Chapter 57 - All Out against the Terrifyingly Fast Girl

Tian Longmeng readied himself with a stance. He planned to take the defensive and scope out her abilities first before his counterattack. However, she was not planning on giving him that chance.

"Woah." Tian Longmeng gasped as he bent his torso backwards to avoid the thrown knife. She did not allow him to recollect; she dashed to his side and unleashed a parade of fists.

Tian Longmeng barely avoided the worst of the fists by shifting his body; however, he still felt the stinging pain from his injured side. He flew out a couple meters before barely stopping himself.

This time, he did not need to think about finding out her patterns. The first thing he had to do was avoid the wave of attacks she sent.

He instinctively leapt off the ground he barely landed on, narrowly avoiding her stomp. He could tell from the meter-deep crater that her bodily strength was no joke either.

She merely turned to his direction with a sharp glare, indicating that she was about to attack once more.

"Dammit." Tian Longmeng gritted his teeth. The fight barely began but he already felt that this was over. He had the impression that she was strong but he realized now that he severely underestimated her.

He tightened his fist, gathering essence for his Overbearing Fist; but his eyes widened as he had to once more shift his body to avoid her tiger-like movements.

This time he was not too fortunate. Tian Longmeng swallowed a shriek as fresh blood bursted from the small cut along his cheek. He knew that if he continued this way he would quickly lose. However, he could not get a clear grasp on her as yet.

"Screw it." Tian Longmeng gritted his teeth once more as he stared at her unmoving eyes that peered at him like prey alongside the other medicine in the garden.

He stuffed a sizable amount of essence into his legs. The ground cried under the tremendous pressure of his crouch. With all that pressure, Tian Longmeng bulleted his way to the girl.

Aou. The wind whistled from Tian Longmeng's full speed thrust. Whatever distance they had between them instantly shrank. All Tian Longmeng saw was the face of his opponent, nothing else.

For the first time since the fight started, the girl's expression shifted to a more serious look. She realized that he was too fast for her to dodge, so she erected a defensive posture.

A small film of light surrounded her just before Tian Longmeng's attack could connect. She shouted with all her strength.

"Gold Cocoon!"

She was still sent flying with major bruises; however, the film of light managed to absorb most of Tian Longmeng's attack before it before under his immense power. Otherwise, she would have had far worse injuries.

Tian Longmeng, on the other hand, was also sent flying as a result of colliding with the film of light. He did not sustain any injuries but his head was spinning. This did not stop him though and he quickly shook away the dizziness so that he could jump back into the fight.

She dusted off herself and leapt back into action. She matched Tian Longmeng's fist by condensing essence around her own as they exchanged fists.

The exchanges lengthened past two incense sticks of time. The raised ground and shredded trees indicated their gruesome bout between each other.

They were both drenched in sweat and almost out of energy. The clothes stuck to the girl's supple body, amplifying her slightly premature curves. However, Tian Longmeng did not spare any thought to that, focusing solely on the fight.

He was swallowing large gulps of breath and his muscles were crying in pain. He clearly was approaching his limit, but he did not know whether the other was the same. He could clearly see the beads of sweat dripping from her face; however, her breathing was still too regular for him to confirm anything.

However, he knew that this was probably the last chance he would get to beat her. If he was to delay any longer, she could possibly recover enough to beat him surely. Thus he had to risk it all in this last exchange.

A whirlpool of essence revolved around Tian Longmeng as he forced the last bits of power into his legs. Without noticing, he pushed through to the extremes of the Mortal Apprentice Realm, just needing a little push to break through.

Deciding that the best thing to do was to cut off her advantage in speed, he bulleted once more for her. He resembled a natural disaster, destroying everything in his path. The earth cried once more and the trees swayed furiously, scaring numerous small animals and medicines in the vicinity.

The girl stared at the oncoming peril. She was genuinely amazed at Tian Longmeng's strength. She utilized help from the golden trinkets to form the Gold Cocoon but it was severely damaged in the process.

She could no longer rely on the trinkets for protection so she decided to evade his attack. She properly guessed that this would be Tian Longmeng's last display of strength; if she could avoid his attacks, she would eventually win.

That was easier thought than done however. She barely avoided his attacks by blasting herself into the air. She glanced back at the shattered trees and cloud of dust where he stopped and breathed a sigh of relief.

This version of Tian Longmeng was nowhere as weak as top 150 rankers; that she could definitely confirm. Although his essence gathering cultivation was still somewhat low, he was definitely far stronger than half of the core disciples.

"Why did the faction not snatch him away as yet." She thought about giving the faction head a strong lecture about this. However, her senses spiked, telling her that she had another problem to deal with first.

Instinctively, she whipped her hands to cover her chest. Out of the dust, a ferocious streak of blue light pierced into the sky, passing by her.

Tian Longmeng had long anticipated that she would evade, so he did his best to direct her into jumping instead of escaping horizontally. Luckily, she did, giving him the chance to catch her in midair without wasting too much of his essence.

He peered above her, locking his chilling gaze with hers. He poured all his remaining essence into his fist, forming a half-meter wide shell. He shaped his body into an arrow and soared towards her.

Overbearing Fist.

"Danger." This was the thought ringing in her head as she saw Tian Longmeng's all out attack. During the entire fight, she had always been pleasantly surprised by how much he kept surpassing her expectations. However now, he resembled nothing short of a monster with that abnormal expanse of essence compressed into his fist.

Such an attack was extremely deadly for anyone below the Earthen Realm. She even thought that the martial academy elders probably would not be able to walk away unscathed after one of these attacks.

She shouted to sway his concentration. "If you unleash that monstrous energy, you will die as well you know." This was not far from the truth. If Tian Longmeng executed his cultivation skill, although he would not die, he definitely would be threading between life and death. Yet, his unshaking eyes clearly declared his intentions.

She gnashed her teeth and boldly faced the oncoming assault. Her eyes seemed determined, as if she had one more card to play.

Just as he reached within three meters of her, she threw the robe with the trinkets and blasted it. This caused the trinkets to explode due to excessive damage; however, it also gave her a short springboard.

Using this springboard, she managed to avoid Tian Longmeng's fist. Of course, she did not completely avoid the massive shell of essence and was burnt considerably.

With this, she finally won having bested the worst of Tian Longmeng's attacks. Only if the fight were to end now.

She did not know when but she suddenly felt her neck become incomparably heavy, dragging down the rest of her body at break-neck speeds. She barely was able to squint amid all the pain to see a foot hooked onto her neck.

Somehow, Tian Longmeng loosened his diving position in anticipation that she would do something that he could not possibly guess. His faith in her abilities worked wonderfully, allowing him to catch her completely off-guard.

He transferred the essence surrounding his fist into his foot and started to spin in cycles. The spinning further accelerated their descent straight into the hard ground.

Overbearing Sweep!

Bam.

Wu.

The garden quaked. Half mile long cracks webbed from a 50 meter wide crater. Dust and tree debris spanned miles across the sky. The shockwave caused the wind to rip through the forests, uprooting numerous trees and decimating dozens of medicinal herbs. Numerous low-level spirit medicines were uprooted and nearly shredded in the process as well. Even the higher levelled spirit medicines had to flee for their lives.

Peering back at the center of this crater stood a completely exhausted Tian Longmeng. Blood was pouring from the deep crevices in his leg. If one looked deeply into one of the crevices, they could see the red-stained white of his bone.

Blood also leaked out of the pores of his hand that he previously concentrated all his essence inside. There was a trail from the corner of his lips as well from all of the vomiting.

He stood, staring dispiritedly at the equally bloody body lying on the ground. She had open wounds all over her body from facing the totality of the damage. Some bones glared out of the wounds as well.

He stooped and checked her neck, sighing in relief later. Fortunately, she still had a pulse, a surprisingly strong one at that. He knew that as long as she was alive, these wounds would be nothing compared to the healing pills she was bound to have.

He turned to leave, struggling to maintain his balance. He barely dragged himself three footsteps away from her before his eyes dilated.