55: Chapter 55 One Punch Suppresses! My son, let Daddy demonstrate the Dog-Beating Stick Technique for you.

Xu Chen stood there, holding Great Treasure, who was only a few months old, in one arm. He looked like an ordinary father taking his child out for a stroll.

That is, if you ignored the blood-soaked "Asura" Wang Teng writhing painfully on the ground before him.

"Xu... Xu Chen..."

Wang Teng clawed at the ground, his ten fingers mangled and bloody, gouging ten deep furrows into the hard meteorite-iron floor tiles. He raised his head, the crimson madness gone from his eyes, replaced only by endless humiliation and disbelief.

He had lost.

Lost again.

He had sacrificed his life, transformed into an Asura, even briefly possessed the combat power of a Saint. Yet, in front of this man, he didn't even qualify to make him truly strike?

And now...

He was going to humiliate him even while holding a suckling infant?

"Aaaah! Kill me! If you have the guts, kill me!"

Wang Teng roared, his voice hoarse like a broken bellows. He wanted to stand, but every bone in his body had been pulverized into dust under the washing of that Hongmeng Purple Qi. He could only writhe on the ground like a maggot.

"Kill you?"

Xu Chen looked down at him, his gaze not that of someone looking at an opponent, but like he was looking at a pile of non-recyclable trash.

"Wang Teng, you've misunderstood one thing."

"Dying is easy. Living is hard."

"Especially... living with shame."

Xu Chen gently patted Great Treasure, who was cradled in his arms, staring with wide, curious eyes at Wang Teng. A fatherly smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Great Treasure, see clearly now?"

"This strange uncle just called you a bastard."

"The men of our Xu Family don't go looking for trouble, but we never shy away from it. What should we do when someone insults us?"

Although Great Treasure couldn't speak yet, he was, after all, an innate Chaos Body with awakened spiritual intelligence.

As if understanding his father's words, or perhaps sensing his father's emotions, the little one stopped sucking his finger. He waved his two chubby little hands in the air twice and made a babbling sound.

"Ya! Hit!"

That indistinct, milky voice was exceptionally clear in the silence of the Star Observation Platform.

"So clever."

Xu Chen kissed the tender little cheek, then grabbed one of Great Treasure's small right hands.

"Come, Daddy will teach you a secret technique."

"This move is called the 'Dog Beating Technique'."

"Although we don't have a stick in hand, a slap is actually more useful for dealing with a mad dog that barks like this."

Saying this, Xu Chen, holding the child, slowly bent down.

He held his son's little hand and lightly gestured it towards Wang Teng's blood-stained face.

"Xu Chen! How dare you!!!"

Wang Teng saw Xu Chen's intention. His eyeballs felt like they would burst.

A warrior can be killed, but not humiliated!

To let a baby who hasn't even been weaned slap his face? This was ten thousand times worse than killing him! If this got out, even as a ghost, he, Wang Teng, would become the laughingstock of the entire cultivation world!

"What wouldn't I dare?"

Xu Chen's eyes suddenly turned cold.

"The moment you insulted my son, you forfeited any claim to dignity."

"Great Treasure, do it!"

With Xu Chen's command, he released his grip on his son's wrist. However, a stream of pure, gentle spiritual power quietly infused into Great Treasure's body, guiding the terrifying power latent deep within the Chaos Body.

"Ee-ya!"

Great Treasure seemed to think this was great fun. He giggled, and that fleshy little palm, carrying a faint golden Chaos light, swung down hard towards Wang Teng's cheek.

This slap looked soft and utterly powerless.

But at the moment it landed...

*Hum!*

The donghuang bell, the Emperor's Weapon born alongside him, floating over Great Treasure's chest, suddenly emitted a clear, trembling chime.

A Saint-level law, powerful enough to suppress space-time and shatter all things, instantly empowered that little hand.

Space solidified.

Wang Teng discovered in horror that he couldn't even close his eyes. He could only watch helplessly as that little hand, representing the ultimate humiliation, grew larger and larger in his vision.

Then—

*SLAP!!!*

A crisp, resounding, ear-splitting slap, one that even generated a visible ring of sonic boom cloud, exploded over the Star Observation Platform.

This sound was more shocking than any previous clash of divine abilities.

*Pfft—!*

Half of Wang Teng's cheek instantly caved in. A mouthful of teeth, mixed with blood, sprayed out violently.

He spun through the air like a dead dog struck by a high-speed spinning top, rotating a full seven hundred and twenty degrees before crashing heavily into the ground.

*BOOM!*

Dust flew.

The already cracked floor of the Star Observation Platform was smashed into another human-shaped crater.

This time, Wang Teng didn't even manage a scream. His eyes rolled back, and he passed out completely.

But his face...

His left cheek was swollen like a steamed bun, clearly imprinted with a little handprint that the powerful elders present might find 'adorable,' but which Wang Teng would see as the nightmare of his life.

The entire platform fell deathly silent.

You could hear a pin drop.

All the prodigies, Saint Sons, Divine Maidens, even the old monsters observing from the shadows, were all petrified, their mouths agape, unable to close them for a long time.

He... he really did it?

Using an infant?

Slapped away a Dao Severing King who had erupted with Saint-level combat power?!

What kind of ghost story was this?!

"This..."

After a long while, someone finally swallowed hard with difficulty, their voice trembling as they broke the silence.

"Is this... the power of a Chaos Body?"

"Just over a month old and can already beat up a Dao Severing King? When he grows up... what's the point of us cultivating?"

Despair.

A deep sense of despair spread through the hearts of all the younger generation.

They originally thought Xu Chen was an insurmountable mountain.

Now it seemed, the son he fathered was also a chasm from the heavens!

This was going to completely block their generation's path!

"Oh dear, used too much force."

Xu Chen looked at the crater, somewhat 'annoyed,' and shook his son's little hand, blowing on it with a pained expression.

"Great Treasure, does your hand hurt?"

"Next time, remember, dirty and tiring work like beating dogs should be left to that old grandpa called Dark Elder. Don't dirty our little hands."

Great Treasure obviously didn't feel any pain. On the contrary, he found it very interesting, waving his hands and feet excitedly in Xu Chen's arms, seemingly wanting to do it again.

"Alright, alright, we're done fighting."

Xu Chen turned and handed the excited child back to Su Qingge, who had been waiting nearby.

Su Qingge took the child, looked at her son's flushed little face, and gave Xu Chen a glance that was both amused and helpless.

"You, you're incorrigible."

"Who teaches a child to hit people like that?"

"This is called cultivating a man's spirit from a young age."

Xu Chen said righteously, "My son will suppress all realms in the future. How can he be a soft persimmon?"

Finished speaking, he turned and walked back to the center of the high platform.

The fatherly smile that had been on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an aloof and domineering aura that made people dare not look directly at him.

He stood with his hands behind his back, his robes fluttering slightly. His gaze swept slowly over the entire assembly like lightning.

Those prodigies who had just joined the Anti-Xu Alliance and clamored to teach Xu Chen a lesson now, upon meeting his gaze, all lowered their heads, trembling, not even daring to breathe loudly.

Wang Teng's fate was right there for all to see.

Who would dare be the next to stick their neck out?

That would truly lead to death! And social death at that!

"Who else?"

Xu Chen spoke lightly, his voice not loud, yet carrying an invincible loneliness.

"Weren't things quite lively just now?"

"Didn't you want a war of attrition? Didn't you want to make me lose face?"

"Come on."

Xu Chen spread his hands, adopting a posture welcoming all challengers.

"I'm standing right here."

"Whether it's one-on-one, a group fight, or even if you want to spar with my son."

"I, Xu Chen, will accompany you to the end."

The wind blew across the Star Observation Platform.

It stirred Xu Chen's hair and chilled the hearts of everyone present.

The entire Star Observation Platform gathered the most elite of the younger generation from the Central Continent and even the entire Ancient Immortal Realm.

A full thousand people.

Yet now, they were all suppressed, unable to lift their heads, by one man and one infant.

This was a complete and utter crushing.

In terms of strength, background, and that despair-inducing 'next generation talent.'

Xu Chen, in the simplest, most brutal, and most humiliating way, shattered everyone's pride.

"Si-since no one accepts the challenge..."

A Central Continent Sacred Ground elder responsible for presiding over the event wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and forced himself to step forward.

He glanced at Wang Teng, still lying in the crater, condition unknown, then at Xu Chen, whose aura was like a rainbow, and sighed inwardly: *The times have changed.*

"Then this old man announces..."

"Hold on."

Xu Chen suddenly interrupted the elder.

His gaze fell upon a corner of the crowd, on several individuals wearing unified attire, emitting a cold aura. They had remained silent the entire time, but their eyes had been venomously fixed on him.

Those were... people from the Ancient Imperial Clan.

"Since no one dares to come up, I'll call the roll."

A cruel arc curled at the corner of Xu Chen's mouth.

"Those ones with horns over there, stop playing dead."

"I saw you muttering down there just now. Seems you had quite an opinion about my 'Dog Beating Technique'?"

"Come on up."

"Let me see if your faces are thicker than Wang Teng's."