Chapter 136 First Display of Prowess

The mystic realm space was like a sealed architectural structure. Upon entering, one was first greeted by a narrow, long corridor.

Gao Wu could clearly feel that the concentration of source energy in the surroundings had increased significantly, though it was still quite inferior to a true mystic realm.

Practicing and building a solid foundation in the real world by absorbing and exhaling source energy allowed for rapid progress when training within a mystic realm. However, the vast difference in source energy between the real world and the mystic realm made coordinating this disparity extremely troublesome.

If handled poorly, it could even directly destroy a martial artist's body.

Therefore, martial grandmasters such as An Ziru and Shen An all advised Gao Wu to slowly hone his source energy, urging him not to rush into breakthroughs, let alone cultivate in mystic realms.

This was Gao Wu's first time entering such a man-made mystic realm. It differed from Wan Canglong's mirror space, which after all was a space opened by borrowing the power of a demon god.

Although demon gods were evil and terrifying, they were nonetheless powerful entities from another world. Judging by the might they displayed, their level of life was indeed far superior to that of humans.

Yet, these beings were simply too evil; high though their level of life might be, they could bring only slaughter and destruction.

Human faith originated from awe of heaven, earth, and nature, as well as a yearning for supreme divine might.

Once humans established society, faith became a tool for the ruling class to maintain social stability.

In modern society, faith remained a tool. With some people now consciously aware of this fact, faith had become very utilitarian and simple.

If it was useful, one believed; if not, one got lost.

Demon gods offered no benefits whatsoever to humanity, making their high life level entirely meaningless. Relying solely on their formidable might, they still managed to harvest a few followers.

It would not be entirely fair to call these followers foolish; rather, they were merely delusional dreamers trying to fleece the demon gods for personal gain.

Believing they were trading their faith and the flesh and blood of others for power, wealth, and beauty, they failed to realize that the very moment they knelt in worship, they had already surrendered their souls to the demon gods.

Gao Wu despised the stupidity of the demon gods' followers, and even more so their selfishness and malice. However, he still held a deep respect for the power of the demon gods.

Sentient beings could use human morality to distinguish between good and evil, but power only possessed levels of strength, not distinctions of good and evil.

The strongest entity Gao Wu had ever witnessed was undoubtedly Lu Yuan. Using his Yin spirit to secretly observe Lu Yuan, he saw only a ball of divine radiance so dazzling it resembled a blazing sun, shining so brightly that his Yin spirit could not even open its "eyes."

The Yin spirit was indeed wondrous, and Lu Yuan had been completely unaware of it. Even so, the level of the Yin spirit was still far inferior to that of Lu Yuan.

Had Lu Yuan unleashed his Dharma form and divine will, his Yin spirit likely would not have been able to withstand it... This filled Gao Wu with heartfelt respect for Lu Yuan.

The power of a martial grandmaster was truly tyrannical; one could only imagine how terrifying a martial king must be, likely equivalent to a human-shaped nuclear bomb.

Yet martial arts only enhanced power, with the most direct manifestation being destructive force rather than creative capacity.

Simply put, the way martial artists utilized energy was extremely crude and violent, incapable of converting energy into matter.

It was not until Lu Yuan spoke of the origin of the Nine Limits of the Heavenly Pole that Gao Wu realized human martial artists' power had already touched upon the realm of space!

The "Lord Hai" mentioned by Lu Yuan was, in fact, Hai Wuji, the Sword Saint of Infinite Void—one of the only three martial saints in the Alliance.

Aside from Martial Emperor Qin Liuhe, an eighth-rank martial saint already stood at the absolute peak of peerless human powerhouses.

Now, seeing with his own eyes the mystic realm created—or perhaps "opened" would be a more accurate description—by Hai Wuji, Gao Wu could not help but feel quite excited.

This mystic realm was considerably larger than Wan Canglong's mirror space, and from his perspective, its structure was exceptionally stable.

This demonstrated that human powerhouses possessed all sorts of unimaginable might; in the battle against the demon gods, humanity might not necessarily lose!

Walking more than a hundred meters along the long passageway and passing through an arched doorway, Gao Wu's field of vision suddenly opened up.

This was a spacious plaza. The black arched dome above was a full thirty meters high, and the surrounding walls were circular and made of black stone.

Dozens of irregular boulders were scattered across the plaza. Three to five meters tall, they looked to weigh at least a hundred tons each. The surfaces of these black boulders were covered in various marks of destruction.

Right in the center sat a ring ten meters in diameter. A ball of black-and-gold light hovered in the center of the ring, rotating slowly.

A red line was drawn one meter past the entrance of the arched doorway; this must be the safety line Yang Tinglin had mentioned.

The entire space resembled a closed martial arts stadium, save for the absence of seating or a fighting ring. The massive boulders placed about were presumably barriers meant to provide martial artists with cover against the pursuit of the Golden-Armored Flying Tigers.

As Gao Wu was studying the situation of the first trial, the dark gold light in the central ring flashed, and a giant tiger materialized out of thin air.

According to Lu Yuan, the giant tigers of the Nine Limits of the Heavenly Pole were energy constructs transformed from the energy cores of seventh-rank alien beasts. Equivalent to the Dharma forms of martial powerhouses, they were not real matter.

Yet this transformed black-and-gold giant tiger truly startled Gao Wu.

The giant tiger stood a full three meters at the shoulder, with a body length exceeding seven meters, and a tail as thick as a human leg measuring three to four meters long. The tiger's intertwined black and gold markings formed gorgeous dark golden patterns, and its pair of eyes were entirely dark gold, radiating dignity and profound depth.

Such a colossal creature—even though Gao Wu knew it was conjured from energy—still inflicted a massive sense of psychological pressure upon him when faced head-on.

It was equivalent to an ordinary person facing a massive freight truck, except the giant tiger was a living creature possessing the unique cruelty and powerful aura of a predator, brimming with an indescribable tension of life.

Facing such a terrifying and powerful alien beast required immense courage just to stand one's ground.

Gao Wu found it hard to imagine how much power was contained within the body of a giant tiger of this form, or how terrifying the circulating source energy must be.

No wonder it could cause millions of casualties; this thing was genuinely terrifying.

"I am destined to be the number one under heaven; there's no way I'm going to be stumped by this thing!"

Gao Wu mentally cheered himself on. Gripping his sword, he stepped across the red line and strode rapidly toward the giant tiger in the center.

The dark golden giant tiger locked its gaze onto Gao Wu, lowering its head and shoulders into a crouching posture. This inward-pulling stance gave off a strong dynamic sense of gathering strength in preparation for a pouncing strike.

"Little kitty, come here." Gao Wu beckoned flippantly. Through his Yin spirit's observation, he could already see that the giant tiger's body was dematerialized, with only an energy nexus located at its heart.

After all, it was merely a conjured semi-energy construct, and this was only the first trial; the giant tiger's abilities had been weakened to the absolute minimum. It would be a laughingstock if he couldn't even clear the first trial.

Without a sound, the giant tiger drove its four limbs into the ground, charging toward Gao Wu like a speeding heavy truck.

Even though it was formed entirely from energy, the giant tiger's body possessed a very realistic texture. As it sprinted, the fur all over its body flew in the wind, kicking up a howling gale.

When the giant tiger was still more ten meters away from Gao Wu, the gale it whipped up was already blowing Gao Wu's bangs into the air.

"Speed is around fifty meters per second, equivalent to a junior martial master."

Gao Wu calculated instantly. The giant tiger's speed was roughly comparable to Wan Canglong's, but the tiger was vastly larger than Wan Canglong.

Based on this body size, the giant tiger weighed at least seven tons. Setting aside source energy, the sheer kinetic impact delivered by such body weight alone was exceptionally terrifying.

Gao Wu thought for a moment and decided not to evade. He knew those huge rock barriers were prepared for challengers to dodge the giant tiger's terrifying charge.

However, he wanted to test just how much physical strength the giant tiger possessed, and to test the intensity of the first trial of the Nine Limits of the Heavenly Pole.

Although the dark golden giant tiger looked menacing in momentum, the kinetic energy carried by its massive body could not all be effectively converted into output because its form was still relatively compact.

On the other hand, the dark golden giant tiger was, after all, merely a form transformed from energy.

With less than a hundred meters between them, at the tiger's charging speed, it reached Gao Wu in a mere two seconds. Gao Wu did not draw his sword; instead, he simply raised his scabbard like a club and lashed out fiercely toward the dark golden giant tiger's head.

He was employing the Rock-Shattering Style, the most unyielding and direct technique in the Flowing Dragon Sword art.

His fist strength had now reached six thousand kilograms, and with source energy amplification, his striking force was at least twelve thousand kilograms. Wielding the ninety-eight-kilogram sword hilt with such force produced a sharp, piercing whistle in the air, exceptionally fierce and grating.

Realizing something was amiss, the giant tiger raised a paw larger than Gao Wu's head and swiped down, striking squarely against the Destiny Sword.

The two formidable forces clashed head-on. Gao Wu was rattled to the point that his entire body went numb, the Destiny Sword was knocked from his grip and sent flying, and he himself was batted away by the descending tiger paw.

Flying backward for over ten meters, Gao Wu rolled on the ground a few times before steadying himself and pushing up from the earth to stand once more.

His combat uniform had several tears from the violent friction, and his face, shoulders, knees, and other areas felt burning hot—the skin likely having been grazed off from the intense friction.

These were merely surface injuries; far more severe was the ferocious impact of the tiger's paw. He felt as though his internal organs had been shattered into pieces, and three deep bloody claw marks had been gouged across his chest by the giant tiger's sharp talons.

Had his body not possessed exceptional resilience, that single paw strike would have instantly torn him into four pieces...

Deep within Gao Wu's brow, a streak of cyan spiritual light flashed, transforming into a dancing dragon. The wounds across his body rapidly closed and healed, and the discomfort in his internal organs instantly dissipated.

In the blink of an eye, Gao Wu had recovered to his peak condition. The realm-level Azure Dragon Divine Mantra combined with twenty points of constitution granted him terrifying regenerative capabilities. These minor injuries were of no consequence whatsoever.

Turning his gaze back to the giant tiger, a deep wound revealing bone had appeared on its left paw.

A ferocious strike from the Destiny Sword was not so easily endured.

Although the giant tiger had materialized as an energy construct, it clearly simulated the primal instincts of an alien beast; it felt pain upon being injured and even developed a measure of caution.

Testing the tiger's limits, Gao Wu found that while the creature maintained the massive frame of a seventh-rank alien beast, its speed and power were restricted to the junior martial master tier, falling far short in other aspects.

To an ordinary martial artist, such a giant beast would indeed be exceedingly difficult to defeat. For him, however, it posed no real difficulty.

Gao Wu beckoned once more. Provoked, the giant tiger roared furiously and lunged at him. Having suffered a setback earlier, the tiger learned its lesson and adopted a full-force leaping assault this time.

Just as the giant tiger plunged downward at high speed, Gao Wu bent his knees, leaned back, and slid rapidly forward. He swept the Destiny Sword—now extended into a nine-foot (three-meter) long blade—upward from beneath the tiger's belly.

This style, the Riding-Wind Sword, carried less unyielding force, yet it leveraged the momentum of the tiger's incoming leap. Furthermore, the Destiny Sword was a sixth-rank divine weapon of supreme sharpness; even without massive output force, it effectively disemboweled the giant tiger...

Sustaining such a grievous wound, the giant tiger landed with weakened limbs, let out a resentful, angry roar, and collapsed onto the ground, quickly dissolving into specks of dark golden flowing light.

The scattered dark gold radiance recondensed into a sphere and returned to the center of the ring.

On the opposite wall, an arched doorway opened silently, clearly serving as the entrance to the second trial.

Restoring the Destiny Sword to its original size, Gao Wu muttered to himself, "The Nine Limits of the Heavenly Pole, nothing special..."

He felt a slight tinge of regret that there were no surveillance cameras inside the mystic realm space. Executing such a suave and effortless sword kill on a tiger without a single spectator around inevitably lacked a bit of flair.