The Decaying World-Chapter 148 - 138: Strength, Part 2

"You don’t understand a thing." Mukai Kei chuckled. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The reason he was willing to become the Qinghe Sect’s Inner City Sub-Hall Master was to seize more resources and treasures, helping him ascend to a higher realm.

And now, he had succeeded.

"Once you step into the Grandmaster Realm, a Martial Artist’s physical attributes will immediately rival those of an Upper-Rank Summoner. Speed, strength, physique, and recovery are all comprehensively enhanced. The increase can be more than threefold at its peak! Even at its weakest, your power will double." Mukai Kei was clearly responding to Lin Hui, but he was also explaining for the benefit of Ding Chengying and Zhao Dong behind him, as well as the other Martial Artists gathered around.

He was clearly treating this as the battle that would make him famous after revealing his true power.

Only by building his reputation and achieving a sufficient battle record could he gain greater benefits and status.

And how does one build a battle record? Naturally, one needs a worthy opponent.

And the man before him, Lin Hui, was more than worthy.

No one else could handle him. Even the two deputies would have been grievously wounded in a single clash if he hadn’t intervened in time.

He had faced a thorny opponent, broken through on the spot to turn the tide, and would ultimately defeat and kill this man. Such a hard-won victory, witnessed by a large crowd, would be enough to broadcast his newfound power.

Hype and momentum—this was how you built it!

It took many voices to build true momentum.

Otherwise, what was the point? Some random person rushes up, he kills them in a few moves, and that’s it?

The people nearby would hear the commotion and see him finish the intruder, and the whole affair would end quietly, without making a single ripple.

But this was different. He had made it clear he needed to unleash his full Grandmaster power to even have a chance of defeating his opponent, and he’d dragged the fight out long enough.

His two old colleagues had been defeated head-on, and a crowd was gathering. The stage was set.

Now was the time to defeat this man and reap the ultimate reward!

"Since you’re so confident," Lin Hui said from across the terrace, "then let me have a taste."

"Fool!" Mukai Kei growled, looking down at his own imposing physique, now towering at two and a half meters.

He raised his sword and swung it a few times. Specks of white light flew from the blade, transforming into white butterflies that fluttered for several meters before vanishing.

"Since you insist on courting death, then I shall let you witness... my signature Swordsmanship!"

SWOOSH!

In an instant, his figure vanished. The paving stones where he’d stood exploded, leaving a deep crater.

The next moment, he was in front of Lin Hui, his sword cleaving straight down at his head!

This speed truly surpassed anyone Lin Hui had ever seen, nearly matching his own.

And that was with Lin Hui’s own speed currently halved. Such velocity was beyond the imagination of any ordinary Martial Artist.

Lin Hui immediately channeled his Inner Strength, enveloping the Ruyi Sword Body as he unleashed a high-speed killing blow from his Qingfeng Swordsmanship.

CLANG! CLANG!

Two deafening rings echoed.

The moment their blades met, he felt a surprising amount of force from his opponent.

Using Wang Yueheng as a benchmark, the force behind Mukai Kei’s strike was more than double Wang Yueheng’s combined Inner Strength and Summoning Cultivation!

’This is absurd!?’

Lin Hui was shaken. He had already completed his Body Tempering; after two rounds of it from both the Qingfeng Swordsmanship and Gale Swordsmanship, his physical strength was now far beyond what it had been when he first fought Wang Yueheng.

And yet, he still couldn’t match the raw power of his opponent.

The immense force sent the steel sword in Lin Hui’s hand flying upward.

He had always assumed the Martial Artist System was extremely weak compared to Summoners, so he had focused his attention on the Priests and High Priests, even preparing specific offensive and defensive measures for them.

But now it seemed the Grandmasters of the Inner City’s Martial Artists were not to be underestimated...

’Special Effects: Feathering.’

With a thought, Lin Hui activated the Special Effect. His speed instantly surged.

SHING! SHING! SHING!

Three consecutive slashes struck the side of the caught-off-guard Mukai Kei’s neck.

But absurdly, these three strikes, empowered by Inner Strength, only managed to leave faint indentations. They hadn’t even broken his defense!

’This Martial Artist System is clearly all about turning yourself into a walking turtle shell!’

Lin Hui was startled, but he had no idea that Mukai Kei on the other side was even more horrified.

’What’s with this guy!? How did he suddenly get so much faster!?’ Those three consecutive strikes landing on the same spot had nearly scared him into a cold sweat.

’Luckily, his Inner Strength realm is much lower, so he couldn’t break my defense.’

Even so, Mukai Kei became more cautious, not daring to expose any of his vital points.

Fortunately, he too was a speed-based Swordsman. Boosted by his Grandmaster Realm, his Sword Speed was much faster, allowing him to barely cope with his opponent’s explosive acceleration.

But at this rate, taking this man down was becoming an impossible dream.

He hadn’t expected that even after revealing his Grandmaster Realm, he still couldn’t defeat his opponent.

This was getting a little ridiculous.

’In that case... I have no choice but to use that move...’ Mukai Kei gritted his teeth. He had reached the point of no return.

The Grandmaster Realm, of course, wasn’t just about a simple boost to physical attributes. There was another, most crucial aspect.

He could instantly release all the Inner Strength in his body, creating a terrifyingly powerful, ring-shaped explosion.

Only a Grandmaster could withstand the intense compression of such a vast amount of Inner Strength required to unleash this devastating move.

That’s why this move was generally known as Sect Destruction.

Just as he steeled his resolve, he suddenly sensed that his opponent’s attacks, coming from all sides, were somehow even faster than before.

SHING!

Not only that, but another sword grazed the outside of his arm, and this time, he felt a faint, searing pain from its power.

That meant his skin had been broken...

’This guy still has another ace up his sleeve?!’

A wave of urgency washed over Mukai Kei.

He hesitated no longer, frantically compressing and condensing all the Inner Strength in his body.

HUMMM...!

A subtle vibration centered on him and began to spread wildly in all directions.

In that moment, the vibration enveloped an area a hundred meters in every direction.

Ding Chengying and Zhao Dong, seeing that things were taking a turn for the worse, had already taken the lead in fleeing for their lives.

The other Martial Artists also realized something was wrong and had already scrambled to get away.

Meanwhile, Lin Hui had already switched to Gale Swordsmanship, using Mountain Rub—its strongest Armor Piercing move—to continuously stack speed and lethality.

The advantage of Gale Swordsmanship was beginning to show: it harnessed the airflow, allowing the user to become faster and stronger the longer they fought.

In Mukai Kei’s eyes, his figure had already become a blur of afterimages, growing increasingly difficult to track.

All he could hear was the constant SHHHH of the blade slicing through the air. Mukai Kei could only react a split second before the blade was about to hit him.

But it was far too late. That sliver of reaction time wasn’t enough to launch a counterattack or even defend, so he could only watch as he was forced to endure the blows.

With such a gap in speed, his techniques were meaningless. He couldn’t even use his Butterfly Shadow Sword.

When a speed-based swordsmanship faced an opponent who was even faster, all its advantages became disadvantages.

"Die!" Just then, the energy Mukai Kei had been accumulating was finally ready.

In that instant, the signature finishing move of a Grandmaster—Sect Destruction—erupted.

A translucent, jade-colored ring of Inner Strength exploded outward from his body.

The ring was so fast it far exceeded the speed of sound. Before Lin Hui could even react, it swept past him, expanding into an enormous hundred-meter-wide white circle.

In utter silence, the white circle slowly faded away.

The terrace had long been destroyed, and the small building it was attached to was also in ruins from the fierce battle.

A disc-shaped crater, one hundred meters in diameter, had been carved into the ground around where the two had fought, formed in a single, fleeting moment.

The adjacent buildings had been sliced in half by the white circle. As if only now realizing their fate, they slowly tilted, fell, and crashed into the woods, snapping countless branches and leaves.

Some of the Martial Artists who couldn’t dodge in time were cut in half at the waist; others had their heads split in two. It was a gruesome sight.

COUGH COUGH COUGH...

Mukai Kei coughed violently as he staggered to his feet in the center of the crater.

He was drenched in blood, as if he had just crawled out of a blood pool, with only a pair of tattered shorts covering his lower body.

This was only because he’d managed to control the blast and prevent it from erupting from his vitals.

"He’s dead, right...?" Mukai Kei took a deep breath, feeling utterly drained. Fortunately, his Grandmaster-level body was already rapidly replenishing itself, weaving a web to draw in vast amounts of mysterious energy from the void.

He would be fully recovered in just a few minutes.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

A voice suddenly spoke softly from behind Mukai Kei.

Mukai Kei whipped around, trying to draw his sword, but it was too late.

In his current weakened state, he was no match for his opponent’s terrifying Sword Speed.

SWISH SWISH SWISH SWISH!!

In an instant, a flurry of sword light enveloped him. A hundred slashes, layered one on top of the other, rained down on the center of his chest, carving a path from his shoulder to his waist, right through his heart.

SPLURT!

Blood sprayed into the air.

After a hundred strikes, the skin, flesh, and bone over Mukai Kei’s heart were finally sliced open.

He stared in disbelief, hands gripping his sword, wanting to fight back, but he could no longer muster any strength.

His vision rapidly dimmed, then went black.

"Who... in the world... are you...?" He’d never imagined that even a Grandmaster’s ultimate attack couldn’t kill his opponent.

A Grandmaster was supposed to be on par with a Priest-level Summoner. But where a Priest’s killing techniques were terrifying and bizarre, a Grandmaster was supposed to be more well-rounded defensively, and thus safer.

And yet, even with that...

As his final thought faded, Mukai Kei was struck down, his body crashing heavily to the ground.

His life was extinguished.

Lin Hui stood straight, sword in hand, and wiped the blood from his face. That last spray of the man’s blood had been like a high-pressure jet, actually stinging when it hit him.

He was having some trouble internally as well. It was impossible for him to have escaped that last attack completely unscathed.

The move had been too powerful and too fast, forcing him to rely on his Special Effect, Wind of Surrounding, and his raw physical constitution to endure it.

Fortunately, the strength of Wind of Surrounding scaled with the intensity of the airflow he controlled.

That, combined with his full-power retreat to avoid a prolonged clash with the white ring, meant he had escaped with only minor injuries.

’As expected of a Grandmaster. Even in the New Martial Alliance, I bet only the Alliance Leader and his deputy are actual Grandmasters... According to my intel, the other Elders are usually just top-tier experts from the Circulation realm. Did I just hit the jackpot or what?’

Lin Hui didn’t know whether to be happy or just exasperated. His luck lately seemed to be consistently terrible.

He quickly moved to loot the corpse, but unfortunately, everything on the old geezer had been shredded to nothing by his final blast.

He glanced over and saw that Ding Chengying and Zhao Dong had already fled a great distance.

The other Martial Artists had scattered like birds.

In the face of a mysterious expert who could kill a Grandmaster, their numbers meant nothing. They would just be lambs to the slaughter.

Lin Hui thought for a moment but decided not to give chase. It was unlikely they were all Qinghe Sect Members, and right now, the priority was finding the Divine Statue.

Using his Body Technique, he ran in a circle to pinpoint the epicenter and quickly located the Divine Statue.

It was underground, beneath a training ground in the middle of the architectural complex.

He had no time to waste. He swung his sword, unleashing his Inner Strength, and hacked downward.

It was like cutting through tofu. Two strikes were all it took to carve out a huge underground cavity.

Sure enough, inside was another one of the multi-eyed, seated female Divine Statues.

He shattered the Divine Statue with a few strikes and left.

From killing Mukai Kei to finding and dealing with the Divine Statue, the entire process took less than three minutes.

It was more than ten minutes after he had left that a squad on giant black horses galloped over from the distance. The hulking figures of the Peacekeeping Army had finally arrived and began to investigate.