Chapter 177 — Business

Just as the calabash demon was murmuring, Zuo Yan, slammed heavily into the earth once more, finally sensed the strange change within his body!

Struggling to his feet, he did not, as in the previous rounds, charge forward with a roar.

His fevered brain seemed suddenly doused with a basin of cold water, and he snapped fully awake. The battle-lust that had burned so wildly moments before scattered like smoke. Head lowered, he stared at his own hand—at some point a mountain-shaped tattoo had appeared on his palm.

What is this?

As Zuo Yan bent his head to examine his palm, the hearts of the other junior brothers lurched.

Could it be that Shi Heng was out of strength? Those twenty-odd consecutive collisions had left them shaken and spellbound, their hearts hanging in their throats. They dared not even blink, and they could not understand why Shi Heng would fight in such a brutal, savage, almost suicidal manner.

One misstep, and there would be no chance of survival at all!

The ferocity and cruelty of the green-spiked crocodile were known to all.

And this time, when Shi Heng climbed to his feet, he did not charge as before—and everyone's heart sank.

When the green-spiked crocodile rushed at Shi Heng again and Shi Heng stood rooted to the spot without moving, their faces all changed drastically!

Shi Heng was spent!

"No good!"

Almost every disciple unleashed his strongest killing move at once, hoping to hold the crocodile off for a moment. Countless rays of light flickered—spirit hoes, herb shears, skinning knives flying through the air, trailing streams of every color.

But they were all, without exception, production cultivators, who never practiced combat techniques in their daily lives; in their flustered haste, they did not even graze the crocodile's shadow.

As the green-spiked crocodile was about to crash into Zuo Yan—Shi Heng—many disciples' faces twisted with expressions too awful to behold! From the aftershocks of the earlier collisions alone, one could see how terrifying the crocodile's strength was!

A single blow was enough to shatter gold and split stone!

Caught unguarded, there was only one outcome—torn limb from limb!

If Shi Heng were gone, with their strength there was no way they could hold their ground on Barrenwood Reef. Without the protection of the great formation, they were simply a flock of lambs with no means of defending themselves.

Everyone's heart plummeted to the bottom.

It was over!

At that very moment, Zuo Yan raised his head.

The green-spiked crocodile was only ten paces away, its speed incomparably swift—only a streak of blurred afterimages could be seen—and the force of its onrushing aura was so powerful it was suffocating.

In the eyes of Zuo Yan, who had just lifted his head, a burst of golden light exploded. He suddenly raised both hands and drew his left leg back into a bow stance.

As he completed the movement, the crocodile's fangs happened to meet his upraised palms.

The palms that seemed cast of dark gold and the crocodile's fangs—ghastly white, reeking, dripping slaver—slammed ferociously together!

BOOM!

Shards of air and debris whirled and sprayed, and a visible shockwave burst outward from the point where fangs met palms.

The golden hands did not budge a hair.

The impact of that instant—from extreme motion to extreme stillness—was overwhelmingly violent. The magic treasures flying through the sky all froze at once; Chunyu Cheng, Gongsun Heng, and the others stared blankly, unable to believe this utterly bizarre spectacle. They forgot to command their treasures, and did not even notice when the treasures clattered to the ground.

Zuo Jin's eyes had transformed completely into golden pupils, dark-gold luster flowing within them, cold and emotionless.

He felt now only that his body was filled with power! Power such as he had never known! His legs, planted on the earth, seemed joined to the ground itself, as though he and the earth had become one, and endless power poured into his body.

A surge of immense, boundless confidence welled up in his heart—even if a mountain were given to him, he could move it aside!

The green-spiked crocodile's fierce, powerful charge did not make his hands tremble in the slightest. His left hand seized the two protruding tusks of the crocodile, and his free right hand, fingers pressed together into a blade, stabbed fiercely at the crocodile's neck.

Crack!

The golden palm was like a sharp golden saber—yet the sound of the blow was not like a blade at all, but like a ten-thousand-catty hammer crashing down on the crocodile's neck! The hide of the green-spiked crocodile, which even flying swords could not wound, showed not the slightest damage—but beneath the hide, the flesh could be seen rippling like waves.

The crocodile's pupils dilated violently, and then it went limp as mud, motionless.

Zuo Yan tossed the crocodile carelessly aside without so much as a glance, closed his eyes, and slowly savored and comprehended that wondrous sensation within his body.

His body was like a mountain or a river, joined to the earth's veins; heavy power flowed up from the ground into his body, and he felt as though every joint in his whole body was brimming with strength…

He savored it carefully, but soon the feeling of connection with the earth gradually receded from his body.

Only when the sensation had grown faint as a thread did he open his eyes, his heart full of longing—that feeling of being filled with power was truly inexhaustibly memorable. He raised his palm: the mountain tattoo on it had faded until it was scarcely visible.

Zuo Yan did not feel much regret; he knew that what he had just experienced was only the instant of insight at the moment of breakthrough, and such a state could not last. But now that he had passed this threshold, so long as he persevered in his efforts, one day he would surely attain that realm again.

Whether or not it was because of the shock of that breakthrough, the joy of slaying the green-spiked crocodile felt much fainter by comparison.

He tossed out a single sentence—"Junior Brother Gongsun, dispose of it"—and turned to leave.

After he left, the others had still not recovered from their shock. That scene just now had been far too stunning, far too incredible. Their minds felt utterly blank, and they had no idea what to say.

After quite a while, Gongsun Heng, the first to recover, ran to the crocodile's carcass and began examining it. After a moment he could not help clucking his tongue: "Amazing! Truly amazing!"

Hearing this, the others crowded over, and the whole group formed a circle around the crocodile's body; even the injured disciple, forgetting his pain, came running over out of curiosity.

"Dead as a doornail! Really dead!"

"A green-spiked crocodile is a fourth-grade beast! Shi Heng can even kill a fourth-grade green-spiked crocodile—now we don't have to worry about a thing out here!"

"Worry? I was never worried in the first place! Besides, isn't there still the great formation? Oh, right—why didn't Shi Heng use the formation?"

"Hah, does Shi Heng need the formation?"

…

The people around them chattered on, excitement written plainly on every face.

Chunyu Cheng and Gongsun Heng were on good terms. Seeing Gongsun Heng's look of awe, he could not help asking, "See something?" From Gongsun Heng's expression he understood at once that this fellow was definitely not excited merely because Shi Heng had killed the green-spiked crocodile.

"Too brutal!" Gongsun Heng's voice was feverish, his eyes fanatical. "Heh heh, every bone and muscle in this crocodile's body, internal organs included—all of it is pulverized!"

Chunyu Cheng was startled. "You can't be serious!"

Looking at the crocodile lying on the ground, its exterior perfectly intact, he truly could not imagine that its insides had been completely crushed.

And this was a fourth-grade green-spiked crocodile…