Chapter 152: No Title (2/2)

Now that his second idea had been realized, all that remained was the third idea, based on what had happened at the beginning. His eyes absorbed some power from this Fiery Eye, seeming to change or evolve in the process. This evolution didn't just make his vision better and allow more subtle control over his Internal Qi and body, there must be other changes or functions.

With that in mind, he reactivated his Fiery Eyes. As the black lines in his eyes slowly twirled, something strange happened. As the black lines rotated, Junior Leopard seemed to feel his strength increase. Yes, his strength was increasing from head to toe. He seemed to be full of power. Unconsciously raising his hand, Junior Leopard was surprised at how fast it moved, almost too quickly for him to control.

”Damn it! I almost hit myself with my own raised hand. How embarrassing!” Junior Leopard laughed at himself and set his hand down. ”Poof!” With a light sound, the hand he lowered sank deep into the bluestone floor as if it was made of bean curd, the steely bluestone was broken easily with the lightest use of strength.

”Wow! So abnormal!” Junior Leopard shouted in his heart. Standing gingerly, he now understood that his speed and strength could be greatly enhanced when his Fiery Eyes began to rotate. They were enhanced so far beyond his imagination that he could not control himself.

That was why he stood very gingerly to avoid losing control of his body. After standing, he suddenly gathered his strength and flung it out.

”Swish, boom-boom-boom!” A light sound was followed by three violent sonic booms. In the wake of these three sonic booms, Junior Leopard's fist completely tore apart the surrounding air, a strike that created a pocket of vacuum. Even after that, he sensed something mysterious as well.

Space, yes. His three continuous, swift, extremely powerful fists were able to touch the fabric of space. He even felt that if his fists were a little faster and heavier, he'd be able to pose a threat to space, maybe even break it.

Crushing vacuum!

Suddenly, Junior Leopard's heart got hot. Just now his three punches, relying solely on physical strength, shook the fabric of space. What if he punched with his Internal Qi? Could his fist strike and crush the vacuum of space using his Extraordinary Strength Fist and enhanced body?

No wonder they called him impatient as well as a go-getter! Once he had this idea, he proceeded to directly put it into practice without thinking it through. He called up his Internal Qi, activated the mental cultivation methods of Extraordinary Strength Fist and punched sharply.

”Bang!”

There was an expected loud noise… and then silence.

No, not just silence. Halfway through his punching motion, Junior Leopard's body froze in place. Blood gushed from his pores like a fountain and swirled all around his body like a whirlwind. During this eruption, the black lines in his eyes stopped rotating, as if something had interrupted them.

Extreme fatigue washed over him, fatigue that made Junior Leopard as limp as a noodle. It was like he had made love eight times, carried a hammer into battle against a master of martial arts for three hundred rounds, and then made love eight more times. He was utterly exhausted.

With such sudden exhaustion, he couldn't lift himself up with his flabby hands and feet. He could only lie on the ground like a dead dog, gasping for breath. In the wake of the blood flow, his skin beaded with sweat that mingled with the blood and flowed all over his body. Now he was drenched with blood and foam was dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He was extremely disheveled.

”A miscalculation. I miscalculated, damn it! How could I forget? The Fiery Eyes augment my strength and speed based on my physical strength. I'm a rookie whose cultivation has not yet entered the Bone-Forging Realm, and I wanted to acquire crushing vacuum, a feat that's impossible even for experts of the Tendon-Changing Realm. I was so greedy, and the greedy are struck down by lightning. This lightning strike was heavy, so heavy!”

Even as he lay groaning on the ground, fatigued to the point of death, his mind kept thinking, ”Improvement. I need to improve it. No, no, no, familiarization. I need to become familiar with it! Those first few punches were good. At least they came out!”

At this point, he was completely unable to move. Those punches not only hurt his skin and flesh but also damaged his muscles and bones, even his viscera felt hurt. To punch over his limit was totally irresponsible.

Normally, Junior Leopard wouldn't do such a thing, but he was so excited that he forgot the limits of his body, to his utter misfortune.

Lying and groaning on the ground for a long time, he got up once he felt he had regained a bit of strength. It was so hard for him to crawl up, he felt like an 120-year old man, trying to lift himself up when he was about to die. It was the same kind of pain, the same helplessness. Fortunately, he managed to sit up.

After sitting up, his first priority was to regulate his breathing and recover his strength. But as soon as he sat up, a wave of dizziness struck, hypoxia.

In this situation, he dared not do anything else but lie back and gasp.

As he lay there, he stopped trying to regulate his breathing and just did what ordinary people often do when they're tired. He gasped for breath, wide-mouthed gasps, a sensation he had not experienced for a long time.

In this moment, he seemed to turn back into an ordinary person who had never practiced martial arts. A very amazing and strange feeling swept over his whole body. Suddenly his eyes flickered and the black lines in his eyes began to rotate again, but in the opposite direction this time. Junior Leopard started to feel this spinning sensation extend to his body and surroundings, but not like the spinning in his spiritual mind. If he activated his spiritual mind, with a single glance he could see things within hundreds of feet, even the flying flowers and leaves within a mile could not hide from his gaze. But now it felt like his vision was overflowing like water, wherever his perception stretched, Junior Leopard was astonished to discover that every point of space felt like an extension of himself, or at least was under his complete control.

This sense of absolute control trailed off at a distance of 30 feet. Outside of this 30 feet range, Junior Leopard couldn't extend his senses a centimeter or millimeter out, even if he strained himself.

Within that 30 feet range of absolute control, there was another change that surprised Junior Leopard.

There was a black beetle within the 30 feet range. In fact, this beetle had been happily crawling and jumping across the bluestone, unaffected by its surroundings until Junior Leopard's perception flowed over it. Then its movements stopped. At the same time, Junior Leopard became aware of a connection, a link between the beetle's mind and his senses.

This feeling was weirder than any state he had ever been in before. He was linked to the beetle's mind, but he could not control the beetle, just sense the beetle's simple thoughts to some degree. In fact, the beetle had no thoughts worth a damn, just a feeling similar to fear, a feeling that Junior Leopard could not comprehend.

”Since I could not control it, what use does it have?”

This was worth thinking through. Based on past experience, although the enigmatic features and strange functions of the Fiery Eyes were difficult to conceptualize, they were never useless, as his situation made evidently.

He was lying on the ground, unable to move, because the Fiery Eyes had depleted his physical power instead of augmenting his strength and speed. In a fight with an enemy, an ordinary person thrust into this situation would basically lose if their enemy hadn't yet been dispatched. But what if this was similar to how the Region thing worked?

What if it had a special effect?

Could this effect be able to kill the enemy at the same time, an irreversible type of death? Examining the present situation, instead of augmenting strength and speed, the Fiery Eyes currently seemed to boost the spirit. What function would that have?

Junior Leopard faced the beetle, intent on researching the phenomenon though he still did not understand it. There was a ready-made sample for study, right before his eyes.

He started by trying to control the beetle with his divine thoughts. He had experience controlling certain objects with divine thoughts thanks to the Demon Devil Needles he owned. Except for the Demon Devil Needles he had refined himself, his divine thoughts couldn't even propel a piece of paper.

But now, things were different. It was not a piece of paper in front of him, but a life within his range of perception, a life under his influence.

He sought to use his divine thoughts to move the beetle, but as he activated his divine thoughts, the black beetle suddenly shivered and continued to march on its original course. Its body did not move according to his divine thoughts, but Junior Leopard clearly felt that his divine thoughts seemed to have absorbed something strange from the beetle, something like a divine light or piece of spirit. After this strange thing was captured, it mysteriously dissipated into his zone of 'absolute control'. Unconsciously, Junior Leopard seemed to feel one more thing within his 'absolute control' zone.

He felt a shadow, a very light shadow coming from the beetle, which appeared in Junior Leopard's perception for only a moment and then dissipated. That brief, mere moment roused a storm in Junior Leopard's heart.

He knew what his divine thoughts had absorbed from the beetle.

He had taken its soul!