Immortality Starts With Generosity

On a scale of one to pain, Chen Haoran was feeling Yes.

He must’ve definitely looked cool, but damn did he not feel it. Regenerating his chest cavity and all the mushed-up bones and viscera was perhaps the most intensely uncomfortable experience of his life. He could only like the sensation to filling up a meat balloon except he was the balloon. Suffice to say, the Banquet Peach really put in work and showed its value. He’d have to do something nice for Xi Wangmu next time he never saw her.

Good lord it had been felt strange breathing without lungs or a heart, or operating without a functional chest. While the Banquet Peach did a large part of the work it remained to be said that Liquid Meridians and liquid qi were ridiculous in terms of physicality and uses. He definitely would have died had he sustained similar injuries when he was a Qi Realm.

“Are you alright?” Bao Si asked.

No, he wasn’t. Without the Yellow Dragon coming back in time to assist it was a good question if he would have been still capable of fighting at all. In fact, he would probably be losing sleep after the absolute ass-whooping he’d been handed. This armor, on the other hand, felt amazing. He felt no weight at all, and while there was a constant drain on his qi to operate it, if he were to push more of his qi in—

“Haoran?”

“I’m fine,” Chen Haoran said, shaking his head. He threw up a middle finger at Pan Gong. “Get over here so I can kick your ass. I don’t have all day.”

“All day would be preferred, actually,” Qiong Qi muttered.

Pan Gong shared a look with Lu Aotian. He generously extended his hand out. “After you.”

Lu Aotian was unamused. “You’re joking.”

“You resist it better.”

“You can afford to lose more.”

“The right man for every job and the right job for every man. Lu Aotian, you—” Pan Gong pointed at him with a serious look. “Are the right man for this. Now get.”

Lu Aotian made a sound of frustration that was halfway between a growl and a sigh and stalked forward slowly. Red liquid qi spilled and formed a bipedal tiger complete with claws and head that covered him like armor.

“He’s measuring my range,” Bao Si mumbled.

Chen Haoran couldn’t blame him. Whatever spell Bao Si had cast was scary as hell. Even just sensing it felt like there was a yawning void that threatened to peel him apart one vital essence at a time at any moment. That being said he got Bao Si’s meaning. It wouldn’t be good to let them have an accurate idea of its reach.

“Keep an eye on Pan Gong,” he ordered Qiong Qi and before the pretty boy could get a word in edgewise he flooded qi to his legs and shot off to meet Lu Aotian.

A wave of beasts rose to engulf him, predators of all stripes stacked over each other in layers. Chen Haoran raised no defense and crashed into the wave head-on. The qi parted like a split sea. Claws and fangs found no purchase on his armor and had their power turned against them, bursting the liquid creatures like water balloons. Blue ripples pulsed across the reflective silver from the points of contact and Chen Haoran gathered them all to his fist to crush Lu Aotian’s skull. All he hit was an empty qi tiger, however. Lu Aotian shed his liquid cover just before Chen Haoran hit him and retreated back to Pan Gong’s side with a fire-boosted movement. Chen Haoran fell back to stand with Bao Si rather than pursue.

“That was underwhelming,” Pan Gong said. “I thought you wanted to kill him?”

“My desire to kill him is less than my resistance to being made to fix your mistakes,” Lu Aotian coolly answered.

“Is it really that hard to say you can’t do it?” Chen Haoran taunted.

“I wouldn’t cast stones if I were you,” Pan Gong said.

“You can say that when you muster up the courage to fight me in full armor.”

“If you’re that confident why not come over here and see how it turns out? Or are you just going to rely on the shaman’s spell to even the odds?”

“I’m fighting with a seven Layer difference and still soloing. How about you get on my level first before you complain?”

“I notice you’re a lot mouthier now that there’s a woman around. Do you think you can impress them by talking a lot?”

Chen Haoran blanched behind his helmet. “Really man? I just regrew this heart, and you just go and kill it again?”

Pan Gong had the grace to look apologetic. “I was a bit out of line. Sorry.”

“They’re stalling,” Bao Si mumbled. “They shouldn’t be the ones stalling.”

“They’re waiting for you to run out of energy,” Chen Haoran said. He hooked a thumb to her centipede ouroboros. “I’m guessing you can’t move that thing, can you?”

Bao Si gave him a look. “Really? Right in front of the enemy?”

“They already know you can’t do it. That’s why they decided to stall.”

“It’s the principle of the matter.”

Chen Haoran snorted. “Principle? Don’t think I forgot about you using me as a human shield.”

“That was pragmatism.”

There was a game going on. Pan Gong and Lu Aotian were stalling and waiting for Bao Si to remove her spell. That was fine with Chen Haoran because he was also stalling. Even now, the Yellow Dragon was furiously drawing in and refining qi to replace the massive loss he suffered healing from his injuries as well as maintain the True Reflection Mysterious Mirror Armor. Bao Si knew this and was running out the time for as long as she could to buy time for him to recover. Qiong Qi, meanwhile, didn’t care about any of this as long as time was being wasted and more time was given to the Formation Controller.

It was a balance that would end as soon as Bao Si could no longer maintain her spell. As such, it was liable to break at any time. Until it did, however, Chen Haoran would be staying right where he was.

At least, that was his plan before Pan Gong started fiddling with his stolen storage bag.

“This storage bag is pretty high quality. I’m a bit jealous,” Pan Gong said as he tugged the fabric with his meaty sausage fingers that Chen Haoran was contemplating ripping off. “Is this how you almost got me with that tusk? It was a pretty interesting effect. I should switch over.”

Chen Haoran was grateful that the Earth-Rank storage bag came with the ability to be locked to his qi specifically. It meant he had some time, at least, before Pan Gong could force it open. He was also thankful for his helmet disguising his pinched expression. Pan Gong beat him up, ran his pockets, and now was making a show of rummaging through his stuff. Pan Gong’s intent was obvious, and it was a provocation Chen Haoran couldn’t ignore. There wasn’t much in the bag. Since his Connection to Lin Nine, most of his stuff was still in the Reward space, but what was left in the bag were some of the most important. The Paradise Pomegranate chief among them. Leaving it in Pan Gong’s hands was with epitome of a bad idea. Not to mention the manuals for the Blossom-Picking Palm and the Seven-Colored Steps of the Rainbow Stairs among them.

While Pan Gong was fat-fingering his storage bag Lu Aotian started moving. This time however he kept his distance and walked toward the altar building instead. An arrow shattered into splinters at his feet.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Qiong Qi asked, stringing another arrow.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you trying to keep me away from the altar? Could you make your anxiety any more obvious?” Lu Aotian mocked. “Let me guess. The reason the Formation Eye is exposed out here instead of protected in there is because you’re afraid the final reward may get stolen. Do I have that right?”

Qiong Qi was stone-faced, and it was all the answer needed.

Lu Aotian sneered. “I said it before, you scavenger. You’re not here for the hunt. You’re here to steal a meal.” He pointed at the altar. “I am going there straight there as soon as that shaman’s spell fails. I tell you this because I already know exactly what you will do in response, and I’m already disappointed by it.” His lips twisted upward in a crooked, predatory grin. “But I have been surprised twice today. So I’m giving you the chance to impress me.”

This can’t go on any further. Chen Haoran checked his qi reserves and compared them to Bao Si’s. No matter what, he couldn’t allow her to drain herself to exhaustion. It would have to do.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Green light bloomed in his palms, and qi flooded his legs. “Bao Si, do it.”

“Okay,” was her only reply.

The Centipede Wheel stopped spinning, and the maw disappeared from his sense.

Pan Gong and Lu Aotian exploded into action. Qiong Qi’s armor exploded in a sea of vines, and he released arrow after arrow toward Lu Aotian. The Yellow Dragon roared, and Chen Haoran accelerated to intercept Pan Gong.

Blossom Picking Palm.

He closed the distance with Pan Gong and was about to release a flurry of palm strikes when Pan Gong suddenly held his storage bag between them. Chen Haoran damnably hesitated, and it was all the opening Pan Gong needed to spin into a crouch and throw him off his feet with a leg sweep. Right as Pan Gong attempted to spring past him, however, he slammed headfirst into a blue curtain that abruptly extended from Chen Haoran’s armor and was bounced backward. Chen Haoran fell on his back and quickly flipped into a crouch as Pan Gong backflipped into a standing position.

“Range limited to five feet,” Pan Gong clinically noted. “Barrier doesn’t feedback into armor.”

After instantly picking apart the shortcomings in the barrier Chen Haoran only just acquired, Pan Gong darted to the left to circle around him. Chen Haoran jumped to cut off his way forward, but Pan Gong immediately spun on his heels and went right instead. Chen Haoran lunged after him, flooding qi through his armor to extend the reflection barrier, but Pan Gong juked left then right again as Chen Haoran was caught flatfooted trying to correct his balance. The Yellow Dragon leaped out with a furious roar to entangle Pan Gong, but Pan Gong smashed it to gas with a single punch and peeled off sprinting.

Chen Haoran flooded qi to his legs and chased after him, willing the Yellow Dragon to send more qi to his legs till they felt like bursting.

Pan Gong was still faster than him.

Chen Haoran helplessly watched Pan Gong escape. His armor may have neutralized Pan Gong’s fists, but it didn’t make him any faster. “Qiong Qi! Restrain him!”

Qiong Qi heard his shout and glanced at Pan Gong. The moment he did, Lu Aotian ripped a path through his vines and disappeared into the altar building. Qiong Qi looked back and forth between Pan Gong and the altar, hesitating. He turned—

“Qiong Qi!”

—and followed Lu Aotian.

Chen Haoran swore. He wasn’t surprised, but he was still disappointed. Pan Gong blitzed past Bao Si before she could react and slammed his fist into the barrier protecting the Formation Controller. It rippled and the Executioner’s Blade trembled and fell slightly. Bao Si’s Gu shot two high-speed jets of liquid miasma at Pan Gong, who turned around with a blood-red fist. The punch he threw displaced the air and sent a shockwave that crushed the liquid miasma and sent Bao Si and her Gu flying over he edge of the pyramid. Pan Gong turned his red fist onto the barrier.

Chen Haoran’s forced himself to run until his muscles tore and regenerated but it wasn’t enough. Pan Gong would break through because he wasn’t fast enough. Because he couldn’t move.

Chen Haoran grabbed ahold of the boiling qi in his legs and forced it to follow a pattern he’d constantly practiced and failed to use. There was only one chance. He focused on the red of Pan Gong’s fist and uniform. He was so fast. What Chen Haoran wouldn’t give to be that fast right now. The pattern completed and became a cycle. The cycle completed and became red light. The red light emerged from his meridians to his legs. The Yellow Dragon roared.

One step beyond beasts. Four steps beyond men. Seven steps beyond the world.

Seven-Colored Steps of the Rainbow Stairs

Red Step of Good Fortune.

Chen Haoran moved.

Pan Gong grunted in surprise when Chen Haoran shoulder-checked him in the spine with an ever-so-satisfying crunch and crushed him against the barrier. Not content to waste his chance, Chen Haoran wrapped his arms around Pan Gong’s waist and, with a heave of qi and a dragon roar, suplexed him headfirst onto the stone ground. That didn’t come with a satisfying crack, so Chen Haoran let go and pounced on Pan Gong, letting the Yellow Dragon fill his fists to hammer brutal blows into Pan Gong’s face. Trying to straddle a man the size and strength of Pan Gong, however, was an exercise in futility, and Pan Gong soon caught his fists and threw him off in a single motion. The Yellow Dragon flooded out of Chen Haoran’s legs, and he landed on its body, using it as a platform to jump at Pan Gong once more with a flying kick.

Pan Gong gracefully leapt to his feet and caught Chen Haoran’s leg in a move that could only be described as water-like. Using his own force against him, Pan Gong avoided triggering the armor’s reflection, and Chen Haoran found himself flying into the barrier. Steam rose off of Pan Gong’s fist as it boiled red, and he threw it dead center to Chen Haoran’s chest. The blow was strong enough to forcefully push through the mirror armor’s reflection and slam Chen Haoran into the barrier. The resulting counterforce blew back Pan Gong and shattered the barrier.

Chen Haoran fell to his feet while Pan Gong tumbled head over heel. Admirably, through all of this, the Rattan Armor soldier in charge of the Formation didn’t flinch, and the Executioner’s Blade rose higher as more of Six-Eyes’s influence was cut off.

Pan Gong finally arrested his momentum and rolled onto his heels. The sleeve of his uniform had burst apart, and multiple thin red scratches marked his arm. Three fingers were bent out of place. Chen Haoran, meanwhile, was perfectly fine, and his armor thrummed with stored power.

“You regretting that?” Chen Haoran taunted.

Pan Gong bent his broken fingers back to their original positions and flexed his newly healed hand. “Not particularly. As long as I broke the barrier, I would have the advantage. It’s not like you can stop me.”

Chen Haoran grimaced. Much as he hated to admit it, Pan Gong had a point. Using the Seven-Colored Steps of the Rainbow Stairs was luck born of desperation. It wasn’t something he could recklessly bet on succeeding every time, especially now that the barrier protecting the Formation Controller was gone and his margin of error was razor thin. Any mistake he made at this point would mean their biggest reliance to fend off the Garrison was gone.

At least right now, his armor was full of power that he could use as a quick speed boost if he timed it right. The issue was replenishing it. Pan Gong was infuriatingly avoiding direct combat now and had quickly picked up on how to work around the armor’s reflection ability. Using soft touches and indirect means to deny Chen Haoran the opportunity to use his strength against him.

An idle thought crossed his mind, and he slapped his hand against his thigh. Unfortunately, his spur-of-the-moment idea was for naught. The armor’s reflection power neutralized itself. Perhaps if he used a separate weapon?

Pan Gong didn’t give him time to consider it. He rushed forward at breakneck speed. Chen Haoran waited for him. Focusing all the qi he could into his eyes to not miss a single movement. Pan Gong was a blur even so, but it was fine. The moment Pan Gong crossed into range, Chen Haoran called on the stored force in his armor and hurtled toward Pan Gong like he’d been released from a slingshot. He sent what little of the force remained to his open palm, that he swung in a downward strike.

Pan Gong paused as he knew he would. The temptation to use Chen Haoran’s own momentum to throw him far away and proceed unimpeded to the Formation Controller was too great to ignore. Pan Gong raised Chen Haoran’s storage bag to his face in another attempt to make him hesitate. There would be no balking this time around, however. Killing Pan Gong was worth losing a storage bag.

The choice didn’t need to be made in the end, however, as the storage bag disappeared from Pan Gong’s grasp. Chen Haoran couldn’t help the small smile that crossed his face even as he brought his palm down. A thought pulled the Earth-Rank Earthsplitting Axe out from the inventory space, and Chen Haoran closed his hand around the hilt of Lin Nine’s reward and chopped down at Pan Gong’s head.

Whether through skill or sheer desperate instinct Pan Gong turned his head at the last moment to avoid having his skull split. Instead, the axe bit deeply into Pan Gong’s shoulder. Chen Haoran and the Yellow Dragon roared as one and dragged the axe further from Pan Gong’s shoulder down toward his chest.

Pan Gong roared in pain, true pain. It was louder than any noise Chen Haoran had heard before. It was as if someone took a rockslide and a falling glacier and let the sound ring out from a man’s mouth. The force of it was enough to rupture his eardrums and rattle his bones. Chen Haoran found that the axe would no longer move. He planted his feet on Pan Gong’s chest and tried to drag it out, but it was good and stuck. Pan Gong’s body turned bright red, and the air around him superheated. He grew two sizes larger and Chen Haoran was dragged into the air. A chunk of qi disappeared as a massive red fist hammered into Chen Haoran’s side and sent him skipping across the stones.

He rolled to his feet, practically bouncing from the force within the armor. The Yellow Dragon roared, and liquid qi surged to his legs, sending him leaping across the distance with an amplified fist. Pan Gong, giant he may now be, sidestepped the blow rather than take it. The Yellow Dragon soared out of his body and once again gave Chen Haoran a place to bounce off of in the air to land a heavy blow into Pan Gong’s chest that rang with the force of a cannon and cracked his bones with a sound akin to falling trees. Blood splattered, and Pan Gong took several steps back. Then he took several more steps back, this time of his own volition, getting smaller and smaller with each step till both his skin and height returned to normal.

He was a sorry sight. His uniform was a ruin. His broken ribs bulged against the skin of his chest, failing to pierce through it. The axe was still buried in his body. His arm and shoulder had almost completely been amputated and were barely still connected to the rest of him. Blood ran out of his open wound finally, but to Chen Haoran’s surprise, when it fell to the ground, the droplets turned into red pearls of blood instead.

Bao Si arrived at his side and handed over his storage bag.

“Thank you,” Chen Haoran said, gratefully taking it. He reached inside, pulled out a handful of pomegranate seeds, and immediately swallowed them.

“Don’t mention it,” Bao Si said. She stared at Pan Gong’s pearl blood with scrutinizing eyes. “Blood like mercury…” She looked at Pan Gong in surprise. “You’re a Body Refiner?”

“Please don’t say things that will get me in trouble,” Pan Gong said. “I use a body refining method. There’s a difference.”

Despite his terrifying injury, Pan Gong still had color in his cheeks. The only indication of pain on his face was the sweat beading across his brow. Not only that, despite the fact he was bleeding, there was no Liquid Qi escaping his body. It was further confirmation of what the Yellow Dragon had shown him before. This ‘body refining’ method altered the way Pan Gong used liquid qi. He took the axe in hand and wrenched it out his body, spilling more blood pearls.

Bao Si waved her hand and her Gu rushed forward to collect the blood. Pan Gong immediately took out a talisman from his storage bag and released a conflagration of white fire, forcing the Gu to retreat. He stamped his foot, and the blood pearls began rolling back toward him.

“There is a saying,” Pan Gong said. “A lion will use all its strength even when hunting a mouse.”

“Don’t care. Didn’t ask.” Chen Haoran flooded qi to his legs and rushed toward him.

“It’s a saying that fits Lu Aotian more than it does myself. I don’t really like playing all my cards, nor do I need to.”

“Good, keep them to your chest and die,” Chen Haoran said. Green light bloomed in his hand.

“After all. I am not a lion. I run with wolves.” Pan Gong grabbed his shoulder and held it back in place. The escaped blood pearls began rolling up his body and into the wound.

Chen Haoran wouldn’t let this opportunity pass. It was here or never.

Blossom Picking Palm.

“Above!”

Bao Si’s warning came too late. Chen Haoran only had enough time to dig in his heels and whirl around when blue fire fell from the heavens and incinerated the Formation Controller. The man didn’t even have time to scream before he was turned to ashes. The flames surged and scoured away the runes of the Formation Circle before reconstituting into Captain Liu’s burning body.

“What I’m trying to say is that my helpers are more reliable than yours,” Pan Gong finished.

The Executioner’s Blade groaned and fell from the sky, collapsing into metal white light.