Blueback did not retreat after the first exchange.
If anything, the pain only sharpened the light in his eyes.
His cracked leg twisted unnaturally for a brief mont, blood splattering against the stone floor, yet the next breath he took was calm. Too calm. The blue tattoo on his back pulsed once, faintly, like the slow beat of a buried heart.
Crack.
The leg straightened.
Flesh knitted together in real ti. Bone realigned with a wet sound that made several spectators flinch. The torn muscle sealed as if it had never been damaged at all.
A murmur rippled through the audience.
"He healed again."
"That was faster than before."
"Is that really just a regeneration technique?"
Cattaleya narrowed her eyes from the stands, leaning forward. "No. That was not simple regeneration."
Lin Mu felt it too.
No, more accurately, he saw it.
As Blueback moved again, Lin Mu let his Immortal Sense and spatial perception sink deeper, threading through the flow of essence inside the man's body. He ignored the shouts of the audience, the trembling of the stadium floor, even the referee's anxious expression.
This was fascinating.
Blueback attacked again, this ti not with speed alone but with weight.
His foot stamped down, and the stone beneath him spiderwebbed outward. Essence surged through his body, gathering at his hips, spine, and shoulders before exploding outward into a spinning kick.
The air itself howled.
Lin Mu did not block.
He took the kick squarely to the ribs.
CLANG!
The impact sounded like a giant hamr slamming into an anvil.
Shockwaves rippled outward, distorting the arena's defensive formations. Several cultivators in the front rows instinctively raised their barriers.
Blueback was thrown backward again.
This ti, his entire leg shattered.
"ARGHHHH!!!!"
Blood sprayed. His knee bent the wrong way. A gasp tore from the crowd.
Yet Lin Mu did not even step back.
He looked down at his side, brushed a bit of dust from his robe, then looked back at Blueback with genuine curiosity.
"So that is how you are doing it," Lin Mu murmured softly.
Blueback grimaced as his body repaired itself once more. The healing was slower this ti, just a fraction, but it was there. The blue tattoo flared brighter, lines of light spreading across his back and shoulders like veins.
"You are not even trying to fight back," Blueback said, flexing his leg as sensation returned. "Are you mocking ?"
Lin Mu shook his head. "No. I am studying you."
That answer unsettled Blueback more than any punch could have.
Because it was the truth.
Lin Mu had already identified the first layer.
The Three Apertures Invoking Technique.
He felt it clearly now.
Three distinct reservoirs of Immortal Essence pulsed within Blueback's body, positioned with almost perfect symtry. One near the heart, one near the lower abdon, and one near the upper spine. Each aperture was vast, refined, and interconnected.
Not rely cultivated.
Perfected.
Lin Mu's eyes glead.
"So you reached this level," he thought. "Peak mastery."
The Three Apertures Invoking Technique was not rare in the Immortal Realm, but reaching this level was another matter entirely. Most cultivators only managed to stabilize one or two apertures. Three fully linked apertures ant monstrous reserves of Immortal Essence, enough to fuel prolonged combat without exhaustion.
But on its own, it should not have produced this result.
Lin Mu knew that better than anyone.
The technique was support oriented. Storage, circulation, endurance. It did not grant resilience to this degree. It did not allow the body to ignore impact recoil.
Which ant the real secret lay elsewhere.
Blueback roared and launched forward again, abandoning kicks in favor of punches. His fists blurred, each strike carrying the weight of a siege weapon.
Lin Mu stood still.
Each punch landed.
Each punch rebounded.
Every impact shattered Blueback's knuckles, split his skin, and sent pain coursing through his arms, yet every injury regenerated monts later. Sweat poured down his face now, breath coming heavier, but his eyes burned with
manic focus.
To the audience, it looked absurd.
Why was Lin Mu letting himself be hit?
Why was Blueback injuring himself over and over?
But Lin Mu's awareness was far beyond the surface.
He traced the flow.
Every ti Blueback was injured, Immortal Essence surged from the apertures,
yes. But that essence did not directly nd the flesh.
Instead, it passed through sothing else.
A second circuit.
A deeper one.
Lin Mu's spatial perception pierced past muscle and bone, following the
essence as it vanished into the blue tattoo.
And that was when he saw it.
The tattoo was not ink.
It was not rely a bloodline mark.
It was an array.
A living, breathing array carved directly into Blueback's body.
It extended far deeper than skin. Lines of condensed Dao traces were etched
into his muscles, layered along his bones, woven through his organs, and
anchored into his very marrow.
Lin Mu inhaled softly.
"Ingenious," he thought.
The array was not static. It shifted subtly with each breath, adjusting pathways,
rerouting essence flow, reinforcing stressed areas, and dispersing excess force
throughout the body.
A physical resilience amplification array.
And not a crude one.
It did not rely harden the body. It absorbed impact, redistributed force, and converted excess kinetic energy into regenerative output.
That was why Blueback could heal so quickly.
That was why recoil did not kill him.
That was why the Three Apertures Invoking Technique appeared masked.
The array was deliberately designed to sit on top of it, obscuring its presence and making observers think the regeneration was a standalone technique.
Lin Mu felt a spark of admiration.
"This is not a sect technique," he realized. "This is custom made." Blueback attacked again, rage creeping into his movents now. His fists
slamd into Lin Mu's chest, abdon, shoulders, over and over, each strike
shaking the ring.
Lin Mu remained unmoved.
But this ti, he raised his hand.
Not to attack.
He placed two fingers against Blueback's wrist mid strike.
The touch was light.
The effect was devastating.
Blueback froze.
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