The Samsara Jade

Chapter 45

The Sect Leader shivered. He nodded slowly and stepped off the stage. 

The old referee, shaking with fear, walked back to the center of the arena. He cleared his throat loudly. 

"The Semi-Final match will now begin!" the referee announced. "Li Chen... versus Meng!"

The crowd suddenly erupted into loud, excited cheers again. 

"Meng! It is Iron-Mountain Meng!"

"He is a top-3 disciple! He is at the peak of the 5th Level!"

"Meng has the absolute best defense in the entire Outer Sect! Even Inner Sect disciples have trouble breaking his shield!"

From the other side of the arena, a giant figure walked slowly up the stone steps. 

It was Meng. 

He was incredibly tall and wide, built like a walking fortress. He wore heavy, thick brown armor made of special magical leather. His face was square and hard. He carried no weapon. His body was his weapon. 

Meng stepped onto the broken, melted stone of the stage. He looked at the spot where Li Chen had just eaten Zhao Feng’s fire. 

Meng did not look scared. He looked extremely arrogant. 

"You got very lucky against Zhao Feng," Meng said in a deep, booming voice. He crossed his massive arms over his chest. "Zhao Feng’s demonic fire was unstable. Fire is wild and hard to control. It burned out before it could hurt you. But my magic is different, Li Chen. My magic is absolute."

Li Chen stood thirty feet away, his hands resting casually in his coat pockets. He did not say a word. 

"I am the Immovable Mountain!" Meng boasted loudly to the cheering crowd. "I have perfected the Impenetrable Earth-Shield technique! It is a supreme defensive art. My feet are rooted in the deep earth. As long as I stand on the ground, the mountain protects me. Your physical punches might have broken Gao's cheap rock armor, but you will only break your own hands against my shield!"

"Are you done talking?" Li Chen asked quietly. 

Meng frowned angrily. "You arrogant cripple! I will let you hit me! I will stand right here, and I will let you break your iron skin against my absolute defense!"

"Begin!" the referee shouted, instantly running off the stage. 

Meng stomped his heavy boots onto the stone floor. 

"Impenetrable Earth-Shield!" Meng roared. 

A massive, blinding yellow light exploded from Meng's body. The ground beneath the stage shook violently. Thick, heavy lines of magical earth Qi rushed up from the stone floor, swirling around Meng like a golden tornado. 

In three seconds, the yellow Qi solidified. 

A giant, perfectly round dome of compressed brown earth formed around Meng. It was completely different from Gao's armor. This was a magical forcefield. The dome was ten feet wide and incredibly thick. It looked like it was made of solid diamond. On the surface of the brown dome, dozens of bright yellow magical runes glowed brightly, locking the shield into place. 

Meng stood safely inside the glowing dome, smiling a cruel, confident smile. 

"Come on!" Meng shouted from inside the shield. His voice was muffled by the thick magical wall. "Try to punch this, One-Punch Demon! Show me your strength!"

The crowd watched closely. They had seen Li Chen defeat every opponent with pure physical strength. But Meng’s shield was legendary. It was known to withstand the attacks of magical beasts and powerful swordsmen. How could a bare fist break a magical forcefield?

Li Chen stood perfectly still. 

He looked at the glowing brown shield. He could feel the heavy, compressed earth magic flowing through it. If he used only his physical Void-Iron strength, he would probably have to punch it five or six times to break it. 

But Li Chen did not want to waste time. He did not want to punch five times. He wanted to finish this instantly, so he could get to Zhao Feng. 

"Old Kui told me to hide my dark Qi," Li Chen thought to himself. "If I unleash the full Devouring Art, the Inner Sect Elders will sense the demonic void and hunt me down. But... if I use just a tiny fraction of it, focused purely on offense, they will only see destruction."

Li Chen slowly pulled his right hand out of his pocket. 

For the very first time in the tournament, Li Chen decided to infuse his magical Qi into his physical body. 

He reached into his dantian. He did not open the roaring vortex. He simply took a single, tiny drop of the liquid dark Qi. 

He pushed that tiny fraction of dark Qi up through his arm and into his right hand. 

Suddenly, a faint, pitch-black light coated Li Chen’s knuckles. It was not bright or flashy like the other disciples' magic. It did not glow. It did exactly the opposite. The dark light on his knuckles seemed to eat the sunlight around it. It looked like a tiny, terrifying hole in reality itself. 

No one in the crowd noticed the faint black light. It was too subtle. 

But Elder Zhao, watching from the healing tent, suddenly felt a terrible chill run down his spine. 

Li Chen stepped forward. He did not run. He walked slowly, calmly, directly up to the massive, glowing brown dome of the Earth-Shield. 

Meng laughed from inside. "Yes! Hit it! Break your arm!"

Li Chen pulled his right fist back. 

He did not use a fancy martial arts stance. He just threw a straight, simple punch directly at the center of the glowing magical runes. 

THOOM! 

The sound was not a sharp crack or a loud bang. It was a deep, terrifying, hollow sound. It sounded like the beating of a giant, ancient heart. 

The moment Li Chen’s dark-infused knuckles touched the Impenetrable Earth-Shield, the absolute destruction began. 

The tiny fraction of dark Qi on Li Chen’s fist activated the Heavenly Void Devouring Art on a micro-scale. It did not just hit the shield; it ate the kinetic energy and the magic instantly. 

The thick, diamond-hard earth dome turned completely grey. The glowing yellow runes flickered and died. 

Then, the entire shield shattered into a billion pieces of fine, grey dust. 

The crowd gasped. The legendary shield had been broken in a single hit! 

But the attack was not over.