Chapter 731 — Possessed by the Martial Soul

Shen Mu mused on the days when he had studied combat arts under the Butcher, Old Huo, the Blind Elder, and the others. He had been a single step from forging the Martial Soul to the point of possession. He thought, "The Martial Heavenly Master said my fist has essence but no soul, and so it is. Back then I never trained to the point where the Martial Soul took possession. Later, when I became a divine-ability user, I neglected this side of my cultivation. I can now make my Primordial Spirit and my body dwell together, but I have never grasped the essence of the martial artist."

They stepped into the hall. Suddenly a figure came hurtling at them. Shen Mu and Hu Bugui dodged aside, and the man tumbled head over heels out of the hall, struck the lintel of the Southern Heavenly Gate with a thunderous boom, and fell.

The Southern Heavenly Gate stood ten thousand fathoms high; the man fell for a long while before he hit the ground with a heavy thud and lay still.

"With a body that tough, he shouldn't be dead."

Shen Mu looked into the hall. A farmer stood before the throne in a stance neither square nor splayed, his blood-and-qi surging like a tide, and around him were figures formed of that blood-and-qi.

That was his fist-intent spirit, taking the shape of figure after figure drilling peerless arts and practicing techniques!

He stood there motionless, eyes closed, not looking around him, while his fist-intent spirit attacked the Bull-Fighting Realm warriors entering the hall!

This was an assault on the will, sharp, domineering, the fist-intent carrying an invincible force!

"To have forged fist-intent spirit to the level where it takes solid form, that must count as entering the Dao through martial arts, surely?"

Shen Mu marveled inwardly, "If he opened his eyes and his fist-intent spirit merged into one, a single strike would surely shatter the heavens and split the earth!"

That farmer was an utterly unremarkable tiller of fields from a small mountain village, plain and ordinary. Had he walked the streets of Jingping, no one would have given him a second glance.

But in this moment he was like a great general among gods and demons, a deity who held the martial Dao in his hand, bearing an air no one could look up to. Clearly he had passed through the slaughter of battlefields, with countless gods and demons perishing at his hands, struck down by him bare-handed!

A powerhouse who had come out of the battlefield, who had lived through the war that destroyed the Kaihuang Era, his aura was simply not something ordinary gods and demons could match!

If he truly struck, everyone present would be reduced to ash and smoke, blasted apart outright by his fist-intent.

But this time he was only testing them. The figures his fist-intent spirit took were like the patterns of martial practice on a mural, except that they were three-dimensional, alive.

This kind of fist-intent laid bare the mysteries of bodily divine abilities in full, uninhibited flow; every blow was as if struck by a Life-and-Death Realm powerhouse who had entered the Dao through martial arts!

It was the first time Shen Mu had seen a trial of this kind.

Even so, the fifty-odd people who had walked out of the Southern Heavenly Gate together could hardly withstand the assault of his fist-intent spirit. Many were left with their skin split and flesh torn.

There was a thunderous boom, and another man was sent tumbling out of the hall, unable to move. Then a woman was struck and left hanging on the wall of the hall, and the impact shook the whole hall.

These fifty-odd warriors of the Bull-Fighting Realm were all at the Life-and-Death Realm. Each was extremely powerful, steeped in the martial Dao for a very long time; not one of them could be taken lightly. Even Shen Mu felt admiration for their cultivation and strength.

If he fought without restraint, unbound by the martial Dao, he still might not beat these people. After all, he was a whole realm below them.

And yet warriors this formidable, facing this farmer, could only be strung up and beaten by his fist-intent spirit.

Of those who could truly pass this trial, probably not one in ten remained.

Shen Mu frowned. How was he to pass this trial?

And this was only the first gate; those after it would surely be harder. Was he to leave the Woodcutter Sage lying in a ditch to rot?

If he could fight without restraint, ignoring the martial Dao and the sword arts alike, then passing this gate would be no trouble at all; he might even fight his way to Lingxiao Hall without much difficulty. But that would rob the trial of all meaning.

"If Long Pang were smart enough, he would run out of the Bull-Fighting Realm right now, drag Master Woodcutter out of the ditch at the village mouth, and take to his heels."

Shen Mu blinked. "Long Pang is smart, all right. But knowing him, right now he's probably napping outside the Southern Heavenly Gate."

Hu Bugui suddenly halted, feet set in a stance neither square nor splayed. His blood-and-qi churned like a tide, and he too burst forth with fist-intent spirit!

His blood-and-qi became a figure that met the fist-intent spirit charging at the farmer. The two blood-and-qi figures collided; the fist-intent of both men rolled vast and mighty, and there was even a strong tendency toward returning to primal simplicity!

Shen Mu was astonished. To reach such a level, Hu Bugui was truly no ordinary man!

But there was still a gap between him and the farmer, and soon his fist-intent spirit was blasted apart by a single punch from the farmer!

Hu Bugui moved, entering the fray in his own body. He used his flesh as a weapon, fists and feet crisp and distinct; every muscle in his body could erupt in an instant with the power to move mountains and fill seas. Even the twitch of a single muscle burst out with a thunderous roar!

He threw a punch, and dragons coiled and tigers crouched, a myriad of strange visions. Even his hair could rival the sharpest sword; any part of his body could become a weapon of attack!

Shen Mu shifted his feet but did not step into the hall. His gaze locked onto Hu Bugui, layer upon layer of array patterns rotating in his pupils as he pushed the Nine Heavens Gazing Eye Art to its utmost, observing the way Hu Bugui's muscles moved, dissecting his technique for issuing force.

"No, it isn't the technique. It's his soul that's issuing the force!"

The vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow opened, observing Hu Bugui's bodily divine treasury and his Primordial Spirit. He saw that the Primordial Spirit and the body were joined in tight unity. Strand after strand of vital essence, like dragons, ran from the Spirit Fetus treasury through to the sun and moon, from the sun and moon through to the Five Luminaries and stars, from the Five Luminaries radiating into the coiling river of stars; in that river the vital essence rose like pillars, crashing into the earth of the Spirit Terrace and rousing the power of the Six Harmonies!

His Primordial Spirit stood upon the continent of the Six Harmonies like the root of heaven and earth, its tendrils sunk into Youdu.

Just so, his vital essence and Primordial Spirit were fused into one.

His body was like an incomparably intricate primordial weapon, converting that sky-flooding spirit of his into bodily energy and erupting with it!

"The Martial Soul, so that's what it is!"

Shen Mu's eyes lit up. At the entrance of the hall he began to move through his forms, executing with the utmost seriousness, one stance after another, the combat arts and divine abilities he had learned long ago: from Old Huo's boxing to the Butcher's blade art, from the Blind Elder's spear art to the divine ability of three heads and six arms, to the Ancestral Dragon's art of slaughter.

He was tempering his spirit, tempering his will.

How long passed, he did not know. Shen Mu suddenly came to himself and saw that the great hall was empty; there was no one there but him.