“Then who could have done this… and who would possess the sheer power to wipe out the mighty Transformation Clan in a single strike?” Li Shan asked in a low, tense voice, his brows tightly furrowed.
The more they considered it, the more unsettling the situation seemed.
“Forget it. No point dwelling on it now. With you and me working together—and the Three Ape Warriors beside us—whatever comes our way, we’ll carve a path out! Worst case, we abandon Mountain-Edge City and head straight for the Central Plains!” Zhang Yuandong waved the topic aside with a firm gesture.
“Brother Dong, you’re right,” Li Shan said with a faint smile.
“Alright, men, bring the wine! Tonight, you and I drink our fill!” Zhang Yuandong shouted.
But outside the garden, there was only silence—heavy, unnatural silence.
“MEN?!” Zhang Yuandong bellowed again. “Where have all the guards run off to!?” His brows tightened in suspicion.
No answer came.
The expressions on both men gradually darkened.
“I arranged three elite teams to rotate shifts out there. There’s no way they wouldn’t have heard us,” Zhang Yuandong muttered quietly.
“Big Bro, I’ll take a look,” Li Shan said, gripping the massive axe strapped to his back before moving toward the courtyard entrance with careful steps.
Yellow lanterns hung at the garden gate, swaying in the night wind. Their gentle collisions against the wall produced soft, fluttering taps that echoed faintly.
Li Shan stepped outside and scanned the surroundings. The path stretching left and right lay completely deserted—still, empty, lifeless.
“Where did those rascals run off to!?” he grumbled under his breath.
Turning back toward where his Big Bro should have been, his breath hitched.
“Eee?” Zhang Yuandong—who had been standing in the garden just moments ago—was nowhere to be seen.
Li Shan’s heart tightened immediately. Something was terribly wrong.
“Big Bro!” he shouted.
“Brother Dong!?”
No reply.
He hurried back to the spot where they had stood earlier, lowering his gaze, searching.
On the ground, a clear set of footprints remained—familiar, unmistakable.
They belonged to Zhang Yuandong.
Li Shan flinched. The footprints on the ground had turned abruptly toward the back of the compound, and without hesitation, he rushed after them.
They stretched on and on, weaving through the quiet courtyard. His grip tightened around his battle axe, knuckles whitening. He slowed his breath, keeping even the sound of his steps to a minimum as he followed the trail deeper into the darkness.
Step by step, he advanced—until his gaze, fixed on the earth, suddenly froze.
A pair of feet had appeared out of nowhere in his line of sight. A woman’s feet—slender, delicate—clad in red canvas shoes.
They stood together neatly, pointed straight at him. As though their owner was right there, silently facing him.
‘What…?’ Cold sweat gathered on Li Shan’s brow as he slowly lifted his head.
HOO!
A crimson shadow swept past in a violent blur. And just like that, the garden fell silent once more—empty, undisturbed.
Li Shan had vanished without a trace.
…………
“HOO…!”23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjlab07ETl
“HOO…!”23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNct7aFgeYx
“HOO…!”
Lu Sheng stood bare-chested in the courtyard, sweat streaming down his body in heavy beads. Each breath he exhaled thundered like a bellows, sending ripples of force across the courtyard until even the ground trembled faintly beneath him.
His physique had expanded yet again—stronger, denser, more imposing than before. Standing there, he resembled a small mountain. Heat radiated from his skin in thick waves of steam, making the air around him feel like the mouth of a blazing furnace.
After countless medicinal baths and careful nourishment with Golden Fragrance Cream, he had finally initiated the Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill. Two hours earlier, supported by the solid foundation he had built, he had successfully completed this unique hard-body technique—one known for its rare “Rebound” effect.
Now, he stood over two meters tall, all muscle and might. His arms alone were nearly as thick as an average man’s waist. Where they connected to his shoulders, dense, knotted muscles bunched together like coiled beasts beneath his skin. Gray, branch-like veins traced intricate patterns across his flesh.
Lu Sheng settled himself in the center of the courtyard. A fearsome aura radiated from him with every steaming breath he released. He looked less like a man and more like a colossal mass of living iron.
‘Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill… finally initiated… now I should modify and upgrade it,’ Lu Sheng thought as he paused to steady his breathing before rising once more.
The exhaustion came from one particular step of the training: striking his own body with full strength. Each blow followed a strict rhythm, generating controlled vibrations meant to temper his organs and refine his physique from the inside out.
Even for Lu Sheng, defending against his own full-force attacks was draining.
‘Thankfully, it’s done.’ A soft numbness tingled throughout his body, easing the tension from his face.
‘With all these hard-body skills stacking together, my physique just keeps growing… Yet… I can tell this still isn’t the limit.’
Yin and Yang cycled endlessly, shifting and transforming—this physique of his was far from its final form. Changes would certainly come. Lu Sheng had cultivated many hard body skills: first the Bear-Wrestling Arm, then the Nine Lakes Steel Chains Skill, followed by the Golden Veil Skill, and now the Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill. Of these four, he had already reached full mastery in the first three.
For any martial cultivator, such an achievement bordered on unbelievable. Hard body skills demanded decades of relentless tempering before even the faintest breakthrough could be expected.
Take the Bear-Wrestling Arm, for instance. Though classified as a Strength Proficiency hard body skill, its effects were modest—on par with the Chasing the Wind Blade. Yet achieving full mastery required at least twenty years of harsh, continuous training.
The Nine Lakes Steel Chains Skill was even more demanding. Three full decades of grueling cultivation were needed before one could hope to reach its peak. By the time a practitioner mastered it, age would already be catching up.
Even the Golden Veil Skill, considered relatively kinder, still required more than twenty years of painstaking effort.
Only men of unyielding will and endurance would willingly tread such a path. And yet Lu Sheng had successfully accumulated and layered several of these techniques within his own body—an accomplishment utterly unheard of in all recorded history.
No one knew what such an unprecedented combination would ultimately produce.
“Let’s begin… Deep Blue.” Lu Sheng wasted no time. He summoned the Modifier the moment he returned to the sanctuary.
A pale-blue square frame shimmered into view. At the bottom, a newly available option appeared beneath the Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill.
Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill: Initiated. Special Effect(s): Mild Rebound. Level One Strength Reinforcement.
“Upgrade Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill to Level One,” Lu Sheng commanded.
This hard body skill possessed three levels. According to the old records, full mastery granted the ability to rebound most Strength Proficiency palm and fist strikes, as well as blows from blunt weapons.
Soon, Lu Sheng felt the Yin Yang Jade Crane Skill’s inner Qi drain away entirely, while his own body continued to inflate. The swelling intensified, spreading a deep, throbbing ache through every inch of his flesh.
The blue square frame flickered rapidly. When it reappeared, the display had changed—Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill: Level One, with Level One Rebound and Level One Strength Reinforcement now listed beneath it.
The ache sharpened, growing more severe as his body kept swelling.
‘Could it be that my body is reaching its limit?’ Lu Sheng wondered, startled. Yet he could clearly sense that he still had room to advance. It was nothing like the obvious constraints of his inner Qi. This pain wasn’t the pain of a true limit; it was the strain of a body struggling to adapt to rapid transformation.
In the courtyard, his physique ballooned at a pace visible to the naked eye. His height remained the same, but the muscles across his frame expanded wildly.
Massive knots of muscle bulged outward, twisting and writhing like gnarled growths on an ancient tree. Layer upon layer pressed tightly together, covering him like a suit of heavy, living armor.
‘Let’s try again.’ Lu Sheng paid no mind to the grotesque changes in his appearance. Power always demanded a price. A shift in physical form was a small matter—one that could be corrected later.
“Upgrade Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill to the Second Level!” he commanded inwardly.
“Szzz—”
The Modifier flickered, blurred, and then stabilized.
Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill: Level Two. Special Effect(s): Level Two Rebound, Level Two Strength Reinforcement, Level One Defense Reinforcement.
This hard body skill was evidently far more formidable than his previous ones—three special effects, stacked together.
Before Lu Sheng could even examine the new changes, he felt the muscles across his chest surge outward once more. At the same time, a thin, cuticle-like layer formed over the fragile portions of his body—his crotch, throat, eyelids, ears—sheathing them in a subtle but unmistakable layer of protection.
Lu Sheng raised a hand to his throat. A firm, resilient layer had formed over his skin. He touched his eyelids next—once soft and vulnerable, they were now surprisingly tough. When he closed his eyes, a faint stream of heat flowed through them from within, strengthening them with a subtle but unmistakable reinforcement.
They still couldn’t compare to the defense coating the rest of his body, but they were far sturdier than any normal eyelid.
‘Now the only weak points left on me are the seven orifices… This change appears to come from the Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill, but in truth, it’s more likely the result of my body transforming under the accumulation of all these hard body skills stacked together.’ Lu Sheng could feel the truth of it. With his current strength, he was fully capable of resisting the corrosive force of Bind.
His physical power had multiplied several times over.
‘I’ve drained all the Yin Yang Jade Crane Skill’s inner Qi… but there’s still Yin Qi left. Just enough to upgrade the remaining levels.’ Lu Sheng’s gaze fell to the last row on the Modifier.
Without hesitation, he selected the Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill.
“Szzz…”
This time, the Modifier blurred for a full five breaths before slowly sharpening back into clarity.
Compared to the earlier skills, the changes displayed were minimal—but significant.
Dusk Dantian Inflating Skill: Level Three. Special Effect(s): Level Three Rebound, Level Three Strength Reinforcement, Level Two Defense Reinforcement.
Yet all throughout his body, Lu Sheng sensed something far more profound—a sudden breakthrough, a barrier he had unknowingly been pressing against.
KA-CHA!
A faint crack sounded from deep within him, like delicate glass fracturing into countless pieces.
Lu Sheng extended his hand, staring at the massive palm before him—larger even than a bear’s. The knuckles were thick and heavy, gray veins snaking through bulging, distorted muscle. It no longer looked like a human hand at all, but the claw of some fearsome beast. The sight even reminded him of the dinosaurs he once saw in films.
There was hardly any difference between his palm and the talons of a predator.
‘This is a change in substance…’ Lu Sheng closed his eyes. He felt as though a set of invisible chains had been stripped away, leaving behind a quiet, exhilarating freedom—one that pulsed from deep within.
He stood still in the courtyard for a long moment.
“Sz… sz… sz…”
A strange sound started rising from his body, as though something thick and muddy was being stirred and twisted.
Under the moonlight, Lu Sheng’s massive frame began to shrink—slowly, steadily, visibly.
It was as if an unseen force was compressing him, suppressing the monstrous layers of muscle that wrapped his entire body. Inch by inch, his two-plus-meter physique condensed, drawing closer to the proportions of an ordinary adult man.
Though he remained broad-shouldered and heavily muscled, the overwhelming, inhuman aura of a towering flesh-mountain faded away.
It was like compressing a great hunk of meat into a compact, solid piece.
After standing motionless for a long while, Lu Sheng finally opened his eyes. The corners of his mouth lifted as he looked down at his hands—no longer colossal, but still brimming with explosive strength.
BAM!!!
He clenched his fists. At that instant, his fingers squeezed the air itself, producing a booming shockwave like muffled thunder.
Gazing at his steel-hard hands, he felt the terrifying power coursing through him—far greater than before, multiplied many times over. Unable to restrain himself any longer, Lu Sheng threw back his head and laughed wildly into the night.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZXohebPqrS
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