Chapter 71: The First Innate Battle

Facing the direct inner-energy thrust aimed straight at him, Sun Ruohai reacted instantly. He did not choose to take it head-on; instead, he shifted his long sword before his face and held it firm, blocking the strike cleanly.

Chen Qi saw it as clearly as fire in bright daylight. In a single instant he calculated the truth: without Sun Ruohai’s cooperation, this swing might not take the life of the green-furred hound at his side, for the beast still had room to dodge.

So Chen Qi made the same move. His long saber snapped upward in a sharp rising cut, and in the briefest moment he hooked the incoming inner-energy lash, sending it spinning away.

The flourish was handsome—handsome, even—but it gave the hound a chance to live. The dog, moments from its death, jolted in panic, slid beneath Sun Ruohai’s hips, and with mud-slick body and all speed it rushed toward Zhao Fan nearby.

From the corner of his eye Chen Qi saw this and, teeth gritted, immediately triggered Focused Burst.

The hound’s sudden reappearance proved an extraordinary instinct for pursuit; for a fugitive, that made it a dire threat. He would have to finish it off in his strongest state.

The familiar sensation surged again—like seizing the world in his grasp.

Chen Qi stepped hard through the mud. He pushed with his left foot, lifting his body slightly, then drove his right foot in a savage kick toward the hound’s hindquarters.
Up close, the tip of his right shoe had turned bright red, bathed in blood-qi—it was clearly his strongest attack in this state.

Feeling a sudden chill near its rear, the hound forced down its impulse to spin away in defense, and only whipped its tail a few times faster, trying desperately to reach Zhao Fan.

After so many battles fought together, the beast had chosen to trust its master without reservation.

As expected, Zhao Fan did not disappoint it. He abandoned his distant assault on Sun Ruohai and instead threw a punch at the hound.

Before the fist even came close, a wave of pale-yellow inner energy surged first, splitting into two streams before the dog and then joining behind it, firmly resisting Chen Qi’s leaping kick.

From far enough away, it seemed the hound were wrapped in inner energy, yet the energy had not harmed it. That displayed Zhao Fan’s tremendous control.

“Three-Sun Fist: Two Dragons Fetching Water!” Sun Ruohai blurted from behind in surprise, though his hands remained quick.

Seeing the green-furred hound on the verge of being protected, Sun Ruohai ignored that his own technique was not yet fully charged and sent forth the blood-qi wolf-head he had only just begun to shape.

At that moment, Chen Qi’s flying kick was checked, planted on a dense, heavy pulse of inner-energy fist force.
He did not give up. Following the force, he drove up again; his long saber came crashing down from the air, still aiming straight for the dog’s head.

But as the hound threw itself forward in a last desperate lunge, it finally reached Zhao Fan’s feet.

Zhao Fan cleared the hound with one fist. Even before that, he remained perfectly at ease and called back, voice cool:

“Good insight. Try my ‘Rising Sun at Dawn.’”

He opened the other hand that rested on his chest. At some unseen moment, a compact, deeply refined sphere of amber inner energy had formed in his palm.
With a faint, proud smile, he let that sphere drift toward the descending saber over Chen Qi. It carried the promise of dawn.

In Chen Qi’s energy sight, that deep-gold orb was like a small sun, the density of its energy numbing his scalp—worthy of a true “Rising Sun.”

The green-furred hound under the blade even whimpered in fear, yet chose the one right move: despite blood still flowing from its wound, it sank half its body into the mud.

The amber energy sphere burst at the saber’s edge. In a split instant, as Chen Qi was still chopping down, he felt as though he had struck an exploding bomb and could not keep the force of his descent.

By absolute control over his arm nerves during Focused Burst, he barely held back the saber’s inertial pull on his wrist. Yet without strength to continue, he used that momentum to turn in midair and land lightly in the mud behind him.

At the same moment, Zhao Fan’s right fist—drawn fully back—perfectly intercepted the blood-qi wolf-head, and as pale-yellow energy flowed on without pause, the blood-qi form was quickly swallowed.

As the pale-yellow energy faded, Zhao Fan’s right fist came into view.
The young man’s fingertips were heavily callused, yet his skin remained normal, not even the slightest scorched crack.

In only two moves, Zhao Fan had saved the hound from the blade’s edge, fought both men, and remained unscathed.

But it was not over. Though Chen Qi had not anticipated such power in a natural-born master, the muscles in his mouth, obeying a pre-programmed command from his controlled mind, completed a final strike he had prepared.

A blood-arrow mixed with an unknown faint-black liquid dropped from midair and struck the wound on the hound’s skin.

The attack born from Chen Qi’s mouth was so strange that even Zhao Fan, normally wary, had not expected it.

In response, the hound howled out sharp, desperate cries, as if enduring unimaginable pain.
At last, it could not contain itself, rolling in the filth as the wound reopened at once, each deep tear pouring out more blood while the poisonous blood burned through it.

Watching the hound’s twisted face and relentless trembling, it was clear that the toxic blood had laid some grievous condition on it, one Chen Qi did not understand.

For the first time, Zhao Fan’s usually expressionless face changed when he saw events slip beyond his expectation.

He stepped forward: one hand pressing the hound’s head, the other striking several vital points to stop the bleeding and, at the same time, knock the beast unconscious.

Ignoring the two men still ready to pounce from afar, Zhao Fan lifted the hound in one hand and drew a small porcelain jar with the other.

With a flicker of inner energy, the jar’s stopper vanished. He gently dusted medicinal powder onto the hound’s wounds.

Sun Ruohai, seeing himself so completely ignored, snapped into fury and laughed harshly. He chose close combat, leaping up and thrusting again at the hound in Zhao Fan’s hand.

“He doesn’t want it to die,” he barked, “but I’ll kill it!”

There was no time to wonder whether it was trickery. With a hard, painful resolve, Chen Qi shifted half his torso, and his long saber hacked from behind Zhao Fan. The force of the sword and saber moved together, almost simultaneous, cutting toward the hound.

Faced with attacks from both front and rear, Zhao Fan, still tending the medicine, spoke coldly:

“You had chances to run and yet couldn’t value them. Must you rush toward death? Will you trouble others even then?”

With every syllable, ripples of energy appeared at his neck, armpits, lower abdomen, and chest center. In breaths, countless pulses gathered into a single pale-yellow wave, shooting outward fast.

Three-Sun Fist in its perfected sign: Floating Light, Leaping Gold!

“Thud… thud!”

The ripple struck Chen Qi’s saber. His blue-grade weapon, though, was flung aside without resistance. The wave followed through to his chest, hurling him backward and carving a human-shaped pit into the mud.
Sun Ruohai came right after him and went down beside Chen Qi, blood spurting from his mouth, adding another splashing note to the swamp.

As he sank again into the familiar mire, Chen Qi had only one thought:
A native-born master can be terrifying.

Zhao Fan finally finished treating the hound. He withdrew the porcelain jar at an easy pace, one hand still holding the hound, the other brushing dust from his own frame.
Step by step, he kept coming toward them, each step sounding like the drums of doom, beating against their hearts heavy with defeat.

Chen Qi opened his eyes in the marsh, feeling a crushing pain in his chest, as if the center had caved in, and checked his life count:
37%.

Sun Ruohai was at 26%. The medicine on the hound was working; its life, which had been at 9%, was already climbing. Zhao Fan, moving toward them, still held at 91%.

Chen Qi’s face showed disappointment. Perhaps from breath control, their damage had missed ending the hound by the narrowest edge. That might become a lingering twist.

No time left to regret it. Chen Qi rolled toward Sun Ruohai.

“Finish this. Parting the Clouds, Gazing at the Sun.”

Zhao Fan reached the right position at last. His free right hand flicked lightly through the air. The toxic miasma parted a little, and a clear yellow strike of fist-energy shot toward the two bodies pressed together.
“My fist is fast,” he said, speaking in measured beats. “Hold on a moment.”