Chapter 6: Thunder Eight Styles!

Seeing Duke Jaynes and Patrick Lawne square off, Seth Lawne beamed. He hoped Patrick would cripple the man. Then he could use "my disciple was badly hurt" as an excuse to linger in Black Turtle Village for a while. Seth suddenly sent a voice transmission to Vermilion Bird. "Fairy, if you'll just nod, you and I can join forces. It might not be impossible to break out of Skyspine Ridge." "Of course, that would never have worked in the past," he added. "But the war a thousand years ago left Skyspine Ridge and the Immortal Fate lands badly damaged." His face hardened. That ancient war… what had started it? With his status, he knew only fragments. Even those who knew the truth kept their mouths shut, unwilling to speak of it. Skyspine Ridge had a peculiar structure. If an outsider failed to leave before it sealed itself away, they would be trapped here permanently. Vermilion Bird shook her head lightly. "I chose to stay in Black Turtle Village. I'm not leaving." "You're not going?" Seth sent another urgent transmission, panic creeping into his tone. "Eldermyst Realm has been damaged terribly. If it opens this time, Skyspine Ridge might fracture even further. You're bound to it. If it suffers, you'll suffer too. You understand the stakes better than I do." Vermilion Bird did not answer. What she had lived through after that blazing war a thousand years ago had already rewritten the course of her life. There were truths she could not share, even with a friend. Boom! A dull impact cut through their exchange. Patrick Lawne stood broad-backed and thick-waisted, his features hard as forged iron. He looked like an armored war general, a towering bear with its head held high. His fists, each as big as a bowl, rumbled with power, force surging in waves. Duke Jaynes had thought one punch would send him flying. The gap in cultivation was real, after all. That blow would have launched an ordinary Embryo Stage cultivator like a pebble. Yet Duke Jaynes held his ground. Black hair spilled over his shoulders as he formed a fist seal and drove forward, raw, primal strength coiling through his frame. His counterpunch erupted with more than ten times the force. Rumble! Their fists collided with a heavy, muffled crash. The shockwave looked ready to sweep the courtyard clean of flowers and shrubs, but Vermilion Bird flicked her sleeve and suppressed it. A sharp gleam flashed in Patrick's eyes. He had assumed Duke Jaynes was a weakling. Instead, the man's strength ran deep, his physique dense and sturdy. He must have suffered plenty for it. "I'm telling you, don't hold back," Duke Jaynes warned. "What nerve!" Patrick lunged in a single stride. Muscles rose across his body like knotted ropes. Even his organs seemed to thunder as his explosive force climbed in layered surges. Elara shut her eyes on instinct. Pain prickled across her skin from the sheer edge of Patrick's power. She was at the same organ-tempering level, but Patrick's strength was ferocious. One punch could shatter a giant stele, smash even a body of steel. Duke Jaynes punched in earnest, flaring his strength to the limit. The blow was heavy enough to sink mountains, and it met Patrick's fist head-on. His expression darkened. Pressure bore down on him, and his muscles screamed with a tearing ache. "Your strength is impressive," Duke Jaynes said, voice steady through the strain. "You're good. But seriously, stop holding back. Hit me with everything you have. Then we'll see the result." "That's way too arrogant!" Patrick's senior brothers and sisters bristled. To them, Duke Jaynes sounded like some supreme expert lecturing Patrick in the middle of a fight. "Senior Brother Patrick!" a female disciple shrieked. "Use your eighteenfold organ-tempering force and crush him!" "Eighteenfold…" Elara's heart lurched. In the cultivation world, there were standards for measuring force through the four major checkpoints of the Embryo Stage. Tenfold force at the organ-tempering checkpoint was considered passing. Eighteenfold was already top-tier. Anything beyond that belonged to monsters among men, those born with special physiques. Their strength was so terrifying it could not be judged by ordinary measures. But there was one more truth. Once someone reached the realm of spirit and form, they could use rare heavenly treasures to replenish their origin, expand their potential, and raise their foundation. It was difficult, though. It required immense Immortal Fate to elevate weak talent until it could stand beside the greatest geniuses. And those force measurements did not include Divine Radiance amplification. Elara knew the Seventh Princess had broken past twentyfold in the organ-tempering realm. That height was suffocating. With Bodhisattva Divine Radiance on top of it, she could plow through dozens of peers like they were grass. "Good," Patrick said, laughing instead of raging. His eyes shone like bronze bells, thrilled to find worthy prey. "Let's see how hard your body really is!" Light surged over him. His blood boiled. His bones sang. His organs pounded like war drums, and his force spiked again. "So this is eighteenfold force?" Duke Jaynes met him head-on. The heavy Tortoise Shell pressed along his spine. Ancient, savage aura wound through his flesh as he slammed fist against fist with Patrick. His body trembled, pain ripping through him. The Tortoise Shell weighed him down, but it also helped him heal. In truth, even as a burden, it did not reduce the force he could unleash. But in the clash itself, Patrick's raw strength still surpassed his by a wide margin. Duke Jaynes had not even succeeded in the soul-training stage, and Patrick was already at the third major checkpoint, organ-tempering… Whooo… A blade-cold fist wind suddenly screamed past his ear. Duke Jaynes cut off his thoughts. His gaze sharpened, and he lifted his hand to meet the next strike. Patrick's attacks were hard and fast, a storm of brutal blows. In the exchange, Duke Jaynes staggered again and again, as if barely keeping up. Seth frowned to himself. Duke Jaynes… was he really this weak? Even if Duke Jaynes burst out with more than twentyfold force, even more than that, Seth would not have been surprised. He had underestimated Patrick only because Patrick's cultivation time was short. His room to grow was enormous. From the look of the fight, Duke Jaynes was retreating step by step, yet his endurance was frightening. Every time he teetered on the edge of defeat, he managed a brief adjustment, recovered, and turned into a stubborn iron man who forced himself back into the grind. "Good… this feels good…" With the help of the Tortoise Shell, Duke Jaynes recovered more than ten times in a row. The longer he fought, the more exhilarated he became. Force raced through his body, cycling inside and out, until he finally threw back his head and let out a long howl. His essence, energy, and spirit climbed. Excitement burned in his eyes. This whetstone in front of him gave him more than days of bitter training ever did. Patrick's offense was viciously precise, always targeting the fragile points of Duke Jaynes's body. And after the Tortoise Shell repaired him more than ten times, Duke Jaynes's force had clearly surged. "This kid's insane," Patrick muttered, snapping out of his casual, crushing mindset. "What, did he swallow some miracle aphrodisiac?" Radiance exploded from Patrick's skin. Dense silver arcs of lightning spread outward, and in the blur of crackling light, an ancient thunder beast seemed to take shape. "T-That's a Thunder Beast…" Elara went pale. The Lawne family's inherited Divine Radiance might have been only high-grade, but it carried a rare ability to evolve. Once Patrick's cultivation caught up, he could draw down the thunder of the nine heavens, temper his Thunder Divine Radiance, and push it into the supreme sequence. Its killing power could even surpass some Supreme Divine Radiance. Even within the Lawne family, such a genius was almost unheard of. A century might pass without producing one. Bathed in Thunder Divine Radiance, Patrick's pupils and even his hair sparked with electricity. With a crash of light, he charged. Duke Jaynes refused to yield. He drove his Black Turtle Divine Radiance. Deep-blue rainlight scattered from within him and slammed into the thunder glow. Because his force ran so strong, the Black Turtle Divine Radiance grew larger as a whole, swelling to roughly the size of a washbasin. The size of Divine Radiance was not a true yardstick for strength. Radiance filled the air as the two powers collided. A turtle and a Thunder Beast crashed and tore at each other. Duke Jaynes possessed Supreme Divine Radiance, but the gap between major checkpoints was too great. He could only fight the Thunder Beast to a standstill. Seth rubbed his chin. That turtle Divine Radiance looked plain enough, yet it carried some strange property. The lightning that should have destroyed it seemed weakened. Clearly, its devouring nature had blunted the thunder's might. "Thunder Eight Styles!" Electric light sprayed from Patrick's mouth and nose, blazing hot. A gale of thunder spread from within him, carrying the stink of scorched air. Duke Jaynes's face turned grave. He drew back his Black Turtle Divine Radiance, wrapped it around his body, and raised his defense. "Thunder Arc!" Patrick's punch blazed. Rolling arcs surged forward, lightning so bright it stabbed the eyes, flooding the sky as it drove straight at Duke Jaynes. Duke Jaynes's body shuddered. The radiance shielding him scattered, and he nearly toppled face-first to the ground. "Thunder Eight Styles, Second Form, Thunder Lightning Whip!" Patrick pressed the attack. His thigh rose as his aura turned terrifying, as if it could tear rivers apart and split the earth. "This ends here!" Thunder Arc and Thunder Lightning Whip were both close-quarters killing arts. Patrick's thick leg became a massive whip as he slammed a kick into Duke Jaynes's abdomen. Duke Jaynes's heartbeat spiked. The strike was too fast, like a thick bolt of lightning meant to rip him in two. Hot blood surged through him. The life-force within his body boiled. At the edge of life and death, his heart thundered, and under the crushing pressure of lightning and whip-kick, his body traced an abrupt, indescribable path. His spine drove his limbs. He rose like a soaring dragon. His bones erupted in a chain of crackling pops, snap, crackle, crackle, racing upward until his spine moved like a dragon's backbone, whipping into motion. "Dragon Fist!" Duke Jaynes threw his punch. The Dragon Fist the Azure Dragon Elder had drilled into him through countless days and nights was already branded into his flesh and soul. In the moment of crisis, that seemingly ordinary set of punches gave him strength beyond his limit. Every bone in his frame tightened. His fist seal took the shape of a dragon as it hammered upward. Dragon Fist, driven by pure physique alone, collided with Thunder Lightning Whip. It was like a soaring dragon striking through a sky full of lightning. Explosions rang out without end. But Duke Jaynes had no Divine Radiance to support the blow. In the end, he fell short. The skin on his knuckles split, and threads of lightning arced into his body. Thunder Divine Radiance entering the body meant a serious illness at minimum. Yet Purple Mist was uncanny. It devoured and refined. The faint lightning it fed back caused the silver thunderlight that had been sleeping within Purple Mist to jolt awake, violently revived in an instant!