For a full second, the wind howling across the Slate Plateau was the only sound audible.
Xiong Ba blinked, his brain struggling to process the technical jargon spewed by a ten-year-old child. Then, his face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
"Little bastard!"
Xiong Ba roared, exploding forward with the terrifying momentum of a falling boulder. At Qi Gathering, Level 1, Sub-Level 6, his unrefined Earth-Pith energy surged through his limbs, turning his skin into a dull, iron-gray shade. Every step he took cracked the slate beneath his boots, sending a shockwave of kinetic force straight toward Lin Xuan.
Across the plateau, Second Elder Lin Shan clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white, while Lin Chen stopped breathing entirely.
Lin Xuan moved to step aside, relying on his usual calculated evasion, but something unexpected happened. The sheer kinetic shockwave radiating from Xiong Ba's stride fractured the slate beneath Lin Xuan’s left foot a fraction of a second early, throwing his timing off by thirty milliseconds.
Calculation error! Lin Xuan's mind flared with a sudden spike of sharp alarm.
The heavy fist didn't miss. It grazed Lin Xuan’s shoulder, sending a violent shock of raw, unrefined earth-element Qi crashing through his defenses.
Lin Xuan stumbled back three steps, a sharp taste of iron rising in his throat as a crimson streak bled from the corner of his mouth. His internal Qi channels violently convulsed under the sheer mass of Xiong Ba's energy. For all his mathematical optimization, his ten-year-old physical vessel simply lacked the raw mass and meridian capacity to absorb a direct kinetic shock from an opponent three sub-levels higher and years ahead in physical conditioning.
The gap in realms... it isn't just a linear equation, Lin Xuan realized, his dark eyes widening slightly beneath his calm exterior as a cold chill ran down his spine. Raw volume alters the physical constants. A lower sub-level cannot simply calculate its way around absolute mass. You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.
"Found you, you arrogant little freak!" Xiong Ba snarled, blood vessels bulging in his neck as he wheeled around, unleashing a devastating, dual-handed hammer blow straight downward. The air hissed under the pressure, carrying enough force to shatter a boulder into dust.
Lin Xuan’s mind raced at maximum capacity, panic momentarily threatening to short-circuit his focus. He couldn't dodge out of the radius in time. The raw gravitational pull of Xiong Ba's technique locked his footing in place.
If I take this direct, my sternum will fracture, Lin Xuan calculated with brutal clarity. I have to redirect the vector through my own dantian at a forty-five-degree angle—it will burn half my current Qi reserve and tear my lateral meridians, but it's the only survivable variable.
Clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached, Lin Xuan channeled every ounce of his Dual Fire-Water roots into a desperate defensive barrier, crossing his arms in front of his chest just as Xiong Ba's massive fists descended.
CRASH!
The impact sounded like a falling tree trunk hitting bedrock. A shockwave of dust and pulverized stone erupted across the ring, throwing a blinding veil over the combatants.
Outside the ring, Second Elder Lin Shan took a terrified step forward, nearly drawing his sword. "Xuan'er!"
When the dust settled, the sight inside the stone ring left both clans gasping.
Lin Xuan was driven knee-deep into the fractured slate, both of his sleeves shredded to ribbons, blood dripping freely from his forearms and the corner of his lips. His breathing was ragged, his chest heaving as his internal meridians screamed in protest against the overwhelming physical trauma. Get faster updates on novelping(.)com.
Yet, he was still standing.
Opposite him, Xiong Ba stood frozen. The fourteen-year-old bully's eyes were wide with utter disbelief. While Lin Xuan had absorbed the external blow by routing it through his core, Lin Xuan's hyper-compressed, high-frequency Fire-Water counter-vibration had slipped past Xiong Ba's defense, drilling straight into the older boy's lower dantian.
Xiong Ba's chest heaved violently. A mouthful of dark blood sprayed across the stone, and the dull gray sheen of his Earth-Pith armor instantly shattered into nothingness.
"You... how..." Xiong Ba stammered, his legs trembling violently before his eyes rolled back. He collapsed face-first onto the shattered slate, completely unconscious.
Silence—dead, heavy, and profound—blanketed the entire Slate Plateau.
Lin Xuan slowly lowered his arms, his muscles trembling with exhaustion. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the gray stone, staring down at his shaking hands. His victory was absolute, but the cost had stripped away his absolute, untouchable arrogance.
The gap between realms was vastly wider, heavier, and more brutal than any calculation on his slate could have ever predicted.