Fury burned within Shi Yi, but he hadn't lost his reason. While maintaining his ten Heavenly Passages, blazing like ten radiant suns, he drew an ancient beast bone and tattered beast hide from within them.
The beast bone was an arm bone from some unknown ferocious beast, and the beast hide was weathered, stained with blood. Both exuded an intangible, heart-palpitating aura.
These were ancestral artifacts of Stone Village, capable of unleashing immense power without requiring high cultivation. Even a mortal wielding them could challenge foes far stronger than themselves.
To face this adult Pixiu—and avoid being bitten to death in a single chomp—Shi Yi pressed the unknown beast's arm bone against his arm. Instantly, it fused into his flesh, becoming one with him.
In a flash, Shi Yi's body doubled in size, transforming into a three-meter-tall, muscular giant. His knotted muscles radiated a primal, savage aura.
Before the Pixiu could launch an attack, Shi Yi wasted no words. He slapped the beast hide onto his chest.
In that moment, starlight glimmered at his heart. Countless intricate, mystical runes surged forth as the beast hide began to meld with his flesh and blood, bit by bit.
Once the runes were fully imprinted, becoming one with him, a terrifying aura erupted, sweeping across heaven and earth like a hurricane.
At this moment, Shi Yi—bolstered by his ten Heavenly Passages, the beast bone (Stone Village's first ancestral artifact), and the beast hide (its second)—gained the barest capacity to contend with the adult Pixiu.
The key lay in his ten Heavenly Passages. The beast bone and hide amplified strength based on the user's talent and potential. For an ordinary Heavenly Passage Realm cultivator, these artifacts could elevate them by one major realm at most—the limit their body could endure.
But Shi Yi's ten Heavenly Passages, when fully unleashed, rivaled the Formation Arrangement Realm. With the artifacts' amplification atop this foundation, it was no wonder he could stand against the Pixiu.
Yet—
Pain! Excruciating pain!
Shi Yi felt every sinew, bone, and fiber of his flesh scream in protest, creaking under the strain as if subjected to a thousand cuts. The agony was enough to drive a weak-willed person into unconsciousness in an instant.
Fortunately, Shi Yi was no ordinary man. He was well-acquainted with hardship and suffering.
In his past life on that blue planet, before the nuclear war erupted, Shi Yi had been a cog in the machine of a sweatshop, toiling away his vibrant youth.
Don't want to suffer?
Unwilling to endure hardship?
Only those who had truly tasted suffering knew how bitter it was—and how desperately they wished to avoid it.
Only those basking in the sunlight romanticized hardship, yearning to "experience" it.
People, in their folly, could be so base.
Those who had never truly suffered dismissed hardship as trivial, sneering at those unwilling to endure it. Only when they faced true suffering did they realize it was no noble thing to be praised.
The more Shi Yi loathed suffering today, the more he had endured in the past.
A few breaths passed.
"Pfft!"
Shi Yi couldn't hold back, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His body had reached its limit. Were it not for the ceaseless vitality of Liu Shen's Technique, his body would have already collapsed.
Leaping across multiple major realms was still too much for him.
Thankfully, Shi Yi was cautious enough. He had diligently studied Liu Shen's Technique, never slacking. It was this endless vitality that forcibly stabilized his body, teetering on the edge of ruin.
Yes, Shi Yi disliked fighting and killing, preferring caution. But that didn't mean he feared combat. When pushed to fight, he was a madman—a madman who maximized his strength from the outset.
He wasn't some Saiyan from a certain Dragon Ball world, dawdling and giving foes time to power up. Elevating his strength to its peak immediately was paramount.
"You've got quite a few treasures, but boosting your strength like this? Your body won't hold out long," the Pixiu remarked, seeing through Shi Yi's reliance on the artifacts' amplification. This wasn't strength he naturally possessed.
"Kill!"
Shi Yi had no interest in bantering with the Pixiu. It was clearly stalling, waiting for his body to give out so it could easily subdue him.
"First Step!"
A faint Qilin phantom materialized behind Shi Yi, raising its majestic hoof high before stomping fiercely toward the Pixiu.
Space locked, and time seemed to slow.
Looking up, one could only see an immense hoof descending with unstoppable force.
Though Shi Yi's Qilin Precious Technique was incomplete, possessing only the Qilin Step, this move wasn't something one could simply evade. The Pixiu had no choice but to withstand it.
"The Qilin Precious Technique… Fortunately, it's only a fragment. Otherwise, I might've capsized in the gutter today," the Pixiu thought, startled.
But shock aside, Shi Yi's strike could harm it. The Pixiu didn't grow arrogant; instead, it adopted a prudent defense.
The backward-curving horn on its head glowed, unleashing a dazzling seven-colored radiance that formed a protective shield, encasing its body securely.
Boom!
The Qilin Step crashed down, shaking the earth for thousands of li. Yet the seven-colored shield remained unscathed.
Seeing this, Shi Yi didn't falter. Gritting his teeth, he took another step.
"Second Steps!"
The Qilin phantom grew slightly more solid, less ethereal, its power doubling that of the first step. But the seven-colored shield still held firm.
"Third Steps!"
Liu Shen had once said that, with Shi Yi's strength, two steps were his limit.
But now, with his ten Heavenly Passages and the amplification of Stone Village's two ancestral artifacts, two steps were far from his ceiling. He could press on to four, even five steps.
At the third step, the seven-colored shield began to tremble.
"Four Steps!"
Shi Yi's body radiated divine light, like a furnace on the verge of exploding. This step caused faint cracks to appear on the shield's surface.
"Fifth Steps!"
His ten Heavenly Passages, spinning behind him, had reached their limit. Though they devoured heaven-and-earth energy ceaselessly, they were now barely keeping up.
Yet Shi Yi pressed on, taking the fifth step. The Qilin Step grew exponentially stronger with each step: the second was twice the first, the third twice the second, and so on.
The fifth step carried sixteen times the power of the first.
Under this sixteen-fold might, the seven-colored shield, conjured by the Pixiu's horn, finally cracked, emitting a sound like shattering glass.
"Kill!"
Shi Yi didn't hesitate, stomping toward the Pixiu with ferocious momentum. His icy gaze and chilling aura made others tremble, unable to meet his eyes.
At this moment, he was domineering and ruthless, a far cry from his usual gentle, refined demeanor. His cold eyes held an arrogance that viewed all things as mere straw dogs.
"This forcibly boosted strength isn't truly yours," the Pixiu sneered.
It refused to admit that, just moments ago, Shi Yi's aura had shaken it. Had Shi Yi been one major realm higher, that strike might have killed it.
"Strength is strength. Whether it's mine doesn't matter—what matters is whether I can wield it!"
Shi Yi closed his eyes slowly. But as he did, the sky filled with eyes—countless double pupils, staring down at the Pixiu with cold, haughty disdain.
"Double pupils?"
The Pixiu froze.
It instantly realized that "Yun Potian" was a false name.
Double-pupil wielders weren't common. In the Lower Realm's Eight Domains, the only known bearer was Shi Yi of the Martial King's Manor—born with double pupils, a saintly prodigy.
"Martial King's Manor, Shi Yi," Shi Yi said softly.
At this point, a fake name was meaningless. The elders of the Martial King's Manor had hyped him up too much. Who in the Stone Kingdom didn't know of their double-pupil prodigy?
Even the tribes of the Great Wilderness had heard whispers of a congenital saint with double pupils born in the Martial King's Manor, far in the Stone Kingdom.
"Shi Yi… It seems we're destined to fight to the death, with no room for reconciliation," the Pixiu said gravely.
It recalled its quest for vengeance for its only son. Among those it had devoured were, it seemed, Shi Yi's biological father, Shi Ziteng.
And beyond that, the culprit who killed its son, Shi Zhongtian, had a son—Shi Ziling—whom the Pixiu had also swallowed.
An eye for an eye.
You killed my son, so I will kill yours.
_
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