366: Chapter 366 One Punch Defeates the Enemy, the Powerful Man Spits Blood

It wasn't that the sky had fallen or that he had gone blind; it was the blankness of the moment his consciousness was forcibly ripped from his shell.

A buzzing exploded in his ears, like thousands of steel needles drilling into his brain through his ear canals. His internal organs were all displaced, a sweetness hit the back of his throat, and blood surged into his mouth.

"Cough—!"

A mouthful of scalding blood sprayed out, tracing three arcs in the air, torn into a mist by the high-speed friction of the airflow before it even hit the ground.

The edges of his robes had long since burned away, charred strips of cloth whipping wildly in the wind. His whole body was like a broken sack, tumbling downward.

The ground was getting closer and closer.

Ten meters, five meters, two meters—

"Boom!!!"

His back slammed heavily into the scorched earth, the impact making the entire ruins tremble three times.

Spiderweb-like cracks raced out dozens of feet from his body. Dust billowed into the sky, making him instinctively open his mouth to gasp, which brought another surge of blood that mixed with the dirt to coat half his face.

"Ugh... ah..." A sound like a broken bellows squeezed out of his throat. His fingers clawed into the ground, not even feeling the pain as his fingernails snapped.

He wanted to move, but the bones in his entire body felt as if they had been crushed and haphazardly pieced back together. Any exertion brought a crisp cracking sound, and the pain in his spine was particularly piercing—it was likely broken.

He gritted his teeth, propped his arms against the ground, pushed with his shoulders, and forced himself into a half-kneeling position at the bottom of the pit.

"Heh... heh..." He panted like a broken furnace, each breath in his chest feeling like a knife being pulled through.

He pressed his hand against the ground; his palm felt sticky. Looking down, he saw—a bloody handprint.

There was more than one.

Blood was still flowing from the corner of his mouth and seeping from his nostrils. His internal organs were shattered, his Dantian was convulsing, and even his Nascent Soul was wobbling in his Sea of Consciousness, nearly leaving his body.

"This... is impossible..." He looked up, his eyes bulging until blood vessels nearly burst. "A Mortal mecha... how could it... wound me?!"

High in the sky, that thirty-meter-tall hunk of iron still hovered. Its right fist was held high, yet to descend. Runes flashed with fading light layer by layer, hydraulic pipes emitted black smoke, and thrusters hissed—it was clearly on the verge of falling apart.

Yet it was this piece of scrap metal that had just delivered a punch that truly slammed into his Body-protecting Spiritual Light, smashed through seven layers of Psionic Shields, and left him unable to even stand steadily now.

"You... what kind of thing are you?" His voice trembled, not from fear of death, but because his worldview had collapsed. "A thousand years of cultivation, a Nascent Soul True Body, Physical Body Sanctification... by what right? By this pile of iron?!"

The mecha did not move.

Inside the cockpit, Chen Wuwang stared at the monitor screen, his pupils shimmering with blood-red spiritual patterns. His fingers were still tapping the edge of the control stick, one beat at a time, as if counting down.

"What did you say?" he suddenly spoke. His voice, transmitted through the Amplification Array, was as raspy as sandpaper on iron. "Louder? I can't hear you clearly."

The Powerhouse was stunned, then a surge of fury rose within him. "What are you acting crazy for?! Come down if you have the guts! Don't hide in that iron shell like a turtle shrinking into its house!"

"Come down?" Chen Wuwang grinned, bits of dry rations still stuck between his teeth. "You want me to come down? Weren't you flying quite well just now? What, now that you're flat on the ground, you want me to come down and keep you company?"

He slowly raised his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, locking onto the swaying figure below. "Didn't you ask me what kind of Powerhouse hides and dodges behind an iron shell?"

"Now I'm telling you—"

"I'm not dodging anymore."

"I've knocked you down with a single punch."

The Powerhouse's face turned ashen. He wanted to curse, but the words caught in his throat.

His hands trembled as he tried to form a hand seal, but as soon as spiritual energy surged from his Dantian, it immediately backflowed into his internal organs. Another mouthful of blood sprayed out, steaming hot as it splashed onto the scorched earth in front of him.

"What's happening..." He looked down at his hands. "My spiritual energy... is in chaos?"

His Meridians were severed in multiple places, and his spiritual energy circulation routes were completely destroyed. Forcing it would only result in a more severe backlash.

He tried three times, and each time resulted in more violent coughing of blood. In the end, he didn't even have the strength to lift his hand and could only kneel in the pit, looking up at the hovering mecha.

"This is impossible..." he murmured. "Below the Nascent Soul, all are ants... You, a Mortal, relying on a pile of scrap iron, can kill across ranks? This isn't cultivation... this is an Evil Path! This is sacrilege!"

"Sacrilege?" Chen Wuwang sneered. "You call this sacrilege? Then tell me, when you were throwing spheres from the sky to hit people, did that count as bullying children? When you formed seals and chanted incantations to wipe out my clansmen in one move, did that count as the strong bullying the weak?"

He controlled the mecha to slowly descend ten meters. Its right fist remained held high; although the energy was exhausted, the white flames remaining on the fist's surface were still crackling, its deterrent power undiminished.

"You have a Nascent Soul, spiritual energy, and the way to longevity." Chen Wuwang's voice dropped, becoming even colder.

"But you don't have the courage to land, the courage to fight face-to-face. You're afraid of death, so you hide high in the sky, using techniques like catapults."

"I am different."

"What I fear is not death."

"What I fear is my clansmen dying before my eyes while I can do nothing."

He paused, staring at the man in the pit. "So, I must win."

The Powerhouse's lips trembled. He wanted to retort, but he couldn't say a word.

He had fought all his life, sweeping through the Eastern Wasteland. How many Geniuses had turned to ash at his hands? How many Sects had been destroyed because of a single word from him?"

But today, for the first time, he had been knocked out of the sky, beaten until he knelt on the ground, without even the strength to stand up.

"You... who exactly are you?" His voice was raspy. "When did the Chen Family... produce a monster like you?"

"Monster?" Chen Wuwang laughed, the sound echoing from the cockpit, frenzied and ear-piercing. "Hahahahahaha—!"

After laughing, he said coldly, "I am not a monster."

"I am Chen Wuwang."

"Ninth-generation head of the Eastern Wasteland Chen Family."

"You messed with the wrong person."

The Powerhouse's eyes grew vacant as he looked at the mecha, at the high-held right fist, and at the white flames on the fist that had yet to go out. He suddenly felt—that was not iron, not machinery; it was heavenly punishment.

It was a heavenly punishment forged by a Mortal with steel and willpower.

"This is impossible..." he murmured again, his voice growing weaker. "A Mortal mecha... how could it suppress a Nascent Soul True Body... how could it..."

He lowered his head, looking at his blood-stained hands, then looked up again at the iron-gray figure a thousand meters up, suddenly feeling the absurdity of it all.

A thousand years of cultivation, Bloodline Awakening, Spiritual Root Body Tempering, Undergoing Tribulation to become a Nascent Soul...

In the end, defeated by a flying hunk of iron?

"I don't believe it..." He gritted his teeth, wanting to try forming a seal one more time, but as soon as his fingers moved, the spiritual energy inside his body surged like boiling water. Intense pain struck, his vision went black, and he nearly collapsed.

"Save it," Chen Wuwang's voice came from above. "Your Meridians are severed in seven places, your Dantian is convulsing, and your Nascent Soul is damaged. Move again, and you'll be completely crippled."

The Powerhouse said nothing, only staring fixedly at him, his gaze shifting from anger to resentment, and then to... fear.

Yes, fear.

He wasn't afraid of death, but he was afraid of losing.

Afraid of losing to an existence he didn't understand at all.

"You... what kind of methods did you use?" he finally asked, his voice almost pleading. "That punch... why was it so fast? So heavy? So... real?"

"Real?" Chen Wuwang scoffed. "You call this a 'method'? Let me tell you, it wasn't some secret technique or forbidden art."

"It was Super Mode."

"It was three hundred days and nights of tuning, improvements after seven explosions, and a final gamble built from data exchanged for the lives of countless clansmen."

"You ask me why it was fast?"

"Because I dared to f*cking charge forward even when the mecha was about to fall apart!"

"You ask me why it was heavy?"

"Because I poured every last drop of energy into that one punch!"

"You ask me why it was real?"

"Because this punch was delivered personally by me, Chen Wuwang!"

The Powerhouse froze.

The wind swept across the ruins, swirling up ashes that blew onto his face, mixing with blood and blurring his vision.

He raised his hand to wipe it, but halfway there, his hand fell back down dejectedly.

He had lost.

Completely and utterly lost to a "Mortal" he looked down upon.

"This is impossible..." his lips trembled, his voice barely audible. "How can... Technology... be stronger than cultivation..."

Chen Wuwang said nothing more.

The mecha hovered a thousand meters in the sky, its right fist not yet retracted, while alarms blared one after another inside the cockpit.

[Super Mode remaining time: 12 seconds...]

[Right arm structural integrity: 14%...]

[Core temperature too high, immediate shutdown recommended...]

"Recommend my ass," Chen Wuwang spat, wiping the sweat from his face. "If I shut it down, how the hell am I supposed to keep fighting?"

His eyes stared fixedly at the figure in the pit below, his finger resting on the control stick, ready to deliver a follow-up punch at any moment.

As long as the opponent dared to move.

As long as the opponent still wanted to struggle.

He would throw another punch.

Until this person was completely pinned down and could no longer get up.

The wind was very strong.

It blew the scorched earth into swirls and made the tattered flags flutter.

The Powerhouse knelt in the pit, half his body buried in ash, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto the scorched earth, where it was instantly absorbed.

He looked up at the hovering mecha, at the high-held right fist, and at the white flames on the fist that had yet to go out.

Suddenly he felt—

This punch hadn't just landed on his body.

It had landed on the face of the entire cultivation system.