Chapter 150: Pride
The silence that permeated the Divine Arena was no longer the silence of awe; it was the silence of a funeral for the ego of an entire generation.
Hundreds of millions of eyes were fixed on the small patch of white sand where the hierarchy of the world was being rewritten in real-time.
Shen Xinye stood amidst the small, smoking craters caused by Haoran’s imitation of her own technique.
She let out a soft, dry chuckle that was devoid of any humor, before she smiled wryly and stared at Haoran with a gaze that finally acknowledged the terrifying truth.
’This man...’ she thought, a chill tracing the length of her spine, ’is he even human? We’re all about the same age, in fact, he’s even younger, but how come the difference is so vast?’
That "trick"—the Sword Intent Bullet—was not just a whim, but it was a technique that had taken her almost a year of secluded meditation to master.
She had spent countless nights by the Needle-Point Falls, focusing her mind until her brain felt like it was bleeding, trying to condense the vast, unruly breadth of sword intent into a singular, kinetic point.
The concept came to be because she wanted a much faster and more effective way to utilize her sword intent other than using her sword to slash things, she wanted the lethality of a blade with the speed of thought.
Yet Shen Haoran... he was able to effectively use it after seeing it once!
He also hadn’t just copied it, he had even optimized the firing rate!
’Can I... really beat this guy?’ Shen Fei wondered, his heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs.
The pride that had been his armor for twenty years was starting to crumble, piece by jagged piece.
He looked at his shaking hands and then at the nonchalant figure of the Young Master and couldn’t help but wonder if he was actually just an ordinary person, and not a genius everyone claimed him to be.
Haoran began walking toward them again, his steps were slow, deliberate, and held a rhythmic pressure that seemed to vibrate through the very marrow of their bones.
The two of them immediately dropped into their highest fighting stances, their Qi erupting in desperate, colorful auras, but they made no attempt to initiate an attack.
They were like prey animals watching the slow approach of a winter storm.
"I heard that you, Shen Fei, and your cousin Shen Jian were always so loud about your plans to surpass the mainline," Haoran said, his voice cutting through the dry air like a silk ribbon as he smirked, his golden eyes locking onto the First Crown. "Is that right? You whispered in the banquet halls, you boasted in the training grounds. You spoke of ’new blood’ and ’outdated leadership.’"
Shen Fei flinched as if he had been physically struck, but he remained silent, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth threatened to shatter.
"I’m here to tell you... you’re dreaming," Haoran stated bluntly, his voice flat and devoid of malice, which made the insult ten times more devastating. "Why do you think the main line has managed to remain as the undisputed leader of the Shen Clan for a hundred thousand years? How, after so many eras, despite numerous attempts of countless ambitious branch families to overthrow us, have we remained in this position? Is it because of talent? Is it because of some inherent strength in our bones? Influence? No. The reason why we remain as strong as we are, and why we will always be above you, is because of our pride—a pride bordering on extreme, world-eating arrogance."
He paused, letting the weight of the words settle.
"The Shen Clan started due to their pride, and the main line maintained their position due to that same pride. We do not worship the past, but devour it to improve ourselves."
Haoran’s gaze swept over the arena, encompassing the history of the domain. "Countless years ago, the Cultivation technique of the main line was just an ordinary, nameless technique that a father passed on to his son, it was nothing special. But that son, who believed in his own talent more than the wisdom of his father, modified the technique to his own liking. Then, he passed it down to his own son, who in turn modified it further, believing that he himself was far superior to his predecessor. This continued for countless generations. Every successor believed they could do better, and so, the Myriad Dao Transformation Art came to be, becoming the extremely powerful, world-shaking cultivation technique it is today."
He looked back at the stunned Crowns. "We believe ourselves to be better than our ancestors. Unlike most people, who, if they receive something from their forefathers, began to treat it as if it’s a priceless, unchangeable treasure, not even trying to innovate or improve upon it."
This has been the case not just in the Shen Clan, but in the entire Cultivation world as a whole.
Whenever they found some ancient techniques in some ruins, or even if they receive techniques from their ancestors, they all treat it as perfect, as if those old men whom they respected cannot make mistakes.
Due to this, while Cultivators has grown stronger, their Cultivation technique simply cannot keep up, eventually causing them to stagnate and decline.
"But we’re different. We treat it as an insult if we didn’t create something better than some old men. Without caring about legacy or the ’sanctity’ of the past, we refine what they left behind, improving them, stripping away the flaws, all the way until we reach the top."
Haoran pointed his finger at them, the gesture now laden with the weight of a death sentence.
"No one genius, no matter how many ’Supreme Bones’ or ’Sacred Physiques’ they possess, can surpass that hundred thousand years of tireless, arrogant refinement."
At that moment, he fired.
A golden streak of Sword Intent hissed through the air.
But Shen Fei and Shen Xinye were ready.
They reacted with the frantic desperation of the cornered, jumping to the side with such force that the sand beneath them exploded.
However, the speed was too much to fully evade as Shen Xinye let out a sharp hiss of pain as the intent grazed her shoulder, carving a clean, cauterized furrow through her robe and skin, causing her to bleed a vibrant, crimson red.
She didn’t back down however, her silver eyes flared with a cold, desperate light as she reached into her storage ring and withdrew a white, slender sword—the masterpiece that Shen Cai had forged earlier.
The blade hummed with a high-frequency vibration, hungry for contact.
Shen Fei followed suit, his face contorted in a mask of grim determination as he took out a heavy, obsidian-tipped spear, also a product of the Artificer’s armory.
He planted his feet, and the ground for ten meters around him settled as if he were made of lead.
Then, without another word, without hesitation, they attacked.
They moved in perfect synchronization, the sword and the spear creating a pincer of lethal steel.
Haoran smirked, his silhouette blurring before he vanished from their line of sight, appearing instantly behind Shen Fei.
He coiled his power and delivered a devastating roundhouse kick aimed at the side of Shen Fei’s head.
*THUD.*
The impact sounded like a hammer striking a massive temple bell, but to Haoran’s surprise, Shen Fei only tilted his head by a few inches.
He didn’t even shake!
It was as if Haoran had kicked a solid mountain of compressed iron.
Haoran blinked, his mind processing the sensation instantly. ’Heavy! This isn’t just physical mass. If I’m not wrong, he also possesses a special physique related to the fundamental laws of gravity.’
"Earth Suppressing Sacred Physique," Shen Fei growled as he slowly turned his head, his eyes burning with a dark, tectonic power. "It’s a physique that gives me incredible weight to suppress the world. At this stage, my body is as dense as an iron mountain. Once it reaches a high level, I can distort time and space through sheer mass alone."
He grinned, his blood-stained teeth baring in a savage look of triumph. "Shen Haoran... I admit, you are indeed far more talented and stronger than I am. But, have you ever heard these words? Weight is power!"
He lunged with his spear, and although the strike wasn’t fast, but the momentum behind it was terrifying—it felt as if a mountain were about to collide with another mountain.
The air in front of the spear tip turned into a solid wall of pressure that threatened to crush Haoran’s chest before the blade even arrived.
Haoran retreated, his boots skidding across the sand, but then he stopped, and a sharp, brilliant light erupted from his legs as he activated a speed movement technique.
"Lightning Steps..." He lunged back toward Shen Fei, his body moving so fast he became a streak of golden light.
Then, he attack.
He didn’t use a weapon; he just used his bare fist.
*CRACK!*
Haoran’s fist met the obsidian spearhead, and the Rank 5 artifact shattered into a thousand useless fragments.
Even then, he didn’t stop there, and the punch continued forward, burying itself deep into Shen Fei’s chest, right over his heart.
The force of the impact was cataclysmic, as if it was the sound of two celestial bodies colliding in the void.
"Weight is power?" Haoran whispered, his face inches from Shen Fei’s. "Wrong! In the eyes of the Infinite... Speed is power! The more you accelerate, the more your mass becomes a burden!"
Shen Fei roared, his Earth Suppressing physique trying to anchor him to the planet, trying to resist the kinetic energy being pumped into his body.
But eventually, his physique couldn’t withstand the power behing Haoran’s fist and was pushed back with such velocity that he became a blur, his body carving a massive trench through the arena floor before he was thrown violently against the edge of the arena wall.
The reinforced stone shattered upon his impact, and the First Crown slumped into the rubble, his chest caved in, his eyes wide with a shock that would never fade.
Haoran stood in the center of the devastation, his fist still smoking from the friction, and turned his gaze toward the last woman standing.
"And then there was one," he said, the peach blossom petals finally settling in the wake of the storm.