Inner Vision

Sun Wuji's face paled. Recoiling backward, he unleashed a Xingyi Collapsing Fist strike—every tendon crackling with explosive force.

Fist met palm with a thunderous detonation. Sun Wuji catapulted through the air like artillery shell, cratering the earth. Blood fountained from his lips as he rasped, "Six Medical Forces fused?!"

"Seven Forces merged," Hua Buyi corrected, dusting his sleeves. "Your occult tricks crumble before thunderous purity."

"Seven..." Sun Wuji coughed crimson sludge. "Had I known..."

"Your death warrant was signed when you harmed my disciple."

Sun Wuji's bloody grin widened. "The Divine Sovereign's reach extends even to saints like you, Hua Buyi."

Hua Buyi's brow furrowed. "So the Zhuang family was your ladder for ascension within their ranks."

"Hypocrite!" Sun Wuji wheezed laughter. "We're both chess pieces on their board!"

"The blade bears no sin—only the wielder." Hua Buyi's palm ignited with golden light.

"All my merits! Take them!" Sun Wuji's eyes bulged with primal terror.

The golden palm descended. Sun Wuji's skull crumpled like rice paper.

"Was the pact worth this?" Hua Buyi murmured to the corpse. "Their shadow grows hungrier."

Hua Buyi's gaze grew distant as Huo Xuan's image surfaced in his mind. Will you walk the path I forged? he mused, a thread of hope tightening in his chest.

Huo Xuan's shopping bags overflowed with jiangxia cured meats, silk robes, and leather goods. Lin Yue slumped against a lamppost, groaning: "Little brother, since when did you outshop most women?"

Huo Xuan grinned slyly. "Broke college me couldn't afford these. Now the wallet's fattened—time to splurge."

Lin Yue massaged her aching calves. "Fine. List what's left—this big sister will martyr her legs for your shopping crusade."

By 8 PM, Li Hu's sedan carried them to the station. Huo Xuan waved farewell to his senior beauty and boarded the train.

Two shadowy figures tailed them from hotel to train. The swarthy one locked himself in a restroom stall and dialed.

"Mr. Xu, the target's on board. Tailing confirmed," the man rasped.

On a massage table in a dimly-lit parlor, Xu Bo ignored the busty masseuse grinding against his back.

"Strike once they cross Jiangzhou's border," Xu Bo's voice dripped venom.

Weeks prior, Zhang Wu's "dinner invitation" at Jinlong Hotel had chilled Xu Bo's spine—"Touch Huo Xuan again, and we dance with death."

The Xu family's power matched Zhang Wu's, but Jiangzhou's Butcher held home turf advantage. Surveillance became Xu Bo's silent rebellion.

Beyond Jiangzhou's borders, Zhang Wu's reach withered. Ten thousand deaths awaited Huo Xuan.

Xu Bo might have spared Huo Xuan to avoid provoking Zhang Wu. However, surveillance reports of Huo Xuan's frequent closeness to Lin Yue in recent days stoked his fury, sharpening his murderous resolve to a lethal edge.

Unaware of Huo Xuan's identity as Hua Buyi's disciple, Xu Bo's arrogance blinded him to the abyss ahead.

Between swaying train cars, Huo Xuan assumed the Hunyuan Stance. Hua Buyi's teachings echoed: "Persist, and whole-body force shall awaken."

Whole-body force—when fist strikes channel every sinew's power. The gateway to Ming Jin's explosive brilliance.

Hua Buyi had delineated five tiers of Jin force: Ming Jin, An Jin, Hua Jin, Dan Jin, and Shentong Jin. Mastering Ming Jin elevated one's combat prowess beyond mortal limits—subduing seven or eight assailants became trivial.

An Jin, the insidious force, left no visible trauma. Its practitioners could rupture internal organs with a deceptively gentle palm strike—consequences ranging from chronic agony to instant fatality.

Hua Jin practitioners like Hua Buyi wielded tectonic power—fingertips shattering boulders, sleeves severing steel.

Huo Xuan remained a neophyte. Though his recent Hunyuan Stance practice had kindled faint awareness of Qi-blood circulation during Green Emperor Heart Method cultivation, Ming Jin's threshold still eluded him.

Deep meditation dissolved his consciousness. Golden warmth pulsed through his left eye as awareness seeped into marrow and viscera.

Organs, vessels, and elusive meridians undetectable by modern science materialized before his inner sight with crystalline clarity.

Startled, the vision shattered like fragile glass.

"Inner Vision?" He recalled Hua Buyi's teachings—An Jin masters could perceive heartbeat rhythms and Qi-blood tides through cultivated sensitivity.

Proficiency unlocked layered depths: partial perception evolving into holistic awareness, then microscopic precision discerning capillaries and neural pathways.

His X-ray vision granted surgical-grade internal mapping—surpassing decades of martial cultivation. Where others groped through fog, he wielded a searchlight.

"So the golden sight penetrates my own flesh?" Elation surged. "What other secrets await discovery?"

"My X-ray vision can peer into my own body!" Huo Xuan's pulse quickened. "What other applications lie undiscovered?" Elation surged as he realized: this was his martial shortcut.