The Supreme God of Martial Arts

After walking for a while in the Fire Valley, Austin felt something amiss.

Suddenly, an endless number of flames appeared and transformed into fire beasts in various shapes and sizes.

As he saw them, Austin's blood went cold.

It wasn't that Austin had walked into a blind alley. Before coming here, Iris had briefly told him about this place.

Iris had told him that a grand master of her in the Pure Dream Convent had gone about a thousand meters into the valley a hundred years ago. In that distance, she had encountered only a few dozens of fire beasts.

Austin wondered why there was an increase. The number he saw was far too many.

And that too, when he had just walked about seven hundred meters into the valley. He had a hunch that about more than a thousand fire beasts might be lurking further deeper into the place.

Gazing at the fire beasts, he sensed that a number of them had the adeptness of a level five demonic beast.

‘Damn it! It seems after a hundred years, the number of fire beasts in the valley has increased tremendously.

This is not at all what Iris' grand master said, ' he thought.

But this was no tfor rumination. The fire beasts hissed and flared at Austin as he got surrounded by them on all sides.

Ready for combat, Austin began to probe all the fire beasts with his spiritual sense.

Austin was in luck. Thankfully, most fire beasts, although many in number, only had a third or fourth level demonic beast competence. In fact, level four was truly a rarity among them.

To draw a comparison, a level three demonic beast's capabilities were similar to a level eight or nine of the Energy Gathering Realm of a human. The prowess of a level four demonic beast was like of a human's at the preliminary stage of the Earth Realm, and a level five demonic beast's competence could be translated as a medium or premium stage of the Earth Realm of a human.

It wasn't that Austin wasn't shaken up but knowing that he stood a chance against these beasts helped him relax. All it would take to go through the valley was enough vital energy. And anticipating dangers such as this, he had stored a huge amount in his vital energy stone located in his belly.

"Master, do you need my help?" Violet's voice rang out in his mind.

When he entered the Mysterious Nether World, Austin had brought Violet's Illusion Bead with him. Violet and the gnwere all hid there.

To avoid attracting attention, Austin hadn't asked Violet to show up till now.

In the PrMartial World, human and demonic beasts were irreconcilable, and they would kill each other when they met.

Although Violet was in the Illusion Bead, she too could feel the outside world with her spiritual sense.

And of course, she got to know that Austin was surrounded by countless fire beasts, which was why she reached out to him, ready to cout from the Illusion Bead to help any minute.

"That isn't necessary, Violet. Although there are a lot of fire beasts, they are just at level three or four in competence. | know | can beat them.

Also, | think that there are a huge number of fire beasts lurking around. | have just walked seven or eight hundred meters into the valley and | met this many. I'm sure there will be more of them with higher competence when we go deeper.

According to ancient wisdom, the fire beasts have fire spirit stones in their bodies which contain all of their primary masculine energy. And these stones will be very useful for my practice of the Golden Sun Scripture.

My plan is to explore the fire valley and collect more of these valuable fire spirit stones.

The whole valley was aflame, burning all year round, which could only mean that there were innumerable fire beasts to keep the valley red-hot.

Iris had said that in the Mysterious Nether World, if you ever found a diabolic beast, it was there to protect a precious resource. | wonder what all treasures were buried deep in the fire valley. Going by the epochs-old legend that surrounded the fire valley, | am guessing there must be very many.

Let's see, Violet, how much further | make way into the valley. Who knows how far | will reach.

Anyway, | do want to try." As Austin deliberated with Violet telepathically, the fire beasts around him initiated an attack. The flames in the shape of a tiger, a wolf, a lion, a snake, and a bird including a mysterious creature that Austin had never seen before began to attack him. Sof them shot fire balls at him while fire arrows too darted towards him.

Austin roared and took out a sacred sword from his Space Ring. He summoned all of his vital energy force and used the Illusory Swordsmanship. Nearly a hundred beams of sword radiance immediately lit up the place.

Each beam of sword radiance looked ever so brilliant carrying level one sword potential, making them a highly imposing weapon.

Wham! Austin's Illustrious Sword cut through the air slaying a hundred fire beasts with just a single beam.

Cleaved into pieces, they collapsed within seconds, and left a hundred fire spirit stones of different sizes that plopped on the ground with a dull thud. Sthe size of a thumb, and sas big as a pigeon's egg caught Austin's eye.

Each fire spirit stone was sizzling with heat of the primary masculine energy they held.

At least one of Austin's goals was getting accomplished. He had set out for the journey to collect these stones and finally, he had been able to get some.

The remaining fire beasts were undeterred and they launched a fresh attack.

Austin knew it was futile to go pick the scattered fire spirit stones. Instead, he spoke the incantation to call the light ball from his belly, which immediately appeared hanging right in Austin's face. Like a miniature sun, it streaked its surroundings with brilliant golden lights.

As these golden lights penetrated a dozen of the fire spirit stones, it extracted the masculine energy without a hiccup, soon turning it all into a hot white smog. It becthe point where all masculine energy flowed, quite like how rivers naturally converge to the sea.

Happy with his feat, Austin sighed relief for not having to pick up the stones by hand. Now he could concentrate all the more on the fire beasts that glared at him with licking flames.

The Illusory Swordsmanship had becmore powerful ever since it attained level one of the sword potential.

All Austin had to do was swing it in air and it would neatly slice the fire beasts around like a knife through butter.

As hundreds of them kept on getting killed giving way to a shower of fire spirit stones as they clunked on the ground.

The white smog kept on rising from the fire spirit stones and floating toward the golden light ball while the primary masculine energy was sucked out from them.

By now, the ground where Austin and the fire beasts had been fighting was carpeted by fire spirit stones. The white smog too had started to engulf Austin, making it hard for an onlooker to see anything beyond flashes of sword light swung by a shadow in a dense white cloud of smoke.

Austin was finally done killing all the beasts in an hour.

Except for the flclusters, everything was silent.

For now the hideous flared up creatures were gone.

Austin knew that this was just momentary peace. As he would venture to go deeper into the valley, a greater number of these would emerge.

It was said that these fire beasts could perfectly blend in with their surroundings and wouldn't reveal themselves until discovered.

By using the camouflage tactic, they would wait until cultivators were very close to them and ambush them by appearing in different creature shapes.

As the golden light ball kept on whirring with its white-hot cloud of energy, the ground was covered with black patches of debris.

The amount of masculine energy the ball had gobbled up had significantly increased its size.

The increase was certainly a happy sign for Austin. The ball got formed in his belly when he was learning the Golden Sun Scripture. So, as it grew bigger, it meant he was progressing in the Scripture's cultivation as well.

The fact was that primary masculine vital energy was considered extremely useful in the Golden Sun Scripture cultivation.

Thus, drawing additional energy from the stones had been a great bonus! Thinking about this, Austin looked into the valley with excitement, greedy to consmore of this precious resource.

'With so many fire beasts around, their fire spirit stones will fuel my golden light ball like never before.

How high my Golden Sun Scripture level will go if | keep on absorbing such tremendous amounts of masculine energy? | cto the Mysterious Nether World for good cultivation resources. And this is what the fire spirit stones will do. They will helpmake my breakthrough very easily." The shadow of doubt in Austin's mind about the distance he'd be able to cover of the valley was now dispelled.

He was eager to tread through as much area as possible, hungry for the spirit stones that were helping him.

Without any hesitation, he moved forward two hundred meters in a single stride.

As he stopped, again countless flames rose up from the ground. They transformed into fascinating beasts and creatures all hurtling themselves at the intruder.

In a flash, it dawned upon Austin. These fire beasts were far more powerful than last he fought! They were growing stronger as he went deeper.

His hunch was correct then.

But on the flip side, as his light ball had taken in a huge amount of masculine energy, his vital energy cultivation base too had improved significantly.

In short, the more fire beasts he killed, the more confident he got. This certainly buoyed up Austin's spirits.

Another reason why Austin was happier was that as he fought the fire beasts, his dexterity with the level one sword potential was getting better.

An overwhelming sword aura rolled around him as he gashed level one, two and three fire beasts before they could cwithin an arm's distance of him.

Austin kept on going further into the valley, hungry and greedy to improve his vital energy cultivation base and actual combat experience. . .

Every once in a while, he stopped to rest, so that he could gather all that he had learned in these experiences.

And again, Austin moved ahead to fight a new crop of fire beasts.

Several hours later, Austin had walked two thousand meters into the Fire Valley.

Now the light ball in his belly was double in size, and it was as big as the heads of two adults. A robust masculine energy waved creating a strong buzzing sound.

And then, Austin felt something extraordinary. His energy meridians felt a little hemp and itchy, as if innumerable ants were creeping inside.

This was a sign of breakthrough!