Fu Xiang looked at me on the brink of despair himself. My appearance here, or rather, my appearance looked full of energy and I didn't have a blemish on me. That must've given him a big shock. But from my perspective, the reason he's squirming must be due to the force of his own palm strikes hitting him. Fu Xiang was like a wounded animal. He faced me and thundered loud enough to crack through the snowy night. His throat was wounded so his voice was extremely husky. As soon as he opened his mouth, he chucked up a mouthful of blood due to having suffered severe internal wounds. But despite that, he was so angry he still shouted: "Ming Feizhen! Wh-What did you do to me?! Why are you unscathed?!"
I covered the ears of Boss Shen who was in my arms. I looked at his eyes and quietly moulded energy. He suddenly froze up. The rage in his eyes decreased a fair bit. He was even more confused why his anger seemingly got sucked out of him by my glare.
"You confused? But someone who's trained their internal strength to your level should know of Heart Slaying Sword and Dream Infiltration, right?"
Those with profound inner strength will possess a fierce gaze that seemingly has a substance in them. Once one has attained that level of proficiency, they can kill someone just with their gaze. The principle is that their inner qi shoots out and causes the qi in their opponent's body to attack itself. Hearty Slaying Sword and Dream Infiltration are manifestations of that principle. It's just that these two arts are another level above.
Heart Slaying Sword relies primarily on one's heart's thoughts' internal strength to attack the opponent's heart.
Dream Infiltration relies primarily on the wielder's brain to infiltrate the opponent's mind and give it commands.
If you can master these two styles, you can kill without lifting a finger. You can confuse someone's mind without lifting a hand, and could even turn people into your puppet. That's why styles which are on the level of the two are referred to as mind-control arts by those in the pugilistic world.
Mind-control arts are a large category. The strongest and most miraculous techniques are Eye Techniques.
It also gets called Soul Confusion Techniques and many other different things. But they all trace back to the two mind-control arts, Heart Slaying Sword as well as Dream Infiltration.
But the training for mind-control arts is tough to learn as they rely heavily on the potential of the practitioner and they have lots of disadvantages. If your internal strength is inferior to your opponent's, your opponent will reverse it on you. Mind-control arts also have a heavy emphasis on mental fortitude. If your internal strength is superior to your opponent but your mental fortitude is weaker, you still will have it reversed on you.
In other words, even if you possessed profound skills, if your opponent has strong mental fortitude and doesn't give in, you still might fail to make it work even if your target was a cow. Actually, the backlash would be extremely harsh. Consequently, it's unlikely this sort of martial art is passed down. Lots of people who learnt it used it for evil, so over time, it became viewed as an unorthodox-evil art, and not a martial art.
According to what I know, there are less than ten schools in the pugilistic world who have reached this level, and most of said practitioners were kept by the unorthodox sets.
…… Mount Daluo was one. The Demon Sect was another.
That's why I……
But there are a lot of problems with the research on the two styles which is why most mind-control arts can't kill people without contact or brainwash people. At most, they can only cause internal injuries or confuse their enemy for a while.
Fu Xiang revealed a hideous outraged expression: "Nonsense!! There's no way you used Heart Slaying Sword and Dream Infiltration on me."
I bluntly replied: "I haven't finished. You're old as and yet you're still so jumpy. You might not know much about this internal style, but it's called Steal of Heart Camouflage."
Strictly speaking, the trick I used on Fu Xiang can be considered a technique within Dream Infiltration.
It confuses the target, thereby influencing the target's subconscious to control their skills. I think some people call it hypnotism.
But whatever.
This technique was one of the ones recorded in the Spring Wind Rainy Night Divine Arts manual. Though the conditions for its usage are tough to meet and can only be used on one target, not to mention it can't influence the target's thinking or mental conscious. It can only control their body for a short timeframe. However, it should be the best method for today.
Fu Xiang seemed to realise something as he exclaimed with utter surprise: "The Demon Sect's divine art, Spring Wind Manual!"
"You're right. But not right at the same time. I can use the stuff in the Spring Wind Manual. It's just that I can use them at a relatively higher level."
Fu Xiang shook his head like a madman, like he was trying to shake his head off: "Who on Earth are you?! That's impossible! That's impossible! If you're not hurt, then the force I hit you with back there……"
I chuckled with satisfaction.
"Didn't you notice that your energy recovered particularly quickly this time? You expended all your energy on those seventeen palm strikes you hit me with, yet you recovered within half-an-hour. Is that possible? You think you're a deity?"
Fu Xiang's expression changed. He evidently realised that his energy had recovered at an unbelievable rate.
"The reason for that is that the force from all of your palm strikes are still inside your body. You didn't use it up completely. I returned the force of all seventeen of your palm strikes to you and hid them in various places inside your body. Usually you would be able to slowly neutralise the pent-up force after a few days effort given the level of your internal strength as well as the force of the palm strikes originating from your body in the first place. But I guessed that you would be fighting a lot today and would expend lots of your internal energy. Whether or not you'd be able to withstand the force of your own palm strikes depended on how much internal energy you had left after your fights. And maybe the command I implanted in your body using Steal of Heart Camouflage was for the force hiding in your body to explode automatically when you threatened Shen Yiren's life. If you didn't threaten her safety, it wouldn't have activated."
Fu Xiang looked like he couldn't handle what I told him and dropped to his knees on the ground. He continued mumbling: "Impossible… there's no way you could've blocked the force of my palm strikes……"
You still on about that? I was so bored I shrugged my shoulders.
"Your palm strikes are quite strong. But aren't you being a little too full of yourself? Do you know that making me 'block' is an honour very few in the martial world have? You were very diligent with your training, and Fu Xiang Divine Palms isn't bad. It suits the qigong you trained. Every time you strike, you make sure to conserve energy so that you can fight for an extensive period of time. In fact, you could fight for days.
But have you realised it? All of your fights have been fights where you exchanged heavy blows. Every time you reached the point where the level of the fight was enough to be frightening, you relied on your stamina to win. That's a shortcoming of your Fu Xiang Divine Palms. You can't connect them. The force of every palm strike is clear and distinguished, so once you use Fu Xiang Divine Palms at maximum output, you expend ten-times more internal energy than usual. In other words, when you need to use maximum output to win, you keep delaying good chances to engage."
"You shut up! Shut up!"
"You lost to Tang Ye today, didn't you? He tricked you into emptying your internal energy, didn't he?"
"!!!"
"So you lost fair and square."
Fu Xiang seemed to age another ten years due to the shock my words delivered to him. His knees couldn't support his weight. He couldn't help but curl his body up like a prawn. I knew that it was because he couldn't withstand his own internal energy eating at him and that they were symptoms of his skills being destroyed.
"Why…? You're the master of Night Fortress. You're an unorthodox sect like us…… Why must you stop me? Why do you want to kill me……?"
"Why? You don't seem to know your place." I wiped my smile off my face and firmly continued: "I have enough reason to kill you a hundred times just for the lecherous thoughts you had for her just now."
It looked like the cold night itself was tormenting Fu Xiang who was curled up and quivering on the ground.
"But I won't kill you. The pugilistic world has its own rules. You may have offended me, but out of consideration for the origins I share with the League of Assassins', I'll spare your life today."
I looked at him and sighed before I slowly finished what I intended to say: "You should be content with me erasing just your skills."
I added one last fraction of strength into his body which caused his qi essence to burst. Fu Xiang spat out a huge amount of blood before his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out. He has lost all of his martial arts skills. He'll just be a weak-frail old man even if he could heal all of his wounds completely. The man known as Fu Xiang has basically now been erased from the pugilistic world.
Glossary
*From last chapter, the weapon Tang Ye wielded with the chain is akin to a nine-section whip, but is somewhat different. I can't even find an image for it so you will have to use your imagination there. It's no longer practiced (maybe a few do that I'm unaware of) due to its sheer difficulty to master. It falls under the soft-weapons category. I never learnt any soft-weapons so I can't tell you much about how it works.
**To break down MFZ's description of Fu Xiang's fighting style if anyone is confused: Fu Xiang style of fighting is the heavier hitter who looks to throw heavy blows. An example would be a fighter with a particularly strong kick or punch like a heavy right overhand. He tries to land that move all the time as opposed to stringing combos. You can't throw at max output forever, so he conserves energy when he throws them. He doesn't throw them at max output often so he's physically not used to it, thereby expending more energy when he does throw them at full power (this is all about efficiency with the three main energy systems important to fighting but you don't need to know about them). To conserve his stamina, he also passes on opportunities to attack. Using myself as an example, in one fight against a guy who was oiled up to the grills, throwing straights were difficult and a poor prep led to me gassing against him, not to mention him being two heads taller. So despite having the opportunity to go in and throw a flurry of attacks when he missed (MFZ's: "… good chances to engage"), I stuck to going to a wear down strategy and win on points which is similar to what Fu Xiang does against powerful foes.