Apotheosis Begins with Tai Chi

THUD!

A muffled crack echoed, covering the sound of shattering bone. Zhang Wen was thrown backward like a meteor, blood spraying from his mouth, pulled into a straight line by the wind.

He crashed through several large trees and shattered a massive boulder before his momentum finally stopped. Zhang Wen lay motionless amidst the rubble, not even a groan escaping his lips. It was impossible to tell if he was dead or alive.

And in the instant Zhang Wen was ’dealt with,’ the monster retracted its left fist. Its long arm whipped out like an iron whip, and the fist came crashing down like a colossal meteor hammer, aimed squarely at Shen Chun.

The wind from the punch howled as it rushed toward her. The force alone was enough to send Shen Chun’s hair flying back.

Shen Chun’s pupils contracted. She instinctively raised her saber to block.

CLANG—!!

The fist smashed against the blade.

The Refined Iron waist-saber instantly bent into an arc, and the back of the blade slammed against Shen Chun’s forehead, cutting a bloody gash.

She heard a sharp crack from her own forearm bone. Then, as if she’d been hit by a charging bull, her feet left the ground. Her body arched backward as she was sent flying.

She tumbled two and a half times in mid-air before her back crashed into a thicket of withered bushes with a loud CRACKLE of snapping branches.

Her waist-saber flew from her grasp, landing in the snow thirty feet away, where it stood quivering and humming.

Shen Chun lay in the broken branches, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her arms hung limp at her sides, her right forearm bent at an unnatural angle.

The impact had damaged her lungs. She couldn’t even scream. All she could do was open her mouth, a hissing sound escaping her throat. Every breath felt like someone was sawing between her ribs with a dull knife.

In the distance, there was no longer any sign of movement from Zhang Wen, and the Cloth-Wrapped Demon was no longer focused on him. It turned toward Shen Chun.

Shen Chun struggled to get up, but she couldn’t move.

And the Cloth-Wrapped Demon would certainly not give her the chance.

It hadn’t even paused. The moment it sent Shen Chun flying, it had already turned toward her.

Its towering frame, like a collapsing mountain, leaped high into the air and came crashing down to crush her.

The moonlight was completely blotted out by its dark shadow. In that instant, all Shen Chun could see were its eerie red, vertical pupils leaving two streaks of light in the darkness.

”Get out of the way! Dodge it!!”

In the distance, Wang Peng roared hysterically.

Shen Chun’s face was ashen, her pupils trembling. ’Dodge? Of course I want to!’

’But she knew better than anyone that this was one blow she absolutely could not dodge!’

Her heart stopped at that moment.

Despair washed over her like ice water, and she even forgot to breathe.

She just lay there, frozen, her pupils reflecting those eerie red, vertical eyes as they grew closer and larger—so large they seemed like two abysses poised to swallow her whole.

The wind from the punch was already on her face. The strange, foul stench filled her nostrils, making her gag and jolting her brain, which had nearly blanked out, partially awake.

’It’s over!’

’It’s all over!’

In that instant, she could already picture the scene of being crushed into a meat paste by the monster, then scooped up and eaten handful by handful.

BOOM!

A thunderous explosion roared, but it wasn’t the sound of the Cloth-Wrapped Demon landing.

Its gaze, Shen Chun’s, and Wang Peng’s—all three instinctively shot toward the sky. Even Du Wenshun couldn’t help but crane his neck, glancing upward from the corner of his eye.

Where could thunder be coming from at a time like this!?

The next moment, a figure cut through the darkness, suddenly slamming into the Cloth-Wrapped Demon in mid-air.

Compared to the monster, this figure was several sizes smaller, but their momentum was fiercer, their power greater, and most importantly, their speed was unimaginably fast.

The wind was torn apart; even the air itself seemed to shatter, letting out a low roar.

Wherever the figure passed, rubble, dirt, withered branches, and snow blasted backward, like a giant white python rolling across the ground. The earth itself looked as if it were being plowed inch by inch by a cannonball.

BOOM—!!

The figure and the Cloth-Wrapped Demon collided head-on in mid-air. The terrifying force of the impact was like two icebergs crashing into one another.

A muffled, violent, eardrum-shattering boom exploded across the hillside, shaking the surrounding dead trees so hard that snow poured from their branches like waterfalls.

At the moment of impact, a visible shockwave erupted from the center of the collision, sweeping out in all directions.

The surrounding snow, rubble, broken branches, and tattered cloth were all sent flying by the shockwave. Even Shen Chun, lying below, was sent tumbling a great distance.

The next moment, the Cloth-Wrapped Demon’s massive body was forcefully knocked back. Its feet plowed two deep furrows in the ground as frozen earth was turned up and rubble sent flying. It only managed to steady itself after being pushed back ten feet.

The figure who had collided with it was also sent flying backward.

However, that figure flipped with perfect Harmony in mid-air, shedding all the residual force in a way that nearly defied logic, before landing steadily ten feet away.

He dropped to one knee, planting a hand on the snowy ground, and slowly raised his head.

Only then did everyone get a clear look at him.

His face was wrapped in black cloth, his clothes were tattered, and on his back, he carried a long, flat wooden box wrapped in coarse fabric.

Wang Peng’s eyes lit up.

Du Wenshun glanced over, his eyes also flashing with recognition for a moment, but he quickly ducked his head back behind Wang Peng.

As for Shen Chun... her expression was the most complex of all.

Perhaps it was her head injury, or perhaps it was the darkness and swirling snow that made it hard to see clearly, but her gaze was fixed on the figure as tears streamed endlessly from the corners of her eyes. Her pale lips trembled, and she breathed out a single, almost inaudible word:

’...Dad?!’