‘I figured it out’
Yousti had deduced the Smiling man’s rules for his quantum restoration and exploding touch.
Every time he comes back, he becomes overall tougher, stronger, and faster.
But when he touches something to explode it slightly decreases his speed, strength, and durability.
Thanks to Heavenly Escape preventing normal perpetual regeneration the man had to fully submerge his soul into the warp whenever Yousti blinked or looked away to make his intent disappear from Yousti’s perception to fully activate his quantum restoration.
So victory was no longer uncertain.
The win condition for Yousti was simple.
Hit and don’t get hit until his opponent died.
A true martial fight.
‘If it’s a fight like this I will push myself to perform the final two center forms of Silk Song.’
fourth form: Center Binding
Extreme rotational and pulling forces are created by the first three forms.
The essence of Center Binding is to chain together his qi within the string, compressing it evenly at every point binding the string together.
It compresses the string, makes it stronger and more stable.
It converges the silk into a dense line like a wire pulled as tight as possible.
It allowed him to use silk even more violently without worrying about breakage.
Center Binding
Center Winding
Center Torque
Center Cut!
Yousti pushed himself to the limit and combined all four forms of Silk Song to perform an upwards slash that split the Smiling Man in half.
As he lowered the string the man used the instantaneous moment of the string covering his view of the man to restore his body along the plane blocked by the string.
“HAHAHAHA” The mans intent had somehow become even more deranged than before.
Yousti backflipped using his stiffened scarf as leverage to send him farther up.
‘Healing like that is really making him go crazy.’
Since the man was too busy laughing he swung both of his arms with two converging swings using the 4 forms for each of them.
‘My brain feels like its going to explode.’ Simultaneously performing four techniques in two different strings pushed his brain to the limit.
The Smiling Man reached out both of his arms in the air.
A shockwave travelled through the air making Yousti’s ears ring.
But his strings weren’t deflected and sliced through the air itself, cutting the man into three pieces.
Learning his lesson Yousti made sure nothing blocked his vision of the corpse as all the intent from the man suddenly disappeared.
He sat down and rested his body as he kept his eyes wide, staring at the corpse.
He would rest his body while holding off the mans restoration.
‘Brief break, before I blink.’
Yousti contemplated his next course of action.
‘When I blink that man will come back completely stronger than I am.
So I’ll have to perform the final center form of Silk Song to even hope to damage his body.
If I succeed then this will be the final stretch.’
Yousti closed his eyes.
‘NOW!’
As he opened his eyes, he pushed gang qi into his upper dantian pushing his talent beyond its limits to perform the fifth and final form.
First Form: Center Cut
Second Form: Center Winding
Third Form: Center Torque
Fourth Form: Center Binding
Fifth Form: Center Resonance!
He ignored the pain as his injured shoulder spurted out blood.
Yousti swung upwards.
With a string that endlessly oscillated Gang Qi within it.
The Man was right in his face.
He had completely speedblitzed him and crossed the distance with an outstretch hand.
He was so close to reaching Yousti.
But instead Yousti met his attack with silk.
All intent converged at a single point.
The hand met the string.
Qi met the Warp.
BOOM!
An explosion covered the entire battleground as their most powerful attacks collided.
‘What happened!’ Gao Luen closed his eyes and blocked with his arms as dust, light, and a shockwave hit him all at once.
Silence settled as a storm of world intent covered the sky and the warp reverberated in acknowledgment.
The Smiling Man who was no longer smiling and now had a completely serious face.
He stood still as he watched the silhouette of Yousti walk through the cloud of dust.
A psychic message rang out from him as he spoke telepathically.
It was faint and distorted as the man closed his eyes and put his hands on his ears, trying to block out all his senses.
{My name is Maniae the first and I truly hope, last perpetual to be driven mad by the warp.
Kill me now, I expended all of my power in that last attack.
But you, who are the Origin of Martial Arts.
I saw the future, The destined Martial…
can still stand- and- kill- me-.}
He was a perpetual.
But along with his perpetual abilities he also became a psyker.
However the predation of the Warp was too much for his mind, he lost his sanity and couldn’t even understand how he was guided into slaughter by the Warp insanity.
He also saw the future of the Martial ████ ██████ and he felt that this perpetual in front of him was the future Martial ████ ██████ and now sought death from him.
The man smiled once more as his lucidity faded away and he began walking forward with an outstretched hand.
“Hehe! your soul is shaped like a circle now!”
Yousti stepped forward.
Crack!
‘My bones must have fractured.
But I can feel it…
Enlightenment’
Joy (喜)
Anger (怒)
Sorrow (哀)
Pleasure (樂)
Love (愛)
Hate (惡)
Desire (欲)
Six hues and a bright rainbow white mixed together.
They twisted, integrated, and converged together around Yousti a strong wind blew out from his body.
‘I can see so many more colors now.’
A brilliant rainbow filled the space around him.
Immortal Art Qi
Genesis Qi Connection Mantra
Both bizarre abilities activated at the same time.
Filling Yousti’s body with 5 spiritual energies.
Those energies flowed as the Martial Record connected once again Yousti’s entire being.
Yousti instantly knew what to do.
With the 5 energies converging he remodeled his body with the knowledge of the Martial Record.
Unnecessary fat and accumulated toxins were expelled or burned away.
Muscles, bones, tendons, even the nerves rearranged into different form.
Yousti still walked forward as his skin shed all over his body.
The 7 intents converged into a sphere.
A divine conciousness that Yousti could now sense all intent from within, no longer bound to seeing intent as just an extension of his vision with his eyes open or not.
The Perfect Martial Physique.
Yousti had reached the next stage.
Five Energies Converging at the Origin (오기조원/五氣朝元)
“Maniae. I will respect your wishes.” Yousti’s sharp gaze landed on the no longer sane person who had pushed him to his limit.
Record of Transcending Cultivation and Exhausting Martial Arts (越修窮武錄)
Using his consciousness Yousti used his mastery of intent and now consciousness to directly attack Maniae’s mind with his own mental power.
Intent converged and pierced into his consciousness.
Attacking his spirit.
Heavenly Escape was the ultimate martial art for the consciousness.
‘I can now partition my thinking with Heavenly Escape.
I can now do this endlessly.’
Yousti performed all 5 center forms of Silk Song at the same time.
Maniae’s head fell to the ground.
The assault on Maniae’s consciousness prevented his soul from coming back out of the warp.
The battle was over.
Yousti looked at the beheaded corpse in front of him with a sense of gratitude and weight.
‘I wonder what your story was?
Too bad I was merely its ending, nothing more.’
~
‘The Silk Spirit truly is divine!
He just became young right in front of my eyes!’
Gao Luen felt like running back to the Martial Academy just so he could share what he’d seen.
He wanted to prostrate himself before the Divine Silk Spirit right now if he could.
‘And now the Divine Silk Spirit has a sphere of intent around him!
How is that even possible!
And did he change gender or something?
I guess gods can shapeshift all they want then.’
Gao calmed himself down as he resisted bowing down and worshipping the Divine Silk Spirit and remembered the teachings of the Silk Spirit.
‘Achieve enlightenment.
Attain the heart of heaven through the heart of man.
Achieve martial arts.
I must focus on practicing martial arts, that is all I can do, what I must do for the Divine Silk Spirit.’
“Have you discerned much for your martial arts?” Yousti asked beside Gao.
Gao jumped back as Yousti’s sudden appearance startled him.
He quickly collected himself and bowed to him before responding.
“Yes Divine Spirit I have learned much from watching.”
Gao Luen repeatedly bowed towards Yousti as he explained some of his insights from watching his fight.
‘His intent already tells me he wants to worship me.
Better direct that properly.’
Yousti placed his hand on Gao’s shoulder.
“You have done well to become a peak martial artist. The road is long with endless mountains beyond mountains. So always seek enlightenment.”
Yousti was genuinely impressed.
Although his presence enormously amplified talent due to Genesis Qi Connection Mantra allowing many first rate martial artists to appear from base human in less than a decade.
Gao Luen in his absence had truly achieved the Peak Realm with just himself by pushing himself to the limit in the face of death.
‘Maybe he too will achieve the 6th realm and live as long as I do.’
Yousti turned around and disappeared into nothing.
Leaving a stunned Gao to contemplate his words.
“WAIT! I HAVE ONE LAST THING TO SAY! I THINK MARTIAL ACADEMY IS A BAD NAME, PLEASE CHANGE IT!” Gao Luen yelled out in hopes that Yousti would hear it.
It was an opinion he had always kept to himself.
He found the name Martial Academy extremely generic and now was the best time to voice it.
In the distance Yousti heard Gao Luen’s yelling.
‘Hmm not a bad suggestion.
Let’s change the name of the Martial Academy to…’
Yousti only needed a second to contemplate before he decided.
‘Sumeru Academy.’