Chapter Ten: The Second Divine Martial Contest Section Fourteen: The Fairy Yue Fei

Section Fourteen: Fairy Yuefei

When Yuefei stepped onto the arena, white radiance flowed around her body. Using the art of Soaring on Empty Air, she floated slowly three yards above the ground, twenty spheres of spiritual energy circling her. The countless experts watching were left staring wide-eyed, as though they had witnessed a celestial maiden descend into the mortal world.

Chu Gaoge could not help but smile bitterly. “Elder Brother truly knows how to joke. Junior Sister Yuefei’s cultivation has reached such a level that even if several experts from the King Art Sect took the stage, they would scarcely be able to touch the hem of her clothes. Where would there be any need for a second expert from the Divine Art Sect to enter the contest?”

When the Divine Art Sect’s Soaring on Empty Air was cultivated to the tenth level, one could hover more than three yards above the ground. To onlookers, such a feat had already surpassed the limits of humanity. How could the earthbound martial arts of the King Art Sect pose any real threat?

The King Art Sect possessed quite a few techniques capable of striking targets three yards away, but most were inner-force techniques. To compete in inner power against disciples of the Divine Art Sect would be nothing short of courting death. There were only a handful of external sword techniques that could launch one abruptly into the air, and none allowed for free movement while airborne. At a distance of three yards, a disciple of the Divine Art Sect could evade them with ease.

Unless one had mastered external sword energy capable of driving the body’s physical strength, there was simply no possibility of putting up a fight.

Yet the method of using external sword energy was exceedingly rare throughout the world, and the Old Man of North Spirit had never taught it. No one could even say for certain whether he knew it himself. Decades ago, the peerless master who had once shaken the world had possessed such an ability; since then, no one else had been heard of who could transform physical strength into energy and release it like inner power.

The battle on the arena had become nothing more than a showcase of Yuefei’s divine arts.

At one moment, a King Art Sect disciple was swept up and hurled out of the arena by a frenzied gale of colored wind. At another, a disciple who attacked with spiritual-energy spheres struggled desperately to defend himself, only to be knocked from the platform moments later. Then Yuefei unleashed the Divine Arrival Sword, sending out a curved arc of white sword energy seven or eight yards wide and forcing a King Art Sect expert to cast aside his weapon and surrender.

Thunderous cheers resounded around the arena.

“Fairy Yuefei!”

The cry rose one after another. Countless people were so agitated that they seemed ready to rush up and swallow Yuefei whole.

King Zheng, along with the princes and princesses, watched without blinking. They kept exclaiming that the martial arts of the Divine Art Sect were no martial arts at all, but clearly immortal techniques.

Princess Luo pressed Ling Luo even further. “Does Marquis Xin know these immortal arts as well?”

Chu Gaoge shook his head and sighed.

“Senior Brother, the martial arts of the Divine Art Sect truly belong only in the heavens. For our master to create such celestial techniques, he must be no ordinary man!”

Six experts from the King Art Sect were defeated by Yuefei in succession. The remaining two refused to take the stage.

The spectators cried out together that Fairy Yuefei was invincible and deserved to become Martial Sovereign. Some even shouted angrily, “Anyone who still dares to take the stage is declaring himself an enemy of her!” They had taken it upon themselves to serve as protectors of the flower.

Just then, an expert from the Northern Martial Sect leaped onto the arena.

“I am Locke, a junior disciple of the Northern Martial Sect. I respectfully seek instruction from the expert of the Divine Art Sect of North Spirit Mountain!”

Only then did Bu Jingxian suddenly understand. When he had once been betrothed to Zheng Ranran, Ling Luo had displayed astonishing inner power that had left the great martial sects of the world speechless, effectively humiliating the Northern Martial Sect. No one from North Spirit Mountain had participated in the previous Divine Martial Arena. The Northern Martial Sect had held back this time precisely because it was waiting for a disciple of the Divine Art Sect to take the stage.

The Northern Martial Sect had not come to compete for the title of Martial Sovereign. It had come to contend for the reputation of possessing the finest inner cultivation method beneath heaven.

Yuefei had a physical strength of 100, inner power of 3,300—1,100 from the tenth-level foundation of the Divine Art, doubled by the Pure Essence Gift and doubled again by the special effect of the tenth-level Divine Art—a spirit of 10, and a soul of 6. Her combat strength was 6,800, while her absolute combat strength exceeded 40,000.

Locke of the Northern Martial Sect had a physical strength of 200, inner power of 2,600, a spirit of 10, and a soul of 1. His combat strength was 5,600, and his absolute combat strength was 11,000.

In terms of combat strength, Locke was no match for her. Yet the martial arts of the Northern Martial Sect emphasized striking after the opponent had moved. Its techniques could greatly increase one’s resistance to blows and redirect an enemy’s force back against him.

Although Locke’s inner power was inferior, the techniques of the Divine Art Sect were not necessarily enough to injure him easily. On the other hand, the techniques of the Divine Art Sect could multiply the range of inner-force attacks several times over. This was a tremendous advantage, making it far more difficult for a disciple of the Northern Martial Sect to receive and redirect those attacks. Meanwhile, it was easy for a disciple of the Divine Art Sect to evade the Northern Martial Sect’s blows.

“Please,” Yuefei said, clasping her fists in salute as she sent the spiritual-energy spheres circling her body into a rapid dance.

Everyone wanted to see an exciting battle, but many still shouted things such as, “That Northern Martial brat doesn’t know his own limits—he actually dares to fight Fairy Yuefei! Hurry up and get off the stage and go home for your milk!”

Crude insults of this sort rose one after another in defense of Yuefei.

King Zheng shook his head with a sigh, while all the princes and princesses found the language unpleasant.

“How can these wandering martial heroes speak so vulgarly?” they murmured.

Princess Luo’s brows drew tightly together. After a long moment, she suddenly asked, “Father, that expert of the Northern Martial Sect may be young, but he is hardly a baby. Why are all the heroes of the world telling him to go home for milk?”

Her question left everyone present stunned. Then they all burst into helpless laughter.

King Zheng laughed until tears streamed from his eyes. Seeing Princess Luo’s utterly bewildered expression, he laughed so hard that he could no longer straighten his back.

Princess Tianlai also covered a smile, though she retained far more composure than the others. “It is an indirect way of saying that the expert of the Northern Martial Sect is still wet behind the ears.”

“Oh… so that is what it means. But that is hardly worth laughing about so much. I asked because I did not know. What is there to laugh at?” Princess Luo protested, feeling deeply wronged by everyone’s lack of reason. When she saw Bu Jingxian shaking his head with a smile and King Zheng laughing until tears were squeezed from his eyes, she felt even more aggrieved.

“My precious pearl is simply too innocent and pure!”

By then, the battle had already begun.

As expected, the expert of the Northern Martial Sect was unwilling to attack first. Instead, he invited Yuefei to make the opening move.

Yuefei used Soaring on Empty Air to circle the Northern Martial expert several times above the arena before finally making her move.

She brought her palms together. Suddenly, clusters of yellow radiance appeared before her. In the next instant, the light expanded and transformed into huge round stones, each more than half a yard in diameter.

Bu Jingxian recognized the technique. It was Mountain Collapse and Stone Shatter, one of the Five-Element Palm techniques of the Divine Art.

A massive stone plunged down from above. The Northern Martial expert on the arena shifted aside to evade it. That single reaction immediately told Bu Jingxian and the others that he had already lost.

The stone crashed to the ground. It seemed not to have struck the Northern Martial expert, who had successfully avoided it, but in an instant the luminous boulder suddenly expanded, spreading across a radius of four yards. Caught off guard by the change, the Northern Martial expert was struck and injured by the surging inner force of the Divine Art Sect.

Before he could stabilize the turbulent energy within him, a second and then a third stone came crashing down.

Yuefei immediately followed with Wind Palm. A swirling mass of white energy summoned a powerful cyclone that sent the badly injured Northern Martial expert hurtling more than thirty yards before he crashed off the arena.

“Yuefei—wins.”

The judge’s voice had barely sounded before it was drowned out by the jeers and mocking laughter of the watching martial artists.

“So much for the finest inner-force sect beneath heaven! You couldn’t withstand a single blow! We told you to leave the stage, but you refused. Now you’ve landed flat on your face—doesn’t it look wonderful?”

“The Northern Martial Sect’s inner power isn’t even worthy of carrying the Divine Art Sect’s shoes!”

Chu Gaoge smiled. “Junior Sister Yuefei’s progress is truly astonishing. Even an expert of the Northern Martial Sect could not withstand a single blow. Senior Brother, you are certainly blessed!”

“You jest, Junior Brother. Master once said that the inner power of the Northern Martial Sect is actually profound, but that it has two weaknesses when facing an enemy.

“First, it suffers from the common flaw of most inner-force arts. In its pursuit of destructive power, the range of its attacks differs little from that of external techniques. External martial arts can be enhanced by divine weapons and other treasures, sometimes by more than tenfold, though it is extremely difficult to cultivate physical strength into released energy.

“Inner-force arts, however, merely allow a weapon to channel and discharge inner energy more freely. Unless one obtains a rare natural treasure found nowhere else beneath heaven, it is difficult to increase one’s destructive power by much. Everything depends on the level of one’s personal cultivation.

“That is why the techniques of the Divine Art Sect possess such a vast range of destruction. The Northern Martial Sect finds it difficult to evade the Divine Art Sect’s ultimate techniques, while the Divine Art Sect can easily avoid the Northern Martial Sect’s attacks.

“Second, if one’s cultivation is insufficient, the Divine Art Sect can rely on an unbroken succession of ultimate techniques to overwhelm an opponent. Although the Northern Martial Sect can borrow force and turn it back upon its source, that ability has its limits. If the attacks come too rapidly and fiercely within a short period, they simply cannot be neutralized.

“Junior Sister Yuefei merely faced her opponent using the method taught to her by our master.”