A ripple of murmurs spread through the Grand Arena. The Heretic, the monster who had shattered a Qi sword with his fist, had been stopped cold. His own overwhelming power had been turned against him. On the Celestial Mirror, Bu He stared at his bruised knuckles, then at the serene, unmovable figure of Wu Wei.
"Your path is consumption," the monk's calm voice echoed. "But a vortex cannot swallow a mountain. Surrender."
Bu He tried again. A swift kick aimed at the monk's side. A feint followed by a palm strike. An explosive burst of movement to attack from the flank. Each time, the result was the same. His attack would meet that invisible, shimmering barrier of the Diamond Body, and the force would be perfectly reflected, sending a jolt of pain back into his own body.
"It's useless," a sect elder muttered from the dais. "The Adamantine Temple's defensive arts are absolute. The boy has met his match."
On the sidelines, his team watched with growing dread. "What's he doing?" Ci Ying whispered, her hands clenched. "He's just hurting himself!"
Jian Ming's brush was frozen over his notebook. There was no pattern to analyze, no weakness to exploit. The defense was perfect.
But in that moment of repeated failure, Bu He remembered. He remembered the lessons of the Vein-Heart Cave. He remembered Elder Bao's words. 'Your path is not one of elegance. It is one of endurance. It is a crucible of pain.' He had been trying to fight like a Qi cultivator, seeking a single, decisive blow. But that was not his way. His way… was pain.
A strange, mad light entered his eyes. He took a deep breath, and he stopped using techniques.
He just started punching.
THUD.
The first punch struck the invisible barrier, and the force sent a painful shock up his arm.
THUD.
The second. His knuckles began to bleed.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
He continued in a relentless, monotonous, and brutal rhythm, hammering his fists against the Diamond Body field. It no longer looked like a fight. It looked like a prisoner, desperately and foolishly, trying to punch his way through the wall of his cell.
"Has he lost his mind?" someone in the crowd yelled. "He's just destroying his own hands!" Even Xue Feng, watching from the stands, looked on with bewilderment. This wasn't an honorable duel; it was madness.
"What is he doing?" Ci Ying asked Bao, her voice filled with panic.
But Elder Bao was now leaning forward, and for the first time that day, his eyes shone with that familiar, manic gleam of a scientist witnessing a breakthrough. "He understands," Bao whispered. "The foolish boy... he finally understands."
Bu He's fists were a bloody mess. Each impact sent a wave of agony through his bones. But each impact was also a gift. With every Leyna Breath, he pulled that torture directly into his Blood Core. He wasn't trying to break the wall. He was stoking his own internal furnace with every blow the wall dealt back to him.
The hundredth blow. For the first time, a change appeared on Wu Wei's serene face. A single bead of sweat trickled down his temple. The Diamond Body technique was perfect, but it was not infinite. Reflecting every blow required an immense amount of mental focus and a constant expenditure of Qi.
The two-hundredth blow. Bu He's arms were covered in blood, but the wounds were closing with a faint, crimson steam. His body was becoming a furnace. Wu Wei's breathing was no longer perfectly calm.
The five-hundredth blow. The arena was filled only with that monotonous, sickening sound of flesh and spirit colliding. The crowd was silent, witnesses to a battle of wills so extreme it defied comprehension. Bu He no longer felt the pain. He only felt the pure, crimson power churning in his core. The invisible field around Wu Wei was no longer stable. It had begun to flicker. The mountain was eroding.
At the one-thousandth blow, something new happened.
CRACK.
A sound like a hairline fracture in a sheet of glass echoed across the arena.
Wu Wei's eyes shot open in shock. On his Diamond Body field, at the exact point Bu He had been striking for an eternity, a microscopic crack had formed.
This was the moment Bu He had been waiting for.
He stopped punching.
Slowly, he raised his bloody, broken hand and placed his open palm over the invisible crack.
He didn't push.
He pulled.
With all his will, he unleashed the ravenous, vortical hunger of his Blood Core. This was not an attack. It was an act of consumption. Instead of projecting Leyna, he began to devour the energy of the Diamond Body shield itself.
The perfect, balanced field had been designed to reflect any force. But it had no defense against being eaten. This was a move that was not in its rulebook.
KRAAAAAACK!
The Celestial Mirror shattered. The sound of a thousand mirrors breaking at once deafened the arena. Wu Wei, his spiritual shield gone for the first time in his life, staggered backward, his face pale with shock and exhaustion. His Qi was depleted.
Bu He stood before him. His body was steaming, and his eyes glowed with that calm, crimson light. He raised a final, bloody fist for the finishing blow. The crowd held its breath.
But Bu He stopped, his fist hovering an inch from Wu Wei's face.
Wu Wei, exhausted, looked at him. And then, the unmovable monk slowly bowed his head. It was not a bow of defeat, but of respect.
"The path… is yours," he whispered.
And with his spiritual energy completely spent, he quietly collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Bu He had won.
He looked across the arena to the dais, to the Thousand-Year Frost Lotus that was waiting for him. But as he took a single step, the price of a thousand reflected blows, of that final, massive surge of power, came crashing down upon him like a mountain. His legs could no longer support him. His vision went dark, and the last thing he heard as the crystal floor of the Celestial Mirror rose to swallow him were the panicked cries of Ci Ying and Jian Ming.