Chapter 1059: Given You Face... Xu Xiaoshou

"Oh?"

The Void Servant withered, as if choked by a larger giant, its roars significantly diminished. How could this "weak half-saint" in front of it suddenly become so powerful?

Just a moment ago, he seemed to have his cultivation sealed or be severely injured, easy to deal with. But now... The Void Servant felt that if this half-saint wished, he could simply use his saintly power to burst it from within. Unless it followed tradition and used the Void Island's rules to suppress him, sending him to the inner island for subjugation, it probably couldn't avenge the emptying of Shennong's Medicinal Garden in a direct fight.

"Who calls my name?" Jiang Buyi still moved with an unhurried grace. After landing, he sensed only two individuals in the battle. Aside from the spirit refiner being tormented by the Void Servant, only the dark giant Void Servant remained, capable of directly invoking a saint's name. Yet, recalling the human-sized figure he had sensed from tens of thousands of miles away, a figure strikingly similar to himself, even in voice, Jiang Buyi suspected there might be a hidden third party present, besides these two.

A half-saint? Unlikely. If that person were a half-saint, they wouldn't need to hide. This left only one possibility: a shrinking turtle who, after reaching the Throne Dao Realm, specialized in "evasion techniques" and could hide under a half-saint's nose even in the Grand Void Realm!

"Speak." Jiang Buyi lifted an eyelid, gazing at the colossal Void Servant, intending to extract information. The three-hundred-zhang dark giant stood in stark contrast to the seven-and-a-half-foot human elder. Yet, for the moment, it was the seemingly insignificant human who held the upper hand in presence.

"Roar!" The Void Servant roared again, its sound meant to intimidate. It still couldn't accept this "weak half-saint's" sudden, arrogant, and absurd change in demeanor. Just moments ago, he had to dodge its attacks...

"What are you pretending?" The Void Servant was furious and kicked down again. "I am Saint Jiang Buyi," it had said. "Knowing my name, what can you do to me?" it had also said. Now, it was asking who had spoken earlier... Did it truly think the Void Servant was brainless, a being it could fool at will?

"Crack, crack, crack—" Space shattered under the Void Servant's kick; that attack, brimming with immense power, was the absolute might that haunted Shuangdai and Hong Dang's nightmares. The Void Servant refused to believe. It reasoned that a half-saint, previously injured or sealed in cultivation, who had shown reverence and fear towards it, had no reason to recover to peak condition so quickly. Therefore, this kick was its third test, a test of this half-saint Jiang Buyi!

As expected, with the kick, Jiang Buyi at the impact point dared not meet its force, flashing away in an instant. The Void Servant immediately became convinced of its theory. This fellow's sudden change in attitude and aura was all bluff, all fake!

However, this thought didn't last long. The next second, a low, deep voice of suppressed rage emerged from its chest. "A half-saint is not to be desecrated!" The Void Servant stared in shock, abruptly looking down. This time, the human half-saint Jiang Buyi hadn't used his extreme speed to flash behind it and continue his taunts. Instead, he had flown into the air, right in front of its chest, as if unafraid of death, and slowly extended his right hand...

A gentle breeze stirred his white robe, and mist veiled his form. Jiang Buyi tilted his head slightly, not even looking directly at the towering dark giant before him, as he used the back of his right hand as a point of contact, pressing it against the Void Servant's chest. "Cloud Moon Brush Hand." With a flick of his palm's back, he stirred the clouds and played with the moon.

Vast saintly power converged in this strike. When the Void Servant realized something was wrong and tried to retreat, the world seemed to freeze; it couldn't move an inch. Perhaps Jiang Buyi didn't want to overuse his power and activate the Miracle Forest's perilous attributes. Or perhaps his mastery over his own strength was already so exquisite that it wouldn't cause the kind of super-explosions seen in the spirit refiner battles within the three Throne realms. In short, with this gentle brush, there was no explosion, no spatial rupture; even Xu Xiaoshou, hidden in mid-air and daring not show himself, couldn't detect how much energy it contained. It looked like a weary old man's feeble counter-attack against the children of South Village, waving his sleeve, carrying away not a single cloud.

But! The next second! "Thump." A muffled sound echoed in mid-air. The space behind the Void Servant didn't shatter, yet its form instantly disintegrated into specks of light on the spot.

"What the hell?!" Xu Xiaoshou immediately clutched his dropped jaw, unable to believe the sight. One strike... One brush of the hand... The Void Servant, dead? "Startled, Passive Points, 1."

The half-saint's power far exceeded Xu Xiaoshou's imagination, but the Void Servant in his memory shouldn't have been so easily defeated, right? Realizing something, Xu Xiaoshou sharply turned his gaze towards the direction behind the Void Servant. Sure enough, a hundred miles away, he distantly saw the true Void Servant's body, curled like a large shrimp under Jiang Buyi's "Cloud Moon Brush Hand," deeply embedded within the cracked space. It couldn't move for a long time!

Only then, a three-hundred-zhang black chasm slowly opened between Jiang Buyi's position and the Void Servant's true body a hundred miles away—space shattered! "Gulp." Xu Xiaoshou's Adam's apple bobbed, his face pale. The crumbling Void Servant he had seen was merely an afterimage left behind because it had been struck away too fast. And the mastery of that brush-hand's attack power... It was so precise that it prevented the massive Void Servant from losing control and destroying the Miracle Forest, while also using space as a barrier to keep it within the Void Island's territory, preventing it from being blasted into spatial currents.

"How perfect is this control over power?" Xu Xiaoshou felt his horizons expanding once more. Natural space was already extremely fragile for those in the Throne Dao Realm, let alone against a half-saint's strike. Yet, in the current situation, Jiang Buyi's attack could still precisely use that fragile space as a barrier, causing the Void Servant to retreat only a hundred miles while remaining on the field, not being eliminated.

"So, Jiang Buyi's strike unleashed its full power, without reservation, within the Void Servant's... body?" As this thought barely crossed his mind... "Boom!" A hundred miles away, the Void Servant suddenly exploded with a thunderous roar from within, its enormous body tearing apart, black blood spraying out in all directions as if it were worthless.

"Oh, my God..." Xu Xiaoshou's eyes bulged; he was beyond words. Just as he had thought, even the Void Servant's body couldn't withstand the hidden force of Half-Saint Jiang Buyi's strike. This was simply outrageous! "Was this the kind of monster I intended to face before?"

Xu Xiaoshou scratched his numb scalp, vowing in his heart that until he reached the Throne and mastered a divine skill surpassing "Disappearing Art" that could allow him to escape from a half-saint, he absolutely wouldn't provoke one again! Scaling the Holy Mountain suddenly seemed a distant, unattainable goal...

"No!" Xu Xiaoshou suddenly realized he had been terrified. When people are weak, their greatest fear is encountering the world's most formidable abilities, leading to despair upon realizing the vast disparity, losing the drive to strive and catch up. As soon as such a thought began to sprout, Xu Xiaoshou immediately stifled it.

He wasn't an ordinary person; he had the passive system. Once he reached the Throne, Jiang Buyi's power, while strong, wouldn't be unattainable even by trying his utmost. Half-saints were powerful! But on the Saint Divine Continent, this was not an insurmountable problem.

Bazun'an, who had only just reached the Sword Immortal realm, fell into the Void Island's inner island, possibly not even at full strength, yet could still suppress everything with his sword skills. Didn't this imply that even without cheats, simply cultivating the ancient sword path, if perfected, could similarly overwhelm the power Jiang Buyi was now demonstrating? "And what I possess is not just ancient sword arts..."

It took Xu Xiaoshou a long time to barely stabilize his almost-shattered mental state. He felt this lesson was well worth it. Without paying tuition, hidden in the shadows, he had carefully observed a half-saint's move from the closest possible distance. Even if it wasn't at full power, it showed him the direction for his future efforts. If Jiang Buyi was like this, how much weaker could the eccentrics on Gui Zhe Holy Mountain be? Old Man Sang was still silently waiting in the Dead Sea; he had already boasted about reaching the Throne and charging the Holy Mountain. Could he possibly take that back?

"The road is long, and the journey arduous..." Xu Xiaoshou murmured silently, his gaze hardening with each mental reconstruction. "I will search high and low!"

Within the battle, a single brush of the hand sent the three-hundred-zhang dark giant flying backward. Jiang Buyi extended his left hand, catching the bloody spirit refiner who had fallen from the Void Servant's grasp. The Void Servant was unresponsive and wouldn't answer. But its kind, humans, always would.

"Still alive..." With a slight感知, Jiang Buyi detected a faint breath from the person in his hand, assuming the armor had saved their life. "Hmm?" Supporting the blood-stained armor, Jiang Buyi suddenly felt something amiss; the aura of this armor seemed familiar?

"Azure God Armor?" He reached out and wiped away the blood from the helmet in his hand, easily revealing a single eye. At this, his eyelid twitched slightly. "Teng Shanhai?" Teng Shanhai, Head of the War Department of the Holy Divine Palace! Jiang Buyi could barely believe the identity of this spirit refiner, who had been tormented by the Void Servant—a member of the Holy Divine Palace?

The last people he wanted to encounter right now were those from the Holy Divine Palace. Under the deep sea, the accusations Master Situ had leveled against him remained unwashed, and the suspicion of him attempting to usurp the Holy Emperor's position still lingered. For a moment, a murderous thought flickered in Jiang Buyi's mind. He had no desire to save Teng Shanhai; such a minion, dead or alive, made little difference. However, since this was a member of the Holy Divine Palace, he absolutely couldn't die by his hand. Otherwise, those on the Holy Mountain might eventually trace it back to him through some means. At that point, Jiang Buyi would be utterly unable to clear his name.

Unable to kill him, yet having him in his hands... "Wake up." Jiang Buyi sighed, intending to befriend Teng Shanhai and use this as a breakthrough to clear the accusations Master Situ had piled on him. However, upon probing with his saintly power, he immediately sensed the horrific extent of Teng Shanhai's injuries.

His physical body had been completely shattered by the Void Servant. He was currently in a weakened state after consuming holy blood, and his mental state was a chaotic mess, devoid of reason, as if he had used a forbidden art. "Demonic power..." Feeling the lingering power on Teng Shanhai's only exposed right arm, Jiang Buyi's heart skipped a beat. This kind of power, in terms of "quality," surpassed saintly power. How Teng Shanhai acquired it was unknown, but forcefully wielding it with his current cultivation had clearly led to his present condition!

"A demonic power even more concentrated than the 'Divine Demonic Child,' or rather, a power only accessible after the 'Divine Demonic Child' has reached full mastery..." Jiang Buyi was restless, once again tempted by the thought of killing for treasure. After all, he had thrown out the bait of the "Divine Demonic Child," but hadn't yet reaped any benefits, and had even been drawn into the Void Island himself. Without a doubt, the power within Teng Shanhai was incredibly tempting!

But he was still a member of the Holy Divine Palace, after all... "How extravagant; even a mere Head of the War Department can wield such power." Jiang Buyi sighed, shaking his head. He fed Teng Shanhai a pill, then lightly patted his armor, jolting him awake.

"Ugh..." Teng Shanhai awoke from his daze, his eyes meeting a kind-faced old man with a warm, benevolent smile. Memory fragments flashed like lightning, and he suddenly understood the situation. "Xu Xiaoshou?" "You scoundrel! Do you really think you can control me?!"

Having consumed the Divine Blessing and recovered most of his injuries, Teng Shanhai abruptly stood up. At close range, his right arm erupted with demonic power, striking out fiercely. A simple uppercut forcefully struck Jiang Buyi's chin, sending it skyward, catching the half-saint completely off guard as he was expressing goodwill! Just a little... Just a little more... And Jiang Buyi's head would have been sent flying by the powerful blow from that demonic arm!

"Whoosh." His head didn't fly. But a tooth soared through the air in an elegant arc, taking with it the last shred of goodwill Jiang Buyi had managed to squeeze out for a member of the Holy Divine Palace. The world suddenly fell silent at this moment... Jiang Buyi: ??? Teng Shanhai:

Hidden in mid-air, Xu Xiaoshou nearly burst out laughing at the sight. This was truly astonishing! "Teng Shanhai, I declare this the highlight of your life!"

His face reddened by the insult, Jiang Buyi's expression darkened instantly as he glared at Teng Shanhai, who stood with hands on hips. A deep, furious voice, leaking through clenched teeth, spilled out. "You are asking for death!" As the words settled. A thunderbolt roared from the clear sky, dark clouds gathered in the firmament, and the sky turned gloomy. A sudden wind swept across thousands of miles, fluttering Jiang Buyi's white robe, making his grim expression even more striking. A half-saint's wrath triggered cosmic changes!

"Heh." Teng Shanhai sneered. "Not bad, quite the aura, you're really putting on a show... Xu Xiaoshou!" Outsiders might be afraid, but Teng Shanhai was not the least bit flustered. Although he had no idea why the world was changing so dramatically, or why he had been inexplicably injured and then woken up... Teng Shanhai knew none of this.

But did any of that matter now? No! Xu Xiaoshou was what mattered most! Xu Xiaoshou had many tricks up his sleeve for playing ghost. If it was just this, how could Teng Shanhai be scared? "Am I, Teng Shanhai, someone who can be easily intimidated?"

Knowing full well that the person in front of him was Xu Xiaoshou in disguise, Teng Shanhai paid no heed to these minor changes in the world. He released his hands and summoned the Xiao Divine Spear, which had fallen somewhere unknown, back to him. Then, holding the spear aloft, he looked at "Half-Saint Jiang Buyi" across from him, who was wiping blood from his lips, quickly putting distance between them, and whose face was a mixture of surprise, shame, and fury. Teng Shanhai sneered as he threw out the Martial Ban Order: "While I don't know why you dared to approach me, I'm giving you this chance: obediently put on the Martial Ban Order and come back with me to the Holy Mountain's Dead Sea... If you surrender, I'll spare your dog life!"