Splitting the Heave

“You’re not Shang Bo! Who the hell are you?”

When the voice rang out in Shang Xia’s mind, he knew that his scheme had already succeeded.

Shang Xia wasn’t boasting about his achievements and abilities. That was because in his current state, he already possessed the confidence to do so. There was no one left on the island to stop him other than the Great Observation Sect’s Martial Dipper Realm candidate who had remained hidden all that while.

Shang Xia’s true motive for causing widespread destruction on the Great Observation Island was to force that person out of hiding.

He wasn’t surprised that the person knew about Shang Bo either. There were only so many Martial Extermination Realm experts in the Tongyou Institution, and anyone with half a mind to find out who the Tongyou Institution was planning to promote to the Martial Dipper Realm would realize that there was only one candidate available.

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Well, whatever the case, Shang Xia wasn’t foolish enough to stop whatever he was doing to answer the question. Neither was he planning to track the source of the voice to dig out where the expert was hiding.

After all, there were 3 strong experts of the Great Observation Sect chasing him. The moment he stopped, he would be surrounded on all sides.

Shang Xia knew he was in the Great Observation Sect’s territory at the moment. They might have exhausted a great deal of power by using their Space Connecting Light Cord, but their grand formation was still active. He would be placed in a much more dangerous situation if he was surrounded on the Great Observation Island than if he was surrounded back in space earlier.

Shang Xia didn’t hold back as he continued to run about the Great Observation Island. Every time he found a crack in their defenses, he would swing his Abyssal Blade down at the region to cause a giant rift that was several miles, if not tens of miles long.

If the huge crack in the ground extended close to the edge of the island, a massive chunk of land would detach from the Great Observation Island and drift off into space.

In the time it took to prepare a pot of tea, Shang Xia had taken control of the situation. He went wherever he wanted, with a huge group of experts chasing him from behind. None of them managed to catch up to him and he refused to fall into their encirclement.

Noticing how Shang Xia was messing with them, the experts of the Great Observation Island roared with rage and cursed him endlessly. Despite their anger, they couldn’t do a thing to him. 

Under Shang Xia’s relentless assault, their island was getting more and more damaged as time passed.

Everything might seem safe for the time being as no one could catch up to him, but Shang Xia didn’t let down his guard for a second. The Martial Extermination Realm expert at the grand completion stage of the Great Observation Island didn’t show his face despite asking Shang Xia a question earlier, and his aura was completely hidden. 

A trace of worry couldn’t help but form in Shang Xia’s heart and it was growing as time passed.

It might have something to do with Shang Xia’s caution, but the expert at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm seemed to have lost his patience. Of course, his anger might also have something to do with the destruction Shang Xia caused.

After Shang Xia separated another chunk of land from the Great Observation Island, a terrifying aura emerged close to 100 miles from him.

With the range of divine perception exceeding 100 miles, Shang Xia couldn’t help but feel a trace of worry. That was because he didn’t discover the trace of the grand completion stage expert in the slightest! He had no intention to exchange pointers with the man and his first course of action was to leave the Great Observation Island. He started to run as quickly as he could.

Shang Xia’s reaction was fast, but the grand completion stage expert made his preparations. He wouldn’t have emerged unless he was ready, and he wouldn’t allow Shang Xia to escape easily.

The 3 experts who were racing behind Shang Xia changed their course the moment the super expert appeared. They moved to the space above the island in an attempt to block off his routes of retreat. In fact, they were trying to push him deeper into the core region of the Great Observation Island.

Just as they were about to intercept the retreating Shang Xia, the void behind them tore open as 2 strands of extermination lights emerged. They resembled giant spider legs that only aimed for Huo Guanzhang’s back.

Yun Jing, who was held back by the Great Observation Sect’s third layer Martial Extermination Realm expert was actually hiding her strength! In the critical moment, she went all out and went to assist Shang Xia in breaking through the encirclement.

With his sharp senses, Huo Guanzhang clearly felt the sneak attack. He couldn’t be bothered with Shang Xia and had to take care of himself. As for the other 2, they were already beaten black and blue by Shang Xia earlier when he broke through their encirclement and they were obviously not enough to stop him.

Slashing out with his blade, a huge amount of blade lights filled the space around him and every single one of them had a slight trace of chill in the air. It was as though the world was experiencing the chill of spring. The move he unleashed was slightly different from Valley Rain and he released another move based on his comprehension of the Twenty Four Solar Terms, Torrential Rain.

They were no stranger to how terrifying Shang Xia was. Seeing the amount of blade lights raining down on them, they instinctively decided to protect themselves. They might have reacted quickly, but when their fist and palm intent finally stopped Torrential Rain, Shang Xia had already broken past their obstruction.

Unwilling to be played by Shang Xia like how he went past them to cause widespread destruction on the Great Observation Island earlier, they quickly gave chase.

They sent out multiple palm strikes and punches that caused a huge explosion in space as they refused to allow Shang Xia to run away that easily.

Seeing as his prey was about to escape from his intricately planned trap by busting through the obstruction made by the cooperation of 2 high-leveled experts from the Great Observation Sect, the super expert at the grand completion stage no longer cared about the consumption of his inner qi. He left the Great Observation Island and rushed at Shang XIa.

The moment he made his move, Shang Xia caught a whiff of his aura. He understood that the expert at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm was likely one level stronger than him.

Of course, Shang Xia wasn’t exactly afraid of him if they had to fight. It was just that they were currently on the Great Observation Island and there were many helpers on the opponent’s side.

He was no fool. He wouldn’t go around making his life difficult.

With his speed, he managed to leave the Great Observation Island before long. The worry in his heart disappeared by a third and even though he was still being relentlessly pursued by the 2 experts at the fourth layer of the Martial Extermination Realm and large completion stage, he felt that it wouldn’t be a problem to probe at the baseline of the Great Observation Sect.

Turning around abruptly, Shang Xia pressed his palm down.

The power contained in his Four Constellation Palm wasn’t too powerful, and compared to the previous one he unleashed it was basically only used to scare his enemies.

That was because Shang Xha had concentrated a huge amount of extermination qi into his Abyssal Blade. After sending out the hoax Four Constellation Palm, he released the real killing move, Spring Origin!

That was the second time he used the blade technique and it was much smoother than the first. Not only was the power contained in the strike stronger by 30 percent, but the blade light that appeared seemed more majestic than before.

When Shang Xia was developing his moves based on the Twenty Four Solar Terms, he discovered that every single move corresponded to a certain season.

The deeper his understanding of the blade art, the more he realized that even though that was the case, none of the seasons seemed to correspond to the 4 blade techniques that signified the start of the seasons. Spring Origin, Summer Origin, Autumn Origin, and Winter Origin seemed different from the rest of his techniques.

Eventually, he realized it wasn’t a coincidence that things were that way. It was especially so after he developed so many moves and comprehended the meaning behind each blade move. He eventually understood that every single move that signified the beginning of the seasons could be used in 5 different ways.

In other words, Spring Origin alone had 5 different variations to how it could be used!

When Shang Xia unleashed Spring Origin on the expert at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm from the Great Observation Sect, he could follow through with brute force and fused the moves into one. He could also react to the changes made by his opponent and catch them off guard by the suddenly changing blade technique.

No matter how they looked at it, Spring Origin had surpassed the other 5 transformations it could turn into and it could even be said that the move alone had stepped to the ranks of a rank four martial intent!

Spring Origin was the strongest move Shang Xia could unleash at the moment, but because his target was at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm, he discovered that there weren't many changes in the other party’s aura. Spring Origin might be able to transform into 5 different blade techniques, but there was no use when up against an expert of that level.

Since he couldn’t find any weakness, Shang Xia could only rely on brute force.

Clang!

Even though Shang Xia wasn’t forced into a complete disadvantage after Spring Origin was resisted by the other party, he was sent flying backwards from the impact.

When the expert at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm resisted his blow earlier, Shang Xia could see that the man was using a strange looking polearm.

The expression of the expert at the grand completion stage of the Martial Extermination Realm from the Great Observation Sect was as ugly as could be when he saw how Shang Xia was flung away from the impact.