Chapter 23: Passing Through (2)

Under normal circumstances, it was possible for a Yang Opening Realm Stoneskin to defeat a single Yang Opening Realm human cultivator, but that was it.

Their strength was their powerful physique, while their weakness was their deficiency in sense and use Origin Energy.

Four Yang Opening Realm cultivators greatly exceeded the limits a normal Yang Opening Realm Stoneskin could challenge. In addition, one of them could assume beast form, making him exceptionally powerful. There was almost no chance of victory.

However, Iron Cliff was obviously different.

These past few years, Iron Cliff had followed Su Chen faithfully. He was the person who understood Su Chen the most, and the person whom Su Chen had given the most pointers to.

Su Chen had basically taught everything teachable to Iron Cliff, regardless of whether it was the Immaculate Cultivation Technique or the Primordial Blood cultivation path. What others had, Iron Cliff had as well, and what others did not have, Iron Cliff still had.

This battle was a test for Iron Cliff.

A fist, a finger jab, a blade, and a spear simultaneously attacked Iron Cliff, surrounding him with a violent killing intent.

When faced with these attacks, Iron Cliff’s response was to howl loudly.

“ROAR!”

With a loud howl, Iron Cliff’s body began to rapidly expand as his muscles bulged.

Iron Cliff, who was already quite large, began to grow once again in size as his body lit up with a faint golden luster.

Adamantine Battle Body.

This was an Origin Skill Su Chen had developed while he was still in the Qi Drawing Realm. At this point, Su Chen had long since given up on it and no longer used it in battle, but Iron Cliff was still using it.

And because he used it the most, he was also the most familiar with it.

Boom!

An iron-like fist slammed into the spear tip, which had been imbued with the might of the massive python. This sharp, incisive spear jab was actually stopped in place by the fist. Not only so, but the body of the spear bent violently. Thankfully, the spear was an Origin Tool, so it wasn’t destroyed by the violent surge of energy. However, in the next instant, the elastic energy contained in the spear rebounded as the spear straightened again. The wielder of the spear was unable to maintain his grip on the spear, which bucked and slammed him in the chin, sending him flying.

At the same time, the fists and blade landed on Iron Cliff’s body, but it was like they had slammed into metal as they clanged off.

Iron Cliff acted as if he hadn’t felt anything and turned around, this time slamming his hand down on the wrist of the individual who had jabbed at him.

The person’s Yang Tracing Finger slammed into Iron Cliff was totally ineffective and didn’t break through Iron Cliff’s defenses in the slightest. He was still recovering from his shock when Iron Cliff’s heavy fist slammed into his wrist. With a loud “crack”, his wrist was immediately shattered. He tilted his head back and howled in pain, but an instant later, Iron Cliff’s fist crashed into his chest. This unfortunate fellow was sent flying yet again.

Two bangs rang out in rapid succession.

The bull-headed demon had lowered his head, stabbing his two horns into Iron Cliff’s chest.

This time, the horns were finally able to penetrate, but they were only able to travel about three centimeters before getting stuck. Iron Cliff materialized a massive shield and brought it crashing down on that person’s head.

With a loud clang, the bull-headed demon was slammed flat onto the ground. Iron Cliff staggered back a few steps, blood spurting from his chest for just a brief moment before dying down as the holes were plugged up and regenerated.

Devouring the Heavens.

At the same time, the blood that had spurted out turned into a protective layer that covered his entire body. Luo You’s Blood Fiend Constellation was activated.

As the Blood Fiend Constellation combined with the Adamantine Battle Body, Iron Cliff’s defensive abilities greatly increased.

Iron Cliff attacked again, his fists colliding with the blade. At this point in time, the other two assailants whom he had sent flying had also returned, pincering Iron Cliff along with the blade-wielding assailant. The two sides became entangled in a fierce battle.

Iron Cliff’s style of combat was not particularly complicated, as he usually just used his fists. His Origin Skill repertoire was even simpler - ever since the Qi Drawing Realm, he had only ever used the Adamantine Battle Body and Iron Mountain Shield.

This wasn’t because he didn’t have access to better Origin Skills, but because he didn’t need to use them.

Iron Cliff was clear from the beginning that he wasn’t Su Chen. He wasn’t as quick-witted or intelligent, and didn’t have the ability to play many tricks. And since he had followed Su Chen for all these years, he didn’t really need to possess such skills anyways - quick adaptation was up to his master, while his job was to be simple.

This was why he had chosen such a simple path, relying on a constant barrage of attacks to wear down his opponents and using his powerful physical body to its greatest extent. If he couldn’t be the sharpest spear in his master’s hands, then he would be the sturdiest shield.

This was a path that required lots of endurance and resilience. It required patience and the ability to suffer. Even so, as long as he continued down this path, then he would be able to use even the simplest Origin Skills to brilliant effect.

This was the case for the Adamantine Battle Body, Iron Mountain Shield, and Devouring the Heavens.

Via constant tempering, these Origin Skills had long become ingrained in Iron Cliff’s body, allowing them to far surpass the might of other Origin Skills in the same category.

Even Su Chen, the inventor, was not as proficient in these Origin Skills as Iron Cliff. Likewise, even though Su Chen had been tempered like a Ravager and possessed a powerful physique, his sturdiness was still inferior to Iron Cliff’s.

In terms of physical condition, Iron Cliff was far superior to everyone else. Actually, he was even more powerful than a Ravager!

As he swung his fists through the air maniacally, all of the Origin Energy in his body being converted into physical power, he was really fighting like a Ravager.

However, there were some differences.

“Hiss!” The four Yang Opening Realm cultivators simultaneously sucked in a mouthful of air, building up a vast wave of Origin Energy.

In this moment, the four of them were attacking with all their might and were using all of the power at their disposal.

A large face gradually appeared behind Iron Cliff.

Luo You’s face!

Despite the fact that both Iron Cliff and Su Chen had used the Primordial Blood Medicine and the Primordial Blood Aspect, the two of them had completely different manifestations.

Su Chen’s manifestation was of a massive human-shaped figure, an enlarged version of himself, because his heart was for the future of humanity. He wanted to develop a powerful human bloodline, so Luo You’s bloodline was merely the beginning, serving as a source of strength. It provided insight and power, but it was not a finished product. Su Chen was the one producing the finished product, which was filled with latent potential and could take on many different final forms.

Iron Cliff, on the other hand, didn’t have nearly as much imagination as Su Chen. The only thing he could imagine was becoming very strong and protecting his master. Luo You was a Prehistoric Beast with incredible power. Iron Cliff was satisfied to even possess one-thousandth of the strength the original Luo You possessed, so he was really trying to inherit Luo You’s power in some sense.

Because of this, his Primordial Blood Aspect was part of Luo You.

At first, he could only generate Luo You’s mouth, but at this point he was already able to manifest Luo You’s entire face.

This face was incredibly massive. It seemed to cover the entire earth, and was so large that it was impossible for the onlookers to determine exactly what it was. All they knew was that this aspect was exuding a tremendous aura of power.

Under the influence of this tremendous amount of power, Iron Cliff’s body began to grow larger and larger. Every fist strike was filled with enough energy to split a mountain down the middle. All of the blood spilled from the wounds he inflicted were then utilized by the Blood Fiend Constellation, both increasing his defensive prowess as well as giving him an endless supply of energy.

Luo You’s bloodline could normally produce a large number of variations. Just the ability to control water alone allowed a user to develop a myriad of Origin Skills.

However, Iron Cliff didn’t want any of that.

He only wanted the Blood Fiend Constellation. By repeated tempering, he could combine it with the Adamantine Battle Body, Iron Mountain Shield, and Devouring the Heavens to produce his own style of combat.

This style was simple and one-dimensional, but very effective!

Bang!

His heavy fists slammed down on the blade-wielding assailant. Numerous hairline fractures immediately appeared on the surface of the blade before it slowly crumbled.

An Origin Tool had been smashed to pieces with bare hands. Everyone who saw that scene was stunned.

The fist’s momentum didn’t decrease in the slightest and continued pressing on towards its target. The spear-wielding individual moved to save him, and the iron fist glanced off of the spear’s body. However, Iron Cliff had already formed a shield in his left hand, which he brought crashing down once again.

Just as the opponent’s head was about to be smashed into pieces, a sharp streak of sword light suddenly shot forth, slamming into the Iron Mountain Shield and shattering it. Next, it penetrated through Iron Cliff’s body, sending him flying, and a bloody hole appeared in the center of his chest.

Breaking through the shield, the constellation, the Adamantine Battle Body, and Iron Cliff’s powerful physique with a single blow was quite a shocking feat.

Even so, because of how powerful Iron Cliff’s defenses were, the attack didn’t do much damage.

Iron Cliff leapt back to his feet, and the wounds he had just received also began to rapidly recover.

When he looked in the direction the attack had come from, he found another individual had joined the battlefield. This man was tall and skinny, and he was staring coldly at Iron Cliff.

When the nearby individuals saw, they began to yell, “Mister Twelve!”

“You do have some ability if you were able to take one of my Mountain-Sundering Fingers and only suffer a flesh wound,” the man named Mister Twelve said coldly.

Iron Cliff harrumphed angrily. “You already had the numbers advantage, and your cultivation base is higher than mine, yet you still tried to ambush me? You really are shameless!”

Mister Twelve was a Light Shaking Realm cultivator, yet he had still chosen to ambush Iron Cliff. This was quite shameless, and most importantly, it seemed that this ambush wasn’t particularly effective.

Mister Twelve’s face flushed a little as he said, “This wasn’t ever meant to be a fair fight, so there are no rules to speak of! Since you dare intrude upon my Rong Clan’s territory, then......”

He hadn’t even finished speaking when a sudden sense of alarm surged in his heart. He quickly dodged and turned around to see a streak of light shoot past just where he had been standing. It gave him quite a bad fright, causing him to yell angrily, “Who dares ambush me?”

“It was me,” Cloud Leopard said lazily. “You seem to like ambushing people, so I’ll play around with you for a bit.”

“You? A Yang Opening Realm cultivator?” Mister Twelve sneered. “You’d better……”

Whoosh!

Another streak of light shot in his direction. Mister Twelve could only dodge, disappearing once again and reappearing elsewhere.

His ability seemed similar to Su Chen’s Whitetower Teleportation, and he was similarly able to use it multiple times in rapid succession. Cloud Leopard had attempted to ambush him twice, and Mister Twelve had dodged twice. It seemed like he had also made that skill his Innate Origin Skill.

The Rong Clan specialized in assassination, so most of their Innate Origin Skills were either used to hide, dodge, or unleash powerful one-off skills. Obviously, this person specialized in dodging.

Even so, he was quite badly angered by Cloud Leopard, because Cloud Leopard had charged at him without considering the gap in their cultivation bases in the slightest.

This was a huge challenge to his self-respect.

Brat, how self-confident are you to believe that you can actually challenge someone an entire realm higher than you?

“Courting Death!” Mister Twelve flipped his hand. Two fingers on his right hand had been covered in poisonous liquid, which he jabbed at Cloud Leopard.

He was going to skin this bastard alive.

At the same time, Iron Cliff charged at the four people yet again, continuing his unfinished battle. “I want to see who will save you this time!”

Iron Cliff smiled viciously. The shadow cast across his face made his expression extremely eerie, and it was deeply imprinted on the hearts of everyone present.