Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Extreme Amplification

He glanced down at his pant legs, which had been scorched clean off.

The next instant, he drew a sharp breath as his Strength surged. His Yanling Saber suddenly slashed horizontally seven times, weaving a silver net of Saber Qi before Xu Yunfan.

But the hexagonal crystal format of the Heart Protection Mirror on his Dragon Scale Armor suddenly glowed crimson. The inverted scales on his chest flipped outward forty-five degrees, deflecting the Saber Qi off their angled surfaces and toward Chu Mo.

"A true Divine Weapon!!"

Chu Mo, standing to the side, was overjoyed. It was obvious now that the form-fitting scale armor Xu Yunfan wore was the true heritage of Divine Weapon Ridge.

Yuwen Chengji, also standing nearby, was even more agitated, his eyes locked on the scales of the armor as they constantly opened and closed with Xu Yunfan’s every move.

This kind of form-fitting Alien Armor was exceedingly rare. It could be completely concealed beneath a set of robes.

"Bring it on!"

Chu Mo sneered, whipping his Nine-Section Whip so hard its steel tip cracked like thunder three times.

But in that split second, Xu Yunfan adjusted his breathing three times.

His Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body allowed the gaps between his ribs to expand by half an inch, letting his chest cavity instantly draw in twice the normal amount of air.

When the Steel Whip struck the pauldron of his Dragon Scale Armor, the Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength he had accumulated suddenly erupted!

CLANG!

The Nine-Section Whip recoiled like a venomous snake striking an anvil. A force even he could barely handle shot up the weapon. The webbing of Chu Mo’s thumb split open, staining his fingers crimson.

He stared in disbelief at the dent in the fifteenth steel ring of the whip. Xu Yunfan had somehow used a shockwave generated by shifting his shoulder blades to channel the force of the blow into the ground.

The bluestone ground spiderwebbed with cracks for seven feet, and a wave of molten heat erupted from the fissures.

Xu Yunfan had now entered the peak of his Linn Character State. Having reached the Minor Achievement Realm with his Linn Character Technique, he now possessed a level of self-control far surpassing the entry level.

He condensed every ounce of power within him, allowing none to escape. With every tremor of his muscles, he constantly pushed his strength to new heights.

Moreover, with every breath he took, a few motes of Primordial Spirit Qi from the air entered through his nostrils, continuously nourishing his body.

In his Super Sensing State, he could clearly see the trajectory of the tremors in Qin Lie’s right deltoid fibers and could hear the faint sound of the fascia in Chu Mo’s arch stretching.

By now, Qin Lie had already charged to his side, saber in hand. Xu Yunfan’s Thunderfire Qilin Hammer suddenly swept out horizontally. Fueled to its absolute limit by his Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength, the hammer’s head blazed with intertwined Thunder and Fire, and the air cracked with a terrifying, thunderous boom.

The moment the Armor-Piercing Awl at the end of the hammer’s handle caught the spine of Qin Lie’s saber, Xu Yunfan’s hips suddenly twisted one hundred and eighty degrees.

His Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body fully activated. His spine shifted outward three inches like tectonic plates, and the contours of his back muscles became visible through the rippling plates of his Dragon Scale Armor.

Qin Lie felt a monumental force, like a collapsing mountain and a raging tsunami, travel up from his saber’s hilt. His Yanling Saber was bent into a vicious arc.

Chu Mo seized the opening, lashing his whip toward Xu Yunfan’s throat. The steel spike at the tip of the Nine-Section Whip aimed straight for his Tiantu Acupoint.

But thirty-six Crescent Scales suddenly shot out from the gorget of his Dragon Scale Armor. The moment the whip’s tip touched them, sparks flew.

For a moment, the entire battlefield fell silent. Qin Lie and Chu Mo both retreated several steps, staring with a mixture of shock and uncertainty at the composed Xu Yunfan standing before them.

"How is that possible?!"

Chu Mo’s face was twisted in a grimace. He could clearly sense from Xu Yunfan’s Martial Dao aura that the man was only in the Flesh Refining Realm. Even if his vitality was absurdly potent for his level, his Horizontal Training Body defied logic, and he was wearing Divine Armor, it still wasn’t enough to explain how the two of them were being so utterly overwhelmed.

Xu Yunfan straightened up and slowly let out a breath.

"Testing complete."

His expression was placid. After speaking these two words, he set down his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer, his hand reaching for the Profound Steel Mechanism Box slung across his back.

Seeing this, Zhan Yan, who was standing nearby, silently retreated to a corner.

Back in Divine Weapon Valley, the power unleashed by the Divine Gilded Mace had been truly astonishing.

He flicked the latch. The Profound Steel Mechanism Box opened with a crisp sound, like jade striking gold. At the same instant, a sharp crack, like metal on stone, sounded from Xu Yunfan’s shoulder blades.

The Gilded Mace was not yet fully drawn. Only its Dragon Swallowing Mouth had emerged from the Mechanical Box, yet a torrent of molten fire was already spewing from the seams of its sheath. This visible energy blanketed the ground in a hundred-foot radius, which began to crack and splinter.

"Another Divine Weapon?!!"

Qin Lie and Chu Mo’s hearts and spirits trembled violently. Words caught in their throats, unable to escape.

A mere Flesh Refining Realm cultivator, yet he possessed two Divine Weapons. And from the fluid ease with which he wielded them, he was clearly under no strain at all.

It seemed both Divine Weapons had accepted him as their master, allowing him to unleash their ultimate power.

He suddenly remembered the mountain in Divine Weapon Valley—the one with its top half sheared off. There had been a fresh, piercing hole running right through its center.

Nearby, Yuwen Chengji could no longer maintain the composure of a noble scion. His face was a mask of pure envy.

He subconsciously touched the Longsword at his waist.

He was Yuwen Chengji, the second Crown Prince of the Northern Garrison Mansion in Daqian’s Northern Territory. He had been doted on his entire life, swallowing Spiritual Elixir Pills like candy.

Yet to this day, his most prized possession was the Treasure Level Longsword bestowed upon him by the Emperor of Daqian.

And yet here was Xu Yunfan, who, to say nothing of the Divine Armor he wore, also wielded a weapon of the Divine Weapon class.

Chu Mo’s pupils shrank violently.

He could clearly see the small plates of the Dragon Scale Armor on Xu Yunfan’s forearm begin to squirm. The muscles beneath twitched and spasmed, twisting into the shape of coiling pythons. Following the movement of those gnarled muscle fibers, the armor plates writhed as if they were alive.

This was the "Blood Python Entwined Tendons," an Anomaly that should only manifest in the Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm, yet here it was, appearing on a Martial Artist from the Flesh Refining Realm.

"Fall back!"

Qin Lie’s bellow carried a tremor like grinding metal. As he thrust his saber, he channeled his Strength, and its edge flared with a three-foot-long blade of light.

But the hum of the Gilded Mace being drawn was faster. The sound was like millions of hornets beating their wings, and at the same time, like a red-hot iron rod being plunged into ice water.

Xu Yunfan flicked his right wrist, and the Gilded Mace left nine afterimages in the air.

The first afterimage struck Chu Mo’s Nine-Section Whip. The contact seemed impossibly light, yet the whip, forged from red iron, shattered completely.

The Spiral Force of the Nine Profound Dragon-Defying Mace Technique traveled through the weapon and drilled straight into his bone marrow, causing Chu Mo’s expression to change drastically.

SNAP!

The next afterimage slammed into Chu Mo. His right arm instantly exploded in seven bloody geysers as his glistening white ulna burst through the skin.

As he staggered backward, Xu Yunfan took his third step.

The flowing fire on the surface of the Gilded Mace suddenly solidified. Carried by the signature spiral airflow of the Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength, it churned the air in a thirty-foot radius into a vortex of Thunder and Fire.

Qin Lie’s Saber Qi struck the edge of the vortex, only to be repelled as if it had struck a living thing.

The Bone Marrow Cleansing Realm Grandmaster’s expression finally changed. The Strength he had infused into his saber was being neutralized, layer by layer, by the nine-stacked shockwaves within the vortex.

Such was the power of the Gilded Mace!

The Gilded Mace suddenly switched from a vertical to a horizontal orientation, its body trailing a brilliant stream of fire. Its searing aura was accompanied by the roar of a Flood Dragon.

The moment Chu Mo’s barely-raised left arm touched the blazing aura erupting from the Gilded Mace, his entire arm twisted and shattered as if it had been shoved into a stone mill.

Before the bone fragments could even hit the ground, they were incinerated into black dust by the molten fire. The process of Washing Marrow was meant to further strengthen the bones, a stage where marrow produces blood and vitality flourishes—yet the mace’s fire had seared it all to ash.