Chapter 161: Will

Whoosh!

In the forest, Li Pin moved with incredible speed. Behind him, two Demonic Cats lay lifeless in the pool of blood with their head and body severed. Despite their physical strength being estimated at around forty-six points, Li Pin had faced both at once... without sustaining a single injury.

"Not enough!" Li Pin muttered.

Before long, he sensed another disturbance ahead. A mutated mountain cat appeared. However, Li Pin had lost interest in hunting it. His participation in the World's Top Martial Competition was driven by a desire for honor and, more importantly, to challenge and surpass himself.

To him, bullying these insignificant Demonic Cats was merely a warm-up before the competition and held no meaning for his martial arts training. As a result, he had no desire to waste any time on this creature.

Though Li Pin had no desire to waste energy on the Demonic Cat, that didn't mean the Demonic Cat shared the same sentiments. It closed in with incredible speed, carrying a wave of bloodthirsty energy as it surged toward him.... The sheer brutality and murderous intent made Li Pin feel as if he were facing grandmasters like Chi Tiexin and Qi Feng once again.

Unfortunately for the Demonic Cat, he had grown far stronger compared to that time.

Li Pin's gaze locked onto the mountain cat lunging at him with lightning speed. His mental perception was pushed to its limit, perceiving every muscle twitch. He captured it all vividly with his senses—the vibrations of its body as it cut through the air, and the trajectory of its slashing claw...

His thoughts outpaced the cat's lightning-fast attack, mentally mapping out its upcoming attacking trajectories and then...

Li Pin's qi and blood surged. He shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.

His sword, as fast as lightning, tore through the air with a sharp whistle, its tip creating visible white ripples.

As the man and beast crossed paths, a scream echoed, followed by a splash of crimson.

Using his momentum, Li Pin surged forward another dozen meters, tightly gripping the genuine astral equipment longsword forged from Lingfeng Crystal. He allowed the immense recoil force of the sword, as if cutting through tempered steel, to transfer through his arms.

After slicing through ten more meters, Li Pin came to a steady stop.

Amid the soil, dead branches, and rotting leaves that splashed up around his feet, he shook off the nearly imperceptible bloodstains from his sword and turned around.

Behind him, the slender mutated mountain cat had been sliced into two parts, with one section lying over ten meters away, and the other flung twenty meters away by momentum. Despite this, the mutated mountain cat was still alive, struggling and groaning in pain.

Li Pin approached one half of the mountain cat and searched it. In the end, he found no Astral Crystal. Feeling regretful, he moved to the remaining half of the mountain cat, aimed for its head, and delivered a mercy kill to spare it from further suffering.

After that, Li Pin sheathed his sword and continued forward.

"There isn't even a ferocious beast that can make me use the Blood-Seething Secret Art," Li Pin remarked with a hint of disappointment.

At that moment, he regretted not bringing a few pieces of astral equipment with strong Astral Energy fluctuations to lure the beasts. If he had brought more astral equipment, his chances of encountering ferocious beasts would have likely increased.

Just as that thought crossed Li Pin's mind, he heard something.

Human voices?

He glanced at the device on his wrist. A green dot representing another participant had appeared on it.

The old rules suggested that it would be for the best to avoid meeting other competitors. However, due to communication interference and difficulty in tracking, which made rescue efforts more challenging, the organizing committee had allowed competitors to team up to hunt ferocious beasts for safety purposes.

Li Pin did not deliberately avoid them. Rather, he was curious.

Someone else is lurking around the edge of the competition area...? Were the beasts within the competition area too weak or hard to find?

Li Pin smiled slightly, feeling a desire to meet whoever was close. "Seems like we share a common interest."

But almost as soon as this thought crossed his mind, the green dot on his wristwatch... vanished.

This scene left him momentarily stunned. The disappearance of the green dot could mean one of three things: the wristwatch had malfunctioned, the person had left the detection range of the wristwatch, or... the competitor had died.

Li Pin's gaze lingered on the wristwatch for a moment before he resolutely moved forward, heading in the direction of the sound. In less than ten minutes, Li Pin arrived at a small creek with an unknown source.

Beside the creek, a giant creature resembling a sabertooth tiger, about 1.6 meters tall and nearly 4 meters long, was feeding on something.

Li Pin looked more closely.

A human.

Recalling how the green dot had vanished from his wristwatch earlier, the identity of this person became clear. And the ferocious beast was a....

Crimson-Tooth Tiger.

Li Pin noted silently in his mind.

It was a terrifying creature with a base qi and blood level of 110 points!

If ferocious beasts like Demonic Cats, Giant Spiders, and Yetis were considered low-tier beasts, then the Crimson Tooth Tiger... clearly fell into the mid-tier ferocious beast category.

This was a formidable opponent that even an official Astral Cultivator might struggle against. A single mistake could potentially lead to demise. If any of the Astral Cultivator students from the Astral Hall went up against the Crimson-Tooth Tiger, just a single slap from it would likely leave them fatally injured with hardly any chance of survival.

"When I said I was looking for a big creature, I only meant the top monsters among low-tier ferocious beasts like the Scarlet Blood or Tiger-Striped Python. Who would have thought...."

Li Pin suppressed his aura and prepared to withdraw quietly. However, he promptly noticed something and focused on the beast's hind leg. The beast was injured.

It was unclear which ferocious beasts had torn its left hind leg, but the wound seemed fresh, with blood and flesh still exposed. Such a severe injury could halve the beast's combat effectiveness.

Li Pin immediately halted.

Meanwhile, having been observed for a long time, the Crimson Tooth Tiger seemed to have sensed it wasn't alone. It became alert and scanned the area.

"In the past half month, my Internal Cultivation has reached perfection," Li Pin muttered to himself.

Perfected Internal Cultivation!

Although he had not yet completed the refinement of his martial arts system, he had reached the limit of physical enhancement. Moving on, if he wanted to improve further... he would have to rely on external means.

In other words, he had reached the limit of what could be achieved through training alone. To advance further beyond... he needed to overcome mental and spiritual barriers to forge his spirit and belief into his Martial Will.

He saw no other method to do so other than follow his innermost desire. And his innermost desire... was to revel in the borderline of life and death, and to embrace the evolution that came from pushing every cell in his body to the extreme, eliciting their deepest groans!

"With that... everything is in place."

Gripping his sword, Li Pin stepped out from his hiding spot. An indescribable aura emanated from him, locking onto the Crimson-Tooth Tiger by the stream.

"

Raaar!

"

As soon as Li Pin appeared and his aura locked onto the Crimson-Tooth Tiger, the beast sensed his presence, letting out a roar. It lowered itself and charged toward Li Pin, accelerating quickly.

The terrifying aura from its high qi and blood level stirred up a fierce wind that dispersed violently. Having bathed under the starlight, the beast was nearly as evolved as an official astral cultivator, exuding savage ferocity.

As it roared, Li Pin felt an involuntary shiver run through him. It was... fear emanating from every cell in his body!

"This feeling..."

Li Pin clearly felt that every cell in his body was urging him to flee or even submit. Yet, instead of being overwhelmed, this instinct drove him into an inexplicable yearning. It was... the most primal resistance of life to oppression! The fiercest cry of will against pressure!

Li Pin let out an involuntary low growl. "

Kill!

"

He strode forward like a shooting star, sprinting wildly!

As he ran, powerful mental spirit burst from every cell in his body. This force suppressed and shattered the instinctual fear, forcing a tangible killing intent to form, piercing directly at the beast by the stream.

"

Roar!

"

Feeling the killing intent emanating from Li Pin, the Crimson-Tooth Tiger reacted like a monarch that had been provoked.

Weighting nearly a ton, the Crimson-Tooth Tiger charged forward with explosive force, exuding a suffocating ferocity and bloodthirstiness. Having just devoured a competitor, its razor-sharp fangs were smeared with fresh blood.

The combined ferocity and oppressive force of its charge, coupled with its enormous body, would have absolutely terrified ordinary people or even typical grandmaster-level martial artists.

However... Li Pin was clearly no ordinary person!

The Crimson-Tooth Tiger, with its terrifying bloodthirst and malevolence, swept toward him like a black storm, igniting the qi and blood within his Blood Core. A violent surge of qi, blood, and Force erupted from his Blood Core.

Since entering the martial world, he had killed Core Force martial artists, Aura Cultivation grandmasters, and peak experts like Lin Yuzhi, who were at a level akin to the Martial Saint realm. The aura he had accumulated from those kills fused with the killing intent and sword intent he now wielded.

As the distance between the man and the tiger narrowed to just a few dozen meters, a thunderous explosion erupted. The fierce killing intent fused with the sword aura, creating a blade of light that seemed to tear through the heavens with a savage slash.

At the same time, Li Pin's qi and blood, which had remained dormant throughout the competition, ignited for the first time.

"Burn!"

It boiled, surged, and blazed with intensity!

Guided by Li Pin's Blood-Seething Secret Art and the Great Sun True Radiance Technique, the qi and blood within him burned and gathered violently, like an ocean converging. The intense flames and light fused fiercely, about to coalesce into a great sun within him.

Even before the raging flames could fully transform into the golden crow of the great sun, the qi and blood released from him appeared as a layer of flames on the surface of his body. To an observer using an infrared thermal imaging device, it would seem that his entire body's heat had nearly pierced the sky.

The intense light radiated wildly from him, making him seem like a colossal light source.

At the epicenter of this light source... the hollow figure of a golden crow appeared!

Eight Enormities True Fire Force, Great Sun Golden Crow!

Facing this fearsome beast, whose qi and blood level in its prime exceeded 110 points, Li Pin held his sword. Withstanding pressure comparable to the atomic suppression of an official Astral Cultivator, he unleashed his most brilliant and peak-level strike.