Lin Mu's fist glowed faintly red. Just a soft shimr of immortal essence around his knuckles. Compared to Eldran's monstrous hundred ter attack, Lin Mu looked almost insignificant.
A single man facing a titan.
But appearances lied.
Lin Mu inhaled slowly. The world quieted. His heartbeat grew steady. His fist tightened slightly as a wave of raw, pure physical power surged through it. It turned into two ribbons of Immortal Essence that spun together and turned into a double Helix.
He was using the First Form of the Mountain Collapsing Fist: Impact.
For this he used, twenty percent of his immortal essence. A casual amount for Lin Mu, yet enough to obliterate mountains. Enough to create quakes. Enough to terrify immortals.
He could have used more. But he did not know how much Eldran could withstand.
The referee swallowed nervously as he felt the tense atmosphere.
The entire stadium held its breath.
A minute passed like eternity.
Then.
They struck.
"HEAVEN TRESPASSING FIST!"
Eldran roared and released his Heaven Trespassing Fist. The hundred ter fist launched forward, ripping apart the air in a vortex of pressure. The ground cracked under its sheer force.
Lin Mu exhaled and stepped forward.
His fist moved.
It was simple. Direct. No flourish. No grand spectacle.
But the aura around his fist expanded like a silent explosion. The fabric of space quivered. The faint red glow deepened, thickening into a dense field of destructive pressure.
Fist t fist.
KABOOOOO000000000M!!!!
A sonic boom detonated. The sky rippled with distortion. The ring beneath them fractured like shattered glass.
Eldran's giant fist froze on impact.
A heartbeat later, cracks ford across its structure. Tiny hairline fractures that spread rapidly like a web.
Then... the giant fist collapsed inward.
KACHA
It shattered.
HUSHHHH
It vaporized.
It turned into dust cloud of broken essence.
The shockwave flung debris in all directions as Lin Mu's fist continued its path unhindered. Eldran had no ti to react.
Lin Mu's punch struck Eldran in the chest.
A muffled crunch echoed.
Eldran's chest caved inward. Not enough to kill him thanks to Lin Mu's
restraint, but enough to incapacitate him instantly.
The beastkin man flew backward like a teor.
DENGGG
The arena barrier cracked from the impact. The protective array flickered
violently, groaning like a living beast in pain.
"Move away!" the staff shouted to the audience behind the barrier.
"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" They scrambled aside.
SHATTER!
The instant they cleared the area, the barrier shattered completely. Eldran soared through the broken gap, collided with the stadium's outer wall, punched through it, and vanished into the distance with a plu of dust.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Then the entire stadium erupted into chaotic cheers and screams.
"One punch!"
"One punch!"
"One punch!"
Cattaleya smacked ng Bai's back. "Told you. That punch is stupid."
ng Bai could only nod with trembling excitent.
Daoist Chu sighed. "Poor gorilla man. He had no idea."
Elyon stared at Lin Mu's fist. "That was only twenty percent?"
Lin Mu turned slowly, unaffected by the devastation behind him, and walked
calmly toward the exit.
The referee finally regained his senses and shouted shakily.
"Winner... Lin Mu!"
The stadium roared like a living beast.
And the legend of One Punch Man grew even stronger.
The entire stadium felt as if it were vibrating. The shock of Lin Mu's fight had not faded even after Eldran's unconscious body had been recovered from beyond the broken wall. Excitent and disbelief swept through the crowd in a
rolling wave.
Even the elders of the Martial Fist King Sect had stood from their seats,
watching with widened eyes.
Two minutes... That was all it took.
In truth, Lin Mu had been ready in just a few seconds. The rest of the ti was spent letting Eldran gather his strength.
To the spectators, that single attack had looked almost underwhelming. A faint red glow and a simple forward strike. Nothing dramatic. Nothing showy. Certainly nothing comparable to the monstrous Heaven Trespassing Fist that Eldran had created. His hundred ter fist dominated the ring and shook the sky like a mountain in motion.
And yet it had shattered like fragile glass.
Daoist Chu let out a long breath as he watched the crowd erupt around them. "Only if they knew," he murmured.
ng Bai nodded with awe. "Master's twenty percent Immortal Essence is more like the total essence of three or four peak immortals combined." Cattaleya snorted. "No, it is more. I put it at five or six. That Gorilla Beastkin never stood a chance."
Elyon chuckled quietly. "Everyone will be overthinking this for years."
It was true.
The other semifinals contestants were staring at Lin Mu with a mix of fear,
curiosity and growing dread. Many had already been analyzing his earlier fights,
but what he had shown today forced them to reconsider everything they
thought they knew.
Several cultivators whispered among themselves.
"That fist... it did not match any known technique."
"It looked like pure Immortal Essence. No Dao Traces. No elental signatures."
"That is impossible. Such raw force should be unstable."
"Unless he is altering a technique beyond recognition"
Behind the VIP section, the Martial Fist King elders were already pouring over
ancient scrolls and jade slips. So argued. So theorized. So silently shook their heads.
"There is no technique in our archive that matches this," one elder declared.
"Then it must be sothing ancient," another replied. "Or sothing from outside our world."
"No," a third muttered. "Look closely. There were remnants of a structured technique, but not in any form we understand. Soone must have altered it so heavily that it beca unrecognizable."
Of course, they were not wrong.
The Mountain Collapsing Fist that Lin Mu used was far from its original form,
the Boulder Collapsing Fist. After years of refinent and empowernt with his own physique, it had beco sothing unique to him alone. Unless soone used Immortal Sense to directly map the flow of his essence mid punch, there would be no way to decipher it.
But no one alive had the guts to do that. Not when a punch like that could shatter their Immortal Sense entirely.
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