Chapter Seventy-Five: The Shadow of the Moon

Qin Tie angled his blade downward, and a ribbon of deep crimson blood trickled from its tip.

“The myriad forms of the world—I will sever them all with a single stroke.”

Judah, in a berserk state, was enveloped in a blood-red aura. Even his mandibles had grown several times larger, each fang extending like a meat grinder, emitting an earth-shattering roar.

Even Lin Jicang couldn’t help but step back a few paces, feeling an overwhelming sense of threat, as if he himself might become the target of the onslaught.

The ground quaked violently—Judah was already upon Qin Tie, four razor-sharp limbs slicing through the air like scimitars, aiming for the swordsman’s neck, chest, abdomen, and legs.

Yet Qin Tie, as if foreseeing every move, crossed his twin blades up and down, intercepting Judah’s assault at the critical moment.

Only then did a violent gust erupt, revealing the sheer speed with which Judah had attacked.

Soil and blades of grass were swept up in the hurricane, but before they could settle, Judah launched another barrage. In a heartbeat, airborne stones and grass were shredded into countless pieces.

Infused with the essence of Adonsa’s will, Judah’s combat prowess had been elevated to its pinnacle. One Judah contained over half of Adonsa’s top combat genes—his strength, speed, and reflexes far surpassed any ordinary offshoot.

Adonsa’s power was ever-changing, yet when crafting formidable entities, even he could not defy the basic laws of physics. The speed limit of biological transformation, the requirement for rare elements in certain organs—all these meant that each offshoot naturally carried functional differences.

Judah’s hooked claws dug deep into the earth for traction, his massive body carving deep furrows as he moved. The storm winds and slashing strikes uprooted vast swathes of trees, clearing an open space.

In this clearing, Judah resembled a ricocheting marble, harnessing ground friction and the aerodynamics of his armored wings to perform maneuvers that defied the laws of motion. He unleashed attacks capable of shredding armored vehicles, all focused upon Qin Tie.

Yet the swordsman’s face twisted into a manic grin. Though he lagged behind Judah in both speed and strength, he always managed to anticipate Judah’s actions, intercepting at the weakest point of each strike. With several blows, he’d even cut a third of the way through Judah’s claws.

Suddenly, Judah halted. Glancing at the jagged notches left on his four arm-blades, he couldn’t help but marvel. “My exoskeleton is alloyed with silicon and iron—its strength rivals true tank armor. Yet you managed to carve through it. Your swords are nothing but ordinary carbon steel, aren’t they? How did you do it?”

Even now, Judah’s curiosity was piqued.

Qin Tie bared a set of white teeth. “Cut through steel? I’m not capable of such a thing. I only sever what is, at heart, soft.”

“Soft? You call my exoskeleton soft? This armor was crafted by the Creator himself, tailored for me!” Judah seemed almost indignant, but soon grew thoughtful. “There’s only one explanation. You’ve mastered the art of finding stress points in materials—using technique to unleash the force at those precise places. Even a supercomputer would struggle to calculate such points of stress. Your technique is rough, but it’s astonishing nonetheless.”

Qin Tie leveled both sword tips at Judah. “You giant cockroach, quit your yammering. If you want a fight, come at me. I’ll slash, and slash, and slash!”

Qin Tie’s expression grew ever more distorted; even his body trembled uncontrollably. Yet his hands, gripping the twin blades, were steady as ever.

“I’ve seen through all your tricks. This time, I’ll cut you in two with a single stroke. If you won’t come, I’ll come to you.”

With both swords raised, Qin Tie drew a long, deep breath into his chest, sinking lower.

Judah braced himself, preparing for another furious, storm-like assault.

Then Qin Tie moved.

The wind rose, the blade fell.

Judah stared in disbelief as his vision split in two, and his body began to part at the seam.

Compared to the thunderous onslaught of Judah’s attacks, Qin Tie’s strike resembled a single droplet leaping from a stone—its boundless energy revealed only in the instant of impact.

Then came a thunderous crash, as if even sound lagged a beat behind the blade.

Yes, it lagged a beat.

In that moment, Qin Tie had surpassed the speed of sound, cleaving through Judah in a single stroke, utterly destroying even his central nervous system.

This was a blow that condensed the spirit and faith of a true swordsman—a cut that only a martial demon could achieve, transcending the very bounds of sound.

The sheer force of the strike carved a vacuum seam through the air, felling a swath of trees in the distance.

Supersonic speed, even for an instant, wrought tremendous devastation.

Not even Qin Tie himself was spared. The friction of the air at such velocity set his whole body steaming, his garments shredded to ribbons, and the blade itself exuded the acrid scent of scorched metal.

He contracted his muscles, forcing together the gashes torn open by the air, though even his internal muscles bore the strain of that explosive outburst.

Yet these wounds, though grave, healed swiftly under the unity of body and spirit at the level of the Pulse.

Qin Tie gazed at the unmoving insect corpse on the ground, propping himself up with both swords. He heaved a forlorn sigh, the mania on his face dissolving into the loneliness of invincibility.

Suddenly, the corpse convulsed. Swarms of tiny cockroaches wriggled from the wound, taking flight into the air.

The eggs within Judah’s body had hatched, the young emerging from their warm nest.

In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of cockroaches whirled about him, their sights set on Qin Tie at the center.

The hum of the swarm converged into words: “You are strong. I admire you. Therefore, you must die.”

Madness reclaimed Qin Tie’s face. He braced his swords and began to swing, again and again.

The heavy blades traced arc after arc, their speed ever increasing, harnessing inertia to conserve strength.

At last, the predatory swarm launched its assault.

Compared to cleaving heavy steel, slicing through nimble insects was far more challenging.

Qin Tie’s twin blades swept in a black haze, yet against these tiny cockroaches, his efforts seemed wasted—a single stroke through the dense swarm yielded only two or three maimed bodies.

Each swing of the blade generated a slipstream that pushed the cockroaches aside, diminishing the killing efficiency. What’s more, these cockroaches were as hard as steel pellets—one could feel their resistance even when trying to crush them by hand.

And this swarm did not attack blindly; it fought under a unified will, advancing and retreating with discipline, formation as precise as a miniature army.

Qin Tie was puzzled. He had used his senses to utterly destroy the giant cockroach’s central nervous system, so how could it revive? Nor could he sense any trace of will within these cockroaches.