The Decaying World-Chapter 80 - 75: Breakthrough, Part 1

"Interesting. So arrogant for someone who just broke through to the Inner Power Realm." Ou Tianrong tossed the note aside and flexed her gloved hands.

"I think I understand your intentions, but it’s a shame. Now that you’ve come to me, it all stops here."

With a couple of shoves, she pushed aside the Baihua Sect women blocking her path. Her frame, almost as wide as it was tall, resembled a mountain of flesh as she walked straight toward Lin Hui.

She stopped just two meters from him.

"Come on. Let me see just how fast your sword is!"

Her brow furrowed as she stared at Lin Hui. To be honest, he was the type of person she despised most.

But since he had come knocking at her door, as the Sect Leader, she had no choice but to fight. Otherwise, the very backbone of the Baihua Sect would crumble. At this moment, she finally understood something of what Daoist Baohe must have felt.

She couldn’t run, she couldn’t hide. She could only fight.

If she wanted to remain the Baihua Sect Leader.

SCRAPE.

The tip of Lin Hui’s longsword touched the floor, dragging lightly and making a soft scraping sound.

"I can’t imagine how you’ll deal with me. At your weight, it’s basically impossible to keep up with my speed," he said softly, gazing at her.

"The Hundred Flowers Palm and the Palm of Enchanting Fragrance are the two great Martial Arts of my sect. I have long since mastered them both. You can experience them for yourself," Ou Tianrong said calmly.

The other disciples at her side, with an unspoken understanding, all retreated to give them space.

Soon, only the two of them remained in the second-floor hall.

A draft blew out from the open doorways, making a low whistling sound.

Ou Tianrong stared at Lin Hui and extended her right hand.

Suddenly, she clenched it into a fist.

POP!

With an explosive sound, the air in her fist compressed and detonated. A faint fragrance simultaneously burst from her palm.

’Palm of Enchanting Fragrance: Joyful Silence.’

As Ou Tianrong unleashed the fragrance with one hand, her other hand shot out toward Lin Hui like a venomous snake—silent and incredibly stealthy.

The fragrance was a poison gas. Even an expert of the Inner Power Realm, despite their high resistance, still had to breathe. If they unknowingly inhaled even a tiny amount, they would collapse unconscious in an instant.

This was the power of the Palm of Enchanting Fragrance. In her hands, even a common soporific could be vaporized by her Palm Force, amplifying its effects significantly. It was an outrageous ability.

This move, Joyful Silence, appeared to be a feint with poison up high and a sneak attack down low. In reality, the lower hand was also covertly releasing another medicinal powder.

This powder wasn’t a soporific, but a mild, non-irritating type of tonic.

Poisons and soporifics would often trigger one’s Inner Strength to automatically protect the body, preventing them from taking effect. But what if it was replaced with a beneficial tonic? 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

What if the goal was simply to induce the natural side effects of a tonic overdose?

This was the key to successfully bypassing the automatic defenses of Inner Strength.

It was also the Baihua Sect Leader’s hidden killing move.

But just as her attack closed in, about to make contact with Lin Hui...

"Wind!"

It was a low whisper.

She saw Lin Hui raise his longsword and give it a gentle shake.

An invisible current of air suddenly blew toward her.

’But we’re indoors! We’re surrounded by walls and doors. Where could this gust of wind be coming from!?’

By the time the Baihua Sect Leader realized something was wrong, a flash of silver light had already streaked past her.

SLICE!!

AAGH!!

She felt a sharp pain from her side and turned to look.

Somehow, at some unknown moment, a deep, bloody gash had been cut into her right side.

The gash ran across her waist, a finger deep, and looked absolutely terrifying.

But in an instant, the wound sealed itself tightly shut, leaving only a thin line, as if it had never been there.

Ou Tianrong’s face remained calm as she looked back at Lin Hui.

"A decent sword, to be able to break through my Inner Strength and injure me. But... with a little scratch like that? Didn’t you have breakfast, kid!?"

This was her core Martial Art, the one that allowed her to trade blows with Song Zhanlong—the Hundred Flowers Body.

This was the outrageous damage reduction and health-locking effect that manifested when the Hundred Flowers Palm was cultivated to its highest level.

Combined with her terrifying mass of fat, ordinary sharp weapons couldn’t pierce her, and blunt weapons would have their damage reduced and impact absorbed by the thick layers of fat.

This mass of fat seemed to jiggle, but in reality, it was incredibly tough and extremely difficult to cut through deeply.

That was precisely what Lin Hui had just felt. His Qinghe Sword first broke through her Inner Strength, then with great difficulty, managed to strike her body. But most of the force was buffered by her fat, and the remaining impact only left a shallow gash.

On a normal person, that gash would have been enough to cause major bleeding. But on the super-obese Ou Tianrong, who was nearly two meters wide, it was nothing more than a minor scrape, not even a small injury.

But he wasn’t worried. The current of Inner Strength automatically generated by his Qingfeng Sword had blown the surrounding medicinal powders and poison gas away from him, allowing him to evade the insidious trick of the Palm of Enchanting Fragrance.

’Looking at it this way, she’s really no worse than Song Zhanlong. Just as difficult to deal with.’ Lin Hui stood by the wall, watching as Ou Tianrong turned to face him.

’In this enclosed space, the poison powder will drift back sooner or later. I need to get out of here first!’

With a thought, he lunged to the side without any warning.

"Let’s change venues. It’s too small in here. No room to maneuver."

Leaving those words behind, Lin Hui smashed through the wooden door of a nearby room. Once inside, he tapped a foot on the carpet and shot across the room like an arrow. He shattered the glass window and leaped down.

A large number of Baihua Sect disciples and students had already gathered in the open ground outside.

They were almost all women, and most of them were young and attractive, with good figures.

Apparently, the sect’s main cultivation method was related to preserving one’s figure and appearance. Otherwise, there was no way so many of them could be so attractive. The Baihua Sect had only recently arrived in Tuyue; it was impossible for them to have recruited so many beauties in such a short time.

THUD.

Lin Hui landed steadily, causing a ripple of gasps from the crowd. Before he could even steady himself, an immense sense of pressure came from behind him again.

He turned his head and saw Ou Tianrong had also leaped from the second floor, plummeting down toward him.

Her enormous body was like a giant bomb, casting a massive shadow as it crashed down.

SWISH. At the same time, Ou Tianrong flung out several small, dark spheres with her left hand.

These small spheres were strikingly similar to the hidden weapons used by the two Baihua Sect members he had killed in the Fog Area.

BANG! BANG! BANG!!

The spheres exploded in mid-air, transforming into a large area of viscous black liquid that completely covered a radius of more than ten meters around Lin Hui.

BOOM.

Only then did Ou Tianrong finally hit the ground.

But she felt none of the expected impact of a collision, only a slight pain from her body hitting the hard ground.

"Where did he go!?" A chill ran through Ou Tianrong. She knew it. Speed-type opponents were the absolute worst.

Even Song Zhanlong would have had to cough up blood against that last move, but this kid had actually escaped its range in the blink of an eye.

Not only had he unbelievably dodged the impact, but he had also escaped the entire area covered by the hidden weapons, vanishing without a trace!

Her ultimate move, prepared specifically to deal with any speed-type opponent, had actually missed twice in a row!

It was infuriating!

SLICE!

The next instant, Ou Tianrong jerked her head to the side, dodging a silent, lightning-fast sword strike.

But before she could feel relieved, a slight pinprick sensation came from her back, just behind her heart.

PFFT!

Her Inner Strength barrier was instantly broken, her fat pierced through to a depth of two fingers!

"Get lost!!" Ou Tianrong roared, spinning around and striking at Lin Hui with her palm.

Although she had been stabbed, and the wound was deeper than before, this also meant that her opponent was now pinned by her flesh.

That’s right, she had done it on purpose! Using her own body to lock her opponent in place for a close-quarters brawl.

Her Inner Strength now surged crazily from the wound and up the blade of her opponent’s sword.

Ou Tianrong’s ultimate Hundred Flowers Palm technique also pulled in everything in a one-meter radius as it smashed viciously toward Lin Hui’s head.

’Die! Die! Die! Die!’

Ou Tianrong’s face twisted into an unconscious snarl.

"Fool! I can lose an exchange countless times, but you only need to lose once, and you’re dead!!"

BAM!

The palm struck... the head...

In that instant, Ou Tianrong froze.

Like a statue, she abruptly transitioned from extreme speed to utter stillness. In that moment, she lost consciousness. Her body froze in a bizarre, twisted posture, carried forward only by its remaining momentum toward Lin Hui.

At the same time, all the Inner Strength in her body silently dissipated.

Without her conscious control, her Inner Strength stopped flowing, no longer providing any enhancement or defense. Her muscles and fat instantly went slack, their toughness plummeting, leaving her in her natural, defenseless, and weakest state.

SQUELCH.

Lin Hui steadily pierced through Ou Tianrong’s fat with his sword, only to instantly withdraw the blade the moment before it touched her heart.

He withdrew his sword, stepped back, and with a flick, shook the blood from its blade before turning back to look at her.

Only then did Ou Tianrong slowly regain her senses from the effects of the Sealed Poison.

Her massive body slammed onto the ground with a THUD. She was a wretched sight, sprawled in a bizarre, twisted position, gasping for breath.

Fear unconsciously surfaced on her face.

’What... just happened!?’

Ou Tianrong couldn’t remember.

She only knew that she had tried to lock Lin Hui in place, and then... in an instant, she had lost consciousness.

Then, when she came to, she was already on the ground with what was clearly a piercing wound on her back, right behind her heart!

The bloody wound reached the outer edge of her heart before being withdrawn, a clear and potent warning.

’I almost... died!?’ Ou Tianrong couldn’t imagine what had just happened, and it was precisely this inability to comprehend that caused fear to spread and climb through her heart like a wild vine.

’What did he do!? Poison? A soporific? Or some other kind of technique or ability!?’

Quickly pressing down on the bleeding wound, Ou Tianrong once again looked back at Lin Hui.

"...You..." She wanted to say something, but the words caught in her throat.

"Are you wondering why I didn’t kill you?" Lin Hui’s expression suddenly softened.

"We have no deep-seated hatred for each other. And in broad daylight, I’m no homicidal maniac. Why would you think I would kill you?"

"..." Ou Tianrong was speechless. After all, Lin Hui had burst in here, acting completely unrestrained, looking for all the world like he was on a random killing spree.

And now he was saying they had no deep-seated hatred, all while wearing an expression that seemed to ask, ’Why are you all being so impulsive?’

She struggled to compose herself and took a few deep breaths.

"That last sword strike... I don’t understand it. Regardless, it would have been as easy as flipping your hand to kill me just now," Ou Tianrong said in a low voice. "What do you want to discuss? Since Sect Leader Lin has no killing intent, why don’t we all sit down and talk about cooperation?"

She now suspected that he might be another one of those madmen who practiced Extreme Martial Arts. The Ultimate Dao had many side effects; perhaps Lin Hui suffered from intermittent insanity, a condition where he could fly into a murderous rage at any moment.

Just like some Inner Family masters in the Inner City. They called this side effect Seeking Heart, or Heart Disease.

"Cooperation is fine. I’ve long admired the Baihua Sect. Only through mutual exchange and joint effort can we achieve mutual benefit," Lin Hui said, sheathing his sword with a perfectly measured smile.

As for the destruction he had caused during the fight, it seemed to have nothing to do with the man standing there now.

’This guy is a goddamn lunatic!’

Ou Tianrong and the surrounding Baihua Sect members all saw it. Even though he seemed normal now, who could say if he wouldn’t fly into another rage in a moment?