Immortal Paladin Chapter 416 402 Punch First, Teach Later

402 Punch First, Teach Later

At the peak of the mountain, I moved alone beneath an open sky.

World Force rolled through my body as I stepped forward and drove my fist out.

"Divine Smite."

Golden radiance erupted from my knuckles, punching into the clouds and scattering them in a violent spiral. The air rang like a struck bell. I followed through without pause, twisting my stance and striking again.

"Searing Smite."

Fire blood from my fist, crimson and incandescent, licking across the heavens and staining the clouds red. Heat rushed outward in a wave, curling back against my skin. I didn't stop. My breath stayed even as I shifted weight and struck a third ti.

"Thunderous Smite."

Lightning exploded outward, thunder snapping so sharply it rattled the mountain beneath my feet. Blue and gold interwove across the sky, restoring a strange, natural balance to the chaos I'd carved into it.

I inhaled deeply.

"Holy Smite."

Silver light condensed at my palm and fired forward in a focused lance, holy energy screaming as it cut the air. I lowered my arm slowly, letting the echoes fade, World Force still coursing through my veins as I poured more of it into my circulation.

From the Eighth Realm onward—the Heart Path—cultivation stopped being taphorical. The heart beca a place. A labyrinth of chambers and corridors carved from mory, guilt, desire, and will. To advance, one had to expose the Self entirely, fill each chamber simultaneously, and survive the confrontation. Completion granted a terrifying intimacy: understanding oneself completely, and reading the hearts of others as easily as one's own pulse.

I was past that now.

The Ninth Realm—the World Path—was different. Here, cultivators learned to wield World Force, a power born not from qi alone, but from the construction of an inner world. The realm unfolded naturally into three phases: Earth, Moon, and Sun.

I exhaled as sothing settled deep within .

The Earth Phase had been completed.

My dantian solidified, heavier, denser, more real. I raised my palm and focused. World Force gathered not sharply like qi, nor diffusely like aura, but sowhere between quintessence and authority. It felt like projecting reality itself, shaped by an inner world that fed it endlessly.

Normally, that inner world resided in the core.

Mine didn't.

It was anchored to my main body instead.

That should have been impossible. And yet, I could still draw on it. Looking back, I realized I'd been doing it instinctively for a long ti, threading World Force through aura, Hollow Point, Spirit Mystery ability, and my Soul Recognition ability. Layering it beneath spells and strikes without understanding what I was doing.

Add my Paladin Legacy, a Transcendent thod, on top of that. Add the Six Paths refined through the Longevity thod. Add the simultaneous use of mana and qi, allowing the generation of quintessence, the literal power of creation.

No wonder I punched above my weight.

Sweat ran down my spine as the realization settled in.

"How the fuck was the main body even kidnapped?" I muttered.

A voice carried up from below, rough but familiar.

"Da Wei."

I turned.

Ru Qiu was climbing up from the lower peaks, his movents steady despite the altitude. He raised his head and t my gaze.

"I want to talk," he said.

I turned to him and shook my head slightly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Ru Qiu stopped a few steps below , the wind tugging at his sleeves. It had been months since he woke up, months since he asked to give him ti to think and reconcile the mories that had been forcibly returned to him. I hadn't pressed him then. I wasn't going to pretend I didn't understand the need for silence.

I resud my stance and continued cycling the Longevity thod, my breathing slow and asured as my fists moved through the familiar sequence of the Paladin Smite Series. I found the repetition grounding and therapeutic. Smite techniques were simple enough that I could clearly observe how World Force flowed through them without distraction.

As I struck and breathed, my mind drifted.

If I had to describe the energies I'd encountered so far, I'd say qi was life—raw vitality. Mana was psyche—thought and intent given form. Aura was presence—the pressure of existence asserting itself. Quintessence was creation itself, the power to impose sothing new onto reality.

Then what was World Force?

Before I could chase that thought further, Ru Qiu's voice cut through the mountain air.

"I want revenge."

I stopped.

The montum bled out of my body as I exhaled and lowered my hands. I sat down on a slab of stone, looking down at him from above. His expression was calm, but there was sothing rigid beneath it, sothing old and unyielding.

"I should tell you this first," I said. "I have a bad habit."

He waited.

"I forgive people too easily," I continued. "Or maybe I sympathize too easily. Nongmin. Jue Bu. Even you."

His eyes flickered.

"That doesn't an I'm a pushover," I said evenly. "It doesn't an you get to drag along just because I understand where you're coming from."

"This will benefit you too," Ru Qiu replied. His voice was steady and certain. "Our enemy is the sa."

I tilted my head. "Who?"

"The one who brought to this world."

I didn't need him to say the na.

In my mind, the Yellow Emperor surfaced alongside the Ga Master I had once encountered inside Joan's head. Neither friend nor enemy. Just… entities with intent. Designs. Plans laid across eras, using people like pieces on a board.

Were they enemies?

Nongmin had used , manipulated , shoved into a collision with Shenyuan that cost my people's lives. But he had done it believing it was best for the Empire. I couldn't deny that. In the end, I forgave him, and he'd spent every day since trying to earn it.

Jue Bu had stolen my body and gambled it all on a suicidal charge against the Supre Void. I still wanted to punch him for that, but he'd grown into , and carried my will forward when I couldn't.

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Wen Yuhan had betrayed . Yuan Shen had sched to steal my body and failed.

And yet, here I was.

I exhaled through my nose and gave a humorless chuckle. "If I were a proper Paladin," I muttered, "I should've smote every villain the mont they crossed my path. No exceptions."

I looked back at Ru Qiu.

"But I don't work like that."

He studied , silent.

"I won't join you," I said at last. "Not in this."

As expected, Ru Qiu snapped.

"Are you not angry?" he shouted, his voice cracking as it echoed off the cliffs. "You were used. Dragged from your world. Whisked away to do soone else's bidding and set on a path you never chose. How can you just accept that?!"

I looked at him calmly. "Whose bidding?" I asked. "And what path?"

The words landed harder than any strike.

Ru Qiu's mouth opened, then closed. His anger stalled, collapsing inward as if he had run into a wall he hadn't anticipated. For a long mont, he said nothing.

I had struggled with that sa line of thought for a long ti after arriving in the Hollowed World. I had obsessed over agency, over whether my choices were truly mine or just nudges along a track laid out by sothing higher. After dying enough tis, though, I learned how pointless that spiral was.

If my freedom was an illusion, then so be it.

I chose to live inside it anyway.

Faith worked the sa way. Believe in it strongly enough, and it shaped reality. If I couldn't tell whether my agency was genuine, then obsessing over it only robbed of what little control I did have.

I broke the silence first. "How much do you rember?"

Ru Qiu's jaw tightened. "Everything."

"Do you rember the voice?" I asked. "The one you heard when you died. Before you were brought here."

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

"Then answer this," I continued gently. "If you had a chance to return to that life, your wife, and your son, wouldn't you try everything in your power to reach it again?"

His eyes flickered.

"Give back the Source," Ru Qiu said at last.

There it was.

I smiled, slow and rueful. "So that's what this is."

He straightened, his voice turning sharp. "It's just a burden to you."

"That's true," I said easily.

"I can take your disciples hostage," he continued. "You'd be powerless to stop it."

I stared at him for half a heartbeat, and then burst out laughing. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha…" The sound startled even . I bent forward, slapping my knee as the laughter spilled out, unrestrained.

"There's nothing funny about this," Ru Qiu snapped.

"Sorry," I said, still chuckling. "I just… give a second."

He glared as I straightened.

"I may not have the Source anymore," he said coldly. "My [System] is gone. But the power, the knowledge, and the abilities tied to my mories have returned. Soone like Hei Mao? I could subjugate him. Gu Jie? Even with her miraculous gifts, she'd fall just as easily."

He leaned closer. "You're just a copy. A fragnt. Soone I can deal with."

"Park Ru-gyu," I said quietly.

The effect was imdiate.

His body stiffened as if struck.

I sighed and looked at him with sothing close to pity. "Why are you lying to yourself?"

His eyes shook.

Through my Divine Sense, I felt it clearly. The falsehood was thin and desperate. He didn't want to hurt my disciples. Especially not Gu Jie. I had seen his mories. I knew how he cherished her, like a granddaughter he never had the chance to keep.

Even now, his resolve was fraying.

He might be a Supre Being in the making, two realms above , carrying unfathomable power, but his heart was already cracked. And in a battle of words, that mattered more than cultivation.

I t his gaze steadily. "The Yellow Emperor is a nobody to ."

His breath caught.

"If one day he stands in my way," I continued calmly, "then I'll take him down too."

Ru Qiu should have backed down.

Instead, he clenched his fists, breath uneven, eyes burning with disbelief. "You're indecisive," he said harshly. "After everything you've seen, everything you know… how can you still hesitate?"

I shook my head slowly. "I've never been more decisive in my life."

He scoffed.

"I've always lived this way," I continued. "I stay true to myself. Every ti. This situation isn't special enough to change that."

The wind howled between us, carrying the tension down the mountainside. I took a step forward and spread my arms wide, deliberately exposing my chest.

"I see you are unconvinced," I said evenly, "How about we test your resolve."

Ru Qiu stiffened.

"Strike ," I went on. "Kill in one blow. Not just kill this body, annihilate my Ghost Soul so thoroughly that I can't resurrect with spells."

His pupils contracted.

"You know that's possible," I added. "If you erase it completely. Though even then, the soul would eventually regenerate back at my main body."

I lowered my arms slightly, eting his gaze. "But before you even think about bargaining chips, ask yourself sothing. Can you really handle what cos after?"

I stepped closer, my voice dropping.

"The Source. Earth. That thing we ca from. You know what it did in your hands. You tore apart armies of immortals. You nearly broke the sches of a Supre Being and the Yellow Emperor by shattering the barrier between past and future."

Silence stretched.

Ru Qiu inhaled deeply.

Then he exhaled and let his shoulders drop.

"I give up," he said.

I nodded. "Yeah. No shit."

Since he had recovered his mories, he understood the consequences better than anyone. The Source—Earth, origin, whatever na you slapped onto it—wasn't so artifact or trump card. It exceeded the Hollow Star, surpassed any imaginable existence within the Hollowed World.

It wasn't sothing you wielded.

It was sothing that ruined everything around it.

I studied him. "Is that all?"

Ru Qiu looked… lost. Stripped of purpose, stripped of direction. For the first ti since we t, he didn't look like a god-in-waiting. He looked like a man who had run out of reasons to keep going.

Almost pitiful.

I sighed. "If you're that lost, I'll give you a purpose."

He blinked. "What?"

"Beco my teacher."

The words hung between us.

Ru Qiu frowned. "Why? You've hated ."

"I have," I admitted. "On my personal hate scale, you rank below Jue Bu, but above Nongmin. That puts you squarely in the tolerable range."

He stared.

"I need a master," I continued. "Soone to actually teach the ropes. Properly. I've been lacking that more than I care to admit. I've never had anyone who could give real instruction."

"You could just take everything from ," he said slowly. "With Divine Possession."

I straightened, posture sharp and deliberate. "That's exactly why this is an honor."

His brow creased.

"I chose you," I said. "Who better to teach than soone who already walked the path of transmigration? Soone who ca from the sa place I did."

I t his eyes. "I may not rember Earth, but I know this… you and I are alike where it matters."

The mountain trembled beneath my feet.

"Besides," I added lightly, "sotis the student has to teach the teacher."

I vanished.

"Flash Step."

The world snapped, and I reappeared directly in front of him. My fist was already moving, wrapped in blinding gold.

"Divine Smite."

The blow landed squarely on his cheek.

The sound cracked the sky.

Ru Qiu's body was hurled clean off the mountain, skipping across peaks like a discarded cot as he disappeared into the distance.

The World Force stirred more vividly than before, responding as if the clash itself had peeled away another veil. When I traced it inward, following the pull back toward my inner world, it led to a continent shaped by the Ghost Path. It was an endless expanse of snow and silence, frozen seas under a pale, unmoving sky. The aftertaste of my last strike carried frost. A thin chill crawled up my spine, and my aura answered on instinct.

Red light flared around as I used War Aura.

It was raw, aggressive, and honest. It flooded my limbs, sharpening every intention. I raised a hand just in ti as a lance of dark, fiery qi tore through the air. "Flash Parry," I muttered, and the impact scorched my palm anyway, heat biting through divine reinforcent.

Ru Qiu's voice drifted from the smoke. "You've got it backwards," he said calmly. "It's the master who tests the disciple."

I snorted and lunged. Catching his leg mid-motion, I locked my grip. "You're not my master yet," I shot back. "You're a teacher-prospect. Don't get cocky."

I heaved, pouring everything into the throw. "War Smite."

The force ripped the ground apart as I hurled him, only for his body to scatter into drifting embers. The mont my senses scread, it was already too late.

He burst from my shadow.

A palm slamd into my chest, dark fire detonating outward. The world spun, and I crashed through stone and snow, carving a scar into the mountainside.

Ru Qiu stood above the devastation, cloak snapping in the wind. "The umbramancy your disciple Hei Mao uses," he said, "it ca from the Heavenly Demonic Cult. You shouldn't be surprised I can do this."

I laughed as I pushed myself out of the rubble, blood humming, heart light. "That's more like it. Nothing beats real fighting for experience."

Detached from my main body, my perception of the inner world sharpened instead of dulling. That alone told I needed to keep this up. If there was any hope of tracking my kidnapped True Self, this was it. The Ghost Path continent answered with cold yin qi, quiet and inexorable, so the choice was obvious.

"Moon Phase."

It didn't matter which phase of the World Path you started with, but following inclination always accelerated growth. The cost was paid later, especially when it ca ti to complete the Sun Phase, but that was a problem for another day.

I rose fully, brushing dust from my shoulder, genuinely pleased. "I won't hold back," I said, more promise than threat.

Qi and mana collided within , grinding together until they birthed quintessence. My breath tightened. I could manage one Ultimate without tearing myself apart. It was perfect for sparring at full tilt.

"Holy Sword."

Radiance condensed into my palm, a blade of gold that imdiately darkened into crimson as my War Aura bled through it. The weapon felt heavier, denser, and eager.

Ru Qiu watched, eyes narrowing. "My feelings are… complicated," he admitted. "But I've decided on a new goal."

"Oh?" I tilted my head.

"I'll have you acknowledge as your master," he said, voice steady. "And you'll give up the Source. Willingly."

I barked out a laugh. "You might as well suck my dick."

His lips twitched. "Do you really an that?"

I stared at him in open disgust. "I'm talking shit."

Understanding dawned a second too late to Ru Qiu at my talking shit. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance, suppressing his embarrassnt. The mories had returned, but the centering clearly hadn't followed yet. That hesitation were probably my only chance of beating him at my current realm.

Darkness folded around his hand as quintessence gathered again. A blade ford, black fire licking along its edge. Above us, the sky dimd as an eclipse swallowed the sun.

My lips twitched at the sight of an Immortal Art.

Ru Qiu lifted the sword and t my gaze. "First lesson," he said dryly. "I'll teach you how to clean your mouth."