Chapter 54: Subduing Dragons and Taming Tigers

Without relying on mystical arts, only employing innate energy and the landscape of the mind, engaging in a battle of fists where each blow lands true—this is the romance of the martial artist. There is no need to consider anything extraneous; just punch, punch, and punch again! The mindscape naturally reveals the indomitable will to challenge the heavens and defy fate!

When the massive talons of a predatory bird crashed down, bringing with them the terror of death wielded by a supreme predator with dominion over life and death, the four newly ascended Spirit-Forging martial artists, drawn into this brawl by Lan Yi’s exuberant invitation, were plunged into inescapable dread.

They looked up instinctively.

Yet they could not fully perceive the mindscape surging and unfurling behind that figure; Lan Yi’s mindscape was so vast that, in the eyes of each of the four, it appeared as a different vision.

Li Shuwen saw gaping jaws bristling with fangs, exhaling a chilling breath.

Kuang Yimin saw the quivering steel feathers just before they beat.

Li Jinglin saw a flickering phantasm amid flashes of lightning.

Sun Lutang saw a cold, vertical pupil looming mere inches away.

They were all Lan Yi, yet not wholly so. From the perspective of the Spirit-Forging martial artists, their minds could not truly encompass the entirety of Immortal Master Lan Yi. They could only use their own limited understanding to interpret the portion they could grasp, matching it to the mindscape they had just achieved.

From this, one could also discern how Lan Yi weighed the strength of each of the four.

In the eyes of the martial artists watching from afar, Lan Yi’s mindscape was a blur of lightning enveloping all the participants, their own mindscapes like small boats amid stormy waves.

“Magnetism Star Array,” “Dragon Sparrow Swallows the Whale.”

Lan Yi showed no mercy, striking first!

The first to suffer was Kuang Yimin. Though age had wearied him, the innate energy had restored him to his prime. Yet among the four, he alone was halted at the stage of self-awareness, making him the prime candidate for Lan Yi to decisively eliminate from the contest.

Kuang Yimin felt the astonishing force sweeping toward him!

Hidden beneath the interference of the mindscape was Lan Yi’s textbook-perfect punch, as precise as a high-precision machine—no mystical arts, just pure physical might. The outdated method of gathering force was abandoned; instead, innate energy now drove the explosive power of the strike.

In Kuang Yimin’s eyes, this was no mere punch.

It was a cannonball!

A harbinger of death, more terrifying and savage than any fired from a foreign cannon. As it advanced, it shattered nearly every limit and obstacle in its path, mobilizing every ounce of innate energy to its utmost.

This was no longer martial technique, but the application of an art.

No!

How could he fall to a single punch from the Immortal Master?

With a roar, Kuang Yimin stepped back half a pace and swept his spear, which whirled like a drill and shot forward with blinding speed. Amid the tempest of Lan Yi’s mindscape, his own finally revealed its sharpness.

Keen, swift, and utterly unexpected!

His renowned Parthian Shot had crystallized into his Spirit-Forging mindscape. Kuang Yimin’s manifestation was formidable indeed—he could carve a path through another’s mental onslaught, his spear’s attack traveling that channel to strike instantly. In a clash of mindscapes, this approach was almost inescapable!

The spear shot forth like an arrow, piercing the clouds!

Its shadow, both real and illusory, instantly stabbed through Lan Yi’s throat.

“Dispersing the mindscape? That’s the same type as your ‘Vajra Contemplation,’ isn’t it?” Zhao Sikong, watching the battle, asked Zhao Jian.

“It’s different. My ‘Vajra Contemplation’ lets me deflect mental attacks. His mindscape seems to be a kind of cloud that discerns illusion from reality.” Carrying the still-unconscious Xiao Hongzhuan over his shoulder, Zhao Jian immediately recognized that Kuang Yimin’s mindscape was not like his own.

“And the Immortal Master?”

“It’s like staring at the sky at high noon.”

With an expression of deep apprehension, Zhao Jian offered a strange yet apt comparison.

Indeed, the blue sky—endless, pristine.

At first glance, it seems utterly empty, yet the longer one gazes, the more unsettling it becomes. It is the very absence of content that is terrifying. How could a mindscape be “nothing”? That would either mean death, or that the opponent’s thoughts and will are so utterly beyond them, they cannot be comprehended.

The spear’s shadow pierced through the throat.

Lan Yi’s expression did not waver. Enduring the attack, he reached out through the shifting illusions of the spear’s forest and seized Kuang Yimin’s weapon. With a sudden exertion, he flung him two hundred meters away!

Kuang Yimin—eliminated.

“Oh?” A note of surprise escaped Lan Yi’s lips.

The next was already behind him.

A speed-type mindscape, notoriously troublesome among Spirit-Forgers.

Clang!

A dazzling sword light erupted, arriving like thunder, surging away like a mighty river—boundless, unending. Though it was sword light, it layered and overlapped like waves, never ceasing. This was an attack from the human aspect, now so swift that the sword moved as quickly as Li Jinglin’s thoughts. As fast as his mind, so moved his blade!

Quick, ruthless, and precise!

Even before he possessed innate energy, Li Jinglin could cut down any opponent within five meters in an instant; his swordsmanship was the pinnacle of the Artificial Divine Realm in 1909.

“But still too slow for me,” Lan Yi remarked. Before the words had left his lips, he had already spun around to face the onrushing sword intent. Without hesitation, he swung his hand in a chopping motion, shattering the sword energy by sheer force. Immediately after, he unleashed a textbook “Iron Mountain Lean,” sending Li Jinglin hurtling away like a cannonball!

Li Jinglin—eliminated.

Having dispatched two of his Spirit-Forging opponents, Lan Yi did not rejoice. Instead, he frowned and shook his head, his expression growing cold.

He addressed Sun Lutang and Li Shuwen, guiding them:

“Reality and illusion—if you do not even trust in your own mindscape, how can you expect your enemies to believe it?”

“Watch closely.”

“Next, there will be thunder striking above your heads. If you still doubt your own mindscape, you’ll never withstand this thunder—it will kill you.”

Without giving them time to react, Lan Yi raised his hand and snapped his fingers in their direction.

“Magnetism Star Array—Spirit-Forging Style: Thunderclap!”

At the snap of his fingers, both Sun Lutang and Li Shuwen felt every hair on their bodies stand on end, a tingling, numbing pain coursing through them. Their hair lifted as if with a will of its own. They knew this feeling well—the prelude to a lightning strike. In their long years, they had witnessed heaven’s wrath as thunder split the earth. Now, with thunder poised above their heads, they even saw the blinding flash of lightning.

Boom!

A sudden clap of thunder crashed down!

More precisely, it exploded within their very hearts!

In the face of mortal danger, both Sun Lutang and Li Shuwen instinctively unleashed their mindscapes, casting their spirits forth without reservation, choosing to believe wholly in themselves, to believe in their martial path.

At that moment, everyone saw it.

A tiger. A dragon.

Battered and smoking from the thunder’s wrath, they leapt and twisted, riding the wind and scattering the clouds, shattering the thunder gathering above their heads.

They had dispersed the thunder.

Yet, above them, an immense, boundless, vertical pupil gazed down upon them.

“Subduing dragons and taming tigers,” Zhao Sikong could only think of this idiom, struggling to resist the urge to look up.