DragonKnov
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Chapter 306
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 10:31:48 +0000 UTC========================
[>>[DEFLECTING BLOWS (C)]<<]
Type: Passive skill
Effect: Negates damage from any physical, magical, or spiritual attack once per instance (1/1).
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[!] Your Pressure Form Perfection Style skill has upgraded from C -> B!
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[>>[Pressure Form Perfection Style (B)]<<]
Type: Passive skill - Mixed Martial Arts
Stage: Pressure Point Eruption (4th Stage)
Description: A technique that integrates knowledge of meridian placement, Qi flow, and pressure points.
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As these ethereal translucent screens materialized before Ji Wuye's piercing gaze, at the same time, information flooded his consciousness in waves, carrying the knowledge the Pressure Point Eruption stage.
The familiar, searing sensation returned—a relentless onslaught, like white-hot needles stabbing mercilessly into the depths of his neural pathways.
Yet, his expression remained stoic. What once was unbearable had dulled into a throbbing ache, reverberating through his temples. It was no more than a fleeting disorientation now, as his consciousness stretched, malleable and resilient, to accommodate the influx of new knowledge.
'Pressure Point Eruption,' Ji Wuye mouthed silently.
By now, the sun traced its inexorable arc across the boundless azure, its golden dawn rays gradually intensifying into the harsh, unforgiving glare of midday. Shifting shadow patterns danced across the blood-spattered paved stones ground as hours bled seamlessly into one another.
Half-kneeling atop the gore-slicked paved stones ground of Lower Kunlun, Ji Wuye surveyed the macabre tableau of his handiwork with clinical detachment. The scattered remnants of the unorthodox martial artists lay strewn about like broken, discarded dolls—some cleaved clean through with surgical precision, others torn.
His gaze settled upon one particular figure amidst the carnage—a body that, by some cruel twist of fate, retained enough wholeness to serve his grim purpose. Unlike his utterly obliterated companions, this unorthodox martial artist had lost only his left side. His chest still rose and fell in shallow, irregular movements.
The dying man's eyes, glazed with the rapidly encroaching veil of death, tracked Ji Wuye's methodical approach. His remaining intact hand twitched feebly against the blood-slicked stones ground, fingers curling inward as they left crimson streaks in their wake.
"S-spare..." A guttural, pain-filled groan, barely human in its anguished timbre, escaped the man's throat as Ji Wuye's shadow fell across his face.
Ji Wuye's crimson eyes remained as still and impassive as frozen lakes, devoid of even the faintest ripple of emotion.
His long, elegant fingers, the knuckles caked with flaking vestiges of dried blood, extended outwards.
A soft, ethereal blue radiance of Qi emanated from their tips.
Yet unlike the brutality of his previous strikes, this gesture carried an almost gentle quality.
The pressure point he had selected, nestled within the sacred hollow of the Lower Dantian just beneath the navel, was considered the body's foundational energy center.
As his Qi-infused fingers made featherlight contact with the dying man's rapidly cooling flesh, the abdomen began to distort grotesquely, the skin stretching taut and shiny as it swelled obscenely, akin to a waterskin being overfilled at an alarming rate.
Bulging veins pulsed in thick, ropey relief just beneath the surface, their throbbing cadence intensifying with each passing second.
Ji Wuye rose in one fluid, graceful motion, as he stepped back to observe.
BLAST!
The deafening sound that rent the mountain air asunder carried the thunderous force, sending a visceral spray of warm viscera fanning outwards in a grotesque arc.
Droplets of crimson caught the harsh glare of the midday sun, glinting like airborne rubies before splattering wetly across the unforgiving stone paved ground.
Yet Ji Wuye remained utterly motionless, his expression an inscrutable mask of calm as the warm spray speckled his features, not even flinching as the thick.
His gaze remained transfixed upon the gaping cavity that now remained where the man's abdomen had once been.
'So simple, like the name implies—blowing up the pressure point,' he thought inwardly.
However, it was only now that he became acutely aware of the gazes surrounding him. Eyes full of fear. The sharp tinge of anxiety hung thick in the air. All around him, the Kunlun disciples watched, their trembling forms witnessing him stand calm and unfazed amidst the carnage.
Their terrified expressions, paired with the glances of the righteous faction Elders observing from afar…
Upon noticing this, his response was, 'Smooth as a sail,' He nodded almost imperceptibly.
To the horrified onlookers, this grotesque display surely appeared as little more than the mindless butchery of a madman—a wanton descent into depravity and bloodlust.
Yet behind Ji Wuye's placid exterior lurked a meticulously crafted web of calculated gambits, each life callously snuffed out representing another strategic step towards averting the future calamity he had borne witness to in that other, desolate timeline.
Every corpse that now cooled at his feet was yet another variable eliminated from the cosmic equation that had once led to his Senior Sister's untimely demise.
And so, this action became yet another way for him to guarantee or increase his value while ensuring that he appeared to have ‘sided’ with Kunlun.
The abrupt sound of approaching footsteps shattered the heavy pall of silence like a blade through taut silk. "You reek of blood and filth, Brother."
From his side, Ji Wuye had already sensed her approach—Song Jia.
Song Jia's features betrayed the faintest hint of delicate distaste as she drew closer still, one sleeve-covered hand rising instinctively to shield her visage from the cloying, metallic miasma that hung thick and stifling from Ji Wuye.
Her opposite hand extended towards Ji Wuye, proffering forth an immaculately pristine cloth the hue of freshly driven snow.
Despite the macabre horror show unfolding around them—dismembered bodies and rapidly cooling corpses scattered like fallen autumn leaves—Song Jia seemed unfazed.
For a woman to wade unflinchingly through such unfathomable carnage was already a remarkable feat unto itself.
Yet Song Jia wore the trappings of her exceptional nature with an unconscious, unaffected ease, neither drawing undue attention to nor shying away from the weight of her singular accomplishments.
Treating the extraordinary undertaking of not merely surviving, but emerging utterly triumphant against such formidable foes as though it were the most natural inclination in existence.
For a martial artist still below the Third Realm to have achieved such feat...
Ji Wuye's crimson eyes narrowed suddenly. Delicate threads of pure Qi, rendered barely perceptible even to his enhanced vision, wafted outwards from the region of Song Jia's chest in vaporous tendrils akin to the spectral plumes rising from a natural hot spring.
The telltale signs of her Middle Dantian's awakening were unmistakable.
"Congratulations, Sister Song," Ji Wuye offered, the faintest curve playing across the corners of his bloodstained lips as he cupped his hands.
The pristine white cloth transferred between them like a votive offering of peace, and he began the methodical process of divesting his features of their crimson mask with unhurried, meticulous strokes.
"Really?!" Song Jia's eyes seemed to ignite from within, their smoldering embers flaring to life with the delighted radiance of a festival's ceremonial lanterns.
Her bearing straightened unconsciously, her shoulders pulling back as a profound sense of pride caused her slight frame to rise taller.
The smug satisfaction that danced across her porcelain features in that fleeting moment carried an endearing glimpse of unguarded humanity amid the day's brutality.
Yet her expression shifted visibly as she watched Ji Wuye continue his cleansing, her gaze tracking his every movement—the careful, almost reverential manner in which he tended to the area surrounding his distinctive crimson eyes; the meticulous attention paid to ensuring not a single lingering trace of blood marred the fullness of his lips.
A crease formed between her brows, deep enough to have cast shadowed hollows in the harsh midday light slanting across the mountainside.
'This feels... odd,' Song Jia found herself ruminating, an unsettled sense of disquiet taking root as her mind grappled with the jarring disconnect between the wanton savagery of the scene laid out around them and Ji Wuye's cleansing.
She vividly recalled Ji Wuye’s indifference during the slaughter—the way he killed scores of enemies without so much as blinking.
His expression never shifted; there was no thrill, joy, or excitement like what she had felt during the fight. And now, hearing words of "congratulation" from him, she felt an unexpected twinge of doubt.
'I feel like I'm being mocked,' the insidious thought slithered through the recesses of Song Jia's mind like a serpent coiled in the shadows.
The swell of pride she had felt in the wake of her recent transcendence began to cool in the encroaching penumbra of creeping doubt, the simple word "congratulations" echoing discordantly with each repetitive reverberation.
No matter how she thought about it, Song Jia knew her strength was a far cry from Ji Wuye’s. It wasn't even a comparison—the gap between them was vast. Yet, for some reason, that realization made her blood boil.
Song Jia's fingers curled inwards instinctively, her trimmed nails biting crescents into the calloused flesh of her palms as tremors of emotion began to roil just beneath the surface of her composed exterior.
Her heart thundered an increasingly arrhythmic cadence against the unyielding cage of her ribs.
'I want to fight him,' the incandescent thought blazed through the forefront of Song Jia's consciousness.
Yet before the burning challenge could pass her lips in a torrent of words, another voice—sharp and mocking with an undercurrent of naked cruelty—sliced through the tension-laden air like a hurled volley of razored daggers:
"Huh? The Passing Wind? Hah! So here you are, hiding like a cornered rat!"
The scornful words carried across the blood-spattered expanse of the Lower Level. It was clear the speaker was addressing Song Jia.
