21: Chapter 21 A Manifestation Before the People

Li Zhengyang carried Team Leader on his shoulder, jogging down the hillside, with Xing Feng stumbling along behind him.

His phone pinged.

Su Jin replied with a voice message: "The hide is intact, and the quality is excellent. Seven hundred thousand has been transferred, please check."

A notification of the deposit followed immediately: seven hundred thousand.

Li Zhengyang ran over three hundred meters, found a stone block, and set him down.

The roar of a Flood Lizard came from the direction of West Mountain behind them. Even separated by half a mountain, it still sounded chilling.

Xing Feng leaned against a rock, gasping for breath, his face sallow.

"We won't be able to outrun it." Li Zhengyang didn't look toward the mountain, but lowered his head to check his phone.

Bank balance: 700037.

He stared at this number. The broken bones in his left ribs were still grinding against his flesh; it hurt.

Seven hundred thousand. Seven thousand Blood Qi points. Added to his existing 25628, that made a total of 32628.

The threshold for the Martial Spirit Rank is 30000, and each grade requires 5000 Blood Qi points.

It was enough, and there were even over two thousand points left over.

Li Zhengyang didn't hesitate at all.

Top up, 700000, confirm.

[Top up successful!] [Top up amount: 700000] [Blood Qi points obtained: +7000] [Current Blood Qi points: 32628] [Threshold for Blood Qi points exceeded] [Realm breakthrough: Eighth Grade Great Martial Master → First Grade Martial Spirit!]

First Grade Martial Spirit.

The moment these four words popped up, the world changed.

Li Zhengyang's five senses expanded to an absurd range within a fraction of a second.

The sound of a grasshopper kicking its legs three hundred meters away, the vibration of groundwater flowing through rock layers five hundred meters away—it all flooded into his brain.

Blood Qi was no longer a liquid flowing through his meridians, but had permeated into every single cell.

His bones were reshaping. The three broken bones in his left ribs clicked and clacked, knitting together at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Within a few minutes, the injuries on his body were healed. The self-healing ability of the Martial Spirit Rank was absurd to this degree.

But the biggest change wasn't his body. It was his Battle Qi.

A Great Martial Master's Battle Qi is projected outward, with limited range and limited power.

A Martial Spirit's Battle Qi has already begun to resonate with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

As the textbooks say: A Martial Spirit practitioner can draw upon the power of heaven and earth for their own use.

In plain terms, when throwing a punch, you're not just using your own strength; you can also borrow the power of heaven and earth.

Li Zhengyang stood up and clenched his fists.

His bones no longer hurt, his ribs were intact, and every inch of muscle in his body was releasing surging power. He was like a different person compared to ten minutes ago.

Xing Feng sat on the ground, his expression fascinating.

He was a scout, and his perception was stronger than an ordinary martial artist.

The fluctuation of energy that had just erupted from Li Zhengyang nearly suffocated him.

"You just... broke through?" Xing Feng's voice was dry.

"Yeah."

"Martial Spirit?"

"Yeah."

Xing Feng opened his mouth, but swallowed the rest of his words.

He had watched with his own eyes as this young man in his early twenties crossed from the Great Martial Master realm into the Martial Spirit realm.

He had only ever seen such things in the genius profiles within the military's top-secret archives.

In the blink of an eye? Are you kidding me?

"Keep an eye on him for me, I'm going to take care of some business." Li Zhengyang picked up the mountain-piercing spear from the ground.

"Where are you going?" Xing Feng asked.

"To kill the Flood Lizard."

Xing Feng: "..."

He watched Li Zhengyang's back as he ran up the mountain with his spear, his mouth hanging open for a long time.

On the mountainside of West Mountain, the male Flood Lizard had gone mad.

It crawled out of its cave, sniffing all over the mountain, searching everywhere for the prey that had escaped.

The female Flood Lizard followed behind. Its molting wasn't finished yet, with half of its old armor still hanging off, and it was limping as it walked.

When the two Flood Lizards were meeting on a giant rock, the atmosphere changed.

The male Flood Lizard's vertical pupils constricted violently.

A sense of oppression, one it had never felt before, rose up from below the hillside.

The source of the oppression was a human.

Carrying a spear on his back, walking quickly, not hiding his aura, and not even making any combat preparations.

He was just walking straight over.

The male Flood Lizard instinctively sensed danger.

It lowered its head, letting out a hissing warning from its throat.

Li Zhengyang looked up at it.

An eight-meter-long body, covered in intact metallic scales—a Fourth Grade Demonic Beast whose tail had broken three of his ribs just a moment ago.

Half an hour ago, he would have had to run. Now, he didn't need to.

He took the mountain-piercing spear off his back, gripped the end of the shaft with one hand, and touched the spear tip to the ground.

He poured his Blood Qi into the spear shaft.

It was different from before. Previously, the Battle Qi would just cover the surface of the spear as a layer. Now, the Battle Qi permeated into the very structure of the weapon; the spear shaft itself was vibrating, emitting a low-frequency hum.

The male Flood Lizard didn't run. The pride of a Fourth Grade Demonic Beast wouldn't allow it to run.

It opened its maw, arched its entire body, pushed off the ground with its hind legs, and charged directly at him.

It was faster and fiercer than it had been in the cave.

Li Zhengyang met the charge. Startling Cloud Step.

His figure traced an arc in front of the male Flood Lizard.

The Flood Lizard's pounce and bite missed, its four legs gouging four deep marks into the rock.

Mountain-Splitting Spear Arts, Collapse Technique.

The spear cut in from the side, aiming at the side of the Flood Lizard's neck.

One strike. It pierced through.

With Martial Spirit Rank Blood Qi combined with the Xuan-rank spear technique, the spear tip drilled in through the gaps in the scales, shattered the cervical vertebrae, and pierced out the other side.

The male Flood Lizard's head lolled to the side.

It wasn't a tilt from injury; it was the tilt of a broken neck. The momentum of its ten-meter-long body charging forward was still there, but its head was now hanging by only a layer of skin and flesh.

Thud. The eight-hundred-plus-pound Flood Lizard corpse slammed into the ground, sliding four or five meters and snapping two trees.

The female Flood Lizard saw it. It let out a shrill wail, turned, and ran toward the cave.

In its molting period, with Third Grade combat power and old armor hanging off its body, it ran unsteadily.

Li Zhengyang pulled out his spear, shook off the blood, and stepped forward to pursue.

Twenty meters, ten meters, five meters.

Twist Technique.

He swung the spear horizontally, striking the female Flood Lizard's hind leg.

The leg broke, and the Flood Lizard flipped onto its side, struggling to crawl forward.

Li Zhengyang walked up to it and looked down at the demonic beast covered in fragments of old armor.

With one strike, he pierced into its skull. It was pinned dead to the ground.

Adding it all up, it took less than twenty seconds.

Two Flood Lizards, one male and one female, one Fourth Grade and one Third Grade. Both dead.

Li Zhengyang pulled out his spear and crouched down to dig out the beast cores.

The male Flood Lizard's beast core was the size of a fist, dark gold, and heavy in his hand.

A Fourth Grade beast core, the market price starts at two hundred thousand.

The female Flood Lizard had one too, a size smaller. He stuffed both beast cores into his space ring.

Just then, there was movement from below the hillside. Footsteps, and not just one person.

Li Zhengyang stood up, gripping his spear as he looked down.

Five people.

The leader was a short, stocky old man, around sixty years old, with a shaved head, wearing a greasy apron, and a foot-long boning knife tucked into his waist.

Behind him followed four thugs, each wielding weapons, all of them Great Martial Master rank.

The short, stocky old man was in the lead, walking with long strides. Just as he emerged from the woods, he looked up and stopped in his tracks.

A young man stood on the hillside, with the corpses of two Flood Lizards behind him.

One male, one female. The male's neck was broken, and the female's head had been pierced through.

The old man looked at the size of the corpses and the color of the scales. Fourth Grade.

He then looked at the young man standing by the corpses. Early twenties, wearing a dirty black T-shirt, holding a silver-white spear with the tip still dripping blood.

Diao San. Master Diao San, a ruthless man in the underground of the East City, a Fifth Grade Great Martial Master, who had taken a job from President Sun to hunt down Li Zhengyang.

He had brought four men, fully armed, and followed the clues provided by an informant to chase him to West Mountain.

He had intended to surround and ambush him, and finish the job cleanly. Then he saw this scene.

Diao San's mind turned quickly. "Retreat."

His voice was very low, and his body had already started to retreat.

The four thugs were confused, not yet understanding what was going on. One of them, quick-mouthed, said: "Master, isn't that kid just..."

"Shut up, let's go."

It was too late.

"You lot down there, what are you doing?" A voice drifted down from the hillside.

Xing Feng had snuck up at some point, leaning against a rock, holding up an ID with one hand. The badge of the Special Operations Battalion.

Diao San's face turned deathly pale.

Fighting and killing in the city was one thing, but running into the military was another.

The Special Operations Battalion was not under local jurisdiction; it was under the direct command of the Northern Border Military Region. If you offended this group, forget about your own gang; even President Sun's entire company would be wiped out.

"A misunderstanding!" Diao San retreated three steps, squeezing out a smile that looked worse than crying. "Just passing through to scout the area, sorry to disturb you, goodbye!"

He turned and ran. The four thugs chased after him, scrambling and stumbling.

Li Zhengyang watched them disappear into the woods and looked back at Xing Feng.

Xing Feng put the ID back in his pocket and shrugged.

"Aren't you going to ask who they were?"

"Not important." Li Zhengyang pulled out a short blade and started to dissect the male Flood Lizard's corpse. "What's important is how much valuable stuff I can strip from this thing."

Xing Feng was silent for a moment, then walked over to help flip the Flood Lizard's scales.

They worked for twenty minutes, dismantling everything that could be dismantled. The scales, tendons, and teeth of the Fourth Grade Flood Lizard were all good stuff, filling half of his space ring.

Team Leader woke up. Xing Feng explained the situation to him.

Team Leader sat on the ground, limping, looking at the pieces of Flood Lizard scattered all over the ground and the young man standing nearby wiping his blade, and remained silent for a long time.

"Young man, I am the Team Leader of the Special Operations Battalion's Third Team, Team Leader."

"Li Zhengyang."

"You killed it by yourself?" Team Leader looked at the severed neck of the male Flood Lizard.

"Yeah."

Team Leader exchanged a glance with Xing Feng.

"Li Zhengyang, do you want to join the military?"

Li Zhengyang was using his phone to do some calculations and didn't look up: "Is there money in it?"

"Have you ever looked into the policies of the Northern Border Military Region regarding martial artists?" Team Leader straightened his posture. "The Northern Border front line has constant Demonic Beast tides. Over there, it's distributed based on labor; the more Demonic Beasts you kill, the more money the military gives you. Although the prices aren't as high as outside, everything is settled on the spot."

Li Zhengyang's hand stopped.

"At a front-line garrison, the density of Demonic Beasts in the surrounding area is ten times that of West Mountain. Based on your speed today alone, your daily income wouldn't be less than several hundred thousand. If you're lucky enough to run into high-grade ones, what you earn in a week would top a year's worth in the interior."

Li Zhengyang slowly raised his head.

"How do I get to the Northern Border?"