The Favored Son of Heaven

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

The Bone Melting Palm, soft and weak on the outside but powerful and destructive on the inside! The victim of the palm might look to be without any injuries on the outside, except there will be a total dissolution of their bones in their bodies, hence the name of the palm technique.

As a current divine beast martial artist, there was almost no martial arts technique in the world unknown to Song Wendong. The moment the master shook his wrist to manipulate the air, he already knew of the follow-up technique. The Bone Melting Palm was terrifying not only for its long-lasting power but also for its striking speed. It might seem to be as slow as the flow of water, but those were just illusions of the palm. The actual strike of the Bone Melting Palm was as fast as lightning.

A low-pitched roar rolled out of Song Wendong’s throat, Steward Hou was shocked to the point that his chin was not far from being dislocated from dropping in awe. Two different figures faintly formed from the true energy spurted by Qilin as they converged on his palm at the same time.

“Four Spirits Palm!” Steward Hou couldn’t ever think of Song Wendong combining the venom of the snake, the durability of the turtle, and two other spirits to form the Four Spirits Palm! Song Wendong even cast two of the four spirits at the peak power of a fifteen-star!

Steward Hou knew naturally of the intention behind the Four Spirits Palm as he served Song Wendong for many years. The technique implied an intention of surpassing all four spirits as the Qilin.

Divine beast martial artists were all unruly; elite martial artists that wouldn’t admit that they were weaker than others. Steward Hou couldn’t confirm whether Song Wendong was really above other divine beast martial artists due to the lack of any duel between the Qilin and other divine beast martial artists. However, the aura emanating from the creation of the Four Spirits Palm had sent a strong message.

On the day that Song Wendong created this set of martial arts techniques, his initial plan was to have an ultimate martial arts technique at hand should he duel with another divine beast martial artist. He never thought that a fifteen-star could cast a Bone Melting palm. Song Wendong once again overcame the impossible, producing a Two Spirits Palm beyond anyone’s expectations.

The spectating martial dao masters looked at Song Wendong with shock and awe. A strike containing an overwhelming sense of power – light as sand, yet containing the venom of tens of thousands of vipers, complemented with a thick and heavy aura.

Song Wendong walked with the Qilin Movement Technique, his body was stable like a giant tortoise walking. Every step of his was seen clearly by everyone; his overwhelming force and aura sent a straightforward message to everyone that nothing could stand in his way.

His advance eventually collided with Master. The Qilin displayed the power of a martial dao grandmaster, striking the throat of Master and locking it.

The head could dodge by moving around with the neck. But the neck itself couldn’t really move!

Song Wendong had calculated everything. A punch to the throat, followed by a finger strike from his clenched fist! With the power of the Qilin’s fingers, it could destroy even a line of heavy mobile armor to a pulp.

Facing a strike that could destroy the peak of the Qilin Mountain, how could Master dodge the strike in a frenzied state? The Bone Melting Palm clenched into a fist, the fists and arms of Master shone transparently like an ice-like jade seemingly transforming into a glass. Blinding light expanded from his body like a charged fluorescent tube.

The Radiance Fist! Song Wendong’s heart jumped wildly. Another secret art displayed by this little boy with a flip of his palm! In his short stay at the Sacred Martial Hall, even if he went to the Sacred Martial Hall every day, how could he manage to learn such an amount of secret art? Furthermore, each of the secret arts has reached the peak stage of his star-class!

A counterattack! This was one of the prominent features of the Radiance Fist. Song Wendong saw the incoming punch and curved his arms, casting a barrier from his arms as strong as tortoise armor as his Four Spirits took the strike on the master’s fist.

The fist and elbow collided, and the surrounding Qilin Mountain began to collapse. The trees that grew on the mountain fell with the rolling dust from the mountains.

The two masters clashed in an instant. The spectators, most of whom were martial dao masters, couldn’t clearly see what just happened. They just saw figures moving among the blinding light. Only Song Zhenting and Steward Hou saw everything unfold clearly with visible admiration.

As both sides clashed, the master’s eyes displayed admiration and praise. As expected of a divine beast martial artist. Not only there was an amazing transformation in the elbows, but the aura shield activated within the boxing arms was also unexpected.

The master did not stop his electrifying footsteps, he left no traces on the ground but smoke in his path. Once again, he appeared in front of the Qilin and shook his shoulders, slamming his fist into the heart of Song Wendong.

With this rush, the arm pierced into the air and caused a pressurized explosion, causing tens of meters of air around them to be intensely pressurized. A huge air vacuum was formed in the process.

Incorporating the power of the aura shield, this moment was completely produced only by the master’s hand. A grand airflow could already change the air around his body without the release of true energy. With just a pressure formed by the fist, it was no inferior to the release of true energy by an ordinary martial dao master.

If the energy was converted into an aura shield, how strong would it be? Qin Fen got excited just by thinking about it. After entering the realm of masters, he felt that he had finally entered the real world of martial dao! The grand martial strength could even influence the power of the Federation. One could only feel the existence of such power only after they had entered the realm of masters.

Song Wendong was determined and unmoved.

In the face of Master’s Radiance Fist, Song Wendong showed no signs of shock on his face. His eyes were deep and watery as he opened his hands and clenched his fingers into a fist like five different peaks converging together. The aura shield entered his body and mixed with boiling blood in his blood vessels, creating a sound that overshadowed even the collapsing mountain.

The convergence of five fingers resembled the overlapping of five mountain peaks! In the next moment, the martial senses of Master suddenly felt that Song Wendong did not converge his five fingers, but rather, held the Qilin Mountain in his fists!

Steward Hou saw this scene and smiled. His master went from the initial slight disadvantage in the battle to the total disadvantage to Qin Fen’s blows. The divine beast, Qilin had almost never encountered such a battle.

At this moment, Song Wendong gathered the mountain spirits of the Qilin Mountain into his fists that held two spirits from the Four Spirits. The indomitable Qilin Mountain had witnessed countless seasons from spring to winter. His fists dove to the Radiance Fist, harnessing the tenderness of the spring breeze, the blaze of the summer heat, the austere of the autumn glaze, and the unforgiving cold of the winter winds. This was a punch that could withstand the collapse of the heavens.

“Good!” Master looked at the incoming power and aura of the mountains and rivers before suddenly taking a deep breath of air. Without a fall in the momentum of his fist, the fanaticism in his eyes was suddenly extinguished…

For a moment, the spectators, as well as Steward Hou and Song Zhenting felt a shroud of enveloping solitude. Solitude, the solitude borne from invincibility, and the solitude that hated the very invincibility that gave birth to it.

Being in the moment, Qin Fen felt the strong emotions contained in the punch of the master. His eyes began to turn watery, as he felt the solitude of being invincible. The feeling obviously did not belong to Master, yet it could invoke emotions of empathy from Qin Fen.

Song Jia’s beautiful eyes unknowingly turned watery and red. Her chest feeling the ferocious, painful, yet indescribable loneliness.

The eyes of Master were already devoid of his initial fanatical battle aura, emanating only the feeling of solitude from each of his pores. Master wasn’t the lonely one. The truly lonely person was instead another person, a master that had attained the level of heaven-breaker!

Invincibility might be glamorous and exciting in the eyes of outsiders, but only the invincible ones truly knew the curse of solitude that came along with their invincibility. Regardless of how invincible they were, none could resist the creeping solitude that eventually engulfs them. Therefore, heaven-breaking martial artists almost always embraced the solitude that awaited them at the end of their path in martial dao, lived with it, and died with it.

The master had studied every martial dao around the world. Although he didn’t possess the loneliness of invincibility from his strike unlike his ancestors, there was at least seventy to eighty percent of loneliness that could be felt from his fists. The face of the Qilin in the midst of battle became serious and dark. He felt an overwhelming sense of authority, with the ambition in his heart depressing along with the loneliness.

Solitude. Qin Fen and Qilin felt a similar sense of desolation of martial dao at the same moment. For a moment there was a resonance in their hearts. The feeling of solitude would eventually infect the nature around them, resonating with a similar feeling of solitude.

Solitude. The Qilin’s eyes bloomed with empathizing radiance. The power of his fists did not reduce, but rather sharply increased, as if the entirety of the Qilin Mountain had lifted off the ground, basking in the fist of solitude with the power of the mountains.

Both swift, staunch, and overbearing fists looked like a slow-motion replay for the spectators as both fists slammed together.

Boom…

The mountain peaks under the feet of the people fell quickly, and the peaks of the Qilin Mountain between the pair of bombs were no longer the slow collapse like before, but rather it was a rapid collapse in the blink of an eye.

Boulders rolled down, with trees getting blown out of the soil by the tremors. Everyone felt like they were standing on a bus that collided with something at high speed. The collision of the aura shield could be felt everywhere.

Master landed his blow, turning his fist into a palm strike as it passed over Qilin’s arm and slammed into Qilin’s throat. The solitude instantly transformed into the unforgiving shackles of winter. Song Wendong’s ankles spun and turned his body like a whirlwind to dodge the neck-breaking palm strike. His shoulders repositioned vertically like a spear and counterattacked, striking the master’s throat with a back-thrust.

Master’s eyes were hollow, his palm clenched into a fist on his chest and lifted to his throat, blocking the counterattack as Qilin aimed towards his throat. His hollow eyes flashed a glimpse of creepiness as he repositioned against Qilin to guard his vulnerable crotch.

This is? Song Wendong was shocked and repositioned himself. The master’s wretched eyes suddenly contained an ever-increasing killing intent, his arms and muscles moving like a dagger, striking towards Qilin’s heart.

The martial dao of slaughter, the Heart Excising Hand! Song Wendong stretched his arms like a spear, keeping his opponent at bay. Both men exchanged blows on the collapsing peak of the Qilin Mountain as dust and gravel enveloped around the collapsing Qilin peak.

Direct clash, preemptive strike! The whole peak of the Qilin Mountain was destroyed by the fight between the two men. The martial dao masters and grandmasters that came to spectate were shocked. This might be a battle between fifteen-stars, but it was actually a battle of the ages between the foundations of martial dao. The spectators were glad that they were able to witness this battle, which will greatly benefit their growth in martial dao in the future.

“Just by watching the fierce battle of fifteen-star levels, you can improve your speed in the advancement of martial dao…”

Everyone thought of this as ridiculous. Especially for both of the constellation warriors with bitterness in their mouths. They were thinking in their hearts: What the hell does that mean?

The faint melancholic smile displayed by Steward Hou was like a crossroad blocked by thousands of cars. Although both sides were fighting relentlessly right now and the Qilin seemed to be faring better than earlier, he had never regained his initial advantage.

The Qilin might be attacking right now, but it had been forced to the point where it was almost fully suppressed. If he couldn’t even launch an attack, that would be the moment of his defeat.

Will Qilin be defeated? Steward Hou and Song Zhenting never thought about this possibility. Even if the mysterious Qinglong rose rapidly against the sky, both of them would never have thought of the Earth Martial God, the Qilin Song Wendong would suffer a defeat.

Three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes… thirteen minutes… fourteen minutes and fifty seconds… fifty-one seconds… fifty-three…

Hashimoto looked at the destroyed battlefield in a daze, his body fat jumping in excitement. He felt that even if he was killed for violating the Qilin’s orders, it was all worth it in the end for witnessing such a battle!

“Final strike!”

Suddenly, the Qilin saw the accurate information from Master’s eyes, sublimating his aloof boxing intent into as a display of the mighty Investiture of the Gods bloomed from the master’s hand. Song Wendong took a deep breath as the scales continued to grow across his skin. His compressed, curved spine once again rose up with thunderous cracks from his joints, giving the impression that his body was filled with explosives.

The aura shield rattled the bones as it entered the body. The moment the rattling sounds reached its peak, the black skin began to transform. Muscles began to expand a little, with the skin-transforming into a golden yellow color, shining radiantly.

Another breakthrough! This is the difference between divine beast martial artists and ordinary martial artists. He had a solid foundation that was unimaginable to ordinary people. Under special circumstances, there were possibilities of breakthroughs. However, such opportunities could only appear under the right circumstances: the right place, the right time, the right battlefield atmosphere, and the right opponent.

A saber-like aura visible to the naked eye shot out from Qilin’s mouth. The shout pierced through mountains and rivers, displaying the majesty of the Qilin. Yet the shout showed a hint of loneliness, adding more spirituality to the Four Spirits!

The master doesn’t seem to have noticed that the boxing momentum of the Qilin had started, with his electrifying footsteps transforming into a thunderous one! The electric footsteps might be fast, but it lacked the majestic force of the thunder step!

Not yet in contact, Song Wendong already felt the power of Master’s Investiture of the Gods. The four spirits showed signs of collapse even before touching. Even the air around the Golden Palm was seemingly sucked dry by the Investiture of the Gods, as if the air was squeezed out from the lungs of a person.

Wonderful! Song Wendong was surprised. Did Qin Fen have an instinctual breakthrough again? This strike is much stronger than his previous strikes.

Master stepped towards the Qilin. The target of the Investiture of the Gods was crystal clear, as it locked on to the face of Song Wendong.

The strike wasn’t an unexpected one. Master had given Song Wendong enough time to prepare the strike. If he chose to dodge instead of parry, then he wasn’t the Qilin that everyone knew.

Heyah! Hooh! Hah!

Song Wendong also raised his arms hidden behind his waist, crossing his arms together like the horns of the Qilin beast, completely blocking Master’s Investiture of the Gods.

At the moment of contact with the fist, Song Wendong felt that Qin Fen’s fist was unparalleled which flowed fiercely like the Yellow River. The aura of loneliness had long disappeared, but the taste of invincibility from the loneliness remained. He felt as if he was standing in a space of the universe, facing the incoming onslaught of the Milky Way.

The peak of the Qilin Mountain seemed like a building that was violently blown up and quickly collapsed. Stones with the size of human heads splashed in the dusty soil. The Investiture of the Gods drove straight into the Qilin Horn after the impact, aiming for Song Wendong’s head.

Song Jia subconsciously closed her eyes and didn’t want to see what happened next. After waiting for a second, she noticed that the roar of the fierce battle had weakened all of a sudden. She curiously opened her eyes and looked to the center of the battlefield.

Qin Fen’s fist drove straight into Qilin’s horn, stopping only two inches in front of Song Wendong’s chest! Although his body remained still, his eyes were devoid of battle intent. The vital qi of a fifteen-star level disappeared without a trace.

Fifteen minutes! Just right on time! At the final moment, the master relieved his control of Qin Fen’s body. The uncontrolled body suddenly showed signs of syncope, as Song Wendong blankly stood at the same place.

Everyone around looked at the abruptly halted battle shockingly. How did the intense battle with majestic fists come to a halt all of a sudden? Could it be Qin Fen had already exhausted his vital qi? Impossible! He was still alive and kicking before, how could he run out of vital qi all of a sudden?

Song Wendong thought of the initial words of Qin Fen in his mind: fifteen minutes.

Song Wendong recalled that fifteen minutes had passed without exceeding even half a second since Qin Fen woke up.

Carefully recollecting what he said, Song Wendong suddenly remembered that Qin Fen had said something before the end of the battle. However, Song Wendong ignored it as he was casting the Mighty Investiture of the Gods.

“Now that I think about it…” Song Wendong fell into deep thought, suddenly recalling the melodic words of Qin Fen, “Fifteen minutes is too short… too short… but it’s okay. I am very happy…”

Happy? Fifteen minutes? Song Wendong looked at Qin Fen, who had passed out on the ground. Puzzled, Song Wendong looked at Steward Hou who was awaiting nearby and said, “Take him along and follow me.”

For a moment, Song Wendong disappeared from the peak of the collapsing Qilin Mountain. Steward Hou also disappeared from the fractured mountain after carrying the fainted Qin Fen.

“Father…”

“My little girl, if you want to see your sweetheart, you have to be patient.” Song Zhenting caressed his daughter, Song Jia’s long hair, “We need to wait a little longer.”

The extremely ferocious battle was suddenly over, leaving its spectators with an indescribable empty feeling as they left the collapsing peak of the Qilin Mountain.

Although the intense battle of today ended in an anticlimactic halt, it nevertheless gave everyone numerous inspiring enlightenment. Hashimoto shook his fat body and flew down the Qilin Mountain happily.

Just from hastily rushing up the Qilin Mountain, he had witnessed an intense battle of the ages! Hashimoto realized that ever since he met Qin Fen, his path of martial dao that had long been stagnant was reactivated once again.

The previous battle of Hallasan had given him a lot of enlightenment. By witnessing the battle at the Qilin Mountain today featuring Song Wendong, Hashimoto was confident he’d improve his star-level and martial dao significantly.