According to the date on Ye Chui’s iPad magic guide book, today is Saturday. He can borrow the power of the One-Punch Heroic Spirit.
The One-Punch Heroic Spirit that Ye Chui has currently unlocked allows him, on Saturdays only, to throw a maximum of two punches. Each punch carries one-fifth of the full power. Even though it is only one-fifth, the might is already overwhelming. Back in Stan Town, when the Heroic Spirit was limited to just one-fifteenth of its strength, it still smashed the First Apostle Adams straight back into the summoning realm.
Of course, that does not mean one-fifteenth of the Heroic Spirit’s power is equal to an Apostle. In front of that punch, Apostle Adams had absolutely no ability to resist and was instantly killed.
However, the Apostle summoned by Rosia back then only manifested a tiny fraction of its true strength. It was completely incomparable to the Apostle Nima has summoned now. Therefore, Ye Chui has been carefully calculating the timing. He has no intention of waiting for this Apostle to finish materialising.
Right now, it has reached roughly sixty percent completion. Perfect!
The power of the One-Punch Heroic Spirit can be upgraded by spending points. Five thousand points unlock one layer, and each layer multiplies the strength. Ye Chui currently has a considerable number of points remaining. To be safe and to create maximum shock value, he had already spent ten thousand points earlier to add two extra layers to this punch. The power of this single strike has now reached half of a serious punch.
That is more than twice as strong as before!
Just the wind pressure carried by this punch as it is unleashed already makes countless people feel as though they cannot breathe. The Apostle instinctively adopts a full defensive posture, completely on guard against Ye Chui’s strike. It is a chaotic demonic monster without proper thought, yet even it feels terror emanating from Ye Chui.
That fist absolutely must not land on its body!
Ye Chui raises his fist high. Violent winds swirl around him. He steps forward, his body slightly crouched. With that motion, the foot cracks the hard marble floor beneath him, leaving spider-web cracks in the ground. An inexplicable burst of music is triggered. It is the BGM of the One-Punch Heroic Spirit.
Against that BGM, Ye Chui’s figure as he throws his punch looks even more domineering in the eyes of everyone in the Garden of Stars. The envoys from other empires stare with mouths agape, unable to believe such overwhelming power comes from a teenage omnimagus.
At this moment the sky is overcast. Heaven and earth themselves must react to this terrifying punch.
The envoy from the Yellow Sand Empire is himself a great swordsman-level expert. He channels sword qi throughout his body to steady himself while looking up at the grey sky, his expression grave and astonished. “This is… the Forbidden Domain!”
“What is the Forbidden Domain?” one of his companions, a young swordsman shielding his eyes from the ferocious wind pressure, asks in shock.
“The world does not permit swordsmen to obtain power that is too great. At the end of the path of the sword lies the Forbidden Domain. Once someone steps into that domain, they are restricted by the laws of heaven and earth…” the Yellow Sand envoy explains with a bitter tone.
The so-called Forbidden Domain is in fact the limitation placed on this world by the Church’s divine spirits. Swordsmen cannot enter the Sword Saint realm. The moment they touch that level of power, they suffer backlash. Ye Chui’s unlocked half-power punch has already brushed against that forbidden domain!
“Good heavens… this is many times stronger than when he killed the serpent-haired Yulen all those years ago!” the president of an imperial guild exclaims in astonishment. He was present the day Ye Chui summoned the bald Heroic Spirit and killed the serpent-haired Yulen with two punches. He had witnessed the stunning might of Ye Chui’s power back then. Afterwards, although Ye Chui grew considerably and achieved many astonishing feats, in his heart that single punch against Yulen had already represented the absolute peak of Ye Chui’s strength.
This was not meant as mockery. Even if that had been his peak, it would still have been enough to place Ye Chui at the very summit of worldly power. At the time Ye Chui had sighed that the punch was only one-fifth strength, which many people took as youthful boasting. Yet now… Ye Chui has unleashed a punch more than twice as powerful as that day.
He had not been lying!
Moreover, he can now allow the bald Heroic Spirit to possess his own body and deliver an even more terrifying punch through himself.
Looking at the spirited, wind-swept teenage figure, countless people feel a quiet resentment at how unfair the world is.
Under the shocked gazes of everyone present, Ye Chui’s fist, which appears to move extremely slowly yet is actually faster than the eye can follow, descends towards the Apostle.
The Apostle once again emits that ear-piercing shriek that feels as though it could rupture eardrums. The space around its body begins to distort. It seems to be using some strange ability to escape through warped space.
Many people notice this and inwardly sigh for Ye Chui, thinking this punch is about to miss.
The cross-shaped Apostle vanishes instantly from its position!
Yet in the next moment, several cracks appear in space like shattered glass. The Apostle’s figure is forcibly dragged back into view.
“In the face of absolute power, even space trembles. His fist wind has locked down the surrounding space, leaving the Apostle no way to escape!” the president of a certain imperial guild declares solemnly. That president is himself a space-specialised omnimagus. His magic guide book is already summoned before him, but from the instant Ye Chui raised his fist he realised all his spatial magic had become ineffective.
Ye Chui’s invincible, certain-victory punch has triggered a change in the rules themselves, sealing away any means of fleeing from it!
In Ye Chui’s own words, one punch breaks ten thousand techniques!
Unable to escape, the Apostle can only scream as it braces itself against Ye Chui’s killing blow.
The instant the fist is about to strike the Apostle, the thick clouds in the sky have gathered like a pool of black water. Muffled thunder rolls continuously. Finally, a colossal black bolt of lightning crashes down from the heavens, straight towards Ye Chui.
Heaven and earth will not tolerate the existence of this punch!
Yet the punch is thrown all the same.
The moment all the fist wind pours down and lands on the Apostle’s tightly coiled tentacles, Ye Chui’s body transforms into a flock of bats that scatter away. Boom! The terrifying black thunder strikes the spot where he had stood, accompanied by an earth-shaking roar. The entire Garden of Stars seems to shake. Amidst this heavenly might, the Apostle’s screams rise as its body disintegrates into black mist. For a moment the mist tries to reform as though alive, but ultimately it dissipates into nothingness.
A huge smoking crater has appeared in the ground. A half-burned fragment of scripture slowly flutters down from the sky.
It is the black scripture page that was only half consumed.
Ye Chui waves his hand and catches the scripture fragment.
He looks up at the sky.
The dark clouds are dispersing.
The clouds had gathered because he touched the forbidden realm, but he only entered that domain for the single instant of the punch. The moment he released the One-Punch Heroic Spirit summoning, he left the forbidden zone, causing the clouds to scatter.
The Apostle has been utterly annihilated.
Back when Ye Chui fought the serpent-haired Yulen, the shockwave from his punch shattered the entire Dragon Nest Mountain. This time the Apostle was strong enough to absorb most of the force, but the residual power that spread outwards still destroyed many artificial rocks and hills in the Garden of Stars. Several unlucky guests, whether struck by the wind pressure or simply frightened into convulsions by the overwhelming might, collapsed foaming at the mouth and had to be hastily carried away.
As they were taken off, their faces, still frothing, wore excited smiles. To witness that scene, even death would have been worth it.
At the coronation ceremony of the Star Empire, the Church actually tried to summon an Apostle to sabotage the event. This fills every envoy from the other empires with anger. They consider the Church’s actions far too excessive. Yet what is even more excessive is… the Apostle was simply punched to death by Ye Chui?
However, the truly outrageous part comes next.
“That scared me to death. I actually brushed against the Sword Saint domain (the One-Punch Heroic Spirit falls into the swordsman category that manipulates sword qi). And this was only half power. If I went all out, wouldn’t the heavens go completely mad?” Ye Chui mutters to himself.
He can swear he did not do it on purpose. It was completely sincere. Yet when these words reach the ears of everyone else, their impact is no less than another bolt of heavenly punishment.
That level of destructive power… was only half strength!?
Are you going to let the rest of us live or not?
Many people understand that Ye Chui’s punch just now did not come from his own power but from the summoned Heroic Spirit. Yet ever since the fall of the gods, the rules of the world changed. Only an extremely small number of swordsmen can even touch the Sword Saint domain, and those who manage to cross that threshold are rarer than phoenix feathers. Or rather, it is practically impossible. Even if someone succeeded, they would instantly be slain by the laws of heaven and earth. In other words, a Heroic Spirit that has truly reached the Sword Saint realm simply should not exist in this world.
So where on earth did Ye Chui obtain that absurdly powerful bald Heroic Spirit?
After the Apostle is slain and the sky clears, the Garden of Stars falls briefly silent. Then exclamations, shouts, and clamour break out. Very quickly, however, the scene falls quiet once more. Everyone stares at Ye Chui, at the huge lightning-scorched pit in the middle of the garden avenue.
Ye Chui gives a light cough, waves his hand with perfect nonchalance, and summons a massive quantity of water that floods into the crater. Under the stunned gazes of the crowd, he uses life magic to instantly grow a thick layer of green aquatic plants across the water’s surface. He even scoops several small fish from a nearby pond and tosses them in, perfectly disguising the originally terrifying pit as an ordinary pond.
Finally he stands in front of the pond, nods in satisfaction, sweeps his gaze across everyone, and smiles. “So, shall we continue?”
Everyone else: “…”
Ye Chui walks straight over to Linda, who is still frozen like a statue clutching the greatsword. He claps her shoulder deliberately loudly and says in a voice everyone can hear, “Princess Linda, thank you for buying me time just now and holding the Apostle at bay. Without you, how could I have dealt with it so easily? It can be said that we killed the Apostle together. Your courage…” Here he casts a contemptuous glance at Prince Karl, who is still cowering behind the black-armoured guards, and continues, “is the finest gift you have offered to the new emperor of the Star Empire!”
Then he lowers his voice and speaks into his portable magic communicator: “All units, on my mark, applaud!”
Led by the security team, thunderous applause instantly erupts throughout the venue.
