Apotheosis Begins with Tai Chi

His expression remained placid. He didn't even blink.

The next instant.

Yu Shi's eyes snapped open.

His eyes were usually a hazy gray, as if veiled by a film, but the moment they opened, they flashed with a piercing light.

His foot slammed into the ground.

The wooden planks cracked with a deafening BANG, splintering on impact. Fissures spread out from under his foot as wood chips flew through the air.

Just as he had when defeating Ye Qiluo, he erupted with instantaneous speed. With a ferocity that an opponent of the Same Tier couldn't possibly react to, he shot straight for Chen Cheng's center.

His figure seemed to vanish.

The ring was still trembling. He tore through the air, parting the wind and sending it spiraling to either side.

The sound of his passage was still catching up behind him, yet his fist was already upon Chen Cheng's chest.

This punch was identical to the one before.

Simple and direct, with no flourish. He threw a straight punch, the Power compressing, condensing, and gathering at his knuckles.

The moment his fist made contact, it would trigger an Instant Burst.

No probing. No adjustments.

In Yu Shi's eyes, Chen Cheng was no different from Ye Qiluo.

'He's not worth the effort of a different approach.'

The same punch.

'Would be more than enough.'

BANG—!

The next instant, the muffled thud of impact was like thunder trapped beneath a mountain, more violent and shocking than when he had struck Ye Qiluo.

Yu Shi's pupils contracted violently.

His perpetually sleepy face instantly tensed, nearly contorting in disbelief.

The punch he had expected to cripple Chen Cheng hadn't landed on his chest at all.

Instead, it had smashed head-on into Chen Cheng's right fist, which had shot out from nowhere to meet it.

Knuckle to knuckle, a perfect collision.

This meant Chen Cheng's Heart Spirit and reaction time were clearly faster than his own Instant Burst.

And Chen Cheng's fist was absolutely no slower than his.

However, that alone wasn't nearly enough to make Yu Shi's pupils constrict and his face contort.

"Ugh..."

After the massive CRACK, Yu Shi grunted, his body stumbling back several steps uncontrollably.

His heels dug into the wooden planks, each step heavy and frantic.

The fist that had met Chen Cheng's felt as if it were about to rupture from within.

The pain bored straight into his marrow.

'No.'

'To be precise, the pain is erupting *out* of my marrow, an internal Thunder Burst threatening to tear my fist apart.'

This was what truly horrified him.

He could clearly feel that the strength of Chen Cheng's Dark Force was actually on par with his own.

But strangely, Chen Cheng's Dark Force seemed to possess a piercing Trait.

Logically, when two equal Powers collided, they should have canceled each other out, leaving no internal damage.

But roughly ten percent of Chen Cheng's Power had pierced straight through the explosive barrier of their collision, bypassed his physical defenses, and imploded deep within his hand.

What was even more incomprehensible...

...was another unusual characteristic of Chen Cheng's Dark Force: the power of its implosion.

Normally, a mere ten percent of Dark Force, even if it imploded, wouldn't be enough to fracture his metacarpals and strain his tendons.

But Chen Cheng's Dark Force had done just that.

In that instant.

Yu Shi truly felt as if his fist was about to detonate from the inside out.

A stabbing pain consumed most of his arm, from his phalanges and carpals all the way to his ulna and radius.

Half his body was even numb and trembling—a temporary loss of strength and stiffness from the violent shock to his bones and sinews.

And yet, none of that was the most terrifying part.

What made Yu Shi's heart pound in his chest and his pupils shrink to pinpricks was the sight of the figure before him.

Still standing in the exact same spot, not having moved back a single half-step!

At the same time, gasps of astonishment spread through the crowd like wildfire. In the blink of an eye, the entire training ground was filled with the buzzing of voices.

"Hiss... Am I dreaming!? That bald guy actually lost the fist-to-fist exchange!?"

"That was the same punch that nearly beat Ye Qiluo to death a minute ago!"

"What's that kid's name? Chen... Chen Cheng! That's right! It's Chen Cheng! When did the Dragon Mountain Middle Courtyard produce a genius like him?"

"You've been living under a rock, haven't you?"

A burly man in hunting gear puffed out his chest, his voice booming uncontrollably.

"This Little Brother Chen already made a huge splash last month at the Jiuan Hunting Manor's Tiger Slaying Banquet! I was there! The sight of that thirty-foot Fire Dragon soaring through the air is still burned into my mind!"

"A Fire Dragon? For real? Quick! Tell us everything!"

"..."

Around the ring, most of the crowd didn't recognize Chen Cheng and had never even heard his name.

However, a small portion of the audience, who had either witnessed his feats firsthand or heard tales, knew something about him. They now acted as storytellers, spilling out everything they knew—and some things they didn't. Inevitably, they added their own embellishments, and the stories grew more and more fantastic with each telling.

The crowd was instantly abuzz, the din of shocked gasps mingling with enthusiastic explanations. The atmosphere was more electric than ever before.

Over at the Dragon Mountain Hall's seating...

Cao Zhao shot to his feet, his mouth hanging open, utterly speechless.

Zhu Mingyuan seemed to forget the pain in his arm, instinctively raising it to cheer. The moment he moved the injured limb, pain shot through him, making him hiss and shiver. But the ecstatic smile on his face never wavered.

Qiao Qiao bit her lip, her eyes shining with an astonishing brilliance. It wasn't the simple admiration of a young girl; it was the radiant glow of someone who had just glimpsed a new path forward, a new realm of possibility.

Lin Fengxiao remained seated, his face expressionless. But the hand hanging at his side secretly pinched his thigh. He squeezed hard. It hurt. He needed that pain to suppress the feeling in his chest that was about to burn its way up his throat.

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