Chapter 925: No Longer Trash
I opened my eyes, clicking my tongue. I’ll have to face another tribulation. Honestly, after everything lately, I was getting tired of heavens trying to kill me every time I improved slightly.
But the clouds dissipated immediately.
The pressure vanished so abruptly it left the space strangely hollow afterward. One moment the heavens were gathering. The next, silence.
The frown on the red sun deepened.
"What’s going on?" I asked as I stood up.
I immediately checked inward, expecting instability or interruption. Instead, what I found made me pause completely.
Feeling within my body, there was no need to face a Heavenly Tribulation; I was already in the Origin Realm.
The breakthrough had happened.
Cleanly.
Completely.
Without resistance.
Without lightning trying to erase my existence from reality.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
"I don’t know," I replied. "Could it be because I’ve already attained Origin Realm with my other body?"
It was the only explanation I could think of, though even that sounded uncertain while saying it aloud.
"Hmm, that’s not it, usually even an avatar needs to breakthrough the Heavenly Tribulation. Looks like the heavens look favorably on you, Shen Bao... or Shen Mo here."
The way he said it made me slightly uncomfortable. After meeting the enforcer and learning how much existed above ordinary cultivation, hearing that the heavens apparently "favored" me no longer sounded reassuring.
"Both names are fine, so," I said as I looked at my revitalized new body, that’s capable of far more destruction than before, "Since we’re fresh, let’s go for another round?"
The Red Sun stared at me for a second before laughing, an actual amused laugh rather than his usual battle-crazed grin.
"Sure, try not to die, I’ll increase the intensity a bit," he said and once again another clash happened.
The instant he moved, the hall exploded into violence. The floor beneath his feet shattered outward in a massive spiderweb pattern as he crossed the distance between us almost instantly.
The wooden staff descended toward my shoulder, carrying enough force that the pressure alone split the skin along my arm before the strike even connected. I twisted away barely in time, feeling the impact miss close enough to explode the floor behind me into fragments. Apparently, his definition of "a bit" stronger translated directly into attempted murder.
"Fist of Demonic Roaring Ki!"
***
Three more weeks later, Tonfa moved near the massive hall where the loud sound of what felt like roars and shouts, rocking of the very building they were in, and something breaking walls or breaking against walls echoed.
Even from outside the reinforced corridor, the violence inside the training hall was impossible to ignore. Tremors pulsed repeatedly through the structure beneath his feet, loose dust shaking free from the ceiling every few seconds while heavy impacts reverberated through the walls like contained explosions.
Formation arrays lining the corridor flickered faintly each time another collision occurred deeper inside.
A young man sat down next to the door to the shaking building, with a helmet over his face. Sleeping soundly, almost even with all the noise.
Tonfa slowed slightly at the sight. The young disciple lounged against the wall with complete disregard for the chaos happening around him. Every few moments, another violent crash thundered from inside the hall, yet somehow the man continued sleeping peacefully beneath his helmet like this level of destruction had become ordinary background noise.
"Ahem..." Tonfa coughed.
The young man lifted his helmet, "Or, Master Tonfa, what brings you here?" the young man asked.
"A meeting with the council is being held, and I tried informing the Red Sun, but he isn’t replying."
"Oh, he’s been busy sparring with someone for the past month. You need me to relay a message?" he asked.
"Sparring? For a month?" Tonfa was confused.
The disciple shrugged lazily. "You’d get used to it if you’re from our sect."
Before Tonfa could respond, another deafening impact erupted from within the hall hard enough to shake the corridor itself.
Soon, the sound of battle broke down and stopped.
The sudden silence afterward felt almost unnatural after weeks of constant violence.
The doors slowly opened.
And the red sun with a small cut under his left eye appeared.
Tonfa frowned immediately. The injury itself was minor, already healing, but the existence of it at all was enough to shock him. Red Sun was a Yin Stage cultivator now. Someone capable of injuring him during sparring was not a trivial opponent.
What monster was he sparing with? Perhaps someone from the confederation? Don Ma, or maybe another old monster.
But what appeared was a young Origin Stage cultivator with a striking resemblance to Shen Bao, only this one had dark hair, a leaner more muscular body, and what felt like a devilish presence to him. No, demonic even. Tonfa’s eyes widened slowly while observing the youth more carefully.
The aura around him felt deeply unsettling, not because of raw cultivation pressure but because of the density hidden beneath it. There was a violent quality buried inside his presence, something predatory and restrained that made the surrounding air feel subtly heavier.
The young man’s black eyes were the only thing still focused; his body was a mess, his clothes torn here and there, and most of his chest was visible with large bruises and cuts. But he didn’t look too disappointed with his appearance; he was smiling even. Worse, he looked genuinely satisfied despite clearly being beaten half to death repeatedly over the past month.
"You were bullying an Origin stage cultivator? Quite the hobby..."
"Bullying? Don’t you see this?" he pointed at the small cut under his eyes, "I’m a yin stage and got harmed. This guy is a monster, and he was a Void Shattering stage not even a month ago."
Tonfa’s expression shifted from confusion into outright disbelief.
"Where do you keep finding geniuses like these?" Tonfa’s eyes widened. "First it was Shen Bao, and now this monster... young lad," Tonfa said as he approached, "What’s your name?" he asked.
"Sup, Master Tonfa,"
That casual expression immediately triggered recognition.
"That... expression, are you by any chance related to Shen Bao?"
"Oh, it’s me, just a different body," he said as he moved his hand to his holding bag, downing a pill and also changing his clothes in one hand sweep.
Tonfa blinked several times while trying to process the statement.
"You can afford to rise this high in another body? Why waste the resources when you could have used them on your main body? Remember, that man wants you to be at the Yin Stage by the end of the year, you don’t have a lot of time left."
The concern in Tonfa’s tone became genuine now. High-level cultivation resources weren’t infinite, even for monsters like Shen Bao. Splitting advancement between multiple bodies sounded completely irrational.
"Don’t worry about that, after all, my main body is already at the Sun Stage now...which also needs me to prepare for its own Tribulation," Shen Mo replied.
Tonfa simply stared at him in stunned silence. A Heaven Stage main body advancing monstrously fast was already absurd enough. An Origin Stage secondary body capable of injuring a Yin Stage cultivator during sparring pushed that absurdity into something almost offensive.
A genius making himself into two separate monsters.
Quite... genius indeed.
