Chapter 153: One staff stirs the sky
Countless people outside stared at the scene before them in stunned silence.
Only a few minutes earlier, a nonhuman had tried absorbing the same kind of energy and been burned to ashes in front of everyone. Yet Ethan was now standing amid dozens of energy streams without any sign of his body deforming. Instead, his aura was growing stronger little by little.
The silence lasted only a few seconds before the gazes around him began to change.
Jealousy.
Greed.
And alongside them, an increasingly obvious fear.
"It is him again..."
"Why does he get everything?"
"How many Fortuitous Encounters has he already taken?"
A cold voice came from the Elven group.
"If we let him keep absorbing it, once the gate opens, who will still be able to compete with him?"
Several people immediately exchanged glances.
Those who had encountered Ethan in the Owin ruins understood the meaning of those words even more clearly. Even back then, he had already been extremely difficult to kill. Now Ethan had additional Partners, equipment, higher cultivation, and all kinds of new methods. If they allowed him to continue growing at this speed, the gap would only become wider.
Their unease quickly converged into one shared thought.
They had to stop him.
Qing Lian stood behind the barrier, calmly watching the people outside. Among the hundreds of fluctuating auras, she quickly noticed several whose states were extremely unusual.
Their killing intent had appeared far too suddenly, and even the way it fluctuated was almost identical. Deep within those energies was also an extremely faint trace of black-purple power, so thin that it was almost impossible to detect. However, Qing Lian had felt a similar aura around Ethan before, so she could not completely ignore it.
She did not say anything immediately. She merely glanced toward the spatial tear and raised one hand.
Another barrier instantly appeared around Ethan, distorting light and perception from the outside and quickly turning the place where he stood into a hazy, indistinct area.
But it was already too late.
Everyone present had personally witnessed Ethan absorbing that energy.
An elder from one of the nonhuman races immediately stepped forward.
"Qing Lian!"
She did not even bother responding.
"That energy came from the ruins. It belongs to everyone present. Are you planning to hide him so he can monopolize it alone?"
Qing Zhu, who was leaning against a nearby steel pillar, immediately laughed.
"When your people absorbed it, why did no one say it belonged to everyone?"
The elder’s expression stiffened slightly.
Qing Zhu raised a hand and pointed toward the pile of ashes not far away.
"He absorbed it and died, so you called it a Fortuitous Encounter."
Then she pointed toward Ethan.
"But when Ethan succeeds in absorbing it, suddenly it becomes communal property?"
The smile on Qing Zhu’s face grew wider.
"How convenient."
The elder ground his teeth, but another Elf immediately shouted:
"That is because he is using a special method! This is cheating!"
Qing Zhu fell silent for several seconds before turning her head toward Qing Lian.
"Senior Sister."
"Mm?"
"I just learned that even before the ruins open, there are apparently anti-cheating rules."
Several people inside the resting area immediately burst out laughing.
The expressions of the nonhumans grew even uglier, but among those who were angry, several gazes had already begun turning increasingly crazed.
"He has to stop!"
"Kill him first!"
"If we let him keep growing stronger, there will be no chance later!"
Laira immediately stepped forward, Thunderfire appearing in her palm. Ruo Yan also released Soul Threads around herself, while Mumu, seeing the two preparing for battle, immediately stopped hiding. Its soft body swelled up, and the halo above its head began to appear.
"Mumu!"
But Qing Zhu stepped past all three of them first.
She reached out and took the bamboo staff she usually carried with her.
It was nothing more than a green bamboo pole slightly over a meter long. There was no glow or strange rune anywhere on its surface.
Qing Zhu lightly tapped it against her palm before looking at the people gradually approaching.
"Just so we are clear."
Her voice remained soft.
"I do not particularly want to kill all of you."
Her familiar confident smile slowly appeared.
"But if you really insist on charging over here..."
Qing Zhu tilted the bamboo staff in her hand.
"There still would not be enough of you for me to hold a proper barbecue."
The moment she finished speaking, several nonhumans immediately flew into a rage.
"Arrogant!"
A Beastkin nearly three meters tall was the first to stomp hard against the ground.
Boom!
The old concrete beneath his feet exploded. His massive body continued swelling with every step, his gray fur gradually turning blood-red while his two fangs lengthened by nearly half a meter. In only a few seconds, his aura rose to an entirely different level.
Behind him, two Elves simultaneously drew their bows, five energy arrows rapidly condensing along their bowstrings. A Harpy also flew straight into the sky, spreading its wings to reveal countless metallic feathers all pointing toward Qing Zhu.
The others began moving as well.
Most still remained outside and watched, but once the first person stepped forward, those who had been hesitating quickly found reasons to join. Some were driven by greed. Others feared that if Ethan continued growing, he would destroy the balance among the races. Meanwhile, a smaller group carried a level of madness far more obvious than the rest.
"If you want to stop all of us, then do not blame us!"
The Beastkin roared.
Qing Zhu looked at him as the bamboo staff in her hand slowly rose.
"I already told you."
She slightly turned her wrist.
"Do not come closer."
The Beastkin continued charging straight ahead.
The thirty-meter distance disappeared in only a few steps. His fist, larger than a human head, dragged a massive pressure wave behind it as it smashed directly toward Qing Zhu’s face.
She merely rotated her wrist slightly.
The tip of the bamboo staff touched his fist.
Tap.
The sound was strangely quiet.
One second later...
BOOM!!!
The air behind the Beastkin exploded.
His massive body vanished from where he stood and shot backward across the runway like a cannonball. He smashed through a metal wall more than a hundred meters away and continued rolling several times before finally stopping.
No one could tell how much strength Qing Zhu had just used.
The five Elven arrows arrived immediately afterward.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Qing Zhu spun the staff in a very small circle in front of herself. That simple movement pulled the surrounding wind into a vortex, causing all five energy arrows to change direction in midair and fly back toward their owners.
The two Elves’ expressions changed.
"Block them!"
An enormous wooden shield immediately erupted from the ground.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Five explosions erupted almost simultaneously.
Before the dust had even finished spreading, hundreds of metallic feathers from the sky had already covered the space above Qing Zhu.
She glanced upward once and sighed.
"How troublesome."
The bamboo staff swept upward.
No sword light or immediate explosion appeared, but the clouds above suddenly began to rotate. Layer after layer of cloud was dragged toward the same direction, making the entire sky look as though it were being violently stirred by an invisible hand.
Rumble!
The wind reversed.
Hundreds of metallic feathers descending from above were swept upward all at once, causing the Harpy in the sky to lose balance before it could even react.
One second later, the phantom of an enormous bamboo stalk appeared across the sky.
Hundreds of meters long.
Qing Zhu lowered her wrist.
The phantom crashed down with it.
BOOM!!!
The bamboo did not directly strike anyone. It merely smashed into the empty ground between the two sides, but the resulting shockwave was still powerful enough to blast every charging nonhuman backward.
The runway split apart.
A deep fissure more than a kilometer long spread outward from the place where the bamboo staff had fallen. Even the airships parked farther away shook violently under the pressure of the wind, while the clouds above were torn apart toward both sides, leaving an enormous empty gap across the sky.
Qing Zhu remained standing exactly where she had been.
Her black hair only swayed slightly.
No matter how one looked at it, the staff in her hand still resembled nothing more than an ordinary piece of green bamboo.
Laira stared at the scene before her for a long time before turning toward Ruo Yan.
"She was holding back last time."
Ruo Yan replied calmly, "I know."
"I did not."
"Now you do."
Laira fell silent.
Mumu, standing beside her, immediately took another step backward.
"Mumu..."
Qing Zhu heard it and turned her head.
"I am not going to hit you."
Mumu continued retreating.
"Mumu."
Judging from its expression, it clearly did not believe her.
Meanwhile, Ethan, inside the barrier, had almost completely stopped paying attention to the battle outside.
The energy continued pouring into the Primordial Armor. At first, he still needed to actively guide each stream through the metal structure, but after several minutes, the armor seemed to gradually remember how it was supposed to function.
The silver lines across the surface of his left arm began glowing in a fixed rhythm. Every stream of energy that entered was broken down by the Primordial Armor’s internal structure, stripped of its chaotic components, and only then transmitted into his body.
The Legendary Heavenly Gate circulated.
Pure energy rapidly spread throughout Ethan’s body, causing his Platinum stage 2 cultivation, which had remained stable for many days, to begin fluctuating.
Ethan closed his eyes. He did not forcibly push for a breakthrough and simply allowed the energy to continue circulating in the most natural way possible. Part of it flowed into his Heavenly Gate, while another portion spread through his bonds to his three Partners.
Laira, standing outside, immediately felt her body heat up.
Ruo Yan also paused slightly.
Mumu suddenly began glowing.
"Mumu?"
It looked down at its glowing belly, then happily jiggled its body.
But the largest portion of energy was still gathering inside the Primordial Armor.
The armor was not merely absorbing all that energy and transferring it into Ethan.
It was using that energy to repair something buried deep within itself.
Ethan could sense the metallic structure changing little by little. The process was extremely slow, but it continued without interruption, like a component that had remained dormant for far too long was gradually being restored.