16: Chapter 16 Blazing Flames Slay the Innate

Murong Yan flicked her right hand, and the long spear emitted a low hum.

The spear was seven feet long, with a spearhead of one foot and two inches, featuring three sharpened edges with deep blood grooves cast between the ridges.

The spear shaft was dark gold, held as steady as a rock in her hands.

Pale gold Protective Aura poured from her palms into the spear shaft, spreading along the rod to the tip, dyeing the entire spear gold.

"Although a Cultivator is strong, they are still divided into different ranks." Murong Yan's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper grinding against an iron plate. "Your spiritual energy fluctuations are not very strong."

As her words fell, the ground beneath her feet exploded into a shallow pit.

As dirt and gravel splashed backward, she herself shot out like an arrow released from a string.

She held the spear level, the tip pointing straight at Jiang Yan's throat.

With her Physical Body infused with True Qi, the Innate Middle Stage Martial Artist moved so fast that the naked eye of an ordinary person could only catch a blurred black shadow.

The spear tip tore through the air, emitting a sharp whistling sound.

Jiang Yan's toes tapped the ground, and his body drifted backward.

Wind Control Technique.

Spiritual energy formed an invisible current of air beneath his feet to support him, making his body as light as a feather.

Murong Yan's spear tip struck the position where he had just been standing; the three-edged spearhead pierced through his afterimage left in place and nailed into the rock wall behind.

The stone was pierced like tofu under the spear tip, and gravel splattered everywhere.

Missing her strike, she flicked her wrist, withdrawing the long spear from the rock wall and bringing out a puff of stone powder.

The spear body traced a golden arc in the sunlight, sweeping horizontally across his waist.

The Protective Aura attached to the spear shaft caused the air to crackle with explosive sounds as it sliced through.

Jiang Yan leaned backward, and the spear shaft grazed past the tip of his nose.

He could feel the stinging sensation of the Protective Aura scraping across his face—like a red-hot iron rod pressed close to his skin, causing the fine hairs to curl up.

He flicked his finger, and a small sword formed from spiritual energy shot toward Murong Yan's face.

Murong Yan did not dodge or avoid; she flicked the spear shaft, lifting the tail of the spear to shatter the spiritual energy sword.

The sword shattered into points of light, dissipating into the air.

Her movements met almost no resistance; the spear tip followed up with another thrust, each strike faster than the last.

The two chased and fought in the open space in front of the cave.

Murong Yan's spearmanship was grand and open; the seven-foot spear was as obedient as an extension of her own arm in her hands. Thrusting, lifting, sweeping, and smashing—every strike was enveloped in pale gold Protective Aura, with astonishing power.

Every time the spear tip thrust out, it left a brief white trail in the air, like cutting slits into dark-colored cloth with a blade.

Relying on the Wind Control Technique, Jiang Yan kept his distance, his form weaving through the spear shadows. His cyan long robe was lifted by the wind of the spear, the hem flapping loudly.

But his brow furrowed slightly.

Testing.

From the beginning of the battle until now, Jiang Yan had been doing one thing—testing the strength of this Protective Aura shield.

Fireball Technique.

Three fireballs flew from his fingertips, shooting toward Murong Yan in a triangular formation.

She swept her long spear horizontally, and the Protective Aura on the shaft detonated all three fireballs simultaneously, sending sparks flying everywhere.

Sparks landed on her sleeves but were deflected by the Protective Aura, not even burning the fabric.

Ice Spike.

An ice cone formed from spiritual energy shot from his palm, faster and sharper than the fireballs.

Murong Yan lifted her spear tip, precisely striking the tip of the ice cone.

The ice cone exploded, the fragments pulverized by the Protective Aura, refracting a brief rainbow in the sunlight.

Wind Blade.

Three invisible Wind Blades flew out in a fan shape, sealing off the space for her to dodge left or right.

Murong Yan did not dodge or avoid; the Protective Aura around her body suddenly expanded. The three Wind Blades struck it like waves crashing against a reef, shattering into turbulent currents.

Jiang Yan also tested with a spiritual energy small sword, tested with Fire Snake Entanglement, and tested with Earth Spike Surprise Attack.

Every attack was blocked by that layer of pale gold Protective Aura. But with every attack, he was observing.

The Protective Aura shield of an Innate Martial Artist is directly related to the total amount of True Qi.

The amplitude of the Protective Aura's fluctuation when the fireballs struck, the vibration frequency of the Protective Aura when the Ice Spike hit, the recovery speed of the Protective Aura when the Wind Blades cut—these subtle changes were as clear as words written on paper in the face of his three hundred years of combat experience.

When the fireballs struck, the fluctuation of the Protective Aura shield spread outward from the point of impact, like a pebble thrown into water, ripples oscillating outward circle by circle.

The denser the ripples, the lower the density of the Protective Aura.

When the Ice Spike hit, the shield would first contract and then rebound; the extent of the contraction represented the speed of True Qi replenishment.

When the Wind Blades cut, brief white marks would appear on the surface of the shield; the longer it took for the marks to disappear, the slower the self-repair of the Protective Aura.

He had found the threshold.

It was not a specific numerical value, but a critical state.

When the power of a single attack exceeded a certain limit, the Protective Aura shield would experience a brief "overload"—the color would suddenly fade, and the recovery speed would drop significantly.

The Fireball Technique could not reach this limit. The Ice Spike was close. The Wind Blades were further off.

But the Blazing Flame Slash could.

Jiang Yan stopped retreating.

His feet pressed two shallow pits into the scorched earth, and the gravel made a crunching sound under his boots.

He overlapped his palms in front of his chest, his ten fingers forming a complex hand seal.

The pale red nebula within his Dantian suddenly contracted, and spiritual energy surged out at an unprecedented speed—not drawn out in wisps, but poured out in great swathes.

The thirty-six spiritual energy vortices composed of spiritual energy trembled simultaneously, and the remaining spiritual energy was mostly consumed in this single extraction.

Murong Yan saw his hand seal, saw the light beginning to condense at the edge of his palms, and her pupils contracted sharply.

She had never seen this hand seal, but her instinct told her—the next strike would be completely different from those previous probing Spells.

She gripped the spear shaft tightly, her fingers pressing ten white marks into the dark gold spear body.

Blazing Flame Slash.

A blade of flame condensed at the edge of Jiang Yan's palms.

It was not a fireball the size of a fist like the Fireball Technique, but a curved flame blade three feet long.

The blade body was cyan-white, with a temperature several times higher than an orange-red flame.

The air at the edge of the blade twisted violently, heat waves steaming. Gravel on the ground was swept up by the heat current, spinning in mid-air, and before even nearing the blade, it was burned to ashes, emitting a faint crackling sound.

A stinging pain came from the web of Jiang Yan's right hand. The recoil of the Blazing Flame Slash was tearing his skin; he could feel warm blood flowing down along his palm lines, first from the web of his hand, then the palm, and then the base of his five fingers.

The blood pooled into thin red lines in the palm lines, dripping down between his fingers, and upon hitting the ground, was steamed into a small puff of white vapor by the heat waves.

He did not let go, but instead poured the very last bit of his spiritual energy into it.

The flame blade grew by another third.

It grew from three feet to four feet, the cyan-white light shining so brightly it was almost blinding. The heat waves around the blade swept up all the gravel on the ground, forming a rotating ring of gravel in front of him.

Murong Yan's pupils contracted sharply.

She sensed a threat from this flame blade—a real, fatal threat.

It was not the light drizzle of those previous probing Spells, but a storm capable of tearing her and her Protective Aura to shreds.

Retreat.

She stomped her feet hard on the ground, her boot soles pressing two deep pits into the scorched earth, and her form retreated violently backward.

At the same time, she gripped the spear shaft with both hands, pouring all her True Qi into it.

True Qi surged from her Dantian, poured into her arms along the Meridians, and then flowed from her palms into the spear body.

The long spear was held horizontally in front of her, the golden Protective Aura on the spear body shining so brightly it was almost blinding—she had contracted the Protective Aura shield to its limit, protecting only three feet in front of her.

Beyond three feet, not a single inch was wasted.

But it was already too late.

Jiang Yan slashed down with one palm.

The flame blade flew out of his hand.

What streaked across the air was not an arc, but a straight line of light.

The cyan-white blade tore through the air, emitting a sharp whistling sound—that sound did not resemble fire burning, but rather a giant sword splitting a wall of wind.

The whistling was so sharp it was ear-piercing; the birds in the distant mountain forest were startled, a black mass flying out from the treetops, circling in the sky and emitting terrified cries.

Murong Yan held the long spear high over her head, the golden Protective Aura on the spear body condensing into the shape of a shield.

The muscles in her arms bulged, and blue veins protruded from under her skin, wriggling like earthworms.

All her True Qi, all her Protective Aura, all the martial arts she had learned in her life—were condensed into this one block.

She gritted her teeth, the pressure on her jaw making her temples throb, and a trace of blood foam spilled from the corner of her mouth.

The flame blade collided with the golden Protective Aura shield.

There was no explosion.

The cyan-white blade cut into the Protective Aura shield like a hot knife cutting into butter.

The pale gold light trembled violently under the burning of the flames, ripples spreading outward from the point of impact, the ripples becoming denser and more chaotic, and then—it split.

It was not shattered, but cut open. Like a real blade cutting through a piece of paper.

The blade light pierced through the Protective Aura shield, pierced through the spear shaft, and pierced through Murong Yan's body.

It slashed in from the top of her head and out from between her legs.

The seven-foot long spear was severed into two pieces from the middle, the broken ends burned red-hot by the high temperature, emitting a hissing quenching sound.

Murong Yan's body froze in place, maintaining the posture of holding the spear to block.

Her eyes were still open, reflecting the cyan-white light passing through her own body in her pupils.

A thin red line appeared from the center of her forehead, extending downward across the bridge of her nose, lips, chin, throat, chest, and abdomen—

Then, her whole person, along with the long spear, was split in half from the middle.

The two halves of the corpse fell to the left and right. Internal organs and blood flowed all over the ground, soaking into the scorched black earth, leaving dark red marks; the blood seeped into the soil, which had been baked dry by the flames, emitting a faint sizzling sound.

The flesh at the cross-section was scorched by the high temperature, presenting a layer of charred black hard crust; not a single drop of blood sprayed—the residual heat of the Blazing Flame Slash had directly cauterized the wound.

That layer of charred black hard crust was still emitting thin smoke, cyan-white, carrying the smell of roasted meat.

Jiang Yan withdrew his hand, and the flames at the edge of his palms slowly extinguished.

He looked down at his right hand—a large gash had burst open at the web of his hand, splitting all the way from the web to his wrist, blood flowing down along the palm lines, staining half his palm red.

The muscles in his arm were trembling slightly, not from exhaustion, but from the recoil.

His Meridians ached faintly, as if something had pushed against them from the inside out.

The recoil of the Blazing Flame Slash was much greater than he had anticipated; the strength of this Physical Body was still too poor.

His Dantian was empty. Spiritual energy had almost bottomed out, with only a thin layer remaining at the very bottom of the nebula, like the last bit of water residue in a drained teacup.

The Blazing Flame Slash had consumed over sixty percent of his spiritual energy, and combined with the consumption of the previous probing Spells, only a sliver of spiritual energy remained.

But he had won.

Jiang Yan looked at the two halves of the corpse on the ground, and then looked at the long spear broken into two pieces.

The broken end of the spear shaft was still emitting a dull, reddish-gold luster, gleaming with a warm, gentle light in the sunlight.