Chapter 4025: Why Consult Scholars When A Fist Can Do It Faster?

Lin Mu had no intention of spending an entire day standing inside the Forbidden Relic Section just to elegantly dismantle one barrier.

Palm Saber saw Zhenyu staring at the formation and assumed he had finally encountered something troublesome.

"Senior," he said carefully, "if this barrier is proving difficult, I can summon some of the Formation Division’s masters. We can tell them nothing about the contents until they arrive. There are a few experts who specialize in spatial formations. With several of them working together, they should be able to..."

"Not needed." Zhenyu uttered and High Elder Palm Saber stopped.

Zhenyu examined the barrier for another moment, then he pulled his fist backward. High Elder Palm Saber’s eyes widened.

’Surely not.’

Zhenyu glanced at him. "Why consult scholars when a fist can do it faster?"

High Elder Palm Saber’s face changed. "SENIOR!"

But before his words could even register in everyone’s ears, the fist moved.

Lin Mu did not punch blindly. His Spatial Perception had already mapped the barrier. He could see where the formation connected to the Spatial Fabric, where its stability was strongest, and more importantly, where the spatial tension between several anchors overlapped.

His fist struck exactly there.

KACHA!

The sound was terrifyingly ordinary. It resembled glass breaking. But the result was anything but ordinary. Cracks instantly spread across the invisible barrier and at the same time, the air itself fractured.

Thin black lines appeared around Lin Mu’s fist, branching outward through space. Formation runes flashed into existence as the barrier attempted to stabilize itself. But it failed as the spatial fractures swallowed them.

One rune vanished after the others and within two breaths, the entire spatial formation collapsed into dozens of fragments before being pulled into the cracks. The fractures closed immediately afterward.

Nothing exploded and no spatial storm appeared. The chamber remained perfectly stable making High Elder Palm Saber and the other elders stare. Several disciples stared even harder.

’He destroyed a spatial barrier with a punch?’ High Elder Palm Saber had heard what happened after Zhenyu left the crater near the Mad Demon Depths.

Many cultivators had witnessed him strike space and open a rift into the Void.

Palm Saber had believed the reports, though part of him had assumed there was more to the technique. Spatial abilities were complicated. They involved precise manipulation, delicate control and profound comprehension.

There were teleportation formations covered in thousands of runes. There were spatial techniques requiring dozens of hand seals. There were ancient methods that demanded calculations so complex that cultivators studied them for centuries.

Zhenyu apparently had another method: Punch it.

Palm Saber suddenly understood why nobody had bothered including that part when describing spatial cultivation to him. The final barrier vanished and for one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the Justice Crushing Cestus awakened.

BOOM!

There was no sound, yet everyone felt the impact. An invisible pressure swept across the Forbidden Relic Section as several disciples stumbled. One immediately dropped to a knee while an elder instinctively circulated his Immortal Qi before realizing that nothing was physically pressing against him.

The sensation came from somewhere deeper. It was a heaviness, mixed with dread, guilt and burden. The feelings blended together until they became difficult to separate. The Justice Crushing Cestus remained motionless upon its formation pedestal.

Its crude iron surface had not changed. Yet without the twelve barriers suppressing it, the weapon suddenly seemed enormous. Lin Mu’s Spatial Perception showed an even greater transformation.

The mass of grey, black, violet, red and white surged outward as countless fragments moved within it. For the briefest instant, Lin Mu thought he saw faces. There were hundreds, then thousands and perhaps far more.

Some were screaming, some looked furious, some wept while some simply stared. Then the shapes collapsed back into the swirling mass. Lin Mu’s expression finally became serious as he realized Xukong had been right.

Whatever existed inside the Justice Crushing Cestus had once belonged to living beings.

High Elder Palm Saber took an involuntary step backward.

"So this is the original..." he whispered.

Another elder swallowed. "Why does it feel like this?"

Nobody answered him as no one knew.

One disciple pressed a hand against his chest. "I feel like I’ve done something wrong."

"You probably have," another disciple muttered.

Under any other circumstances, the remark might have earned laughter, but nobody laughed. Lin Mu stood closest to the Cestus. The pressure surrounding him was far stronger than what the others experienced.

Yet his body remained steady and his eyes stayed fixed upon the crude gauntlet. Now that the barriers were gone, he could feel something else. Something buried beneath the dread. It was faint and carried an ancient exhaustion, standing upon patience.

The Cestus felt as though it had been waiting.

Lin Mu slowly extended his hand.

Behind him, High Elder Palm Saber’s expression changed again. "Senior, perhaps we should first..."

Zhenyu’s fingers approached the metal and High Elder Palm Saber stopped speaking.

The old saying returned to his mind. ’One dares not question the Earth Sea Tyrant.’

For the second time that day, Palm Saber decided the ancestors had possessed excellent wisdom. Lin Mu’s fingertips were now only an inch away from the Justice Crushing Cestus. The strange colors within the Spatial Fabric suddenly stopped moving.

Every fragment froze and all of them became still at the same instant.

Then, as Lin Mu’s fingers finally touched the cold metal, the entire mass turned toward him. There was no gradual awakening. The grey, black, violet, red, and white substance erupted from the weapon as though the simple act of touching it had opened a floodgate.

Lin Mu felt an immense pressure rush through his arm, bypassing flesh and meridians entirely before striking directly against his mind. The sensation carried none of the refinement expected from a proper soul technique.

It was violent, chaotic, and filled with countless overlapping intentions that had long since lost whatever individual identities they once possessed. Lin Mu’s eyes narrowed slightly as the Justice Crushing Cestus trembled beneath his hand.

Then the whispers began.