037. How is he so fast?!

The look of shock still lingered on the Young Roc King’s face, only to be compounded further. Whipping his head around in utter disbelief, he seemed as though he had seen a ghost. “How…is this possible…”

Nothing, in truth, is impossible.

In terms of sheer physical strength, Lu Wu was now quite lacking. When he first entered the Qi Gathering Stage, his raw bodily power, even when combined with the Ant Totem, was no more than that of a robust ordinary man. Over the past few days, Lu Wu had mimicked a multitude of small animals, and his strength now equaled that of perhaps three ordinary people.

Yet, in terms of speed, his innate quickness had already far surpassed ordinary Qi Gathering cultivators. From the very beginning, Lu Wu’s speed towered over those at the same cultivation stage. Moreover, among the animals he had recently mimicked were other birds—swallows and their kin, much swifter than sparrows. Thus, his current speed could be considered unrivaled within the Qi Gathering Stage.

Such was the formidable might of the “Atlas of Myriad Beasts” soul totem. Beyond speed, Lu Wu’s spirit was extraordinarily powerful. In the grasp of his divine sense, the burning feathers hurtling towards him seemed to slow to a crawl, drifting lazily closer. Only when they were nearly upon him—when there was no more room to observe—did Lu Wu, with the burst speed of a bee’s wings and a sparrow’s flight, escape from the jaws of death.

Strictly speaking, it was not escape, but rather that he stayed just outside the range of the blast.

Even the Young Roc King, shrouded in the searing flames, could not discern how Lu Wu had managed to evade. As for those below the stage, they saw even less. Only because of the cultivators’ keen perception did they suddenly notice Lu Wu standing behind the Young Roc King. How he had arrived there—no one could say. None had anticipated that such a “tiny insect” could possess such astonishing speed!

“Impossible!” the Young Ape King was dumbfounded. “Big Brother is the fastest among us—can this Lu Wu truly be quicker?”

The Young Flood Dragon King drew a sharp breath. “Could this be some secret art of spatial movement? Some innate talent?”

On the side of the Supreme Void Palace, the disciples were equally stupefied.

“If I’m not mistaken, Uncle flew out of the flames so quickly he left behind an afterimage?” one murmured.

“It seems…that’s exactly what happened,” another replied.

From the perspective of the demon cultivators, their view was obscured by the Young Roc King’s golden flames; they hadn’t seen clearly. The disciples of the Supreme Void Palace, however, had witnessed Lu Wu’s entire movement. Many had assumed he’d been burned, but that tiny figure suddenly vanished, only to appear far away. Only then did they realize he’d moved so swiftly he left behind an afterimage.

Afterimages sound extraordinary, but they are simply the limit of the eye’s perception of movement—just as an ordinary person sees the phantom of a spinning fan blade. For Lu Wu to leave an afterimage visible even to the cultivators’ extraordinary eyesight was truly remarkable.

“Incredible!”

“The Young Roc King can’t lay a finger on Uncle—doesn’t that mean Uncle is already invincible?”

“Amazing! If it were me, no technique could ever touch him!”

“Don’t belittle yourself. Even the Young Roc King can’t touch him—that doesn’t mean you’re weak, only that Uncle is mighty!”

Upon the stage, Lu Wu spoke regretfully, “Too slow. Your attack is no faster than an old lady strolling after a meal.”

“Show me your true strength, will you?”

Lu Wu’s words were not meant to provoke, but rather, he wished to test the true power of the “Atlas of Myriad Beasts”—this secret soul cultivation tome—against a formidable opponent.

The “Atlas of Myriad Beasts” was already a legendary scripture among cultivation manuals, and after being organized by the Book of Knowledge, its power had grown by several orders of magnitude. Lu Wu did not know just how powerful his current limit at the Qi Gathering Stage truly was. The only way to find out was through combat.

The Young Roc King narrowed his eyes. “It seems things are not so simple after all.”

As he spoke, the Young Roc King partially transformed—his head morphing into that of a great roc. Golden feathers, white neck markings—he looked for all the world like the Golden-Winged Roc from old legends.

A man with the head of a bird.

Lu Wu grew wary.

An ordinary cultivator might not understand the meaning behind the Young Roc King’s transformation, but Lu Wu, versed in the Dao of Beasts, understood at once. Birds possess keen eyesight, especially predatory raptors, whose vision far exceeds that of humans. The true eyes of the Roc should be even sharper than those of an eagle.

This fellow had adopted the roc’s head to better track his movements.

Lu Wu fluttered his wings. “Interesting.”

He was already airborne as he spoke.

The Young Roc King’s gaze followed Lu Wu’s every move, and he could even rotate his head a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

Lu Wu darted across the sky, and the Young Roc King kept him in sight.

“So that’s how it is!” The Young Roc King discerned Lu Wu’s flight pattern. Raising his spear, he aimed at a spot in the air and thrust without warning!

In that instant, Lu Wu withdrew the sparrow’s wing burst, reducing his speed to that of an ordinary bee. The Young Roc King’s spear struck nothing but air.

“What? Impossible!” Missing his mark, the Young Roc King unleashed a wave of monstrous energy, sweeping a vast area.

Lu Wu hurriedly activated the sparrow’s wing burst again, his speed soaring as he blinked away in an instant.

“No way!” The Young Roc King muttered, “How can any movement technique start and stop so abruptly? It’s impossible…”

Yet even as he denied it, a possibility occurred to him: only the most profound movement arts could achieve such instantaneous acceleration and stopping.

But could such advanced techniques be cultivated at the Qi Gathering Stage? Did not every such art require an understanding of the laws of the world?

Could it be that this tiny insect before him had already begun to comprehend the laws of nature?

He was but forty-eight days old! Was his talent truly so monstrous?

The Young Roc King could hardly believe his own conjecture.

Had he heard of Sherlock Holmes’ dictum—“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”—he might not have doubted himself so.

Watching from the sidelines, Xiong Yu frowned. “This is bad. Lu Wu is not only blindingly fast, but his movement technique is so unpredictable that Big Brother can’t lock onto him at all!”

The Young Ape King shouted, “Big Brother! Go all out!”

On the stage, the Young Roc King could bear it no longer and accelerated. “Let’s see who’s faster!”

The roc, after all, was the speed specialist of the demon clans.

Any beast with even a trace of roc blood was astoundingly swift. The Young Roc King, at least half-blooded, was terrifying at full speed.

As the Young Roc King grew faster, the relative speed between him and Lu Wu decreased. At a certain point, if the Young Roc King was considered stationary, Lu Wu would appear to be leisurely circling him.

But to the tens of thousands of demon spectators and Supreme Void Palace disciples, the two had already become blurs, nearly vanishing from the arena. Their figures flickered madly, and at every moment, the chase of insect and roc could be glimpsed at some corner of the stage.

Within this frenzy, the Young Roc King brandished his spear. “Kill!”

This was the first time since entering the Supreme Void Sect’s territory that the Young Roc King lost his composure.

Seeing the spear thrust toward him, Lu Wu hastily retreated, narrowly evading the attack.

At such speeds, the Young Roc King could not fully track Lu Wu’s movements and could only strike by instinct.

“So that’s it!” The Young Roc King soon discerned Lu Wu’s secret. “You’re using two movement arts at once!”

With this realization, Lu Wu’s form became much clearer in his eyes.

“Let’s see how you escape now!”

But Lu Wu did not flee—he flew straight toward the spear tip.

His slender proboscis clashed with the spear point, as fine as a short bristle.

The Young Roc King roared with laughter. “Courting death!”

Yet the expected scene of the insect being skewered did not occur. Like a needle meeting the point of an awn, Lu Wu’s proboscis withstood the spear’s assault!

In the next instant, Lu Wu sidestepped. “Dragon Serpent Sword—Dragon’s Roar!”

His body coiled like a dragon, power spiraling around the spear tip, twisting the weapon in his grip. The spearhead twisted, then the shaft, and in a moment the Young Roc King’s right palm was torn and bleeding, unable to hold the spinning spear.

“Hold!” With a surge of vital energy, the Young Roc King regained control of his weapon.

Both fighters leapt back.

“What just happened?”

“Look! The Young Roc King’s right hand is bleeding!”

“Uncle is unscathed!”

“Even in a head-on clash, Big Brother lost? He’s no match for Lu Wu?”

“Did you see what happened?”

The Young Flood Dragon King’s eyes widened. “The Dragon Serpent Sword—one of the Supreme Void Palace’s most powerful sword arts? Impossible!”

“He’s only forty-eight days old—how could he have mastered the Dragon Serpent Sword to such a degree?!”