Chapter 1689: The Arrival (Part Three)

Just as his magical treasure struck Li Yan’s waist, Mu Sha lunged forward with a knee strike to Li Yan’s neck.

Clang!

As his knee made contact, a bone spike as sharp as a blade sprang from it—the Demon secret art, “White Bone Mottled Armor.”

Tink! Tink!

Two crisp metallic clangs echoed instantly.

Mu Sha’s pupils constricted. The man hadn’t even activated a protective shield, allowing the attacks to land on his bare body. Mu Sha knew this was born of supreme confidence, but the feedback from the impact made his heart jolt violently.

As the clangs echoed, Li Yan finally moved. He raised a hand in a motion that seemed both slow and incredibly fast, reaching out casually.

In Mu Sha’s eyes, he could see the movement clearly. He should have had plenty of time to defend or change his strike. But in the next instant, before he could react, Li Yan’s palm clamped onto one end of the snake-like green shadow of his weapon.

A massive force surged from the other end of the weapon. The moment it reached his palm, Mu Sha could no longer hold on. His body shook, a sharp pain shot through his hand, and an invisible force blasted him backward.

“Fifty!”

Li Yan’s calm voice rang out, the word sounding nonsensical in the moment.

Screech!

Because they were moving so fast, Mu Sha’s momentum hadn’t faded. He was still in mid-air, one knee bent and the other leg extended. But he was being blasted back with such force that he struggled to regain his balance. The sole of his foot carved a long, grey trail of air through the void.

His black cloak was pulled forward by the sudden deceleration, wrapping around him as though he had been slammed into a moving wall. He retreated fifty feet in an instant.

Only then did the cloak lose its tension and fall. Mu Sha stabilized himself.

He was horrified. Only then did he understand the meaning of the word. Through that single moment of contact, Li Yan had accurately gauged his cultivation and calculated exactly how much force was needed to knock him back fifty feet—not an inch more, not an inch less.

This wasn’t just a mastery of his own power; it was a terrifying ability to calculate his opponent’s strength perfectly. Facing such an enemy was truly frightening; it made one feel utterly small and helpless. His attack had felt like striking a peerless divine weapon, resulting in a massive backlash.

Mu Sha’s palm was torn with several bloody gashes, and blood was dripping. His powerful demonic body had been injured by a casual flick of power.

Li Yan, meanwhile, hadn’t moved an inch. There was only a small hole in the black robe at his waist. Having withdrawn his protective light, the robe—which was itself a magical treasure—had been pierced, allowing the strike to hit his body directly.

Even without defense, neither the bone spike nor the green shadow had left a single mark on him, let alone a drop of blood. Li Yan could stand still and endure a storm of Nascent Soul level attacks without his body being moved. But he wasn’t so arrogant as to think he could ignore a lower-level cultivator entirely; if they held a heaven-defying treasure, he would still dodge. He simply knew, through his vast experience, the limits of Mu Sha’s weapon.

“You withdrew your defense… and countered with a casual strike!” Mu Sha was dazed. The man had lowered his guard entirely and hadn’t even used a shred of magical power in his counter. He had relied purely on physical toughness and precision.

‘How can the gap be this wide?’ Mu Sha bit his lip. He knew there was a massive difference between the Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation realms, but he never expected it to be so surreal. Furthermore, the man hadn’t used a single technique. He had demon blood; hadn’t his mother said this man was a human?

Looking at the boy’s dazed expression, Li Yan fixed his gaze on his injured hand. He saw the flesh around the gashes slowly writhing.

“Oh? Physical self-healing? The Undying Demon Vine! Then look at my own healing…”

Li Yan’s voice was soft, but it reached Mu Sha clearly. He raised a hand. Mu Sha couldn’t hurt him, so he would have to do it himself.

Mu Sha’s weapon was a whip-like object, but the head was refined with a blade similar to a sword’s tip. Li Yan could feel the materials were extraordinary; a Late-stage Nascent Soul might be skewered if they were careless. Li Yan gripped the back of the blade. With a twist of his wrist, the brilliant tip slashed across his own forearm.

Clang!

With the injection of his powerful magical energy, a metallic sound rang out. A large gash appeared on Li Yan’s wrist, and blood surged. But almost simultaneously, Li Yan let out a soft sound of surprise.

He looked down at the whip in his hand. Mu Guyue’s face suddenly turned red.

Li Yan felt the aura of the weapon was strangely familiar. It was a green whip with a sword tip, and though he had never seen it before, he felt a connection to it.

“The Sky-Sentiment Vine?”

The image of a treasure flashed through his mind—a small bundle of green vine threads his master had given him long ago. He had lost it, and he eventually realized he must have dropped it in the seabed grotto.

He saw Mu Guyue turn her face away, a blush visible on her cheek. He understood then; she had retrieved his lost item. She had given the “Sky-Sentiment Vine” to Mu Sha, who had added other materials to refine it into this whip.

This realization happened in an instant. Meanwhile, Mu Sha was staring at Li Yan’s wrist. The result of his full strike had made him feel as small and weak as he had when he was a child. But as the metallic sound faded, he saw the large gash—which looked like a small, open mouth—closing. The flesh knit together with incredible speed, and the wound vanished.

“What kind of body is this…” Mu Sha was utterly stunned.

A few breaths later, he looked at his own hand. His wounds were more numerous but shallow. They were only seventy percent healed, and he was the one known as the “Undying Demon Vine.” Yet the man before him had not even been scratched by a full-power strike, and his own self-inflicted wound had healed many times faster. Before this man, he was as weak as an infant!

“Ascension is something neither your mother nor I are certain of. Do you still think it is easy?” Li Yan looked at Mu Sha. He had sensed his own aura in the boy’s blood; this was indeed his son.

Looking at the ordinary-looking youth in black, Mu Sha took a deep breath, straightened his clothes, and knelt in the air.

“Greetings, Father!”

Two years later, within the turbulent space, at the mountainside of the red-spotted mushrooms, Li Yan looked helplessly at Dong Fuyi as two figures lay unconscious on the ground. This was the second time he had struck his own kin from behind. Mu Guyue and Mu Sha didn’t even know of Dong Fuyi’s existence.

“Master, are we truly heading to the Cangxuan Realm first? That’s a massive detour!” Li Yan looked at his master. He had wanted to send Mu Guyue and her son to the Jiyou Realm first.

“The node you found isn’t as stable as this one. We are taking these two, but your Earthen Patch still holds many others. If the space is unstable, there are too many uncontrollable factors. Furthermore, you said that node might lead to the Jiyou Realm. If we make a mistake, we’ll be doing more than just extra travel. It is better to ensure a successful ascension first.”

Dong Fuyi nodded. He wanted to save effort too, but after observing Li Yan’s node for several days, he decided to abandon it. Even with his powers, he didn’t dare be careless with so many people in tow.

“Enough. We must enter the node. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

Dong Fuyi waved his sleeve, and Mu Guyue and Mu Sha vanished. A force enveloped Li Yan, and he felt his body tighten as he was pulled into the spatial node beneath the mushrooms…