Chapter 12: Unparalleled Combat Technique

The clash pitted Senior Sister Qing’s slender yet astonishingly powerful legs, clad in a pink skirt, whose kicks struck like blades or axes, against Qin Mu’s thicker legs in beast-skin shorts, which, despite their size, seemed surprisingly agile and light, giving an impression of little force.

A rapid series of impacts rang out. Senior Sister Qing's legs were hit by countless kicks in an instant; Qin Mu's leg work was so incredibly fast that she couldn't react in time.

The astonishing power in her legs became utterly useless. As Qin Mu's dazzling series of kicks connected, her strength instantly dissipated, as if it had been "devoured" by his legs.

"Oh no..." Senior Sister Qing's legs turned weak and sore. Her opponent's continuous kicks rained down on her waist, chest, and throat like a torrential downpour, followed by heavy slaps of his feet brutally striking her face.

Qin Mu spun in mid-air, twisting to deliver a kick from behind. Unlike his previous leg techniques, which prioritized speed over power, the sheer force of this particular kick was terrifying.

Senior Sister Qing's face was flattened by the kick, her elegant nose almost became a piece of flesh pressed against her face, and her jaw shattered. Her mouth seemed to fill with foreign objects. The girl was launched headfirst, feet trailing, back into the ruins like an arrow shot from a bowstring.

Qin Mu affirmed one thing: the Cripple's "Sky-Stealing Divine Legs" truly ranked supreme!

While he couldn't claim it was the best in the world, it was undoubtedly the top technique in the village.

Senior Sister Qing's leg technique appeared fierce and dominant, yet she was severely wounded without even managing to land a single hit on him!

Qin Mu couldn't use any vital qi, relying solely on his physical strength. Senior Sister Qing, on the other hand, could infuse her vital qi into her legs to enhance her power, strengthen her attacks, and boost the speed of her leg techniques. Even with this advantage, Senior Sister Qing was crippled in a single exchange!

No sooner had he kicked Senior Sister Qing away than his hair stood on end. An incredibly strong sense of danger surged through him, and without a thought of turning, he hastily leaped forward.

Behind him, Senior Brother Qu had stealthily moved to his rear, intending to deliver a fatal blow. His attack was meant to be decisive, but he hadn't expected Qin Mu to be so incredibly alert!

The two of them sprinted across the beasts' backs, leaping from one monstrous creature to another. Senior Brother Qu, moving at incredible speed, furiously attacked Qin Mu's back, while Qin Mu desperately dashed forward, his hands flailing to block Senior Brother Qu's onslaught.

"Eight Forms of Thunderclap, Thousand-Armed Buddha!"

Senior Brother Qu was appalled. Qin Mu, with his back to him, was astonishingly able to block all his attacks as if he had countless arms. He had never heard of such a martial art!

Although Qin Mu's Thousand-Armed Buddha couldn't generate the rumbling thunderclaps and lightning flashes that Grandpa Ma could with every movement, it was still as swift as the wind and as fast as lightning. Even with his back to Senior Brother Qu and while sprinting across the beasts' backs, he maintained a solid, unyielding stance, displaying formidable power and dominance, and didn't allow Senior Brother Qu any advantage.

"Clang—" Suddenly, a sword rang out, and Qin Mu's scalp tingled as his arm instantly bled, wounded by the sharp blade.

Qin Mu rolled off the beast's back and sprinted beneath the belly of a giant beast. Senior Brother Qu followed him down, his hands empty, yet a silver sword flew up and down around him.

Qin Mu's pupils constricted. This Senior Brother Qu's sword control far surpassed Senior Sister Qing's. Senior Sister Qing could make her sword fly dozens of zhang away to strike enemies, but Senior Brother Qu kept his sword no more than three chi from his body when controlling it.

This was both terrifying and exceedingly dangerous.

To wield a sword in close combat like this, where a slight misstep could lead to self-inflicted injury, demanded extremely high-level sword control. It also demonstrated the opponent's formidable and terrifying swordsmanship, along with absolute confidence in his own abilities!

Without precise and intricate control over vital qi, one wouldn't dare to control a sword in such a manner!

"Grandpa Butcher and the others never taught me how to channel vital qi," he thought. "Grandpa Village Chief also never mentioned how to use the vital qi of the Hegemon Body. In this situation, I'm afraid I'll be at a disadvantage."

His foot suddenly touched a branch, likely broken off by the herd. Without hesitation, Qin Mu tapped it with his toe, and the branch fell into his hand. It was a willow branch, six or seven chi long and as thick as a thumb.

The young man gripped the branch, his feet moving swiftly. His gaze fixed intently on the tip of Senior Brother Qu's sword, ignoring his hands entirely.

He tried to channel his vital qi into the willow branch, but once the qi traveled a distance of one chi and three cun into the branch, he lost sensation of it.

One chi and three cun was far too short; it would be incredibly dangerous to try and counter the opponent's flying sword with it.

Senior Brother Qu charged forward, the sword flying up and down around him, stabbing, paring, sweeping, lifting, cleaving, vibrating, and cutting. It was as if an invisible swordsman was wielding the blade, attacking Qin Mu from every conceivable and tricky angle.

Swish, swish, swish, swish—a few soft sounds, and the willow branch in Qin Mu's hand was reduced to just one chi and three cun. The treasured sword struck again, colliding with the willow branch and producing a light clang, as if it had hit steel.

Seeing that his vital qi, when infused into the willow branch, could actually block the opponent's sword, Qin Mu was completely reassured. His eyes fixed solely on the sword tip, the one-chi-three-cun willow branch in his hand transformed into a pig-slaughtering knife. The knife technique Grandpa Butcher had taught him was unleashed through this short willow branch!

"Night Battle, City-Spanning Storm!"

Qin Mu's mind was clear and focused. He unleashed the knife technique Grandpa Butcher had taught him, wielding the small willow branch with full abandon.

Fast! Fast! Fast!

Grandpa Butcher called his knife technique "Pig-Slaughtering Knife Art," and it had only one secret: speed!

So fast it was like fleeting light and shadow, so fast that a pig's head would fall the moment the hand moved!

Qin Mu was fully engrossed in his swordplay, swinging the branch with exhilarating freedom. A constant din of clanging impacts echoed as the two moved swiftly beneath the running herd of beasts, fighting their way from beneath one giant beast's belly to another's. The beasts' massive legs descended like colossal pillars crashing down from the sky; a slight misstep would mean being crushed to dust!

Their movements appeared chaotic, but in reality, they followed a miraculous rhythm, always managing to evade the giant beasts just as they were about to be trampled.

Senior Brother Qu was both shocked and enraged. He was getting beaten!

He was actually being thrashed by this "little demon brat" wielding a small stick!

The willow branch in Qin Mu's hand was very short, only about one chi long—wasn't it just a small stick?

His own sword, however, was five chi and seven cun long. He had trained his qi into threads to control the sword, a technique passed down by the Five Elders of Lijiang. These Five Elders were powerful individuals who had broken through the barrier between heaven and man and unlocked the divine hidden realm of heaven and man. How exquisite, then, were the sword control techniques they had imparted?

The martial art he was demonstrating with his hands was a fist technique divine ability created by the Five Elders of Lijiang, named the Lijiang Art. When performing this fist technique with both hands, his vital qi transformed into a mighty river, surging powerfully, its waves splitting banks, utterly astonishing.

Although he hadn't yet cultivated the fist technique to the level of a divine ability, its power was already extraordinary. Shattering stone tablets and turning rocks into powder were trivial matters for him.

Yet, these two formidable arts, when facing the "little demon brat's" small stick, were riddled with flaws, their defenses repeatedly broken through. The small stick was slammed repeatedly onto his face, neck, collarbone, elbow joints, wrists, finger bones, ribs, back, waist, hips, knee bends, and ankles!

In just this short span of time, Senior Brother Qu's head was covered in lumps, and his body was covered in bruises. How could he not be furious?

However, what he felt more was fear.

What if Qin Mu's hand held not a small stick, but a knife...?

The consequences would be unimaginable!

It was too terrifying. This boy was at most eleven or twelve years old, his body barely reaching his own chest. Even if he had started cultivating from the womb, it would be impossible to master such terrifying, peerless skills, right?

Senior Brother Qu quickly noticed Qin Mu's deficiency and felt relieved. "His vital qi cultivation is very weak," he thought. "Although his moves are incredibly refined, his cultivation is pitifully low. Or rather, he's not a Spirit Body; he's just an ordinary person..."

He finally realized the key point: Qin Mu was just an ordinary person, not a Spirit Body, and hadn't opened the Spirit Embryo Divine Hidden Realm. He must have cultivated some basic qi channeling techniques that allowed him to possess a portion of vital qi cultivation.

However, the vital qi cultivated by ordinary people had no special attributes and couldn't unleash any significant power. Therefore, even though Qin Mu's attacking moves far surpassed his own, their lack of power meant they posed little threat to him.

"This little demon brat's knife technique must be a divine ability," he mused. "It's just that he's far from being able to unleash its full power. If I could obtain this divine ability..."

Senior Brother Qu's heart stirred with possibility. Qin Mu couldn't unleash the knife technique's true power, but he himself could unleash at least some of it. If it were performed by him, its power would surely be terrifying!

He could tell that Qin Mu's knife technique was a combat art.

Combat arts differed from divine abilities like sword control techniques. Sword control techniques freed the hands, allowing the sword to fly through the air to kill enemies, which made one's swordsmanship more flexible and allowed the hands to simultaneously attack the enemy, making it more versatile.

Combat arts, however, were different.

Combat arts took a more primitive path, requiring the use of one's own hands to control weapons. This allowed vital qi to be channeled into the weapon to the greatest extent, making the moves more powerful and the divine ability stronger!

In fact, the superiority and inferiority of combat arts and sword control techniques had been decided long ago. Hundreds of years ago, both combat arts and sword control techniques coexisted. Practitioners of both types of arts refused to acknowledge each other's supremacy and often engaged in battles to determine superiority. However, a prodigious talent emerged from the sword control lineage, slaughtering the powerful practitioners of combat arts, leaving them either dead, crippled, or in full retreat.

And this prodigious talent was none other than the current Imperial Preceptor of Yan Kang, renowned as the foremost figure below the gods!

By now, practitioners of combat arts were few and far between. The superior divine abilities of the combat art lineage had been successively lost, and with no successors, only low-level combat arts had been passed down.

However, truly superior combat arts were still extremely formidable, and Senior Brother Qu firmly believed that what this little demon brat before him was performing was a genuine, superior combat art!

"I must get my hands on this combat art!" he resolved. "I'll capture him and force him to hand over the cultivation method for this combat art, no matter what!"

Qin Mu's small stick continued to frantically strike Senior Brother Qu. Senior Brother Qu desperately resisted but was consistently unable to completely block the small stick, and was struck hundreds of times in a short period.

Senior Brother Qu's head and face grew increasingly swollen, and his body became increasingly painful. His heart gradually grew panicked. The more he panicked, the more disorganized his movements became, and the more times the small stick landed on him.

Although it was just a small stick with little power, the combined force of Qin Mu's own strength and the constant barrage of blows, accumulating over time, inflicted considerable damage to his body.

"He's going to bludgeon me to death!" Senior Brother Qu was aghast.