I landed a few meters away from the completely obliterated courtyard, finding my footing on the edges of the crumbling crater.

Behind me, Qi Fu Ren had ceased his screaming. He laid sprawled in the epicenter of the crater, his body a broken, bloody mess. Smoke fumed from his battered body, cloaking the devastated courtyard in a dull gloom.

"Boss!"

"Are you all right?!"

Hu Shuo and Ba Dao rushed to the fallen Qi Fu Ren, checking on him.

"Don't worry," I assured them. "Qi Fu Ren won't die from that. He has got a thick skull."

While I wanted nothing more to kill him, I lacked the ability to do so. I did my best to crush his skull, but with my minute amount of qi, despite its high purity and triggering a volatile reaction with massive amounts of surrounding qi, I wasn't able to kill him.

That was fine. Murdering a classmate in campus grounds outside of an official match would get me into trouble. While, in the present context, I could get away by claiming self-defense, the staff and White Tiger Sect might charge me for excessive violence if I actually killed Qi Fu Ren. Of course, I could argue my case, but that would consume a lot of time. Time that would be better spent on training and cultivating instead.

"Fucker.." Qi Fu Ren growled under his breath, even as Hu Shuo and Ba Dao supported him. "I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!"

"Yeah, yeah." I waved dismissively and ignored him. The bastard had wasted too much of my time. On the bright side, it was precisely because he provided me real combat experience that I finally managed to reach the first step into eventually learning Heaven and Earth Strike. I had finally succeeded in purifying my qi and clashing it with surrounding qi to trigger a volatile and powerful reaction capable of defeating someone who had a sexagenary of qi.

Totally worth it.

Smiling to myself, I headed in the direction of the dormitory.

"Ugh?!"

"Boss?!"

"?!"

Upon hearing Hu Shuo and Ba Dao cry out, I immediately spun around. To my immense surprise, Qi Fu Ren had gotten to his feet and seized the both of them by their throats. Despite his severely injured state, he still somehow managed to retain the strength to hold them up with his hands, their feet dangling uselessly in the air. The two loyal lackeys struggled desperately, but despite their unscathed conditions, they weren't able to break Qi Fu Ren's grip.

"Kuh! I can't breathe!"

"Stop it, boss! Why are you doing this?!"

Hu Shuo and Ba Dao flailed wildly, only for Qi Fu Ren to increase the strength of his grip. The both of them turned pale and blue from the lack of oxygen. While it was subtle, with my Heaven and Earth Formula, I could see faint currents of golden, lightning qi traveling along his arms and leaving his fingers to stab into the two subordinates' bodies.

No wonder..he's paralyzing them with electricity..

But why? Why was he attacking his own comrades?

"The both of you are loyal to me, right?" Qi Fu Ren was grinning manically. It was not an expression I had seen on his face before. The guy had clearly gone mad. In fact, I could detect vast amounts of dark, demonic qi that I had never sensed in him before.

It wasn't the same demonic qi as the one found in magical beasts and demonic beasts. This felt more like..the other side of an orthodox sect's cultivated qi. In other words, the qi of a practitioner from a demonic sect.

But isn't Qi Fu Ren formerly from the White Tiger Sect, one of the most reputable and powerful orthodox sects in the Martial Arts Alliance? How did he end up learning a demonic technique?!

Worse, that demonic technique was awfully familiar. Though the concept and execution was very different, the basic purpose was the same.

"AAAAAAH!"

"NOOOOO!"

As the painful cries of Hu Shuo and Ba Dao echoed throughout the courtyard, my spiritual sense could detect their qi flowing from their bodies and into Qi Fu Ren. The latter was draining his cronies of their qi.

Just like that forbidden technique of Heaven and Earth Formula.

"Then give me your strength! Become one with me! And we'll be able to crush that fucking insect, Fei Wu!"

Hu Shuo and Ba Dao gurgled incoherently, no longer capable of speech. I watched in horror as their bodies shrunk and thinned, their flesh withering as their skin was pulled tightly over their bones. Their eyes rolled in their sockets, their face and lips becoming desiccated as their life-force was literally drained out of them. In seconds, they transformed from muscular, heavily built thugs into bony, emaciated corpses.

"Ha ha ha ha..not enough..not enough!"

Qi Fu Ren was chortling as he drained them dry of their qi, and then callously discarded their corpses on the ground. He licked his lips and wiped the blood from his body. I stepped back nervously when I saw that his wounds had all healed after he plundered such a massive infusion of qi from Hu Shuo and Ba Dao.

"Y..you.."

Stammering, I shook my head, not believing what I had just seen. As terrible of a bully that Qi Fu Ren was, he had always treated his subordinates decently. He rarely smacked them or physically struck them, until recently. He had always rewarded them for his loyalty, looking out for them and allowing them to follow him wherever he went.

The Qi Fu Ren in front of me was no longer the Qi Fu Ren I recognized. He had changed enormously, to the point where I almost wondered if he was possessed. Or perhaps I never had understood him, and this was his true nature.

More likely, something had happened to him in the past six months or so, after his defeat to me in an official match, that caused his personality and values to change so drastically. If I was self-conscious, I would have speculated that the reason he snapped and went down this dark path was because of me, because I defeated him.

But I doubted that. The world didn't revolve around me, after all.

"Heh.."

Qi Fu Ren raised his arm, where visible wisps of highly dense lightning qi escaped his palm and rose from his fingers.

"I'm really lucky. It's a good thing that both those idiots were in the same sect as me, and learned the same type of martial arts as I did. Thanks to that, they have the same elemental affinity to lightning element as I do. That's why I'm able to immediately absorb and assimilate their qi without needing to spend too much time integrating the absorbed qi into my own innate spiritual pool. This must be Heaven's will! Ha ha ha ha!"

I was at a loss of words, and the first thing I blurted out was an exasperated question.

"Why the hell are you indulging in an explanatory monologue? For the sake of explaining to the existences beyond the fourth wall what just occurred, and why you received a power-up immediately without needing to spend some time to assimilate the qi you just absorbed?!"

Recalling what Master told me, absorbing someone's qi wasn't a straightforward process. Normally, you wouldn't get access to that qi immediately, especially if the other party's qi wasn't compatible with yours, or had a different elemental affinity from yours. When that happened, it would take days, sometimes weeks to absorb, assimilate and integrate the foreign qi with your own innate spiritual qi. And if you failed to do so, the conflicting, incompatible qi would rage and clash against each other within your body, eventually rupturing your meridians, overloading your qi vessels and destroying your internal organs, leading to death.

And if one was to be attacked while in the middle of assimilating the qi he had just absorbed, he would be vulnerable, for he wouldn't be able to use any of the qi that was currently conflicting and resisting each other within his body. That was the one weakness of the Heaven and Earth Sect, and how the Martial Arts Alliance succeeded in exterminating them so soon after they massacred innocents, despite them killing countless martial artists to greedily devour their strength. The technique was really a double-edged sword.

"You really are an unfortunate soul," Qi Fu Ren mocked me as he took a step forward, his body brimming powerfully with his recently stolen qi.

This was bad. The one exception to the rule of Heaven and Earth Absorption was that if the other party just happened to have the same type of qi as you did, the same elemental affinity and almost the same techniques, then there was no reason that you couldn't assimilate the qi immediately. It was almost like blood type, despite many differences. Blood O+ could immediately recover after receiving a transfusion of another person who was also type O+. While normally it meant that recipients with type O wouldn't be able to receive type A or B or AB blood, in the case of qi, it just meant that the recipient would need more time to assimilate and covert the Type A/B/AB blood into type O blood in order to have twice the amount of blood in his body.

Okay, that was a terrible analogy, but you get what I mean, right? And no, in reality, blood transfusion did not work like that.

I desperately withdrew, drawing as much as from the surroundings as I could. I could barely beat Qi Fu Ren earlier, taking a few good hits and was only able to bring him down with that last-ditch attack of mine.

And now Qi Fu Ren had become three times stronger, absorbing about another two sexagenaries worth of qi. Of course, the absorption wasn't efficient, and most of the qi was probably lost to the surroundings, so he didn't actually have exactly three sexagenaries right now, but even then the amount should still be quite close to it.

In other words, he was three times stronger. Right now, I had no way of fighting him. I had to escape and hope that a teacher or staff had heard all the noise and commotion and was running over to investigate.

Speaking of which, we were making so much in the middle of the academy, and even destroyed an entire courtyard, and no teacher has arrived on the scene yet? Where are the teachers? What's going on?

As disturbed as I was by the lack of teachers, I didn't have time to focus on thinking about that question right now. Qi Fu Ren was moving.

"!!!"

No matter what I did, it was pointless. While I was using Tui to withdraw and propel myself backward, in just one bound, Qi Fu Ren caught up and even surpassed me in speed. My eyes widened and I crossed my arms in reflex as he punched me.

Boom!

"Gah! Cough!"

I was flung across the courtyard, slamming into the ground and bouncing about helplessly. My body left a trail of broken dirt and soil as it carved a crater into the earth, sparkling with devastating lightning. Even as I managed to finally roll to a stop I couldn't get up. Blood dribbled from my lips as I lay, stunned from the tremendous impact.

"Ugh.."

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to my knees, but even that little action alone was too much for me. I bent over and threw up blood.

"Ha ha ha ha! How weak! How pathetic!"

Having reversed the situation through underhanded means and sacrificing his underlings, while completely forgetting that I had beaten him just minutes before his cheat move, Qi Fu Ren was guffawing in triumph.

"I knew it! This new technique is incredible! I'm so glad I learned it!"

Now he was blabbering something to himself, his eyes crazed as he savored in his delight. I wanted to ask him what new technique he had learned, but I was in such pain that the words didn't come out. It didn't matter. I doubted Qi Fu Ren would answer me anyway. He was too obsessed with celebrating and crowing over his victory.

"Ah!"

Qi Fu Ren stomped on my back, forcing me to the ground and pinning me against the ruined earth. I felt as if several tones of metal had fallen on top of me, crushing me to a pulp. Qi Fu Ren grinned as he looked down condescending on me, and shifted more of his weight to my spine, intending to snap it with his foot.

"How does it feel to be the one stepped on right now?"

Painful, I thought, but I was in no condition to answer. I was in too much agony to say a word, never mind respond defiantly with a snarky comment.

"I'll finally destroy your dantian and sink you into despair!"

The guy talked too much. If you were going to destroy my dantian, just do it already instead of stepping on me and preaching and ranting about how you were going to do it, you moron. Otherwise you were going to miss your chance.

"I want to see the look on your face as I snuff out all hopes of you ever being able to cultivate! I will savor your misery and turn you into my slave! I need a replacement now that Hu Shuo and Ba Dao are gone."

You were the one who killed them, you fucking asshole..

"I will.."

Qi Fu Ren never got to finish his sentence. Nine fireballs slammed into him, detonating with such force that he was flung off me and thrown into the trees that decorated the academy garden. With the tremendous weight pinning me down suddenly lifted, I exhaled in relief and quickly rolled to my feet, heaving and panting.

I told you so, I thought as I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I stared in the direction where Qi Fu Ren was blown off toward. You talk too much..and now you've missed your chance to cripple the protagonist. Again.

What was with villains and their overblown, obsessive compulsion to deliver overly grandiose speeches right before they finished off the protagonist? It was a wonder any of them survived, being too stupid to actually accomplish the most logical thing in the most efficient manner possible.

"Fei Wu! Are you all right?!"

My savior hopped down, landing elegantly next to me. I nodded and bowed gratefully.

"Thank you very much, Tang Qi Hong."

"What's going on? Qi Fu Ren is attacking you?"

Tang Qi Hong looked furious as she glared in the direction where she had blown the bastard toward. I resisted the urge to grumble about her asking the obvious and merely nodded wearily, wiping the blood from my mouth.

"Yeah."

"How did this happen?"

This time, a difference voice pierced the air. Turning around, I saw Lian Rou running up. She knelt beside the corpses of Hu Shuo and Ba Dao.

"Qi Fu Ren," I replied, as if that explained everything. The two girls stared at me, baffled.

"No way! Qi Fu Ren attacked his own followers?!" Tang Qi Hong exclaimed in horror and disbelief. Evidently I wasn't the only one who used to think of Qi Fu Ren as someone who actually treated his lackeys decently.

"What exactly did Qi Fu Ren do to them?" Lian Rou asked, furrowing her brow at the duo's unusual conditions.

"He sucked the qi out of their bodies. That's why he's so powerful now."

"!"

At my explanation, Tang Qi Hong tensed. Then she shoved me out of the way before springing back.

Boom!

Qi Fu Ren struck the spot where I was standing a second ago, lightning erupting from his fist and obliterating the entire ground. Smoke fumed from the crater as he stood up, his expression full of scorn as he sneered at me.

"Now you've resorted to being protected by your girlfriend, haven't you? And you still call yourself a man?"

"W..who..who is his girlfriend?!" Tang Qi Hong spluttered, her face turning as red as a tomato as she waved her hands frantically.

"Now's not the time to get embarrassed," I groaned as I buried my face in my palm.

Qi Fu Ren paid no attention to my comment, and he lunged at me again, his fists glowing. I barely managed to step to the side and avoid his punch. As he brushed past me, he suddenly snapped his elbow forward, intent on ramming my face in and breaking my nose.

However, Tang Qi Hong intervened. While Qi Fu Ren's attention was occupied entirely with destroying me, she seized the chance to attack from behind. Slamming both her palms into Qi Fu Ren's back, she unleashed an inferno with one of the secret techniques from her Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. a pillar of flame burst to life, engulfing Qi Fu Ren.

"Gaaah!"

Qi Fu Ren stumbled about, scorched and fuming. Tang Qi Hong launched a second attack, this time punching him in the chest. Flames exploded upon contact, blasting Qi Fu Ren, burning away the fabric of his uniform and blackening his skin.

"Hmph, you're not such a big deal after all.."

"Be careful! He's much stronger than before!"

"?!"

I shouted a warning when Tang Qi Hong momentarily let her guard down. Exploiting the slight opening, Qi Fu Ren countered with a hook, but I jumped in with Jin and used Shadow Kick to deflect his punch way from Tang Qi Hong.

SZZZT!

A lightning bolt seared past the two of us, slicing into a tree and incinerating it. Tang Qi Hong's eyes widened and she instinctively leaped away to widen the distance between her and Qi Fu Ren. I followed her example, jumping in the opposite direction so that Qi Fu Ren couldn't focus his attacks on us at the same time.

"What the hell was that attack?!"

"Lightning Bolt, I guess?"

"That's not what I mean!" Tang Qi Hong snapped at my reply. "Qi Fu Ren's Lightning Bolt isn't supposed to be that powerful!"

"Why?" Qi Fu Ren thundered as he whirled around to face her. "Are you underestimating me, you bitch?"

Then he disappeared.

"!"

Tang Qi Hong jumped back in reflex when Qi Fu Ren appeared in front of her. Fortunately, she had a sexagenary of qi, which allowed her to not be completely overwhelmed like I was earlier. But in terms of power, she was outmatched.

"Get lost, bitch!"

"Kuh!"

However, before Qi Fu Ren's fist could reach her, I kicked it away again. Then I jumped on top of his head and used another Seismic Step.

"Guh!"

With his tripled amount of qi, Qi Fu Ren was a lot more resilient than before, and I still hadn't had time to draw sufficient quantities of qi from the surroundings. Not that I needed to.

"Hah!"

While Qi Fu Ren was distracted, Tang Qi Hong slammed both her palms into his torso and unleashed her Nine Hells Inferno technique. Another pillar of inferno burst to life around Qi Fu Ren, incinerating him. Nine other smaller pillars of fire flickered to life, surrounding him. While Qi Fu Ren stumbled around, both Tang Qi Hong and I retreated to safety.

"You..!"

Roaring, Qi Fu Ren stepped out of the central pillar of inferno. The moment his foot touched the ground outside the flames, the nine other streams of inferno suddenly detonated, expanding and merging into a hellish inferno that bathed the wrecked courtyard in superheated plasma. Qi Fu Ren screamed as he vanished in the blinding, crimson light.

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And then..

BOOM!

A golden mountain of light burst the inferno apart and streaked toward the heavens. Qi Fu Ren panted as he lowered his hand and glared at us, his skin blackened and smoldering. He had used Lightning Flash to obliterate Tang Qi Hong's inferno and free himself, but not before he suffered extreme damage.

"You two..I'm going to fucking kill the two of you!"

"Watch out!" I shouted to Tang Qi Hong as Qi Fu Ren lunged forward.

"I know!" she shot back, and the both of us split up before Qi Fu Ren could pulverize the place where we were standing.

Crack!

Growling bestially, Qi Fu Ren bounced up from the ground and launched himself at me, intent on finishing me off first. He almost struck me despite my best to escapes by using my footwork techniques. Even Duo wasn't going to be fast enough..

Wham!

Before Qi Fu Ren's devastating Lightning Fist could hit me, Tang Qi Hong struck the back of his neck with her flaming fingers. Snarling in fury, Qi Fu Ren swung around to retaliate with a backhanded swing, but I grabbed Tang Qi Hong's hand and pulled her out of the way. Qi Fu Ren's arm swung through thin air.

Allowing me to pull her back, Tang Qi Hong used me as support to flip herself upward and deliver a flaming kick into Qi Fu Ren's face. The bully grunted, and then tried to grab her legs, but I had pulled her out of reach.

"You..!"

Qi Fu Ren stomped forward, but the two of us managed to spin away, almost like we were dancing. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to keep up.

"These two are sync..what's going on? It's almost as if they've been fighting alongside each other for years, able to read each other's movements and intentions and react accordingly."

He then clenched his fist.

"But..I have brute force!"

Both Tang Qi Hong and I leaped back as Qi Fu Ren blasted us with a web of lightning, seeking to overwhelm us with sheer strength. He tried to pursue me, but before he could reach me, fireballs from Tang Qi Hong's Nine-tailed Fire Fox technique bombarded his position, causing him to vanish in an explosion.

"?"

I looked up and saw that Tang Qi Hong had summoned a golden and crimson bow out of nowhere, the gleaming weapon glowing brilliantly as the wielder infused it with qi. Fiery arrows materialized in her right hand and she notched them to her bow, firing nine flaming projectiles at a time and completely overwhelming Qi Fu Ren.

Then I spotted the spark of an enormous influx of qi. Using Jin, I threw myself and knocked Tang Qi Hong off her feet. Moments later, a blazing stream of lightning arced past us, slamming into a nearby tree and completely disintegrating it.

"How is that guy still conscious?!" Tang Qi Hong demanded in disbelief as she got up after I scrambled to my feet. A pity, but this wasn't the time for fanservice moments where I accidentally groped her chest after saving her.

"He now has three sexagenaries worth of qi after sucking Hu Shuo and Ba Dao dry," I reminded her. "Didn't I tell you earlier?"

Tang Qi Hong reddened. "O..of course I remember! I'm just asking a rhetorical question, okay? Just to express my frustration!"

"I know what you mean." I sighed, just as frustrated as her by Qi Fu Ren's tremendously increased tenacity.

"Hang in there, the two of you!" Lian Rou called out. She had been trying to tend to Hu Shuo and Ba Dao in hopes of trying to revive them, but it was useless. Even in this fantasy world, there were no methods to resurrect the dead. Not unless you were a protagonist with plot armor like me, who had personal connections with Grandma Meng.

"We're trying!" Tang Qi Hong hollered back, but I pulled her away when Qi Fu Ren threw a Lightning Punch at her. In response, he turned his attention to me, his fists crackling with Thunder Break, but Tang Qi Hong waltzed me out of danger before kicking him in the shin. I then yanked her back away from Qi Fu Ren's retaliation before kicking him in the groin.

Even with three sexagenaries of artificial qi, the weak point of the human body didn't change. Qi Fu Rend dropped to his knees clutching his crotch and shrieking in pain, his voice too high-pitched to be masculine.

Fortunately, I wasn't Li Fu Chen, or poor Qi Fu Ren's lower meridians would have been shattered and he would have lost his basic functions as a man, and live without his libido or any interest in woman for the rest of his life.

If I had known what he would attempt in future, I would have attempted my best efforts to destroy his lower meridians, but hindsight was fifty-fifty, and besides, I lacked the necessary strength to carry out Li Fu Chen's signature "Impotent Kick." plus I wasn't as ruthless as him anyway.

"..kill you..I'll fucking kill you!"

I sighed. "You've told us that like three hundred times already, and you still have yet to succeed. Just..stop talking, all right?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Lightning burst out of Qi Fu Ren's kneeling body, forming a circular mountain of golden electricity that pierced the heavens. Both Tang Qi Hong and I were forced to jump backward to avoid being incinerated from the sheer voltage.

Forcing himself to his feet, Qi Fu Ren slowly lumbered toward us, his body wreathed in destructive lightning.

"Careful!"

The moment Qi Fu Ren discharged all that lightning into a single Lightning Flash, Tang Qi Hong panicked and leaped toward me, knocking me off my feet. She didn't just shove me to the ground, she literally tackled me and sent the both of us flying. Behind her, the entire courtyard vanished in a blinding, golden light.

"What the..?!"

My eyes widened when I saw the devastation. The courtyard, wrecked and ruined from my Seismic Step and the ensuing battle earlier, had now been reduced to a scorched, smoldering wasteland. The concrete had been blackened, and sand had been fused to dark glass. In the center, Qi Fu Ren stood, lightning still coursing through his body.

"Come back here!" he bawled before taking a step toward us. Then he froze, and clicked his tongue, turning his head to glare in the distance. Clenching his fists, he spat. "So they've finally arrived, huh?"

"'They'?" Lian Rou repeated, confused. She had been forced to abandon Hu Shuo and Ba Dao, and their corpses had been ravaged beyond recognition by the intense lightning. Tang Qi Hong looked just as confused.

But before Qi Fu Ren could answer their question, he turned and leaped up, clearing the academy wall in a single bound. Without another word, he fled.

"..eh? What just happened?" Tang Qi Hong blurted out, her eyes wide. She staggered in relief and would have fallen if I didn't catch her.

"The teachers have finally arrived to check things out," I informed her as I glanced in the direction of the campus buildings. Thanks to my Heaven and Earth spiritual sense, I had detected their approaching qi since a while ago.

"You guys! What's going on?!"

Seeing Teacher Jiao run over, I almost collapsed, glad at the reprieve. This time, Tang Qi Hong was there to help me, and we leaned against each other in order to remain standing. As Teacher Jiao and the other teachers arrived to gape in horror at the scale of destruction and the two casualties, I shook my head and sighed.

"It's a long story.."