A Single Punch

The Immortal Fairy was slightly surprised. Instinctively, she swatted downward—an instinctive reflex formed during ancient battles; her fighting style had long become second nature. Lu Chang had just gotten to his feet when his head felt as if struck by a massive boulder, and with a heavy thud, he collapsed to the ground. "You're bad guys. Monk Fruit Fist!" Hearing them declare they wanted to snatch her storage ring had dredged up unpleasant memories, so the Immortal Fairy slapped each of them once. Her dainty, tender little hands concealed immense power, and combined with a unique application of force, not one of the four early Golden Core demon beasts could withstand a single slap. They crashed back to the ground, vomiting black blood. Demon beasts possessed far more vigorous qi and blood than humans, but having taken a slap from the Immortal Fairy, their surging vitality rapidly cooled. Even their blood flow slowed down until, in the end, it stopped entirely, their boiling blood turning to dead silence. Monk Fruit Fist: clears heat and moistens the lungs. Compounded by the pufferfish's lethal venom, the four demon beasts breathed their last. In less than half an hour, five Golden Core stage demon beasts had perished here. "Even Immortal Kirin never dared to bully me! You four little monsters think you can bully me?" The Immortal Fairy huffed, planting her hands on her hips, feeling exceedingly proud as she said it. "There were people just like you back in the ancient era, always picking on me—so annoying! Three hundred thousand years have passed and nothing has changed." Muttering to herself, the Immortal Fairy walked away, quickly tossing the matter to the back of her mind. She hummed a lively tune and left the four corpses behind. Back in the ancient era, some had seen that she was a woman, pretty and gullible-looking, and tried to deceive her. Without exception, the end result was always the same: she, being so brilliant, saw through the truth and slaughtered every last one of them. "Gathering, gathering, gathering mushrooms, picked a little mushroom..." ... "Human bodies are truly so fragile, getting knocked out by poison. If only everyone could learn my health-nourishing boxing and turn their bodies into supreme medicine, wouldn't all poisons become useless?" "And Lu Yang too! I was kind enough to teach him, so why won't he learn? Back then, even when Immortal Ying Tian and the others knelt and begged, I refused to teach them!" The Immortal Fairy strolled along at an easy pace. Snapping off a tree branch, she casually refined it into a magic treasure and brandished it back and forth through the dense forest, looking as if she held a peerless, legendary sword. A wondrous power radiated from her, so that no mosquito or bug dared approach her. This dense forest gave her a familiar feeling. Before she attained immortality, she had often darted through forests like this, searching for medicinal herbs to raise her cultivation, or dealing with sneak attacks from geniuses of all kinds. Her fame had been immense back then—not merely for her beauty, but even more so for her terrifying combat prowess and completely unpredictable ideas. No one could figure out what she was thinking or what she would do next. Yet one thing was certain: she was undeniably the nightmare on everyone's path to immortality. If anyone wished to become an immortal, she was their greatest obstacle. Back then, Immortal Ying Tian and Immortal Kirin had yet to make names for themselves, completely unknown to the world. Their greatest wish had been to defeat the mighty Immortal Fairy, achieving instant fame in a single battle and commanding the world's attention. It was just that they had never managed to fulfill that wish. Consequently, the Immortal Fairy was exceptionally adept at facing all manner of dangers and challenges; ambushing her in a dense forest was an impossible feat. *Roar—!* An enraged beast's roar echoed from not far away, piquing the Immortal Fairy's interest. Before she could even head over, she noticed the ground trembling, the tremors growing nearer as if some colossal behemoth was charging forward. *Rumble—rumble—!* The Immortal Fairy leaped onto a massive boulder. Standing on tiptoe with her right hand shading her brow, she gazed into the distance. "That's..." Trees crashed down and dust billowed. A gargantuan form taller than the dense forest's trees revealed its rough back. It was a rampaging elephant chasing several people. The elephant was pure white all over, resembling jade, with six long tusks. Those few individuals possessed impressive skills, each of them in the mid-to-late Golden Core stage. Yet faced with this rampaging giant elephant, they didn't even contemplate fighting back, sprinting forward for dear life. The Immortal Fairy jumped down from the boulder. Seeing the Immortal Fairy appear, those people paled in fright and shouted frantically to her, "That's an early Nascent Soul Elephant King! It has an orthodox ancient bloodline—a Six-Tusked White Elephant! For some reason, it's gone completely berserk! Run, little girl, hurry!" In the ancient era, though the Six-Tusked White Elephant was not quite as prominent as dragons, phoenixes, the Taowu, or the Qiongqi, it was second only to them among the demon race, enjoying great prestige and having produced at least three Tribulation Transcendence experts in its clan. The people pursued by the Six-Tusked White Elephant could tell at a glance that the Immortal Fairy was only at late Foundation Establishment. Faced with this rampaging Elephant King, even fellow early Nascent Soul cultivators would not dare confront it head-on. If this little girl didn't run, her fate was all too obvious. They could not bear to see such a young girl meet a gruesome death. Yet the little girl seemed scared out of her wits, standing blankly on the spot, motionless. One of them exerted sudden force, trying to grab the Immortal Fairy and haul her along, only to find that she felt rooted as if one with the earth. The man was astonished. A late Golden Core cultivator like him couldn't even lift this little girl? What was with this little girl? The others also tried to move the Immortal Fairy, but all met with failure. With the Six-Tusked White Elephant hot on their heels, they dared not dally and had no choice but to keep running. "Bad elephant! Back then, your patriarch swore an oath to me never to harm humans," the Immortal Fairy stated, revealing a secret unknown even within the Six-Tusked White Elephant clan itself. Unfortunately, the white elephant had already gone berserk and was deaf to all reason. The Immortal Fairy sighed. If she didn't stop this white elephant, those people would be finished for sure. Pity about this body, though. She then took a deep breath, fell into a stance, drew her right fist back, and set it at her waist. "Fairy Boxing." She threw a punch, slow and deliberate. ... "Young Master Song Hua, and young masters, are you all right?" "We noticed a commotion over here just now. You didn't accidentally trespass into the Six-Tusked White Elephant's territory, did you? Under no circumstances should anyone enter there!" The bodyguards rushed over, panting. These young men were young masters of the imperial capital's Song clan who had come to Demon Quelling Pass to pad their resumes for future advancement. For safety, the Song clan had hired several bodyguards for them. At first they had been fairly obedient, but later they found the bodyguards increasingly annoying—they weren't allowed to do this, weren't allowed to do that. If they weren't going to do anything, what was the point of coming to Demon Quelling Pass? Sightseeing? So, taking advantage of an unguarded moment from their bodyguards, they snuck off. They hadn't gone far before trespassing into the Six-Tusked White Elephant's territory, somehow provoking the beast. Seeing Song Hua and the others slumped on the ground, mouths agape and staring blankly into the distance at who knew what, the bodyguards followed their gaze—and were equally stunned, frozen in a daze. Before them stretched a terrifying trench, as though some dreadful leviathan had plowed through the terrain, toppling countless giant trees. At the end of the trench, a white elephant the size of a hill lay sprawled on the ground, unconscious. "What happened?" Song Hua and the others couldn't answer—or rather, didn't know how to describe what they had just witnessed. A petite girl, sixteen or seventeen, late Foundation Establishment—faced with a berserk Nascent Soul giant elephant, with just a single punch, had sent the colossal beast sprawling. That punch had seemed to drain all the little girl's strength. She had gone limp, collapsed to the ground, and melted into the earth, vanishing without a trace. ... "You're saying there's a Nascent Soul Six-Tusked White Elephant nearby?" After consecutive days of battle, Lu Yang sat panting on the ground, resting as he listened to the Five Heroes of Eagle Mountain describe the extremely perilous demon beasts in the vicinity. "That giant elephant reportedly possesses an early Nascent Soul cultivation and is intensely territorial. If anyone trespasses into its territory, they'd better prepare to be trampled to death—it won't rest until they're dead." "What's more, it has a fiery temper. Even against other early Nascent Soul demon beasts, if they dare step foot into its territory without warning, it attacks without mercy. Once, for that very reason, it clashed with another early Nascent Soul demon beast. The battle ended in a pyrrhic victory for the white elephant, while the other beast died a gruesome death." "*Hiss—*" Meng Jingzhou sucked in a breath of cold air upon hearing that. Was it really that ruthless? "Tell me about it! I know you two young heroes possess astounding combat power, easily defeating multiple Golden Core demon beasts in a row with plenty of room to spare. Even so, facing that Six-Tusked White Elephant, you'd hardly fare well." "So we must never approach the Six-Tusked White Elephant's territory," the Five Heroes of Eagle Mountain advised. "Understood," Lu Yang nodded. He had always been one to take good advice. "Lu Yang, I'm back!" The Immortal Fairy's immortal soul drifted into his spiritual space, undetected by anyone. "Back already? It hasn't even been three days," Lu Yang said, surprised. Given how well he knew the Immortal Fairy, he had assumed she would make sure to play for the full three days. "Mmh... your wood clone wasn't sturdy enough. I broke it," the Immortal Fairy said with an aggrieved pout. "What did you do?" The Immortal Fairy poked out her tongue, feeling that breaking the wood clone was rather embarrassing. "Not telling you." Had she fought using Lu Yang's true body, the Immortal Fairy was confident she could have knocked the white elephant flat with a single punch without causing a single scratch to Lu Yang's body.