered in dirt and ash, coughing up blood from the corner of his mouth, and bore a distinct fist imprint on his chest. After getting to his feet, his eyes shot toward Chen Sha with unparalleled shame and fury.

“How dare you… SCREECH…”

“Either be a man, or be a beast,” Chen Sha said as he took a step off the twenty-zhang-tall cliff, descending from the sky. He slowly extended his palm and pressed it down toward Teng Zijing. “If you don’t know how to speak human, then don’t speak at all. I don’t understand bird calls.”

As his words fell, this punch carried immense Qi Power, its oppressive force causing the winds and clouds at the entrance of Heaven-Hiding Valley to change color. The infinitely massive Fist Power and Fist Intent descended from the sky, as if numerous Divine Spirits were casting sidelong glances and pressing down together.

Deep in Teng Zijing’s eyes, the phenomena and silhouettes behind Chen Sha’s punch were outlined. It looked like a Divine King descending to suppress him, accompanied by a host of Divine Spirits unleashing their might simultaneously. Behind this punch, the power of all the gods seemed to revolve. This was exactly the eleven Divine Spirits forged by Chen Sha’s mastery of the Great Yellow Court, glowing within his body and radiating a profound, terrifying, and mysterious brilliance that captured the soul!

“Roc Demon True Skill! Rise, wind!” Teng Zijing roared inwardly under the pressure of the punch. Two wings suddenly sprouted from his ribs, woven so clearly from Qi Power that even the textures of the gaseous feathers were visible.

WHOOSH!

With a single flap of his wings, a tornado materialized out of thin air at the valley entrance. It swept up sand, stones, vegetation, and waves of earth, enveloping the airborne Teng Zijing to form a massive storm funnel. At the tip of this tempest, his palm reached out and clashed directly against Chen Sha’s fist!

Even before their terrifying Qi Powers collided, the immense momentum created a phenomenon at the mouth of Heaven-Hiding Valley that shifted the very colors of heaven and earth. Under the raging tornado, the world around them instantly dimmed.

BOOM!

The next moment, Yun Feifei and the crowd from the Celestial Demon Sect felt a thunderous, explosive crash ring out in their hearts and ears.

RUMBLE!

Looking closely, a visibly terrifying ripple bloomed out of thin air at the center of their aerial collision. It shook the void, completely obliterating the converging tornado and blasting the sandstorm-like debris outward to form a horrific, sky-blotting rain of stones!

SWISH SWISH SWISH!

The crushed rocks, and even the finest specks of dust, were propelled by the rebounding force of the clash, shooting out in all directions at lightning speed! The stone walls at the valley entrance were instantly riddled with craters amidst endless explosive blasts.

“Fall back!”

The Celestial Demon Sect members standing at the entrance paled drastically and shouted. Some of them cried out in pain as the flying debris struck them, hitting as hard as hidden weapons. The crowd frantically retreated over a dozen zhang away.

Through the epicenter of the thunderous explosion in the sky, they saw Teng Zijing’s body plummeting into the ground like a falling meteor, trailing a long spray of blood. Chen Sha’s eyes flashed as he stepped forward in hot pursuit, intending to give Teng Zijing no chance to breathe.

Suddenly, with a WHOOSH, the distant, crashed Teng Zijing violently scrambled to his feet. Disheveled and covered in dirt, his face was fraught with terror as he looked at Chen Sha.

“This kid, this kid…”

He had heard that Chen Sha had suppressed and killed Zhang Shouren, the ninth most powerful expert in the world. However, prior to this, he never believed Chen Sha possessed the power to defeat him as well. After all, the ranking of the world’s top ten experts had withstood the test of time. Taking Yun Shouxuan as an example, if Yun Shouxuan hadn’t been injured, Teng Zijing would never have dared to challenge him. He knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t gain the slightest advantage against the man in his prime.

But this Chen Sha… Did he really treat every opponent the exact same way? The ninth in the world and the seventh in the world? In his eyes, was there truly no difference at all? How could the distinct gaps between the top ten experts in the world simply vanish?

Having realized this, there was no way Teng Zijing would choose to fight Chen Sha to the death. Since the Roc Demon Divine Power he was so proud of couldn’t gain him the slightest advantage in a head-on clash, his only option was to flee.

FLAP!

Vibrating the wings on his ribs, he instantly soared into the sky. Before leaving, he shouted with false bravado, “Dao Yi Sect Master, we shall meet again!”

Teng Zijing possessed the Roc Demon True Skill, which granted him Gaseous Wings—a miraculous ability that no one else in the world had. If he wanted to leave by soaring into the sky, no one could stop him. Thus, in the blink of an eye, he had already flown a hundred zhang high into the air.

Inside the valley, the expressions of the Celestial Demon Sect crowd changed drastically. If Teng Zijing was allowed to escape now, and their Sect Leader remained in seclusion, there was no way Chen Sha could stay at the Celestial Demon Sect every day to protect them. What if Teng Zijing had a Sudden Inspiration in the future and returned to slaughter their people? What would they do then?

But how could Chen Sha leave such a loose end?

Watching Teng Zijing fly away with a vicious look on his face, Chen Sha slightly raised his eyelids. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked up at the sky and smiled faintly. “Why wait for the future? Flying so high, aren’t you afraid of thunder and lightning?”

Chen Sha’s voice was not loud, but Teng Zijing hadn’t flown completely out of range. With the acute hearing of a top-tier expert among the Great Innate, he still managed to catch a few words.

“Thunder?” His expression changed slightly, and he immediately looked down at Chen Sha.

He saw Chen Sha point a single finger toward the sky.

BOOM!

A resounding clap of thunder inexplicably erupted in the previously clear and cloudless sky. Then, at the edge of his vision, an incredibly swift bolt of Celestial Thunder cleaved straight toward him.

“What?!”

A chill rushed to Teng Zijing’s head, and his pupils violently contracted. He frantically flapped his wings, trying to veer off course. But how could the speed of Celestial Thunder be so easily dodged? Furthermore, he was flying high in the sky. When the lightning struck, he acted as an automatic lightning rod, no different from a bullseye on a practice field.

CRACK!

The numerous Celestial Demon Sect disciples watched in stunned disbelief as lightning flashed across the sky, striking straight through Teng Zijing. The Great Roc Demon King’s body twitched slightly at an altitude of a hundred zhang. Completely charred black, he plummeted vertically from the sky!

WHOOSH!

His body tore through the terrifying astral winds and smashed squarely back into the very same crater he had just flown out of.

BOOM!

A cloud of dirt erupted into the sky once more, and the crater doubled in size.

Chen Sha, keeping his hands behind his back, slowly walked over. Inside the crater, Teng Zijing was charred black, his clothes still smoking. His skin was split open in numerous places, oozing bloody fluid, yet he was still alive, coughing and gasping for air. He struggled to open his eyes, staring at Chen Sha with absolute horror.

“You…”

“The only thing about you that qualifies as the seventh best in the world is your Life Force,” Chen Sha said with a faint smile. “The last Great Innate who took a blast of my Celestial Thunder died on the spot. You’re a bit stronger than him.”

Teng Zijing was the seventh most powerful expert in the world, after all; his Life Force was a league above Zhao Danyang’s. Seeing Teng Zijing lying paralyzed in the crater, the Celestial Demon Sect disciples looked at Chen Sha with a mixture of pleasant surprise and profound awe.

“Mother was also injured by Celestial Thunder…” Yun Feifei thought to herself, looking at Chen Sha in shock. “However, that was caused by Long Zaitian’s Demon Heaven Tribulation, which is obviously different from his Martial Arts. Just now, I only vaguely felt a surge of killing intent rocket into the sky, and then this happened…”

Watching Chen Sha wield the Celestial Thunder Power, Yun Feifei’s heart was Moo Ming stirred. Previously, the Thunder Tribulation power of Long Zaitian’s Demon Heaven Tribulation had plunged the entire Celestial Demon Sect into despair, as even her mother’s Celestial Demon Aura couldn’t withstand it. But now, Chen Sha possessed a similar method. Didn’t this mean he had the confidence to fight Long Zaitian without fearing his Thunder Tribulation?

The crowd immediately hurried forward, gathering behind Chen Sha.

Teng Zijing was charred black all over, having lost his mobility for the foreseeable future. Looking at Chen Sha’s apathetic expression, he felt an intuitive sense of his own impending death for the first time in his life. Anyone would involuntarily panic and feel helpless after exhausting every trick up their sleeve, only to be systematically dismantled and have their life held entirely in another’s grasp.

Looking at Chen Sha, he sensed the man’s killing intent. “You want to kill me?”

Chen Sha remained expressionless. “If I don’t kill you, what use are you to me?”

Teng Zijing gritted his teeth tightly. “Aren’t you interested in my Roc Demon True Skill? Spare my life, and I can give you this Martial Arts.”

“Even if I kill you, I have my ways of getting it,” Chen Sha replied calmly. He gently extended a finger in front of Teng Zijing, allowing him to see a wisp of purple Qi Power twirling around his fingertip.

Teng Zijing’s expression shifted slightly at the sight of this Qi Power. “This? This is my Power?”

He suddenly remembered the world-shaking rumors from the Zhao Country Capital City days ago, which claimed that this man’s sect members practiced the Qi Stealing Technique—a method feared and hated by all Martial Artists.

“With just a wisp of Qi Power, you can learn my Martial Arts?” Teng Zijing grimaced. “How is that possible!”

“That has nothing to do with you,” Chen Sha said indifferently. As his words fell, he slowly extended a finger, pointing it right at Teng Zijing.

Facing this finger of death, Teng Zijing’s soul pounded wildly. With a horrified expression, he babbled, “You—if you just spare my life, I can do anything for you! Having the world’s seventh-strongest fighter serving you is far more useful than killing me!”

Hearing this, Chen Sha’s finger stopped.

Seeing this, a hint of joy surfaced on Teng Zijing’s face. Little did he know, he was about to hear a sentence that would strike him like a bolt from the blue.

“Now that you mention it, this Daoist actually did think of a use for you.” Chen Sha slowly retracted his finger, looking at Teng Zijing thoughtfully. “Since you are known as the Great Roc Demon King, able to travel three thousand miles a day with a spread of your wings, it’s safe to say there is currently no person or creature in the world faster than you. The more I look at you, the more I think you’re perfectly suited to be my ‘mode of transportation’.”

Teng Zijing’s face turned the color of pig liver as he asked in a trembling voice, “Mode of transportation… You can’t possibly mean… a mount?”

Even the numerous Celestial Demon Sect disciples, along with Yun Feifei and Duanmu Ying, were dumbfounded. They stared at Chen Sha, unable to fathom how he had come up with such a wild, unconstrained idea.

But upon further thought, Teng Zijing was the only person in the world who could fly freely through the sky, and he was the seventh best in the world. If one traveled by standing on his back, a journey that would normally take half a month could be completed in just one tael days.