Chapter 46: Inhuman

Song Changjing suppressed the inner astonishment welling up within him, suddenly exerting force through the soles of his feet. Coordinating with the muscles of his waist, he integrated every ounce of his strength and channeled it entirely into the arm gripping the long spear.

Song Changjing attempted to yank the spear back and retreat, but unfortunately, his strength was simply no match for Su Ling's. He could only thrash about in place like a buffoon, the ground beneath his feet left in utter shambles, deeply pitted and uneven as if trampled by a wild water buffalo.

Yuan Zhenye was just about to retract his fist, but the next moment, an excruciating pain surged through his hand. Su Ling had already caught his fist, and the grip was steadily tightening with crushing force!

"Dammit!"

The two roared in unison, both realizing that even with their combined forces, they still seemed powerless against Su Ling.

This could no longer be considered a fight; it was a unilateral crushing defeat. It was an immensely humiliating experience for the two of them, yet it was also the bloody, unvarnished reality.

The reality was that they were like eggs smashing against a boulder—no, like overconfident fools colliding with something far harder than steel.

Comparing them to eggs striking stones was too generous; calling them clowns would be putting it mildly.

...

"My turn."

Su Ling sneered. As the muscles on his arm visibly bulged, the hand gripping the crimson spearhead unleashed a sudden burst of power.

With a crisp snap, the indestructible spearhead in his grasp was effortlessly shattered by Su Ling as if it were molded from cheap clay.

Crimson fragments sprayed across Song Changjing’s field of vision. Just as Song Changjing widened his eyes in utter disbelief and shock, Su Ling's clenched fist tore through the air with terrifying speed, letting out a sharp howl before slamming squarely into his face.

With a dull, teeth-rattling thud, Song Changjing instantly felt as though his face no longer belonged to him. Total numbness washed over him as his head snapped back, a torrent of blood gushing from his mouth.

This was a protective response triggered by his body's alarm system, designed to prevent overwhelming agony from instantly consuming him and causing instant death.

At that moment, Song Changjing’s eyes lost their focus, plunging him into a brief state of concussion where he could no longer process the outside world.

Right then, an overwhelming wave of force sent his entire body flying backward. Throughout his airborne flight, his grip on the long spear never loosened—proving the martial axiom that the person lives while the weapon remains, and the person perishes only when the weapon breaks.

Although the crimson spearhead of this divine weapon had been crushed to pieces by Su Ling, the main shaft of the spear remained largely intact and could still be utilized.

"Oh?"

Seeing this, Su Ling raised an eyebrow. He had expected Song Changjing to be sent flying cleanly away, which would have freed up his hands to deal with the Mountain-Moving Ape.

However, unexpectedly, even while unconscious, Song Changjing had refused to let go of his divine weapon. This tenacity earned a momentary flicker of regard from Su Ling.

Yet, it was nothing more than that. After all, it merely meant delivering a couple more punches; it was hardly a matter of any consequence.

With that thought, Su Ling uncurled his clenched fist into an open palm. His fingertips pierced the air, producing a shrill whistling sound before instantly grabbing the shaft of Song Changjing's spear.

Just at that moment, Song Changjing regained consciousness, not even having time to assess his surroundings.

A massive, irresistible pulling force suddenly erupted from the spear in his grip. It was a force impossible to resist, akin to wrestling with an ancient primordial beast.

"What?!"

Song Changjing’s astonished gaze locked onto Su Ling, who had already seized his spear. But the next instant, a bone-chilling cold erupted from the soles of his feet, racing up his spine like an electric shock straight to his brain.

His scalp tingled and goosebumps broke out all over his body, for he suddenly sensed a profound and deadly crisis—the instinctual radar honed through hundreds upon thousands of brutal battles on bloody battlefields.

Before Song Changjing could even react, Su Ling gripped the spear shaft with a measured strength just shy of snapping it in half.

Then, wielding the long spear like a simple wooden club, he swept it horizontally with ferocious momentum, slamming both the weapon and the unconscious Song Changjing straight toward the Mountain-Moving Ape standing to his side.

Song Changjing’s vision went black. The unstoppable, monstrous power carried by the spear was far beyond anything he could withstand.

His body felt like a dilapidated thatched cottage caught in the path of a tempest, on the verge of collapsing and shattering at any second.

In the blink of an eye, as Song Changjing’s vision cleared, the first thing to fill his sight was a bewildered simian face—the horrifying visage of Yuan Zhenye!

"No!"

Accompanied by a roar of bitter reluctance, Song Changjing crashed heavily into the mountain-like, robust torso of the Mountain-Moving Ape with a thunderous boom.

A series of visible shockwaves erupted outward in the surrounding air, followed by a deafening shockwave.

Instantly, Song Changjing felt as though his mortal flesh had regressed to that of an ordinary human, fragile enough to break at the slightest touch.

The horrifying, excruciating agony of his bones being pulverized rippled endlessly through every inch of his body, torturing his fragile nervous system.

The sound of shattering bones echoed like popping beans being roasted inside his body, a terrifying and horrifying cacophony. Immediately after, total numbness claimed his entire being, and Song Changjing plunged back into unconsciousness.

At that very moment, under the irresistible might of Su Ling’s peerless strength, the bodies of both Song Changjing and the Mountain-Moving Ape were blasted backward with a resounding explosion, turning into two conspicuous shooting stars streaking across the sky.

The next instant, wreathed in roaring air currents and breaking the sound barrier, the two smashed straight through a stretch of forest, crashing with a massive *thud* deep into a colossal, archaic stone statue.

An explosion-like roar echoed out. The massive gray stone statue trembled violently, seemingly unable to withstand the sheer impact, shedding sheets of accumulated dust from its surface.

"This statue is quite sturdy..."

Standing a hundred meters away from the giant stone statue, Su Ling casually glanced at the vibrating general's sculpture.

He suddenly recalled that in the original tale, the origin and background of these stone statues had also been mentioned.

"An opportunity?"

Although the Liuli Cave Heaven was littered with fortuitous encounters, Su Ling had no desire to claim this one for himself, especially since multiple general sculptures were scattered around this colossal stone carving.

Each giant sculpture possessed a different posture, with distinct hand gestures and body stances.

If any martial artist with exceptional comprehension were to come and contemplate them day and night, they might genuinely manage to glean a unique martial arts cultivation technique from these peculiar hand seals.

Su Ling withdrew his gaze from the stone statues and lowered his eyes toward the massive gray stone statue ahead. He saw that a large, deep crater had been blasted into the abdomen of the seated general's sculpture.

Cracks crawled across the edges of the depression, and fragments of stone detached from the fissures, tumbling through the air to pile up into a small mound of debris at the base of the statue.

Deep within the crater on the general's abdomen, pitch-black darkness prevailed, faintly glinting with purple martial arts true qi.

"Not dead yet?"

Seeing this, Su Ling felt a mild trace of surprise. After all, though he had held back, it was still far beyond what a mere ant like the Mountain-Moving Ape could withstand without blacking out.

"It seems I still underestimated the experts of the outside world."

The condition of the Mountain-Moving Ape served as a lesson for Su Ling, making him realize that while outside experts might not always possess overwhelming strength, their hidden cards and life-saving measures were certainly inexhaustible.

With a casual thought, Su Ling loosened his joints, a series of muffled pops echoing from his body as his bones shifted and settled.