Chapter 12 — A Duel of Legs Decides the Victor

e he wielded with his hands was a fist art divine ability created by the Five Elders of the Lan River, called the Clear River Art. When performed with both hands, vital energy transformed into a great river, surging and roaring, waves splitting the banks—a terrifying sight. Though he had not yet cultivated the fist art to the level of a divine ability, its power was already extraordinary—splitting steles, shattering stone, grinding boulders to dust was no difficulty at all. Yet before the "little stick," these two great arts were riddled with openings, their defenses breached again and again. The little stick rained down on his face, neck, collarbone, elbows, wrists, finger bones, ribs, heart, waist, hips, knee joints, ankles! In that brief moment, Senior Brother Qu was beaten until his head was covered in lumps and his body was black and blue. How could he not be enraged? But what filled his heart more than anything was dread. If what Shen Mu held in his hand were not a little stick, but a blade... The consequences were too horrifying to imagine! It was too terrifying. This youth was at most eleven or twelve years old, his height not even reaching his chest. Even if he had trained from the womb, it should have been impossible to cultivate such a horrifying art! Senior Brother Qu quickly noticed Shen Mu's weakness and relaxed. "His vital energy cultivation is very weak. His moves are exquisitely refined, but his cultivation is pitifully shallow. Or rather, he isn't a spirit body at all—he's just an ordinary person..." He had finally hit upon the key: Shen Mu was merely an ordinary person, not a spirit body. He hadn't opened his Spirit Soul Divine Palace. He must have cultivated some basic art like the Energy-Guiding Art, granting him a measure of vital energy cultivation. But the vital energy cultivated by an ordinary person had no attribute and could exert no power. So although Shen Mu's attacking moves far surpassed his own, without power behind them, they posed little threat to him. "This blade technique of the little demon must be a divine ability—he simply can't yet unleash its true power. If I could obtain this divine ability..." Senior Brother Qu's heart stirred with excitement. Shen Mu couldn't unleash the blade technique's power, but he himself could bring out a measure of it. If he could wield it, its power would surely be terrifying! He could tell that Shen Mu's blade technique was a combat skill. Combat skills were different from divine abilities like sword control. Sword control freed the hands, letting the sword fly through the air to kill, making one's swordsmanship more agile while the hands could simultaneously attack the enemy, adding greater variety. Combat skills were different. Combat skills followed a primal path, requiring one's own hands to wield the weapon, allowing vital energy to surge into the weapon to the greatest degree, making each move more powerful and the divine ability stronger! In truth, the question of which was superior—combat skills or sword control—had been settled long ago. Several hundred years past, both had coexisted. Those who cultivated combat skills and those who cultivated sword control acknowledged no master but themselves, and they frequently went to war to test who was stronger. Then a prodigy emerged from the sword control lineage, slaughtering the powerful combat skill cultivators—some dead, some crippled, some fled. And that prodigy was none other than the National Preceptor of the present Yanning Kingdom, hailed as the foremost under the gods! By now, those who cultivated combat skills were few and far between. The superior divine abilities of the combat skill lineage had been lost one after another, with no inheritors. What survived were only low-grade combat skills. But truly superior combat skills were still extraordinary. And Senior Brother Qu firmly believed that what this little demon before him was displaying was a genuine superior combat skill! "I must obtain this combat skill! I'll capture him, and no matter what, force him to hand over the cultivation method for this combat skill!" Shen Mu's little wooden stick continued to rain down madly on Senior Brother Qu. Senior Brother Qu fought desperately to block it, but could never fully stop the stick—in a brief span, he was struck hundreds of times. Senior Brother Qu's head and face grew more and more swollen, his body more and more painful, and panic gradually crept into his heart. The more panicked he became, the more disordered his movements, and the more often the little wooden stick landed on his body. Though it was only a little wooden stick with little power of its own, combined with Shen Mu's own strength and striking relentlessly, the accumulated damage to his body was far from negligible. "He's going to beat me to death!" Senior Brother Qu's blood ran cold.