Shangguan Hongjin and Pedant Earth exclaimed in shock and horror. They immediately charged the headless Sage despite their fear.
They quickly came to a stop though. It was because Giggle was blocking their way, stretching its arms wide, and making weird Stranger noises. It seemed to be trying to tell them something.
Pedant Earth was going to step around Giggle and resume his charge when Shangguan Hongjin caught his shoulder. “Calm down!”
“What the hell are you doing?” Pedant Earth said urgently. Saving a life was like trying to put out a fire. Every second mattered.
“Calm down. I think warrior Ye is fine.” Shangguan Hongjin shot a glance at the headless Sage and Giggle before looking down on Giggle. “Look closely.”
Pedant Earth took a moment to steady himself before looking at Ye Qing again. It was only now he noticed that the young man’s breathing was steady, and the “attack” hadn’t left a scratch on his person.
“I can’t say,” Shangguan Hongjin looked just as puzzled, “but I’m fairly sure that the Sage isn’t planning to hurt warrior Ye, so let’s wait and see what happens for now.”
That was what she said, but neither of them actually relaxed their guard. The second they noticed that something was amiss, they were going to jump in and save Ye Qing no matter what.
Right now, Ye Qing’s eyes were wide open in surprise, confusion, and shock. He was surprised because he never expected the headless Sage to attack him. However, his surprise quickly turned to confusion because he realized that the headless Sage wasn’t trying to harm him, much less rip his head off. Finally, his confusion turned into shock when he felt the headless Sage injecting a vast stream of refined power into his body, and wisps of profound martial insight into his headspace.
As power flooded into his body, and understanding into his heart, Ye Qing realized in pleasant surprise that the impenetrable fog that once barred his way to the peak known as Grandmaster was rapidly fading away.
He now had a clear direction as to what he needed to do to get to the top.
The shackles that once barred him from climbing the peak were loosening.
The obstacles that blocked his view and path to the skies were slowly vanishing.
A thunderclap cleared the dark clouds and endless rain that shrouded the image of his true self.
And the life-changing path that would make him a Trueman Grandmaster was now clearly present in front of him.
Long before he entered this place, he was only half a step away from becoming a body-tempering Grandmaster. However, this half step might as well be the gulf between heaven and earth itself. Forget overcoming it, there was a time where he couldn’t even find a path to begin scaling upward.
The reasons why he was stuck were numerous, but to boil it all down, it was a lack of understanding and insight toward what made a Grandmaster, and a fundamental shortage of power.
But now, the headless Sage had pierced the veil of darkness that blinded him from the peak with his martial insight. He could now clearly see the door known as Grandmaster and even the view behind it.
Of course, just being able to witness that door wasn’t enough to make one a Grandmaster. He must also forge the sky stepping stairs that would lead him to that door, push it open, and cross over the threshold. Only then would he truly become a Trueman and a Grandmaster.
All that effort required a tremendous amount of power, and power was the second gift the headless Sage had given to him. It had made him a sky stepping stairs that led him all the way to the door, and a battering ram that rammed it open like nothing.
It sounded like the opening creak of a door, the breaking of the shackles that chained him to the earth, or the indescribable sound of heaven and earth. It was crisp, clear, and melodious.
Pedant Earth could hear it. Shangguan Hongjin could hear it.
Everyone within tens of kilometers of Ye Qing could hear it as well[1].
Then, the storm descended.
The rumbling thunder and animalistic roar were really the sound of his muscles and bones stretching.
The rushing river was really the sound of his blood flow.
And the steady yet deafening beat was the sound of his heartbeat.
Just as the sound of the wind, the rain, and the thunder belonged in one group, so was the sound of the muscles, the bones, and the heart.
The sounds were different, loud, and heavy, but they were not discordant. Together, they combined into a beautiful, profound symphony that resounded throughout heaven and earth.
“Someone’s body is resonating with heaven and earth. A body-tempering warrior is breaking through to the Grandmaster stage!”
Inside a dilapidated hall, Yun Qingxiao was gazing toward the horizon and feeling the resonance of Dao in the air. He murmured, “What a strong body it is!”
Suddenly, a brilliant sword beam flashed and cut the hall behind him in half. Inside the hall, a powerful statue of a deity with three heads and six arms also split into two like tofu.
Both the Stranger and the hall crumbled, but Yun Qingxiao wasn’t even paying attention to his kill. He put away his sword and continued to gaze toward the horizon with a calm expression.
“Hmm? I can feel a Profound Yellow Mother Qi Tribulation gathering. Who is this person to draw the greatest of the Seventy Two Earthly Fiends Tribulations during his breakthrough?”
He thought for a moment before jumping into the air. Blue lotuses appeared beneath his feet as he dashed toward the distance.
“Oho? Someone’s entering the Grandmaster stage!”
Next to a lake, Zhang Lingyang was chewing on a straw and looking up at the sky with a surprised look on his face. “A body-tempering warrior too? How incredible!”
“Who could it be? Tie Youchun? Lu Zhenwo? Luo Shanhai? Nah, it can’t be them. They might be body-tempering warriors, but they’re half-baked at best. There is no way their Grandmaster breakthrough could cause such a commotion? What about that little bald donkey from Lanke Temple? No, no, it doesn’t feel like him either. I don’t sense his pretentious air of Buddhism anywhere.”
Zhang Lingyang was so absorbed with his own musings that he did not seem to notice that a face was surfacing from the lake behind him. It was such a huge face that it nearly spanned the entire lake, and it was bloated and rotten probably because it had been submerged underneath the lake for heavens-know-how-long.
Despite its size, the gigantic face was surprisingly fast. It reached Zhang Lingyang in just the blink of an eye and opened its mouth to swallow it whole.
It was at this moment Zhang Lingyang threw a backhand. A sun descended from the sky and crashed right on top of the giant face with the force of a meteor.
The giant face in the lake let out a bloodcurdling scream before disintegrating into ash. The lake itself evaporated in an instant and revealed a floor of bones on the lake bed.
Zhang Lingyang did not look behind him from the start until the end. He was still trying to figure out who the ascender was.
“Wait wait wait! Is that the Profound Yellow Mother Qi Tribulation? By the Boundless Heavenly Sovereign, who in the fuck could draw such a powerful tribulation for their Grandmaster breakthrough?”
Zhang Lingyang hopped about like a child. “Who could it be? Who could it be?”
“Could it be Beiqiu? She is a body-mind warrior with a once-in-an-eternity level of physique. Yes, yes, it has to be her. Only Beiqiu could possibly draw a Profound Yellow Mother Qi Tribulation during her Grandmaster breakthrough.”
The “Beiqiu” Zhang Lingyang was speaking of was the number two warrior on the Human Champions Ranking, the Saint[2] of Demonic Mountain Mo Beiqiu.
“This is wrong!” Suddenly, Zhang Lingyang cried in frustration. “If Beiqiu’s already a Grandmaster, then I can’t possibly fall behind! A worthy wife deserves a worthy husband!”
That’s right. Mo Beiqiu was, in fact, a woman. There were only two women in the top ten, and Mo Beiqiu was one of them.
“Oh shit. I need to protect Beiqiu! It would be bad if some scumbags try to distract her or something!”
With that said, Zhang Lingyang rushed toward the basin at top speed.
“A body-tempering warrior? The Profound Yellow Mother Qi Tribulation?”
A person covered in black from head to toe flattened a bone-filled valley before gazing into the distance.
“I don’t know such a Spirit Master existed even among the top ten. Interesting.”
The speaker’s voice was cold and feminine. She began making her way toward the basin at a leisurely pace.
“I will see who they are.”
“Someone’s entering the Grandmaster stage?”
Greenlake Bai was carrying a red umbrella and walking barefoot across a scenic hill with beautiful streams passing through it. However, every once in a while, blood and gore would suddenly explode behind her, and dead Strangers with a human’s head but a fox’s body would slowly manifest into view.
Suddenly, Greenlake Bai felt something and paused in her tracks. “A body-tempering warrior? Who could it be?”
“It can’t be my dear husband, can it? It’s probably not him. He shouldn’t be able to grow this quickly!”
“Well, no harm in taking a look. Who knows, maybe I could even get something good out of it. I would not want to be a wife who is poorer than her husband!”
Chu Wangsun was standing in front of a grave that was split at the center. Poetry, songs and passages were pouring out of the cracks and surrounding him in a cyclone of scholarly recitations. It felt like he was in a classroom or something. The wind, the rain, the sounds of reading.
Standing in front of the grave, Chu Wangsun resembled the center of the world. His great qi surrounded him like a dragon, and his vigor pierced the clouds above. Although the two energies were decidedly different—one qi was calm and peaceful like that of a scholar, and the other was potent and violent like a warrior—they did not repel each other. On the contrary, they seemed to be existing in some sort of profound, mysterious balance.
Clearly, Chu Wangsun was attempting to meld his Confucianism and martial way into one and become a Grandmaster this way. In fact, he was just moments away from succeeding.
It was at this moment Chu Wangsun sensed the unusual tremors in the heavens and glanced up once. However, he quickly immersed himself in his own world once more.
Nothing could distract him from his work.
1. Ah shit, here we go again. ☜
2. Originally Sacred Son, but I’ve amended it to Saint because of the following. If you guys remember other instances of Sacred Son such as Chapter 653 please tell me about it. ☜