Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 472 The Three Wonders of the Zhongnan Mountain Examination

Zhongnan Mountain stretches across the southern part of Guanzhong, from Qinlong in the west to Lantian in the east, a distance of 800 li.

The ancients said that among the great mountains, apart from Taihang, none is greater than Zhongnan.

The terrain here is extremely complex and diverse, making it arguably the most diverse in the entire country.

In some places, towering peaks and deep valleys abound, with numerous karst caves scattered throughout. Cold winds occasionally blow out from between the cave entrances, and the source of the wind remains unknown.

Some are towering mountains, their peaks covered in snow, with sparse trees and only grasslands on several peaks, and deep pools at the foot of the mountains that are green and the water flowing in that direction that is blue.

Chu Tianshu and Hai Donglai walked along the water's edge, looking at the sky reflected in the water, and then looked up at the real blue sky.

When people look up at the sky in such mountainous terrain, the blue sky seems exceptionally high and distant.

The white clouds seemed to be thousands of miles away, hanging in the sky, one by one, in patches.

From one's eyes to one's lungs, one can feel that freshness, as if a vast coolness permeates the body and mind.

Chu Tianshu walked on the flat ground in the mountains. Compared with the surrounding peaks, the road under his feet seemed to be the lowest point in the terrain.

But as he walked, he turned slightly onto a small hill and found himself on a high cliff.

Outside the cliff, clouds and mist drifted by.

With his eyesight, he could see through the clouds and mist and reach a low-lying mountainous area more than ten miles away.

The hills there are generally not high, but lush and green, and hundreds of large and small houses have been built on them.

From the mountaintop to the mountainside, houses are scattered like stars in the sky, orderly and bustling with thousands of people moving about in and out of the mountains.

Between the large flat area enclosed by several hills were rows of fighting arenas.

A man-made canal, more than ten feet wide, draws water from the surrounding mountains. When it reaches the flat land, it branches into a series of circular waterways.

Ensure that each arena is surrounded by a water channel with clear, rippling water that flows continuously.

"That is the Seven Mountains of Martial Arts Competition."

Hai Donglai didn't use an umbrella; he held it behind his waist with his left hand. His voice was slightly hoarse, carrying a sense of nonchalance, yet also an unforgettable feeling of reminiscence.

"The seven mountains offer scenic views from their mid-slopes to their peaks. Once the martial arts competition officially begins, people can enjoy a clear view of the competitors from their elevated positions."

"The entire international martial arts competition, though complicated in its procedures and details, can be broadly divided into three categories."

"A contest of strength, speed, and endurance."

"The flat arenas in the middle of the seven mountains are all places for fighting. The Tiangong Canal, which will be built by the supervisor, can completely dissipate and neutralize the residual energy released when people below the level of Su Wang fight, so as not to easily damage the venue."

"Beyond the seven mountains, the flat roads that encircle the seven peaks are where speed is tested."

"As for the items for testing patience, they haven't been delivered today."

"The main things to be found include charcoal-fired copper furnaces, iron coffins filled with thousands of needles, and vats that dissolve bones with icy poison. It's a test of who can endure the longest in them without losing their life."

Chu Tianshu had heard Su Xuan and others mention it briefly before.

During the competition among nations, although the envoys of the great powers were almost always led by a king without a throne, they did not personally participate in the competition.

The main participants in the competition were those who were only a step away from becoming a King Su.

These outstanding individuals received the true teachings of the most powerful masters from various countries.

The competition between them can basically reflect the level of their mentors in various aspects.

The weaknesses that emerge during the competition, and the strengths that are observed in others.

All of these will be compiled and organized into a book, becoming new ideas for their teachers and powerful figures to improve their own cultivation techniques.

Of course, since this competition was held directly in the Tang Dynasty, the venue and equipment for the battles were all provided by the Tang Dynasty.

Afterwards, the records and information obtained by the Tang Dynasty would be the most comprehensive and accurate.

This is also a hidden benefit of hosting international competitions.

"Let's go."

Hai Donglai tapped his shoulder with his umbrella, turned and left. “It’s not appropriate for us to practice martial arts over there. We need to find another place so as not to disrupt the hard work of the Craftsmen’s Office.”

Chu Tianshu smiled and followed, chatting casually.

"You seem quite understanding of them, but why don't you ever see the diligent and hardworking Nie Hongxian?"

"If I see her, I will have to take over the hard work."

Hai Donglai chimed in, his tone somewhat helpless.

It wasn't that Nie Hongxian was unfilial, but rather that she insisted on dragging a 147-year-old man along to help her with official business.

On the contrary, Nie Hongxian is too obedient.

Of all the disciples and followers Hai Donglai had, he had personally taught very few. Among those he had personally taught, Nie Hongxian best met his requirements.

Often, Nie Hongxian's level of completion was even higher than the standards set by Hai Donglai.

Even Nie Hongxian's soldier spirit is the type that can do more work the more serious the injury.

Whenever Hai Donglai saw her, he couldn't help but help her with some official business.

Alas! "The sea of ​​blood surges, the Red Emperor comes from the east." In his youth, a person who earned such a ruthless reputation could never have imagined that he would have such a soft heart.

But he's getting old, and he'll eventually have to retire.

Constantly interfering in the affairs of the interior defense will inevitably affect Nie Hongxian's prestige within the defense.

As they spoke, both of them quickened their pace.

Although it seemed like a leisurely stroll, the surrounding mountain and forest scenery rushed by in a flash.

A short while later, they arrived at another mountainous area.

Hai Donglai stopped in his tracks: "What do you think of this place?"

Chu Tianshu looked around and saw that this mountainous area had a different appearance.

Not only are the trees sparse here, but there is also little grass; everywhere you look there are jagged, angular boulders.

There was even a rock on the riverbank that was bigger than a house.

The surrounding dozen or so hillsides and cliffs have large amounts of gray-white stone exposed to the air.

The greenish-blue color on the mountainside is not grass, but moss.

“I used to practice here.”

Hai Donglai walked to a cliff and reached out to touch the rock.

This cliff is fifty or sixty feet high and more than two miles wide.

"I heard you talk about the various realms of martial arts before, such as the Great Perfection of Rebirth, the Three Types of Flawlessness, and Rebirth of the Light, etc. I felt that I gained a lot."

"The techniques you described are indeed mysterious and profound. However, I have discovered that your techniques actually focus on internal cultivation. You can achieve results by sitting there without moving anything."

"The boxing techniques of Xinxue Martial Arts require practical verification. Only by drawing on the various structures and properties of all things in the world can one put them into practice and understand the profound mysteries of force."

Hai Donglai shared his experience in practicing boxing.

"For example, my 'Mountain Collapse and Water Destruction Palm' technique, the concept of water destruction, originally originated from the Four Garrisons of Anxi, and came from the people's understanding of the Anxi Protectorate back then."

"But the power to extinguish water still comes from the process of observing the great rivers."

"Many river embankments, which seem to be well-constructed and able to withstand floods, sometimes collapse suddenly amidst seemingly ordinary tidal waves, causing widespread devastation."

"That is the wave-like force formed by the back and forth of the tide, which happens to match the structural material of the dam, so the damage to the dam is much more ferocious than that of the flood."

"Conversely, all bodies of water have their own unique wave-like force."

"If the force I exert coincides with the trough of each wave, I can naturally break the water apart and disintegrate it into water vapor with minimal loss."

"Like this..."

Hai Donglai pushed against the cliff beside him.

Click! Click click click click!

Numerous cracks spread outwards from where his palm was pressed.

When the crack had spread to a length of more than ten feet, it seemed that the force had been exhausted.

Suddenly, from the end of each crack, a sharp, whistling sound like steam emanated.

The stones crumbled and collapsed, and cracks spread rapidly and densely.

Originally, there was only a semi-circular crack pattern on the cliff, with its center close to the ground and a radius of a dozen feet. But in the instant after the steam erupted, the radius of this pattern expanded to thirty feet.

Moreover, the density of cracks in this newly expanded area is much higher than before.

Hai Donglai suddenly retreated, going far away.

Boom! ! !
Hundreds and thousands of rocks broke off from the cliff, crashed to the ground, and rolled with a rumbling sound, causing the ground to tremble slightly.

The stones ranged in size from as small as a fist or a washbasin to as large as a water buffalo or an eight-immortal table.

The highest stone fell from a height of thirty feet, shattering the boulder that had already hit the ground.

Chu Tianshu's eyes changed slightly, and he also floated up and retreated in mid-air.

Thirty zhang, one hundred meters high.

Compared to this scene of flying rocks, a normal person's size is like that of an ant.

Even if he could fly, his robes billowing and billowing, he would still appear like a small leaf beside a waterfall of rocks in the face of such a scene.

The sound of the rocks was like thunder, and the crashing of the rocks was like a roar!
Stone chips flew everywhere, filling the air.

Chu Tianshu caught a wisp of air in mid-air.

His internal energy restrained the moisture in the air, making it like a small white ribbon of mist that felt scalding hot to the touch when held in the hand.

Under the force of the eastward flow of the sea, the water in the mountain trembled and collapsed in an instant, its volume surging dramatically.

By prying open all the existing cracks in the rocks, such an amazing scene was created in the blink of an eye.

The rubble gradually subsided, but stone chips and dust still lingered.

Chu Tianshu looked up and saw the cliff that was originally flat and full, and slightly protruded outward.

At this point, a large recessed section of the lower half of the cliff face was filled with scattered rocks.

"Mountain Collapse and Water Annihilation Palm!"

Chu Tianshu was both surprised and delighted, and said with a smile, "I already knew how brilliant it was from your explanation before, but seeing it with my own eyes is definitely more intuitive."

The sea rises from the east, its sound rising.

What you just saw was just water extinguishing.

The figure in red robes suddenly flashed by.

With a deafening roar, his figure swept past all the rocks, then suddenly turned at the bottom of the cliff, denting the air several times, until he reached the upper half of the cliff face.

In the blink of an eye, his figure appeared at the top of the cliff, his body flipped, and he slammed down with a palm.

Click! ! !
The sound of the rock cracking this time was incredibly sharp and reached its peak of speed.

When Chu Tianshu heard this, he almost thought it was just a very brittle biscuit that had been broken.

However, at the top of the cliff, a crack, like lightning, plunges straight down.

The upper part of the cliff, with this crack as its main feature, also spreads out with numerous fine lines.

All the cracked stones suddenly plummeted downwards.

Layer upon layer of stones crashed down, piling up on top of the original rubble. Before they could roll far away, the rocks above them pressed down on them.

Hai Donglai struck twice.

The first strike caused the lower half of the cliff to cave in, sending rocks tumbling far away and creating a chaotic mess.

The second strike pressed down on the upper part of the cliff, creating a steep and high pile of stones.

It seems that it has filled in the gaps in the lower half.

As Hai Donglai's body fell, he spun in mid-air, turning his head to face the sky and his feet to the ground, before landing on top of the pile of stones.

The entire mountain behind him looked like it had a columnar defect dented in.

"The second palm strike is the Mountain Collapse, a force specifically designed to attack rigid objects."

The echoes of the stone pile beneath Hai Donglai's feet had not yet faded, but his voice was steady and long as he spoke slowly.

"All things in the world are subject to the properties of hardness and softness. Changes in structure lead to different waveforms when hard and soft forces are transmitted."

"Understanding the nature of hardness and softness, knowing the wonders of structure, and comprehending the waveform with the intent of fist, one can strike with one-tenth of the force and cause complete disintegration."

Chu Tianshu fell into deep thought.

When he practiced boxing in the past, he actually paid great attention to the differences in the medium through which force was transmitted.

However, after practicing internal energy cultivation, he stopped caring about this matter.

Because internal force itself has a feeling of covering the original properties of things with its own characteristics.

For practitioners of internal energy cultivation, hardening a silkworm thread and hardening a leaf are essentially the same principle; it only depends on the amount of internal energy infused.

This is very convenient; it can be described as a versatile energy source.

However, this also means that when using internal force to cause destruction, one cannot accurately grasp the weaknesses of many things, and is relatively reckless.

For practitioners of the Heart and Blood Martial Arts, the force required to harden a silkworm thread is completely different from the force required to harden a leaf.

They can destroy external objects more efficiently and economically.

"However, mastering such a highly efficient destructive technique must be a more complicated process."

Chu Tianshu said, "You need to understand the properties of almost every major category of matter, practice with all kinds of scenery in the world, and be able to handle any situation with ease?"

Hai Donglai just smiled: "But we still have the will to fight. The heart comes before the blood."

"I have always believed that the martial artist's intent is not specifically used for some kind of long-range, invisible attack."

"Instead, it is used to feel the rigidity and flexibility of matter and to capture the fluctuations of waves."

Chu Tianshu nodded, then a sense of curiosity arose: "So, are you truly without any leakage now?"

Hai Donglai paused briefly to ponder.

“I had long since achieved true power without leakage. Seventeen years ago, I was only a hair’s breadth away from achieving true self-nature without leakage.”

"If I had truly killed the Mountain King, I should have overcome that hurdle seventeen years ago."

"But at that time, I had a vague feeling that something was still left undone. Seven years ago, I learned about the mountain king's association with locusts, which became a knot in my heart. To this day, I still feel that something is missing."

The self-nature is without flaws, and it truly places great importance on intention.

Hai Donglai and Shan Wang were locked in a standoff for ninety years.

If the other side hadn't actually died, that would have been fine, but they did die, and not all of them were.

No wonder it became a knot in my heart.

Chu Tianshu's mind was very active. He quickly shifted his attention away from the matter, pondered for a while, and then smiled.

"Brother Donglai, move aside!"

Hai Donglai jumped down from the pile of stones and moved to the side to see what he was going to do.

Chu Tianshu's third eye, located between his eyebrows, suddenly opened halfway.

Jade-like patterns spread from beneath his feet, and hundreds of jumbled rocks in front of him suddenly floated into the air.

When it comes to detecting things, Tianyan is a professional. However, even though Chu Tianshu had Tianyan for detection before, he had never systematically trained in it. He didn't know what kind of force he needed to use to achieve the desired effect.

Now that he has obtained the techniques and skills summarized by Hai Donglai over a hundred years, how effective will it be if he uses his internal strength and borrows some existing techniques?
"Ah!"

Chu Tianshu let out a low shout, channeled his energy into his palms, rising from his dantian and then pushing them out horizontally.

Hundreds of rocks suddenly began to spin, sending stone chips flying everywhere.

The originally irregular boulder was transformed into hundreds of stone cones in an instant by his internal force.

Chu Tianshu changed his palm technique again, his hands swirling and retracting before pushing forward once more.

The stone cone shot forward, penetrating half a foot into the rock wall. In the huge columnar gap in the cliff, it boomed and roared, forming four large characters.

Ten thousand nations compete in martial arts!
"Hahaha."

Chu Tianshu's laughter rang out.

He only used 30% of his power just now, and the effect was really good.

(End of this chapter)