The towering deity Yang Xian Gong heard these words and trembled with fury. He gave a cold laugh. "Born free? You are governed by the Son of Heaven while you live and by the courts of the underworld when you die. What freedom is there in that? Such talk is treasonous—worthy of a myriad deaths! I had meant to leave you a whole corpse. Clearly, that would be wasted effort!"
He surged forward, yet his colossal frame moved with impossible grace. The sword bound from incense qi in his hand danced with the finesse of a master swordsman as he drove it toward Xu Ying.
Xu Ying bellowed and thrust his right hand up before the stabbing blade.
The elephant-headed god-man manifested behind him raised its palm as well, and the heavy baleful qi clashed against the thrusting sword with a screeching hiss, like the grinding of metal and stone!
Sparks flew where his hand met the blade. The sword drove into the thick baleful qi and was checked in its course, unable to sink deep, carving only a shallow wound across his palm. Xu Ying exhaled in relief.
The giant deity felt his own arm tremble from the force transmitted through the sword and silently acknowledged the boy. *A rebel with monstrous strength.*
Yet while Xu Ying's palm could hold the blade, the rest of his body could not.
The giant deity whirled the long sword—thrust, flick, circle, cut, split, stab, block, tilt, lift, wipe—a hundred changing strokes too fluid to be believed, forcing Xu Ying to retreat again and again, dodging the edge!
*Dong!*
Seizing a moment when the deity drew his blade back, Xu Ying slapped the flat of the sword with his palm, unleashing his elephant strength. The sword shattered into fragments beneath that single blow!
Xu Ying stepped in and threw a punch. Behind him, the Elephant-God Fiend Body let out a ringing bellow and lashed out in unison, its fist-impression overlapping Xu Ying's own fist!
The blow hurled a gale before it, and the wake behind the fist-impression collapsed into a vacuum so complete that grass, wood, and loose stone were swept up on all sides to fill the void.
It seemed as though the very foliage and rubble were hurling themselves at the giant deity alongside the boy's fist, lending the attack a terrible added might!
The giant deity split his lips in a grin and struck back with a fist of his own.
His fist coiled with green mist, and in an instant his flesh hardened to bedrock as it collided head-on with Xu Ying's!
*Peng!*
The air between their fists detonated, a deafening crack, and the shockwave blasted into the forests on either side, shaking the trees and setting their leaves crashing together.
Xu Ying staggered back a step, his heart sinking.
The giant deity, unsteady on his feet, retreated three full paces before finally dissipating the force of the boy's blow. "Not bad, rebel!" he praised.
Xu Ying clenched his fist, thinking. *My greatest asset is strength, yet even my strength commands no overwhelming advantage. And besides sheer power, he has forged incense qi into cultivation and can cast techniques. Every tilt of the board favors him!*
What worried him more—for reasons he could not name—was that his qi and blood kept diminishing without cause!
Though he had heeded the mysterious voice, cultivated his spirit sense, opened the Realm of Silent Depths, achieved the Five Qi Returning to Origin, and refined those five qi into origin qi, his blood and vital qi were still bleeding away!
Since setting out from Mount Jian, Xu Ying found he had mysteriously lost half of his qi and blood!
At the height of his power he might have trusted himself to best the giant deity. Now he had no real confidence in his own heart.
The giant deity voiced another admiring praise, laughing. "Not bad. You truly have the strength to clash head-on with the Stone Mountain God and the Warden. That strength alone already stands shoulder to shoulder with a deity. It merits my full power."
The incense qi upon his body suddenly coalesced and shaped itself into another sword over a yard long, grasped in his hand.
Then a second sword formed—a short sword this time, only seven feet, caught in his other hand.
Then a third and a fourth sword, smaller still, four feet each, hanging in the air and drifting slowly.
These two swords belonged to the deity's magic arts.
"It's the Flying Sword Technique!" Yuan Qi called out, pinned to the ground as he was yet still watching the fight with concern. "The books in my clan's library say that a deity can nurture incense qi and forge it into flying swords—able to take a man's head from dozens of miles away, striking in ghostly ambush where none can guard against it!"
Xu Ying stared at these two blades, cold sweat beading on his brow. Short they might be, but they threatened him far more!
Yuan Qi shouted, "His blades may not fly all that far, but a sword in the air, freed from a hand's handling, gains dozens of times—even a hundred times—more variation in its strokes! If you treat it as ordinary swordsmanship, you will fall for it and die!"
The giant deity raged, swept a hand, and three arrows of incense qi flew—*tu, tu, tu*—piercing into Yuan Qi's body.
Yuan Qi coughed blood but cried out, "I can still hold. I see he hasn't yet forged a golden body—you beat him dead for me!"
Xu Ying's gaze flickered as he stared at the two flying swords, his heart murmuring. *I must fight close in, punch straight through his body and shatter him, and give him no chance to loose those swords!*
Suddenly he stamped the earth. The ground beneath him dropped away, opening a pit!
The scattered stones all about, shaken loose by the force of that foot, drifted upward—a hundred or more river stones and gravel, some the size of a fingertip, some weighing a hundred jin—all lifted and held aloft by his raging qi and blood!
As his foot came down, Xu Ying threw a punch, and those stones screamed away on the gale his fist unleashed, whistling, crashing against the giant deity on the back of that fist-wind!
The Titan-Ox Demon Fist: at the third level, force erupts beyond a yard. He had already cultivated the sixth—his qi and blood could send it far beyond!
This blow carried the rubble with it, forming a fist-impression four feet across, its power fearsome, driving several yards out with undiminished might!
Xu Ying's stride crossed and his foot hit the earth a second time. The ground sank again, and the rubble leaped into the air!
He threw a second punch, its wind bearing the stones into a second fist-impression hurtling at the giant deity!
*Dong!*
His third step landed, and the third fist-impression lashed out!
The giant deity split his lips in a grin, both swords whirling as he met the three fist-impressions head-on. Boulder and blade collided, bursting with slaps and cracks!
The two flying swords danced about him, smashing the stones that slipped past his guard, and in an instant broke all three fist-impressions, still with strength to spare.
The shattered rock ground to fine powder and filled the air, blinding the giant deity—and through that veil of flying dust, Xu Ying charged and hurled his fourth punch!
This one, he would not miss!
Yet even as his fist tore through the haze of dust, his ears caught the cutting of the flying swords through air.
Xu Ying roared and put all his strength behind the blow, even as the two swords flew out of the mist—one straight for his face, the other skimming past his flank!
Xu Ying raised his left hand to shield his face; behind him the elephant-headed god-man raised its hand too, and the thick baleful qi formed a palm that met the flying sword first!
There was a hiss. The god-man's palm was pierced through, and then the qi and blood in Xu Ying's own left palm was punched through—his hand was run through as well!
The immense force stored within the flying sword bore down upon his hand, drove into his left breast, punctured the shoulder blade, and burst out through his back!
At the same moment, Xu Ying's right hand lashed out, striking the giant deity's body, his qi and blood detonating in a surge of power!
*Hong!*
Both of them flew backward almost simultaneously, tumbling away!
Xu Ying was borne aloft by the flying sword and pinned against a great tree over sixty yards from the village entrance, where the sword dissolved into a wisp of smoke and he slid down.
He tried to lift his left arm, but it hung limp and useless, devoid of power.
His shoulder blade was pierced, his left hand ruined, his left chest stabbed through. He had little strength to fight left.
*He must be dead by now, surely?*
Xu Ying raised his head and looked into the distance. Dust and smoke still hung there, unparted, and he could not tell whether the giant deity lived or died.
In that instant, a flying sword chimed softly, drifting slowly out of the veils of smoke and dust.
Xu Ying's pupils contracted. From within the haze, a towering shadow slowly took shape.
Most of the ribbons upon that tall shadow had been severed, and a third of the great wheel behind its head was shattered.
Its ribs gaped open with a fist-sized hole, directly where Xu Ying's punch had driven clean through its body!
Yet still it lived!
"Had I been made of flesh and blood, you would indeed have killed me." The tall figure in the smoke strode outward, chuckling. "But who am I but a deity? Xu Ying, your martial arts mean nothing to me."
The towering figure raised its hand and swept it down. The smoke dispersed with a whoosh under that single palm, revealing his immense and lordly frame!
Xu Ying stood beneath the tree, pressing his left breast wound, and felt despair wash through him.
Of his qi and blood, too little remained for him to flee even if he wished.
*Then let it be a death-struggle!*
Xu Ying gritted his teeth, mustering the dregs of his qi and blood for a final gamble.
Just then, the familiar voice echoed in his mind: "Young one, do you know how to shed the fiendish for origin qi?"
Xu Ying hurried to ask, "Senior, what is shedding the fiendish for origin qi?"
The giant deity, striding toward him, stopped short, scanning his surroundings warily. "You've found yourself a helper?" he sneered.
The serpent Yuan Qi was stunned too, thinking: *Someone spoke? I heard nothing. Surely that bell has scrambled A'Ying's brains?*
The voice within Xu Ying's mind instructed him: "You sequester five qi within you, the Five Qi Returning to Origin, fusing five qi into origin qi—but you do not know how to shed the fiendish for origin qi, and that is why this dimwit can bully you. The fiend is the baleful qi within your body, your tainted blood and vital qi. You cultivate the martial arts by first refining a fiend body; you must shed the fiendish for origin qi before you may advance."
Xu Ying understood at once, astonishment and joy warring in him. He laughed. "So that's it! Many thanks, Senior, for your guidance!"
The giant deity peered about in all directions, finding no one, and sneered. "You little fraud, stop your blustering. Do you think I cannot see you have no ally at all?"
Xu Ying stirred his qi and blood, gnashing his teeth against the pain, driving the Titan-Ox Demon Fist again and again!
*Ang—*
An elephant's cry tore from his chest, shaking the wilds, and with it his five organs and six bowels churned with surging qi and blood. Upon the surface of his body, tainted life-qi seeped out like waste gas, hissing from a thousand opened pores!
His ragged robes were soon soaked with the bloodstains carried in that waste, turning crimson, even dripping droplets of blood from the hem.
Xu Ying's qi circulated, the vital energy working through him growing purer and purer, the turbulent qi less and less.
Light blazed all about him, and the Elephant-God Fiend Body lost the filth of its blood-fiend qi, refining away the baleful influence and shedding the fiendish for origin, until he seemed to stand with a true Elephant God at his back!
The final level of the Titan-Ox Demon Fist—the Elephant-King God Body—had been forged!
His aura towered to the heavens, a dominion so tyrannical that any great demon would bow before him in submission!
He had cultivated the Titan-Ox Demon Fist to the very height that only a Demon King could reach!
The serpent Yuan Qi stared in awe, murmuring, "Xu Ying has broken through again... He really has become a Great Demon King..."
Then it struck him. Even if Xu Ying were a demon, he had only practiced the Titan-Ox Demon Fist for two days. In but two short days, Xu Ying had driven the fist art to the level of a Demon King.
Was such a pace of cultivation even reasonable?
"Still, if he's broken through, it means I'm not far from breaking through myself," Yuan Qi thought.
After all, whatever a clever one does with his cultivation, he would imitate; it could not be wrong.
And if it were wrong, then the clever one was at fault.
The great serpent, pinned to the ground, mused: *And every now and then, lying flat like this just isn't half bad.*
Within Xu Ying's mind, the Great Bronze Bell felt a pang of shame, thinking: *I have siphoned off too much of his qi and blood, keeping his strength from bearing its full weight, and nearly cost him his life. But thank heaven the boy is clever enough to grasp shedding the fiendish for origin qi in that short a span. Had he been a duller one—this serpent coiled by the road, say—he would surely be dead.*
The giant deity, seeing Xu Ying shed the fiendish for primal origin, felt a start of alarm and rushed forward regardless.
He had towering confidence.
"I hold rank as the deity of Yangzitang Town, feasting on incense offerings for two hundred and thirty-four years, my magical power vast and deep. Can I not best a mere boy? Break through if you must—what of it!"
His flying sword sped ahead of him, stabbing at Xu Ying's face!
Xu Ying's left arm was ruined; he could only ward off this strike with his right!
In a flash of thunder, Xu Ying raised his right hand and threw a punch into the oncoming sword.
Behind him, the elephant-headed god-man's body grew ever more vast and threw a punch of its own!
The giant deity sneered. This sword would pierce Xu Ying's right arm and nail him to the tree at his back!
Yet as the punch flew, an enormous vacuum opened behind Xu Ying—even the great tree at the village entrance was dragged near to being torn up by the roots, its crown leaning forward, leaves rattling and scattering, swept up into the gale that gathered about that fist!
*Pop! Pop! Pop!*
The flying sword met Xu Ying's fist and burst apart on contact, broken back to its original form, scattering as a puff of incense qi!
Xu Ying's fist drove on unchanged, meeting the twin swords the deity slashed down, the gains of elephant god and boy overlapping.
In the instant sword met fist, a gale blew up, and countless leaves tumbled through the wind, scattering to both sides!
The serpent Yuan Qi stared helplessly at the sight, his heart racing. "Who won? Who lost?"
The leaves drifted down one after another, revealing the giant deity and Xu Ying in the clearing.
The deity's long and short swords were both shattered in his hands, the protective incense qi coiling about his body blasted through, and a great hole torn open in his chest.
Around the hole, scattered stones cracked and burst apart in pieces.
"Your strength—it is far purer than mine..." The giant deity finally let terror show in his eyes as he gazed down at the boy, so much smaller than himself, and spoke in a trembling voice, "You dare commit deicide! You have broken the laws of heaven—there is no corner of the world left to hold you..."
Xu Ying looked up at him, slowly withdrawing his fist, and pressed his lips together. "If the great deity offers no path to life for this lowly commoner, why should I still revere you as a god?"
He walked past the giant deity, toward the serpent Yuan Qi. "Since my first deicide, the great deity has become, in my eyes, no different from the straw dog on the offering table. The next time I kill a god, I will do so all the more deftly."
"The Yin Court will never forgive you..."
The giant deity collapsed and fell, shattering into pieces upon the ground.