Immortal Paladin

It was sheer violence, crystallized in the shape of a man. That was the only way I could describe him. His long dark hair rose against gravity, drifting like black flames, and the way it swayed made him look like an asura torn straight from a nightmare. But I knew better. He wasn’t an asura, nor a demon. He was human, just one who had pushed martial arts far past the limit anyone should reach.

What remained of the tournament grounds was a burning ruin. The verdant maze that once stood around the stage now collapsed into scorched wreckage. And at the center of that inferno, the man stood. He was a head shorter than Yuen Fu, yet his presence eclipsed even the Martial Saints I had fought earlier. Crimson vapor hissed from his skin in thick waves. It wasn’t aura, not like Supreme Masters or Martial Saints wielded. It was blood, evaporating from the sheer friction of his movements. And he still hadn’t used real aura.

Yuen Fu wiped blood from his lips, steadying his divine sword. Judgment Severance glowed in his hands like a radiant blade of law. “State your name.”

The man didn’t answer. His eyes didn’t even shift. Only the eerie hole in his chest responded, a gaping shrine-like archway, inside which countless demons twisted in silent suffering. The sight alone made my Heaven Soul pulse in warning.

Yuen Fu exhaled sharply. “Then I’ll just call you the Fist God.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the Fist God bent his knees and sank into a stance. The entire arena tightened. Through Yuen Fu’s senses, I felt the confirmation I’d been waiting for, that the audience had been evacuated. The Night Blades had finished their work. No one else was left to die here.

“I’m starting—”

Yuen Fu vanished. His body tore forward at a speed close to light, the echo of his master’s training shining through him. Even I was impressed. But the Fist God still caught the motion. His blank gaze followed Yuen Fu as if he were merely jogging. Knowing he wouldn’t survive a direct counter, Yuen Fu dedicated everything to evasion, ducking under one punch, slipping past another, twisting away from the third, riding the momentum of the fourth. And then he found an opening.

“Heavenly Thunderous Flash!”

The world cracked. Yuen Fu’s blade appeared beside the Fist God’s neck, nearly separating head from shoulders.

“It’s not enough!”

The Fist God’s Martial Saint–tier resilience erupted. Flesh and bone knit together in an instant, and a fist surged forward with a crater-making impact.

“I’m sorry, disciple,” I whispered as I sank fully into Yuen Fu’s mind through the Heaven Soul. “Let’s cheat a little.”

I seized control of his arms. Flash Parry clashed against the first punch, sending a numbing shock up Yuen Fu’s bones and straining my Heaven Soul. But the Fist God was relentless. His other fist followed in a brutal cross-counter, this one wrapped in a crimson aura that felt alien, something beyond qi or quintessence. I didn’t let Yuen Fu take that hit. If he did, the boy would die without a scrap of soul left to resurrect.

“Holy Sword.”

Divine brilliance wrapped around Judgment Severance as I invoked the Ultimate Skill, hardening the radiance into something that could withstand the Fist God’s power. Another Flash Parry exploded as steel met living calamity.

Yuen Fu’s thoughts trembled. “Master… I’m sorry. I was lacking…”

“No,” I told him firmly, pushing strength through his limbs. “You weren’t lacking. This thing simply is just unreasonable.”

I had no idea who this so-called Fist God was. Tan Jin didn’t seem to know either. Only that old bastard Ding Xuefang seemed to know, referring to the person before me as the founder of martial arts in the Hollowed World. Just hearing that made my blood boil. The PVP gremlin inside me stirred like a starving beast. A real challenge. A real fight! How long had it been since I felt this kind of thrill?

But getting here had been a nightmare. Between Yuen Fu’s location and my main body, the path was littered with formations. Whoever prepared this trap knew exactly what would happen. Seers in the Heavenly Temple… troublesome as always. With the way the formations twisted space, my Egress spell couldn’t lock onto this area, and Castling refused to swap me with Yuen Fu. I had to brute-force my way through every step.

Now, as I clashed against the Fist God through Yuen Fu’s body, I saw something unexpected… Fist God smiled. Despite whatever spell or mind control he was trapped under, some shred of clarity lingered in his eyes. Then his aura shifted. From the crimson vapor of boiling blood, a black aura seeped out like ectoplasm.

“Extreme Fist: Fury of God.”

His fists blurred, each punch collapsing space for a heartbeat. These weren’t just fast strikes. They pulled at us, dragging the target straight into the blow. A fist that homed in like a gravitational anomaly. Not bad. But I wasn’t about to back down.

“Heavenly Punishment.”

Holy thunder answered my call. Three Ultimate Skills folded into one blade, each reinforcing the other. If I had to give the sword a name for the sake of rule-of-cool, then—

“Heavenly Sword of Judgment.”

We traded blows. Pain for pain. Thunder carved into the Fist God’s flesh, burning through the red vapor and black aura. In return, Yuen Fu’s body tore open, chunks of flesh getting ripped clean off. I felt the stinging agony through him, but I didn’t shy away. Pain only sharpened my instincts. The Fist God healed through innate immortality. I healed with divine spells. That was our rhythm.

Then the air changed.

“Extreme Fist: Singularity.”

Ah, shit.

His fist darkened, becoming a perfect void. I felt it before it hit. It was the kind of impact that didn’t simply crush, but erased! It pierced my guard, tore open my chest, and the wound refused to heal. Worse was the gravity inside it, trying to devour us cell by cell. Without rapid-fire healing, we would’ve been reduced to dust.

How was he this strong? He only had nine layers of immortality at [Level 9]! His power far surpassed what a Martial Saint of that level should possess. Something was feeding him strength. Most likely, Hell’s Gate was acting as a conduit. Even weakened and mind-controlled, he fought like a calamity given form.

“Yuen Fu,” I muttered as blood soaked our chest. “I rarely get a chance to teach you. I’m not the best master… but I want to show you something. With this, you’ll come closer to Divine Transformation.”

Across from us, the Fist God lifted his other arm. His aura surged again, turning blinding white.

“Extreme Fist: Entropy.”

If that hit, everything would end.

I spread my hand.

“Heaven Path: God of Creation.”

The concept behind this Six Path power was painfully simple, and this one was a cheat of its own right. Absurd quantities of quintessence, enough to rival the Hollow Star, poured in from Heaven Path: God of Creation. Ru Qiu’s Immortal Art with the black sun had inspired it. Mine manifested as a luminous halo behind us, a crown of raw creation, and a well of endless energy.

The air screamed.

Black and white fists collided with the halo.

Everything went white.

The entire tournament grounds evaporated, scorched out of existence in a single moment. Structures, flames, earth, and sky were shredded into dust. My Heaven Soul cracked. Yuen Fu’s body broke. And the Fist God took us with him into obliteration.

As Yuen Fu’s consciousness trembled in despair, I wrapped around him, my voice steady.

“There’s no need to fear,” I told him as everything fell apart. “I am here.”

We died together.

However, that wasn’t the end.

Quintessence was the power of creation, and the breath behind every miracle. Wrapped in the Heaven Path: God of Creation, death became almost meaningless. Yuen Fu’s body reformed in the blink of an eye as quintessence knitted flesh, bone, and soul together. Redundant? Absolutely. The Hollow Star could pour infinite quintessence into me whenever I asked. But the Heaven Path let me wield it with a freedom and precision the Hollow Star couldn’t imitate. The problem… was the vessel.

“I’m sorry, disciple,” I whispered. “Because of me, you suffered such a loss.”

The backlash was brutal. His cultivation had collapsed all the way down to Martial Tempering. A vicious drop for someone who stood at the edge of Divine Transformation. The Six Paths I had awakened within my strange constitution were too powerful, enough to function as their own Immortal Arts. But they demanded a price. Without compatibility, the user simply died. Yuen Fu barely survived by confronting my inner demons, each one trapped inside a looping nightmare I left unresolved.

He still managed a faint smile. “It’s fine, Master… I learned a lot… I’m just glad no one is hurt…”

I tightened my grip. The martial art of the Fist God could have torn reality itself. A gaping hole in the Hollowed World would’ve burst the dark veil if I hadn’t reacted with the power of creation; everything nearby would have been swallowed. The thought alone made my skin crawl.

The Fist God lifted both hands, palms slightly apart, as if squeezing something invisible. The shrine-like arch embedded in the hole of his chest cracked open. The red vapor evaporated. His spasming muscles relaxed. Slowly, clarity returned to his eyes.

“I almost lost myself,” he murmured, voice deep and strangely calm. His gaze swept across the ruined arena and then settled on me. “Hmm… Who are you?”

Before I answered, the ground shook. My main body finally arrived, blazing through what remained of the formations and smashing into the scorched earth. I immersed my consciousness back into it, then used Egress to send Yuen Fu away. The Heaven Soul carried him to the Holy Ascension Empire, where Joan could heal him.

“My name is Da Wei.”

“And I am Feng Wei,” the man replied. “I don’t recognize you… so are you an outsider?”

“No.”

“I believe you.”

He spoke simply, but nothing about him felt simple. His presence was grounded, ancient in a way I couldn’t put into words. He observed me like someone studying a half-written story.

“It appears,” Feng Wei said, “that you are yet to be completed. I see… So it is as His Majesty said. It seems the time for me to contribute has finally come. I may not recognize you, but I think I know you.”

My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by His Majesty?”

“The Yellow Emperor.”

I raised a brow. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

Feng Wei chuckled softly. “You should know him,” he said, “as the Enlightened Scholar.”

I didn’t know what to make of any of it.

Surprise wasn’t even the right word more like a hollow numbness that left my thoughts stumbling over themselves. Still, reflex took over as I slid into a stance and reached for my Silver Steel. My fingers curled, ready for the familiar weight.

It didn’t come.

A faint ripple passed through the air, like the world itself was being folded. Feng Wei lifted his hand, an odd solemnity in his gaze as he revealed, “It’s Spatial Anchor, a spell I learned from a friend. With this, your pocket dimension is locked away.”

His tone was too calm.

“The champion foretold to right the wrongs of the universe was said to possess demi-god abilities in his coming to this world and special treasures forged in an alternate realm. In order for me to fulfill this duty, we have to fight with our bodies.”

“So in the end,” I exhaled, feeling irritation curl in my gut, “you’re saying we’re enemies. Here I was, thinking of recruiting you.”

“I apologize,” he said, and the hole in his chest pulsed with a faint glow, “but I’ve already been ‘touched’ and ‘remade,’ as you can see. The only way I can aid you is to show you how far you still have to go. I understand you are almost halfway there with the Hollow Star already on your head, a crown that symbolizes your dominion of the Hollowed World.”

I squinted. “Just who are you?”

Feng Wei straightened, as though unveiling a truth older than the air we breathed. “I’m what you’d call a Lost God of a forgotten mythology, an Ancient Soul that has persisted since the time of creation. I came here to the Hollowed World to prevent its self-destruction from the meddling of the Supreme Beings.

“This world was made as your training ground in pursuit of completing you. There were many Lost Gods like me, most corrupted, others reincarnated without memories of their past life.” His voice softened. “Understand this: I am an enemy and an ally. You must destroy me, and in doing so, I can help you.

“My name is Feng Wei, one among the many Martial Gods who came forth in the era of destruction. I’m also the Mighty Fist of Heavens. If you are to fight me, I can show you a path forward that only you can take. If you are to complete the Six Paths and reach the Throne of Creation, you will need to see this. Please.”

I stared at him, speechless.

I’d long accepted that my life wasn’t entirely my own, but I hadn’t imagined it extended this far… to the point that entire mythologies and ancient beings were apparently sculpting my existence. And now, here I was, unable to rely on my weapons or armor, forced to stand with nothing but the skills I’d clawed together piece by piece.

I swallowed. “What is this you want me to see that you’re acting like this? I’d like to say my fate is my own, and I decide my path forward. But there are already too many people relying on me. So I have no plans of dying or letting myself be fooled by some tricks.

“Even if my Divine Sense is telling me you’re speaking the truth… I can’t help but doubt you.” My brow furrowed. “What’s so darn special about me? My constitution?”

“To call it a constitution would do a disservice to your supremacy,” Feng Wei replied. “You come from the world origin where the rest of the Supreme Beings come from. Like them, you are a Supreme Being yourself. albeit a young one.” His shoulders squared. “If you’re not coming at me, then I will come at you.”

His aura erupted. It was vast and crushing. In the blink of an eye, he vanished, and before my mind caught up, he was already in front of me.

“I’ve enlightened you as much as I could,” he said, his voice now a deep rumble. “I’ve answered your questions to ease you, and though I wish I could tell you more, there are restrictions far greater than you can imagine. Fight me like your life depended on it, and maybe you will understand what your ‘supremacy’ represents.”

His fist slammed into my chest.

I didn’t even have time to raise a guard.

Space tore open behind me like someone had ripped a sheet of glass, and I was hurled through it, weightless. My back collided with the void. Suddenly, I was in open outer space, the cold silence pressing against my skin.

Below me, the Hollowed World floated in swirling fog. Farther beyond, the False Earth glimmered faintly, wrapped in the pale dance of the Sun and Moon circling it like guardians or predators.

A ripple of distortion flickered. Feng Wei appeared before me as if walking on the void itself.

His eyes glowed faintly as he remarked:

“This is a trial. Overcome it, and you will be rewarded. Fail, and you might just not be the person the Yellow Emperor has been waiting for.”