Chapter 112: Body Spongification

Chapter 112: Chapter 112: Body Spongification

WHOOSH!

A surging, roiling sea of blood billowed forth, threatening to devour everything.

From the trees lining both sides of the road, the few who had planned to watch from the sidelines knew they had been exposed. One by one, they leaped out.

Standing in the middle of the road, the five men wore grave expressions. Under the influence of the Heart Image, they felt as if their bodies were being submerged in a sea of blood, completely saturated by it.

’The sheer volume of this Heart Image... it’s twenty or thirty times that of a normal Profound Gate Ninth Layer Martial Artist. How in the world did this guy train?’

Li Zhengyang was horrified. If not for the fact that Fang Can’s Heart Image hadn’t yet manifested into reality, he would have thought he was facing a genuine Heaven-Ascending Road Martial Artist.

Even though it was just an illusory torrent, and despite having family techniques to fortify their minds, they could feel their very spirits being slowly eroded and consumed by such a vast sea of blood.

"Young Hero Fang, I am Li Zhengyang. We only came here today for a friendly sparring match. We mean no harm."

Li Zhengyang chuckled sheepishly, his gaze drifting guiltily toward the martial artists Wan Chenyu had already knocked down.

"It’s fine. Since you’ve come to visit, you might as well all stay."

Fang Can’s tone was even as he hopped down from the sedan chair, lest he accidentally step on and break his ’toy’ during the fight.

"Why are you wasting your breath on him?" Wan Chenyu, at his side, snorted coldly. He yanked his dragon-patterned broadsword free with a surge of strength in his right arm and charged toward Fang Can.

As he ran, his right hand clamped down on the broadsword’s hilt. With the increasing force from his arm, the blade, which had been emanating a sinister, cold glint, suddenly erupted in a dazzling red light.

’This is...’ Fang Can’s eyes were drawn to the light of the blade. He quickly realized it was no illusion, but a genuine blade aura.

A battle that should have been between ordinary Body Refining Martial Artists was suddenly becoming something mystical because of this one slash.

"SIZZLE..."

As the light from the hilt intensified, the entire broadsword grew heavier and heavier.

A hundred jin... a thousand jin... ten thousand jin... one hundred thousand jin...

In just a few moments, the broadsword, which was over four chi long, had increased to a terrifying weight of 108,000 jin.

At that moment, it was as if Wan Chenyu was wielding the trident of a Sea God!

As the broadsword became incredibly heavy, its weight of over fifty tons slowed Wan Chenyu’s speed, but his aura was that of a ferocious beast ready to tear the heavens and the earth asunder.

Furthermore, the entire blade had turned crimson, like a red-hot branding iron, giving off a heat of several thousand degrees.

With every step he took, the ground began to crack and split apart.

In that brief instant, although Fang Can didn’t understand the mechanism behind it, he had no intention of meeting it head-on.

Seeing the wave of heat from the horizontal slash, he twisted his body lightly, narrowly scraping past the blade’s edge.

While in mid-air, Fang Can shot out his right arm, his five fingers clamping onto the back of the blade. Executing a ’Thousand-Jin Drop,’ he brought his entire body weight crashing down!

"HISS—"

Like a clay ox sinking into the sea, the massive broadsword was forcefully driven into the ground by Fang Can, sending up a plume of black smoke from the earth.

"This is a fine blade. I’ll take it."

A smile played on Fang Can’s lips. While his right arm held down the back of the blade, his left fist shot out like a striking dragon, meeting Wan Chenyu’s right fist in a clash.

"BOOM!"

It was like a violent collision between heaven and earth. A visible shockwave swept out from the two of them.

The thunderous roar made the ordinary people nearby instinctively cover their ears, a tearing pain assaulting their eardrums as their minds grew dizzy.

"CRACK~"

Wan Chenyu felt as if he had punched a block of black iron. A numbness shot through his arm, the skin on his fist had already split open, and blood slowly trickled from the wound.

’This guy’s even tougher than I am!’

Wan Chenyu was shocked. He knew that Horizontal Training techniques required the most patient and persistent effort.

He had been tempering his body with secret medicines since childhood. Relying on his family’s ultimate technique, his mastery of Horizontal Training was considered unstoppable.

He had timed this attack precisely because Fang Can had not been practicing martial arts for long. Even if his Realm had soared, his physical body should still be significantly weaker.

But reality had just shown him that he was losing in a direct contest of fists. How was that possible?

In disbelief, Wan Chenyu looked up, only to see a towering figure looking down at him.

He saw that Fang Can, who was originally 1.8 meters tall, had inexplicably grown to 2.2 meters. Once a full head shorter, he was now nearly the same height as Wan Chenyu.

Fang Can’s once fair skin was now completely flushed red. Combined with his blood-red eyes, he truly looked like a demon god descending upon the world.

"How is that possible?!" The scions of the noble families who had come with him stared at the scene in utter horror.

Flesh and blood growing from nothing, breaking the natural cycle of mass and energy—this touched upon the secrets of the Heaven-Ascending Road, something beyond the ken of mortals.

Normally, no matter how powerful a Transcendent Body Martial Artist was, they still had to abide by the fundamental laws.

For example, they couldn’t project True Qi externally, their Heart Images couldn’t be materialized, and they had to obey the law of conservation of energy.

But now, Fang Can’s body had grown to two meters tall out of thin air. Where did the flesh and blood for this growth come from?

So, had Fang Can reached the Heaven-Ascending Road?

Or had he somehow broken the law of conservation of energy?

The answer was no!

If Wan Chenyu possessed the White Eye right now, he would be able to peer through Fang Can’s body and see the state of his internal organs.

The space where his neatly arranged organs should be had been forcibly and vastly expanded. The inside of his torso was completely empty, as if it had been hollowed out.

This was the new success Fang Can had developed over the past few days, allowing his body to act like a water-absorbing sponge.

Fang Can called this move... the Heaven-Supporting Skill!!!

Right now, Fang Can was like a giant, muscle-bound humanoid—a walking Rick Five!

Originally, with this spongification of his body, when a single part was engorged, the strength of that individual limb could increase by 8 times, and its durability by 2 times.

But, as mentioned from his previous experiments, when a part of the body became engorged, blood couldn’t be created from nothing; it could only be moved from one area to another.

However, an ordinary Martial Artist would only think of moving blood from the left side to the right, or from their head to their arms.

This would achieve the effect of temporarily strengthening a part of their body.

But what was Fang Can’s choice?

He chose to move the blood from inside his body to its surface!

With the muscles on the surface of his body engorged, Fang Can’s internal organs and even his brain had all shrunk to their absolute limit as blood was drawn from them.

The blood from these organs was continuously extracted and squeezed out by Fang Can, providing an endless supply to his skin and muscles.

Under these conditions, his torso was completely empty. If you were to slice open his stomach, you could even stuff an eight or nine-year-old child inside.

Yet his body had swelled up like a balloon, reaching a height of two meters.

In this state, although his strength and mass remained unchanged—since matter cannot be created from nothing—his Defense Power had genuinely increased threefold due to the engorgement of blood.

Thus!

Profound Gate Ninth Layer (99.9%) + Evil Tiger Devouring Body + Taming Tiger and Dragon Golden Body + Heaven-Supporting Skill >> Wan Chenyu’s lifelong tempered Horizontal Training

Staring at Wan Chenyu and the others, who were utterly stupefied by the reality-defying scene before them, the corners of Fang Can’s mouth curled up high.

"What a pity. I was planning to save this move for those First Turn cultivators after I’d perfected it."

"Since it’s come to this, you can be the first to experience the might of my ’heaven-propping pillar’."