Suppression: You Are God, Then Who Am I?

The moment the words left Huang Tian's mouth, the faces of the Holy Emperor Sect members on the ground grew even uglier. What did he mean by "Bring out every means you have, and kill me"? Too arrogant! Too insolent! And yet, faced with a Huang Tian so "complete," without a single weakness, they could not help feeling powerless. The Shelter Ring would not hold much longer—bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down the Holy Emperor Sect Master's forehead, and his whole body trembled. He looked at the people beside him, every face full of despair, drew a deep breath, and said with hatred in his voice, "We can only fight him to the death!" From his shirt pocket he took out a sheet of white paper. There was no pattern on it, and no writing. Then he brought out an utterly ordinary little knife, drew it across the index finger of his left hand, and blood flowed from the finger at once. He pressed the bleeding finger to the paper's lower right corner, and a red fingerprint appeared. Then he lifted the white paper, faced Huang Tian standing in midair, and said solemnly, "I will settle victory and defeat with him, and fight him to the death!" His voice had barely fallen when a hazy glow bloomed from the white paper and, in a flash, enveloped Huang Tian. The next moment another bright-red fingerprint surfaced on the paper. It was unmistakably Huang Tian's. The two fingerprints bloomed together with crimson halos, then shot forth, becoming two torrents that rushed straight into the sky and formed a space the size of an ordinary basketball court. "Hum—" The instant the space appeared, the figures of the Sect Master and Huang Tian blurred like flowing water, and in the blink of an eye they vanished from where they had stood. Two human silhouettes then appeared in the space overhead. Their faces could not be made out, but from the two builds it was entirely possible to tell who was who. "What kind of oddity is this?" Zhou Dongqiang, who had been watching the "livestream" the whole time, was very curious. "It settles victory and defeat, and it also settles life and death. Is it something like a life-and-death writ?" Liu Qingqing shook her head. "It does feel a lot like the life-and-death writ you mentioned, but I don't quite understand. The gap between their strengths is too great. How does that Holy Emperor Sect Master dare to face Huang Tian, the Lord on High, and fight him hand to hand?" Chen Yan, limp and drained of strength, sat on the ground. Pale-faced, he coughed twice and said, "I have some impression of this oddity. It appeared in Qizhou about half a year ago. We named it the Fair Arena. "I'm not entirely clear on its properties, but I know two things. First, any two who enter the dueling ground have their physical attributes forcibly equalized. Both are given the bodies of ordinary people. "That is to say, even if outside you could shatter a great mountain with one punch and kick the stars to pieces, once you go in, dharma power, divine abilities, superpowers, and everything of the sort all disappear. Even weapons are gone. You can fight only bare-handed. "Second, one person must die before the arena will close. Only then can the one who remains come out. "Half a year ago the Holy Emperor Sect, the Flowing Moon Society, and several other folk oddity organizations fought over this oddity, and quite a few people died. In the end no one knew which side the thing had fallen into. Looking at it now, the Holy Emperor Sect was the more capable after all." Hearing this, Zhou Dongqiang guessed, "Physical attributes forcibly equalized? Then this duel comes down to pure fighting technique. I wonder if this Huang Tian, the Lord on High, has ever trained in combat. He looks like someone in immortal cultivation— As for the Holy Emperor Sect Master, since he got hold of this oddity, he must have trained in fighting techniques specially for it, right?" Liu Qingqing smoothed a hand over her hair. "Headquarters has a little information on the Holy Emperor Sect Master. It mentions that he seems to have trained in several arts of striking and grappling, and his ability to fight and kill is not bad. Mm. If he weren't confident in his own strength, he wouldn't dare use the Fair Arena." "I think, rather, that he made this choice because he was driven to a road with no way out." Chen Yan shook his head. "From our point of view, Huang Tian, the Lord on High, is either a humanoid oddity or a great master of immortal cultivation, and he certainly isn't very familiar with the arts of combat. "But his ability is that strong, so his comprehension must be extraordinarily high. In that case, even if he once spared a little attention to learn something of the various arts of fighting and killing, he would not be weaker than anyone." Zhou Dongqiang and Liu Qingqing both nodded slowly. An incomparably powerful immortal god would surely have foundations of great depth. Even in a mortal body, he might not be weak at all— "Hoo—" In the arena, no larger than a basketball court, the Holy Emperor Sect Master looked toward Huang Tian across a dozen meters and slowly let out a breath. After he had used the Shelter Ring, his body had been terribly weak, nearly too weak for him to stand. But now, under the arena's rules, every weakening effect on him had been cleared away, and a little confidence that he could win rose in his heart. Huang Tian, for his part, was somewhat surprised. From the moment he entered this space, the arena's rules had automatically surfaced in his mind: the physique of an ordinary person, unarmed killing, killing without restriction, only one allowed to live— Had it been only that, he would not have been so surprised. What mattered was that he sensed an inexplicable aura enveloping his true body on Canxing! In other words, the outcome of this duel concerned not only the life and death of this spiritual-power avatar of his. It would also affect his true body on Canxing, that is, the life and death of his original body, "Huang Tian." Of course, it had no effect on his Daluo primordial self in the Honghuang Realm. It felt a little like a divine ability of the karma kind. Kill the avatar, and the killing could still follow the thread of karma and implicate the true body. He understood, yet he was not alarmed. First, his actual Daluo primordial self was not affected in the slightest. If the body on Canxing died, at worst he would come back and start again. Second was the art of fighting and killing. He had seen too much of it in the Five Directions Realm, and practiced too much. Although many martial arts needed force and qi and blood working together before they could show their true power, the tens of thousands of martial arts had also brought him to the realm of returning to simplicity. To call him a martial Grandmaster would be to think too little of him. "All who enter this place, one lives and one dies! The duel begins!" Suddenly an utterly cold voice sounded in the space. Neither of them rushed to trade blows. The Sect Master set his feet apart at shoulder width, knees slightly bent, letting his weight sink. His hands rose loosely, one before the other, guarding his head, face, chest, and abdomen. Huang Tian's waist and back were straight as a spear, his gaze calm. Simply standing there, he carried a chill, imposing presence. They stared at each other for several seconds. At last the Sect Master could endure it no longer. He came forward slowly, drew near, and then pushed off with his foot! "Bang!" He lunged in a long stride. His right fist blasted straight out, driving for Huang Tian's face, and the wind of the punch struck like a knife! Facing that fist, Huang Tian advanced instead of retreating. His body shifted slightly aside, letting the fist's edge go past, while he pressed the fingers of his right hand together like a beak and swept them upward on a slant! "Tss!" The air seemed pierced and gave a sharp whistle. His fingers, like an iron awl, pecked at the Sect Master's throat with incredible speed! This was the very Crane Beak Awl he had learned years ago in the Five Directions Realm, when he first joined the Martial Restraint Guard! The Sect Master's pupils contracted sharply. He dodged by a hair, yet the fingers still caught him by a fraction. Pain stabbed through his throat, and he all but felt he was suffocating. Fortunately, his dodge had been just barely in time. Otherwise, had he taken that awl strike full on, he would have collapsed at once and been unable to rise. His throat hurt now, but it had not cost him the strength to fight on. He forced down the feeling of suffocation. In the instant the two were close, he snapped his right knee up, a vicious strike driving straight at Huang Tian's lower abdomen! At the same time both hands shot forward. He meant to lock Huang Tian's neck, drag him to the ground, turn it into a grapple, and then use the soft grappling techniques he had once learned to choke him to death! Yet the moment his hands touched Huang Tian's collar, he felt a tremendous force come through his chest. In the instant the knee reached his body, Huang Tian dropped his waist and hips and took the blow head-on with the outside of his thigh. Amid the dull thud, his left hand, like a tiger's claw, seized the wrist the Sect Master had reached out, while his right palm drove up from below and slammed hard beneath the man's chin! "Thud!" In the muffled impact, the Sect Master's head snapped violently backward. His upper and lower teeth cracked hard together, and countless stars burst before his eyes! His jaw had taken a heavy blow, and his consciousness scattered at once! In only two moves, the Holy Emperor Sect Master, who thought his own fighting ability quite strong, was already like a drunk man, staggering on his feet, his vision blurred. Still, his body remembered the instincts of battle. His left hand clawed wildly forward, trying to seize something to steady himself, and his right foot kicked out blindly, trying to force his opponent back. Expressionless, Huang Tian turned his body aside and avoided the Sect Master's flailing kick. Then his right leg swept out violently and, like a steel whip, lashed hard into the hollow behind the man's knee! "Crack!" The crisp sound of bone breaking was clear to hear. The Sect Master felt his right knee give out beneath him. His whole body toppled stiffly backward, and the back of his head struck the ground hard! He lay faceup, limbs splayed, unable to move again. His chest rose and fell, his breathing faint. The fierce pain in his jaw made his consciousness come and go, and his right knee had already lost all feeling, hanging soft and limp. "Just as I expected. This Huang Tian, the Lord on High, cannot possibly be ignorant of the arts of combat." Chen Yan said with feeling. "The strong have always been strong in every respect!" Liu Qingqing's eyes flickered. "He... does He truly have no weakness? His head can fly from his shoulders, his heart can explode, and still he does not die. His combat arts are strong as well, and his divine abilities and spell arts are even more astonishing in power—" "A weakness?" Chen Yan mused. "The flesh is hard to kill. Perhaps the mind can be influenced?" Liu Qingqing nodded slightly. "Oddities that can influence and twist a person's spirit and will are few, but there are a few. Who knows how He would answer them when the time came." "Unless one has an ability of the Mental Bulwark kind. Otherwise—" Zhou Dongqiang shook his head. A Mental Bulwark meant that one's spirit and will were untouched by oddities, and that one could keep one's original mind. But this ability was far too rare. To this day, in all the world, only three or five people possessed it. What mattered even more was that the ability was not inborn. It was a property of certain oddities, or a property derived from them. Chen Yan said quietly, "Since He means to forcibly contain every oddity in the world, the major oddity organizations will certainly resist with all they have. Mental oddities, and other oddities of astonishing power, will absolutely be brought to bear. We'll see then who wins and who loses." Zhou Dongqiang asked, "Brother Yan, do you think it's better if He succeeds in containing all the oddities, or if He fails?" Chen Yan turned his head, glanced at him, and smiled. "Have you forgotten? What is it we have always pursued? Isn't it to find an ultimate measure of containment, contain every last oddity, and return peace to the world? "If He succeeds, it might not be a bad thing. But many people will fear that after He succeeds, He will rule humanity and oppress them at will—" Zhou Dongqiang gave a scornful laugh. "It sounds ridiculous the moment you hear it. With what He can do, if He wanted a taste of ruling humanity, couldn't He just use the world-crossing gate and go to some other world? Why insist on taking the risk in this world of ours, where oddities keep appearing?" Other worlds had no oddities. With the mighty power Huang Tian had shown, ruling a world would be nothing but easy. Chen Yan and Liu Qingqing exchanged a look, and both nodded slightly. However one looked at it, that Huang Tian, the Lord on High, had no mind to rule and oppress humanity. On the contrary, if he succeeded in containing every oddity, it would benefit all humankind. "When it comes down to it, isn't it only that none of the sides can bear to give up the enormous benefits oddities bring?" Zhou Dongqiang chuckled. "With oddities in hand, they can have formidable power, long life, and vast wealth—" Liu Qingqing shot him a glance. "Let me ask you. Could you bear to give that fishing rod of yours, the one that fishes all things, to someone else?" Zhou Dongqiang was silent for a moment. When the knife cut into his own flesh, he could feel the pain. He gritted his teeth and said, "If—if it could truly bring peace to the world, I could accept handing the fishing rod over." Chen Yan smiled and patted his arm, pointing at Huang Tian on the phone screen. "This isn't something for us to decide. For now, it depends only on Him." In the arena, Huang Tian walked without hurry up to the Holy Emperor Sect Master. Then he raised his right fist and smashed it down hard upon the man's neck! "—Guh!" The Sect Master's eyes bulged, and his whole body gave one violent convulsion. One punch landed, and then another! After several punches in a row, the Sect Master finally moved no more. His pupils went dull. "Victory and defeat are decided. The duel is over!" As the words fell, the space dispersed. Huang Tian hung high in the sky. With a flick of his finger he sent out a fireball and burned the Sect Master's corpse to ash. Only three things remained intact in the air: a ring, a sheet of white paper, and a crystalline short sword. Huang Tian did not rush to absorb them. He swept his gaze over the ground, looking at the few Holy Emperor Sect members fleeing in panic. A blast of spiritual pressure crashed down, and at once they went dizzy. He raised a hand and drew them in, pulling them close, then searched their souls outright, extracting the important information in their memories. Several minutes later their corpses turned to flying ash and vanished. Only three oddities remained where they had been: an emblem, a small knife, and a cup. From the memories gained through the soul search, he more or less understood the properties of these six oddities. First were those the Sect Master had possessed. The ring was the Shelter Ring. It could raise a barrier. The barrier lasted at most three minutes, and within those three minutes no attack could break its defense. But the barrier was not a "passive skill." It had to be released actively. That meant that if the opponent's attack was far too fast, faster than the oddity holder's time to react, then the holder would still be injured, and could still die. Even so, its use was still enormous, so he did not intend to absorb it now. He would leave it for the time being and use it. Aside from the ring, the white paper went without saying. It was the Fair Arena. The crystalline short sword could call a name and take that person's head, much like a flying sword. The emblem's property was to banish a person to another world, but it had no function for calling them back. The small knife was like a higher-grade version of the Seven Injuries Fist: prick yourself, and you take a light injury while your opponent takes a heavy one. The cup was the most "ordinary." Every day it could produce a cup of water out of thin air. "The Shelter Ring is of no small use to me. The others matter little. What they can do, I can basically do as well. I might as well absorb all of them." At that thought, he took the five oddities in hand. Thirty seconds later, the oddities turned into motes of light and drifted into his body. At this sight, people from the major oddity organizations across the world went pale with shock. "He actually seems to have devoured the oddities?!" No one could sit still any longer. The looks many people turned on Huang Tian grew ever more full of loathing, and of fear. Huang Tian, however, paid this no mind at all. He laughed lightly instead and said, "Next target, the Flowing Moon Society!" The Flowing Moon Society and the Holy Emperor Sect were both folk oddity organizations, but the former did not act so utterly without restraint. At the very least, it did less killing and seizing of wealth. As his words trailed off, Huang Tian's figure vanished from the sky. The next second, countless people saw him arrive above a high-rise in a city district— In the turn of an eye, an hour had passed. In that single hour the world was shaken, for sixteen oddity organizations in a row had been purged and suppressed by Huang Tian! Each oddity organization held out for as little as one or two minutes, or as long as nine or ten. The reason they "held out" so long was not that they were strong, but that they voluntarily offered up the oddities they possessed, exchanging them for some cultivation methods, divine abilities, and heavenly materials and earthly treasures. That process took a little time. Having swept the folk oddity organizations all over the world clean in one stretch, Huang Tian moved, and appeared in the sky above the imperial capital of the Great Western Empire. In only two seconds, an elderly white man rose from the imperial capital into the sky. His long hair hung down, his beard was thick and full, and a long robe draped him. His face was majestic, and kindly. "Young man, this is not a place you should have come to. Withdraw." Huang Tian glanced at the faint halo circling above the man's head. "You are?" The elderly white man smiled with calm ease. "You may call me Gd!" Boom!!! The words had barely ended when the elderly white man plunged from the sky like a blazing white meteor, smashing an immense crater into the earth! Dust and smoke rose in countless plumes, like dragons!