Returning to the Mysterious Era-Chapter 323 - Empowerment

Ding!

The fingertip that extended forward was like solid steel, piercing into Cassius's body up to the first knuckle. The concentrated force immediately flowed into virtual meridians and acupoints, sending a surge of energy through his system.

It was an intensely condensed Reverberating Force. Whether he liked it or not, it forcefully rushed through his meridians and into his acupoints!

It was fast, precise, and ruthless. Crackling sounds erupted from the locations of the acupoints. The invading Reverberating Force cut through all resistance like a hot knife through butter, blasting open the acupoints with unstoppable momentum.

Bang.

A sound emerged from Cassius’s body—the second acupoint of the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist had been opened. In the blink of an eye, the Reverberating Force flooded into the newly opened acupoint, rapidly filling the cavity.

"What is this...?"

Cassius was falling freely, face up towards the sky. He could barely sense the actions of the old Ultimate Fist practitioner.

Was he helping him?! The old man had used his own Reverberating Force to forcibly open Cassius's acupoints!

This process was both dangerous and difficult, requiring a firm foundation in the practitioner and an immensely high level of mastery from the one helping. It also consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy and Qi, potentially depleting the helper's vitality.

Cassius had spent over a hundred and fifty days in the Qi World. He had sparred countless times with the old man and undergone numerous grueling trials. The techniques they practiced were highly compatible, and his foundation was solid. It was worth noting that he had only been training in the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist for less than half a year.

However, due to bad luck, the right opportunity had not yet come. He had been stuck at the entry level, unable to make any further progress.

Thus, Cassius met the conditions. As for the one helping him, it was the Ultimate Fist practitioner, an expert in the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist! He had the competence to do so.

"Why? Is this for the sake of passing on the legacy?" As this thought crossed Cassius’s mind, he immediately found the answer. The old master’s obsession with the legacy meant he wanted to pass it on. Since Cassius had learned the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist, he had become the sole inheritor.

The Ultimate Fist practitioner could not allow the legacy to end with him.

As these thoughts raced through his mind, the old man struck twice more, instantly creating two new holes in Cassius's body, blood gushing out. At the same time, the acupoints at those locations were both broken through. The Reverberating Force within his meridians surged wildly.

In just a short span, Cassius had gone from breaking through a single acupoint at the entry level of the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist to four acupoints. The chaotic heat in his mind began to ease, and a cold, clear sensation grew stronger.

As the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist advanced, the Cold Persona associated with it was also strengthened, allowing him to better resist the invasion of the Killer Persona. Cassius's Main Persona gained new insights.

Not all techniques from the Southern Dipper Covert Martial Inheritance were naturally at odds. The issue was that the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist and the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist were at different levels. One had just entered the first stage, while the other had already advanced to the second, creating a vast imbalance.

The true solution to the conflict between the three personas was to bring the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist and the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist to a relatively equal stage and balance their contradictions.

If the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist was at the second stage, then the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist had to reach the second stage as well. Only then could a balance be achieved.

Otherwise, the imbalance would continue.

"I see..."

If one was looking from the dense forest, one could see two figures plunging down alongside the waterfall. One was falling freely without making a move, while the other was enveloped in purple energy and constantly striking out.

Blood and mist from the wounds mixed together until only a faint trace of red remained.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Each time the old man’s finger pressed down, the purple aura around him diminished, as if all the energy was being channeled into his fingertips.

Meanwhile, Cassius’s body trembled as acupoint after acupoint of the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist was forcefully broken through. The Reverberating Force within his meridians surged to a fever pitch as it flowed like molten lava.

Each acupoint breakthrough brought a dramatic increase in Reverberating Force in both quantity and quality. His progress was so rapid that it felt like years of painstaking cultivation had been compressed into a single moment, bringing Cassius indescribable joy.

As they plummeted from the thousand-meter-high mountain towards the lake below, more and more acupoints were unlocked—three, four, six...

Whoosh!

Just as the two figures were about to hit the surface of the lake, the Ultimate Fist practitioner struck one final time. His finger stabbed into the center of Cassius’s collarbone, drilling a hole.

An explosive sound of air escaping followed.

The eleventh acupoint of the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist was unlocked!

His Reverberating Force became more condensed, advancing to the second stage.

The force energy within Cassius’s body flowed like a winding stream, surging through his entire being with a resonating power that seemed to subtly affect the surrounding muscles.

The abundant, powerful force energy rapidly filled each of the acupoints.

The Cold Persona immediately responded, receiving an unimaginable boost. Suddenly, it reversed the situation, standing on equal ground with the Killer Persona associated with the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist.

The two Personas confronted each other, neutralizing and balancing out one another. In an instant, the flaws of the three martial techniques were greatly diminished.

Cassius’s Main Persona was freed from any influence. At the same time, the Southern Dipper Sonic Snake Fist and the Southern Dipper Red Falcon Fist systems within his body reached a stable resonance.

They were no longer in direct opposition but instead began to develop in a positive direction. Though their paths were distinct, they subtly echoed each other.

Whenever the meridians of the two systems were close enough, they acted like magnets, speeding up the flow of Death’s Fang force and Reverberating Force! Some of the meridians even intersected, greatly accelerating their effects.

These interconnected nodes spanned hundreds of points throughout his body, causing both fist techniques to advance steadily, creating a fascinating synergy.

"So this is the resonance state that Feng Liusi talked about?"

Boom!

The two figures finally plunged into the lake, sending a massive column of water shooting into the sky. Shimmering droplets of water fell like rain.

When the mist cleared away, the surface of the lake revealed two figures: a white-haired old man sitting cross-legged on a stone, and a blond young man standing silently.

The white-haired elder’s eyes were half-closed, his aura weakened to the extreme, and the dense purple glow around him had completely vanished. At this moment, he seemed like a peacefully napping old man. His wrinkled skin showed the wear of a life full of hardships.

Cassius remained silent, his expression unchanged. He still had his cold, stoic poker face. He reached out, lightly touching his chest, where ten holes rapidly healed. It only took him a moment to restore his body to as good as new.

Buzz buzz buzz...

A sudden buzzing sound filled the entire world. Everything around him began to lose its color, as if the paint on a canvas was being smeared together, gradually dripping away and revealing the white paper beneath.

This was the sign that the Qi World was dissipating. Cassius had experienced it hundreds of times.

The roaring sound of the waterfall quickly faded, as if separated by a frosted glass. The sounds of the wind, birds, and insects vanished completely. All that remained was the black-and-white silhouette of the mountain before him and the pool at its base.

On a bluestone boulder, an elderly man sat cross-legged. His outline blurred, and the lines gradually dimmed.

"Though I do not know your name, still..."

Cassius fell to his knees with a thud, slowly lowering his head in respect. This was the gesture of half-apprenticeship, symbolizing the passing of a torch in the world of Covert Martial Arts. It was his way of showing his respect.

Rumble rumble rumble...

The mountain began to tremble and collapse. In the next instant, it crumbled with a thunderous crash, disintegrating into countless black-and-white fragments.

Now, only Cassius remained in the Qi World, along with the old man's fading silhouette. The shadow trembled, as if it too was on the verge of disappearing.

In that final moment, a faint strand of purple Qi drifted towards Cassius, tracing a slow arc in the air. He could have stopped it but chose not to, allowing the purple Qi to imprint itself on his brow. A current surged through his mind.

A fragmented memory appeared before his eyes .

It was a battlefield beneath a blood moon.

The era could have been during the empire, or perhaps from a far older century. The vast plain was littered with corpses, blood mixing with upturned soil and roots, turning the ground into a gruesome swamp.

Knights clad in heavy armor knelt on the ground, their joints pierced by several weapons. Blood dripped from the edges of their helmets. Some soldiers were impaled by spears, their bodies suspended mid-air, likely having been skewered during a cavalry charge.

A metal staff, once bearing a red banner, now leaned askew in the open ground.

It was a brutal scene of various forces clashing in a fierce melee, leaving behind a battlefield strewn with the dead. Corpses were piled high across the plain, and savage birds of prey flapped their wings, feasting greedily.

Yet they only dared to venture near the edges, for at the heart of the battlefield, where the scent of blood was the thickest, monstrous creatures, twisted and half-human, half-beast, were feasting. Spines, fangs, scales, black mist, and matted fur... each creature bore its own grotesque and terrifying characteristics, bizarre and horrifying.

At the very center of the horde of monsters stood a man in a black robe, who was remarkably unscathed. He even exuded a faint air of authority. His body was entirely shrouded in black cloth, exposing only a pair of pale hands that were slowly dripping blood.

Although Cassius knew nothing about the man's appearance, he could feel pure evil emanating from this man. It was an overwhelming sense of ultimate wickedness. None of the terrifying monsters around him could compare to the sheer malevolence exuded by this black-robed figure. Simply by standing there, he seemed to embody the source of all evil, the executor of wickedness, and the willpower of nightmares.

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Boom! Boom! Boom!

Suddenly, a figure crashed violently into the monsters like a shooting star. This figure was unimaginably powerful, tearing apart any grotesque creatures in its path. A surge of Qi swept across the sky, obscuring the blood moon!

At the same time, the vision started to blur rapidly as a result of the high-speed battle. An old pair of hands emerged, slashing through the air with immense force. Whether fists, palms, or hand blades, they struck with explosive shockwaves, carving a path through the sea of corpses.

In a brief moment, the surrounding monsters vanished, leaving only the open ground ahead and the black-robed figure.

"Monster! You've lived long enough! Attack!!!"

The meteor-like figure roared. The old Ultimate Fist practitioner, the owner of this memory, let out a thunderous roar. His white hair billowed like that of an old lion in its prime.

"Xiadu!!!"

Whoosh!

Cassius's vision went black, and the entire scene disappeared.

Cassius stood frozen. The old man's roar echoed in his mind: "Xiadu, Xiadu, Xiadu..." The roar was filled with fury, a rage that seemed to burn everything and a hatred so deep it bordered on a curse.

Cassius had no idea what the black-robed man had done to make the old Ultimate Fist practitioner hate him so much. It had to be something earth-shattering to warrant such wrath.

Moreover, the black-robed man's name was Xiadu.

Xiadu!!!

Cassius had once gathered information and learned that the Gate Organization had an elusive leader known as Xiadu! In fact, it was this same Xiadu who was involved in the catastrophic destruction of the Wind Elephant Sect!

However, based on the memory, the old man had lived at least several hundred, if not a thousand years ago. Could it be that the Gate Organization's leader, Xiadu, had survived from that era until now?

Or was "Xiadu" merely a title passed down through generations?

Cassius was utterly confused. He then thought about the real world, some fifty years into the future. Surely, the Gate Organization of this era would have a Xiadu too—a seemingly immortal monster?

Cassius had trained in Golem Covert Martial Arts, which gradually modified and evolved his body to the point of being nearly inhuman. His lifespan had theoretically increased to the point where he could live up to a hundred and fifty.

According to his calculations, if he fully mastered the Golem Covert Martial Arts, he estimated that he could live over two hundred years. After all, his techniques were a unique combination of factors and not the result of becoming a dark creature. At best, it was an imitation through Covert Martial Arts that still retained a human magnetic field.

However, ordinary Covert Martial Arts practitioners, while gaining immense power, couldn't resist aging. Some so-called techniques for eternal youth were merely superficial, as the body would still grow weak.

Even top-tier combat artists could only live five to eight years longer than ordinary people. At most, Holy Fist practitioners might extend their lifespan by twenty to thirty years.

It was almost impossible for a human to live longer than a hundred and fifty years. That was the limit of the human species. To break through it, one would need to evolve their body like Cassius had.

But that was a one-of-a-kind stroke of luck—the creation of Golem Covert Martial Arts was a unique convergence of factors. Luck played a big part.

Could the Gate Organization leader, Xiadu, have mastered some strange Covert Martial Arts technique that transformed his body and allowed him to live until modern times?