The gods in Jade Capital City were all shaken, turning to look at Quinn Shepherd. "He's the Overlord Body the Grand Celestial Teacher spoke of? Wasn't the Overlord Body supposed to be the Everpeace Imperial Preceptor?"
In that fleeting instant, Quinn's thousand arms collapsed into six, all his divine arts merging in a flash to become six streams of palm force, meeting Hugh No-Return's 'Wind Shakes Pines, Roars Through the Valley' head-on.
Thousand Peaks Beyond Heaven, Returning Palms.
This was his martial-Dao divine art.
Hugh No-Return's 'Wind Shakes Pines, Roars Through the Valley'—his fist intent was like the wind, his body like a pine. A thousand pines formed a forest, and when he struck, his divine art erupted, his body surging like wind through pines, and its power crashed down like an avalanche shaking the valley.
Quinn's move, on the other hand, fused all the body-based battle skill schools he had learned into one. The thousand arms and thousand palms from before were all to integrate these various divine arts and techniques.
The combat skills of Grandpa Mark, the Butcher, Grandpa Blind, successive Human Emperors, and others became strange peaks in his hands. Each fist intent was different, and their integration became the 'Thousand Peaks Beyond Heaven, Returning Palms.'
This divine art was meant to display the unique grandeur of each strange peak.
Behind him, the Spirit Embryo, Five Luminaries, Six Directions, and Heaven-Man divine treasuries manifested. Strangely, not only was the Seven Stars Treasury missing, but beneath these treasuries, another set of Spirit Embryo, Five Luminaries, Six Directions, and Heaven-Man divine treasuries appeared, mirroring the first!
The upper layer was the god-path; the lower, the demon-path.
God and demon, mirroring each other, united in one body.
Only now did the thirty-six war-gods in Jade Capital City understand why Quinn Shepherd, at the Heaven-Man Realm, could stand against Hugh No-Return's martial-Dao great divine art.
Hugh No-Return was at the Life-and-Death Realm, and had cultivated it to perfection. Because everyone in War-Ox Realm is trapped at Life-and-Death, unable to advance, the martial artists there have pushed each realm to its absolute limit.
Hugh No-Return was the very best among them.
It could be said that, in the Life-and-Death Realm, no one had deeper cultivation than he did.
Yet when Quinn Shepherd fought him, they were evenly matched. This meant Quinn, though only at the Heaven-Man Realm, had a cultivation nearly equal to Hugh's.
The thirty-six war-gods saw Quinn's divine treasuries and finally understood the reason for his extraordinary depth of cultivation.
God and demon cultivated together, each with a matching set of divine treasuries—such an existence had never appeared before in history.
"He truly is the Overlord Body—the Grand Celestial Teacher didn't lie!" The thirty-six war-gods thought, awestruck.
When the Woodcutter Sage came to their little mountain village to find the old farmer and persuade him to come out of retirement, he mentioned the Overlord Body and a Saint who appears only once every five hundred years.
Back then, all the villagers were present and heard it too. They were deeply curious about the Everpeace reforms, as well as the Overlord Body and the Saint who appears once every five hundred years.
But in the very next moment, the Woodcutter Sage was beaten by the old farmer into a stinking drainage ditch, every bone broken. Luckily, the old farmer held back and didn't kill him, so no one really knew who was the Overlord Body and who was the Saint.
—The old farmer held a deep grudge against the Woodcutter Sage. Their relationship wasn't just about Celestial Teacher rankings; there were other tangled grudges between them.
Earlier, from what the old ox said, it seemed the Overlord Body was actually this descendant of the Pioneer Emperor who had come looking for the Woodcutter Sage. Still, some of them had their doubts. But now, seeing Quinn Shepherd break through to Martial Soul in a heartbeat, and nearly step into the ranks of entering the Dao through martial arts, and with these matched god-path and demon-path divine treasuries—there was no way not to believe it.
To go from a divine arts user with not even a Martial Soul, to comprehending Martial Soul, then a martial-Dao Primordial Spirit, and now almost creating a martial-Dao great divine art and stepping into Dao—all in just ten days—how could such a person not be the Overlord Body?
But what they hadn't considered was that the real reason Quinn Shepherd could grasp Martial Soul so quickly was his deep foundation.
His foundation was simply too strong.
When Quinn was a child, he failed to awaken his Spirit Embryo. The elders of Oldridge Village found him to be as ordinary as could be, unable to cultivate. But when the village chief casually called him the Overlord Body, all the elders perked up and began piling every kind of spirit medicine and spirit beast blood on him, and their training became brutally intense.
Because Quinn believed completely that he was the Overlord Body, his confidence soared, and he trained with relentless diligence.
At that point, he was just one step away from awakening his Martial Soul.
More crucially, he cultivated the 'Overlord Three-Core Art'—the method the village chief personally taught him. Everyone else treated it as some worthless street-stall Guiding Art, but Quinn Shepherd trained it to a height no one could imagine.
What's more, it wasn't just any ordinary Guiding Art, but a method passed down from the Pioneer Emperor himself. It was the Quinn clan's supreme technique, and even the Heavenly Saint Cult's Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra was just a branch of it.
With such a solid foundation, plus all the battle skill schools Quinn had studied, and the heart's-blood techniques of successive Human Emperors, and even three Emperor's-Throne-level cultivation methods, his background far surpassed Hugh No-Return's, who had only trained in martial Dao.
The spirit of Everpeace's reforms let him blend into the martial-Dao spirit, his vision surpassing mere martial arts. With such deep accumulation, he could grasp the true essence of martial Dao in a short time.
It wasn't because he was the Overlord Body, as the war-gods and old ox guessed. Even Quinn himself didn't understand the real reason, and no one else did either—they could only chalk it up to him being the Overlord Body.
Quinn Shepherd's six streams of palm force met 'Wind Shakes Pines, Roars Through the Valley.' The power of two different martial-Dao divine arts exploded at once. But because Quinn was pressed for time, he hadn't perfected his own martial-Dao great divine art, so its power fell short.
However, with six arms, he compensated for the lack of power by stacking the force of three great divine arts together.
When their martial-Dao great divine arts collided, the ground beneath them turned soft and shattered on impact. Even though this was War-Ox Palace and incredibly solid, these two martial-Dao masters still stirred up a shocking storm.
A sphere of blinding light burst from the singularity where they met, growing brighter and expanding rapidly, swallowing everything around. Then, wild winds swept close to the ground in all directions, the hurricane whipping the distant war-gods' robes.
At the very center of the light, twin torrents of qi and blood shot skyward. In that blood-red glow, two towering war-god phantoms appeared, locked in collision, their muscular forms twisted and fierce.
Finally, the hurricane faded, the brilliance died away, and the blood-and-qi phantoms vanished.
Quinn Shepherd and Hugh No-Return both spat blood, their breath weak and faltering.
With a thump, both collapsed onto the ground, panting hard—each breath laced with bloody foam.
Hugh glanced at Quinn; Quinn glanced back at Hugh. Grins spread wider across both their faces. Suddenly, their big hands slapped together and gripped tight, laughter booming out!
The old ox and the thirty-six war-gods let out a collective sigh of relief. They’d feared the two might start fighting again out of stubborn pride, but both turned out to be open-hearted souls—no jealousy, only mutual admiration among fellow travelers.
“Brother Hugh, there’s little future for you staying in War-Ox Realm.”
Quinn, still brimming with energy, wiped the blood from his mouth, dismissed his six arms, and pressed the willow leaf talisman back to his brow to seal his third eye. Smiling, he said, “There are plenty of talents out in the world who can match us. The Everpeace reforms are blazing ahead—they need geniuses like you. Didn’t you dream of leaping straight from the Divine Bridge gap into the Heaven Palace? I think you should meet my friend Victor Bloom!”
His eyes sparkled, his spirits soared. “Victor Bloom is incredible—almost as smart as me… well, just a notch below! He’s figured out that all the divine treasuries are really one, and plans to fuse them into a single treasury. He’s already merged the Six Directions and Seven Stars realms, cutting out a whole stage for cultivators. Now he’s working on folding Heaven-Man into the mix.”
Hugh blurted out, “You mean, since we War-Ox folk lack the Divine Bridge Treasury, we should just fuse all the others?”
Quinn nodded, grinning. “So, does Victor sound worth meeting?”
Hugh was beside himself, springing to his feet. “Meet him? Of course! I can’t wait—when do we leave? Why not right now?”
Quinn beamed. “Once you meet him, you’ll like him for sure. He’s got real charisma!”
The old ox’s eyes went wide as he watched the two excited youths. He thought, “Aren’t they going to keep challenging? If they beat me, they can enter High Heaven Hall and face Warfist Celestial Teacher on the Emperor’s Throne…”
The thirty-six war-gods of Jade Capital City exchanged glances, looking lost.
The whole point of this War-Ox Realm trial was to find a way for god-race descendants lacking the Divine Bridge Treasury to ascend straight to the Heaven Palace and become gods.
Yet the two kids just got more and more excited, acting like they might walk out at any moment.
But from what they said, it sounded like someone outside—this Victor Bloom from Everpeace—might really have a solution. Wanting to run off and find him was understandable.
Still, with the path to success right in front of them, didn’t they want to try?
If they could defeat the old ox and storm High Heaven Hall to challenge Warfist at the same realm, maybe they really could leap straight into the Heaven Palace!
The old ox coughed. “Hugh No-Return, Quinn Shepherd, aren’t you coming up here?”
Hugh hesitated, unsure whether to keep going.
Quinn whispered, “How strong is Warfist’s ox, really?”
Hugh replied quietly, “I’ve never seen him fight, but I’ve heard Warfist Celestial Teacher is an Emperor’s-Throne powerhouse. The ox used to carry him into battle. If he could bear an Emperor’s-Throne on his back, he must be at the High Heaven Hall level. Some say if he’d wanted power, he could’ve ruled a whole Heaven Palace in the Pioneer Era.”
Quinn did the math and shook his head. “I’m probably no match for Elder Ox. I’ve seen High Heaven Hall giants—like Indra King Buddha—and I couldn’t beat them at the same realm.”
Hugh’s eyes lit up. “How about we go see Victor Bloom first, research how to fuse the treasuries, and then come back to finish the War-Ox Palace challenge?”
Quinn laughed. “If we manage to unify the treasuries, you’ll be able to leap straight into the Heaven Palace—the War-Ox challenge won’t matter anymore.”
Hugh scratched his head, embarrassed. “True enough. Right now, we’re not strong enough to beat Elder Ox. Better to leave War-Ox Realm and find Victor Bloom!”
“Agreed!”
The old ox glared at them, furious. “You’re not even going to fight? Get up here! Fine, I’ll go easy on you—just come over and get it over with!”
Hugh apologized, “Elder Ox…”
“Call me Ox Third!”
The old ox snorted, “I said I’d go easy on you—what more do you want? Hurry up and fight already! Quinn Shepherd, aren’t you going to rescue your teacher? He’s still floating in that stinking ditch; if you don’t fish him out soon, he’ll start to rot!”
—— La la la, class is over, time to go home and write!