High Martial Arts: Enlightenment after Practices

In the split second Shadow Blade was distracted—

BOOM!

Lei Hong’s Heavy Axe crashed down.

A dark red gale tore through the air. Even before the axe blade struck, the furious pressure made it difficult for Shadow Blade to breathe.

Shadow Blade’s face was deathly pale. He crossed his twin blades above him to block.

CLANG!!!

This time, he failed to block it.

Lei Hong had been building Momentum for this furious strike, its power at least thirty percent greater than before. Shadow Blade felt the bones in his arms scream under the unbearable strain as his entire body was smashed toward the ground like a cannonball.

CRASH!

A five-meter crater exploded open in the Gobi Desert, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.

Shadow Blade lay at the bottom of the crater, blood gushing from his mouth. One of his ink-black wings was broken, hanging limply behind him.

He struggled to stand, only to find that at least seventy percent of his bones were shattered. He couldn’t even twitch.

Seeing this, a look of grim determination flashed in the deputy captain’s eyes.

’There’s no escape today,’ he knew.

’In that case...’

The deputy captain’s body began to swell, and the edges of his grayish-white wings started to glow with an unnatural, dark red light.

It was a desperate secret art of the Feathered Priests: "Burning Feathers and Blood." It burned one’s Life Origin in exchange for a short burst of power that surpassed all limits.

"Be careful, he’s about to risk it all!" Ye Guanlan’s voice remained calm, but he spoke a fraction faster.

Lei Hong grinned. Far from retreating, he stepped forward, holding his War Axe before him as dark red Qi and Blood Power coalesced into a thick layer of armor on his skin. "You want to play with fire? I’ll be happy to oblige!"

But someone was faster than them.

The instant before the deputy captain’s body swelled to its limit, Xu Wuyi’s figure appeared behind him like a phantom.

The dark gold spear, Liaoyuan, silently plunged into the deputy captain’s back, right where his heart was.

The moment the spear tip touched his body, the scale-like patterns on the spear’s shaft suddenly lit up. A dark gold radiance flowed along the shaft and into the deputy captain’s body.

It wasn’t a simple piercing, but a precise disruption of the core nodes of his Energy circulation.

The deputy captain’s swelling body suddenly stiffened.

He looked down at the spear tip protruding from his chest, his eyes filled with bewilderment and indignation.

Dark gold Flames spread along the spear shaft, igniting inside his body, devouring and pacifying all the Energy that was about to run rampant.

"You..." The deputy captain opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Xu Wuyi pulled out his spear and retreated.

The deputy captain’s body rapidly shriveled like a deflating balloon, then turned into a cloud of ash and scattered in the wind.

From Shadow Blade being smashed into the ground by Lei Hong to the deputy captain being incinerated by Xu Wuyi’s spear, the entire process took no more than ten seconds.

The Wind Shadow Hunter squad, all five members, was annihilated.

In the distance, the main force of the Feathered People had completely collapsed.

They had witnessed the destruction of the Hunter squad. Those top-tier assassins, who were like grim reapers in their eyes, had been crushed before Xu Wuyi and his companions as easily as if they were made of dirt and clay.

Fear spread like a plague.

"Run! Run for your lives!"

"The Hunters are all dead! We can’t win!"

The Feathered Warriors no longer cared about formations or orders. They all turned and fled in every direction.

But Xu Wuyi wasn’t going to give them the chance.

He hovered in mid-air, his dark gold pupils sweeping over the routing Feathered People forces, his eyes devoid of any pity.

He unleashed his Heart Image perception to its fullest extent.

A radius of eight hundred meters was completely enveloped.

Then, he ignited his Heart Fire.

This time, Xu Wuyi held nothing back.

The Dark Gold Mountain Body trembled violently in his sea of consciousness. The Golden Crow Illusion atop the peak let out a long cry, the flame runes on its feathers shining with ultimate brilliance, and the Power of Heart Image poured out like a flood from an open sluice gate.

OMMM—

Above the battlefield, more than five hundred dark gold sparks lit up simultaneously.

They were densely packed, like an inverted river of stars.

The moment they appeared, the sparks expanded rapidly, transforming into pulsating Flame True Seals.

Between the True Seals, invisible ripples of resonance spread out, their dark gold halos weaving into a net of fire that covered the sky and earth.

The fastest Feathered Warriors had already fled past the three-hundred-meter mark. They thought they were safe.

But in the very instant they felt a flicker of relief—

PFFT! PFFT! PFFT!

On the bodies of the Feathered Warriors who had already fled several hundred meters, dark gold sparks ignited without any warning.

The Heart Fire never dies; the embers reignite.

At this moment, the third Trait of "Golden Crow Burning Heart·Raging Fire," achieved after reaching the Great Success stage, was on full display.

As long as they had been marked by the fire of the Heart Image, as long as Xu Wuyi’s perception could still reach them, and as long as his Power of Heart Image was not depleted, the Flame could be reignited anywhere.

Screams of agony echoed across the Gobi.

A sea of dark gold fire swallowed the entire battlefield. Whether they were still resisting or had already fled far away, as long as they were within Xu Wuyi’s range of perception, none could escape the Flame’s pursuit.

「Ten minutes later.」

The Flames gradually died down.

The Gobi Desert was littered with charred corpses and molten weapons. The acrid smell of burning filled the air, and shimmering heat waves distorted the distant scenery.

Of the more than twelve hundred Feathered Warriors, not a single one survived.

Inside the Federation’s position, the surviving Martial Artists stared blankly at the scene. Many had even forgotten to cheer.

They knew Xu Wuyi was strong. They knew his Flame was terrifying.

But witnessing such a one-sided slaughter was still more than they could psychologically bear.

That wasn’t a battle.

It was a reaping.

Xu Wuyi slowly descended from the sky, landing in the center of the battlefield.

His black training uniform was still spotless. The last drop of molten metal dripped from the tip of his spear, Liaoyuan, sizzling a small hole in the sand.

Lei Hong walked over, his War Axe slung over his shoulder. He clapped Xu Wuyi’s shoulder and grinned. "Damn, that was satisfying! Those bird-brains really thought we were pushovers!"

Ye Guanlan walked over as well. He glanced at the charred corpses covering the ground, then turned to Xu Wuyi, a subtle solemness flashing in his eyes.

"How much Power of Heart Image did that consume?" he asked.

"About thirty percent," Xu Wuyi answered truthfully. "The Reignition of Embers Trait consumes more Power of Heart Image than I expected, but it’s highly effective."

Ye Guanlan nodded, recording something on his personal terminal.

Zhao Rui approached from behind the defensive line with several officers in tow. A rare, broad smile graced the base commander’s face.

"Complete annihilation." He walked up to Xu Wuyi and gave a solemn military salute. "Martial Artist Xu, after this battle, the situation in the Quicksand Star Realm is completely stable."

Xu Wuyi returned the salute. "It was a collective effort."

"No need to be modest." Zhao Rui shook his head. "Without you, we would have suffered at least three times the casualties to achieve this result. And..."

He looked toward the Feathered People’s main camp in the distance, his gaze turning cold. "The Feathered People lost their Wind Shadow Hunter squad and over a thousand elites this time. They don’t have much left to stake in the Quicksand Star Realm."

Lei Hong, War Axe on his shoulder, grinned and asked, "So what’s next? Do we charge right into their nest?"

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!