With every punch and kick, Li Yi shattered the bodies of the beasts that dared to cross his path; he seemed to be the very personification of walking annihilation. The beasts attempted to flee with all their might, gripped by a primal terror, but Li Yi focused primarily on hunting them down. Furthermore, the Martial Realm cultivators held them back with iron wills to prevent them from escaping the encirclement.
At that moment, one of the most powerful beasts of the Warrior Realm leaped through the air, soaring across the sky before falling heavily into the middle of the battlefield. There, the Martial rank creatures were desperately trying to halt the youth's advance. Upon spotting it, Li Yi stopped pursuing the weaker beasts and fixed his gaze on this new threat, whose presence was far more imposing.
In what seemed like a single step, Li Yi vanished, only to emerge before it like a blinding flash. A terrible punch, loaded with devastating brute force, sent the beast flying several hundred meters, forcibly returning it to the Warrior-level sector of the battlefield. The beast sat dazed, unable to pinpoint the exact moment the youth had struck it. As it tried to stand with a growl, it noticed with horror that its arm had been completely pulverized.
In that instant, all the beasts turned to look; they could not process how one of their strongest kin had been wounded so suddenly and brutally. Li Yi approached again like a lightning bolt and, with an upward kick to the chest, shattered its torso. The beast's head went flying from the pressure of the impact, falling inertly at the edge of the perimeter.
The beasts knew then that they had to stop this cultivator first, understanding that if they faced him one by one, they would be defeated without remedy. They lunged in a flock, like a dark tide, upon Li Yi's position. This left him perplexed—not by the sheer number of enemies or the fact that they were attacking him, but because these creatures did not fight like low-level beasts. These seemed to launch attacks of pure energy and swipes that projected brilliant slashes, similar to the sword techniques from the novels he had once read.
Though he had expected this deep down—given that three beings were fighting high in the firmament and must at least be capable of using their energy to fly—it was a confirmation. Cultivators in the Base Forging and Martial Realms only use their energy to boost physical capabilities, but Warrior Realm cultivators and above can launch spiritual attacks and deploy magical powers.
His gaze swept the surroundings; it seemed a vast amount of terrifying attacks were about to cover him completely. He really only had two ways to escape them. One was to run swiftly and pierce through several attacks head-on to leave the epicenter, but he liked the second option much more.
Suddenly, he rotated the Vacuum Sphere inside him with all his strength and released a large portion of the Vortex's restriction, absorbing all the energy surrounding him. The massive quantity of attacks that seemed destined to shred his body simply dissolved and vanished before even touching him, and all that residual energy was absorbed by Li Yi.
The beasts expected their joint offensive to have caused massive damage, but instead, they noted with dread that the cultivator had absorbed all their attacks and his power seemed to have increased. Li Yi watched them with a smile and a macabre glint in his eyes, sending a shiver of fear through every beast.
In an instant, Li Yi seemed to vanish, triggering a sonic boom. He appeared before one of the largest beasts and unleashed a flurry of blows across its entire body. By the time the creature managed to react, its anatomy was already destroyed, and it could only collapse to the ground, bleeding out, though not yet dead. Realizing it could no longer fight, the beast decided to incite its bloodline to explode; its entire body began to turn red, like an incandescent light illuminating the entire battlefield.
Zu Chen, one of the Warrior Realm cultivators, noticed the energy instability and shouted for everyone to move away from the beast's body immediately. But Li Yi, seeing the massive energy reaction, positioned himself over the creature's body just as it was about to detonate. When everyone expected a terrifying explosion, they noticed the light began to dim. Observing closer, they were stunned: the young cultivator seemed to have absorbed the entire explosion into his own body—an inconceivable feat, as that energy should have been terribly harmful upon mere contact.
Not even a second passed before Li Yi returned to the combat, but he was dissatisfied. He felt he had to land too many blows to fully defeat a beast. In his mind, images appeared of the energy attacks and powers the creatures launched, and he watched the other cultivators using magical powers to contain and fight them. He knew that unless he acquired some magical or spiritual combat technique, he could not fight with the same efficiency they did.
"I remember now that in my previous world, there were martial arts focused on the control of internal energy—what some called Qi—which they used to boost and make their attacks more effective. I also know I've been using my body's energy improperly in my offensives; I only use the energy contained in my arms, which drastically decreases the power I can unleash. Perhaps if I use the martial arts of my old world—Muay Thai and Kung Fu—and mix them, they will help me better control and transfer energy throughout my entire body," Li Yi thought.
He concentrated his mind on every movement, trying with each step to control and flow his internal energy. In an instant, as he arrived before a large beast, he positioned himself with a new fluidity, moving and transferring all his energy through his body until it concentrated in his fist. Upon impacting the beast, he vaporized it as if it were a strike of pure energy, also pulverizing the beasts directly behind it.
The other cultivators were completely aghast. They thought perhaps the young cultivator had achieved some kind of sudden breakthrough, but it seemed very strange to them, as he had not demonstrated any magical power throughout the battle and only fought with physical strength. This last attack, though terribly powerful, did not seem like a conventional spiritual technique; however, its power was immense, almost comparable to the bloodline explosion of a powerful beast. The most incredible part was that Li Yi did not seem to have spent any energy at all.
In reality, Li Yi had placed four-fifths of his energy into that strike, but his new base had absorbed the energy dispersed in the environment, replenishing him instantaneously. With this power, he could now deal with practically all these beasts on his own. Thus, he moved like lightning, and with every direct hit, he shattered a beast along with all those nearby.
Those battling in the air did not notice the situation below due to being so embroiled in their own combat, but the hidden beast did realize the other creatures on the field were lost. It now understood that the cultivator had truly increased his power and that this could gravely affect its plans. At that moment, it knew it could delay no longer and looked fervently toward the sky, focusing its gaze on Grand Director Leng Lubai.