The sound of Long Aotian's palm connecting with Xiao Rong's face echoed across the courtyard like a thunderclap.
For a single heartbeat, nothing moved. Xiao Rong's head snapped to the side from the impact, his eyes going wide with shock. Then his entire body followed, lifting off the ground as if yanked by invisible strings.
He flew backward.
Not stumbled. Not staggered. Flew.
Xiao Rong's body sailed through the air in a graceful arc, arms and legs flailing uselessly. His mouth hung open, and teeth—actual teeth—sprayed from between his lips in a crimson mist. Blood followed, spattering across the stone pathway in dark droplets.
He crashed into the ground five meters away with a heavy thud that made several onlookers wince. His body rolled twice before coming to rest in a crumpled heap. He didn't move. Didn't make a sound. Just lay there, unconscious, with blood pooling beneath his face.
Silence descended over the courtyard.
A small crowd had gathered when the confrontation began. Servants, outer disciples, a few inner sect members who'd been passing by. They'd come expecting entertainment—another chance to watch the crippled trash get beaten and humiliated by his betters. Some had even been smiling in anticipation.
Now their mouths hung open, eyes wide with disbelief.
One servant dropped the bundle of firewood he'd been carrying. The logs clattered against the stone, but no one looked toward the sound. All eyes remained fixed on the impossible scene before them.
Xiao Rong—a seventh stage Body Tempering cultivator, someone who'd been training in martial arts since childhood, someone who could break stone with his bare hands—had been sent flying by a single strike from Long Aotian.
A cripple.
Someone who shouldn't have been able to cultivate at all.
"Did… did that just happen?" one of the outer disciples whispered.
"I saw it, but I don't believe it," another responded.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd, starting quiet and growing louder as people tried to make sense of what they'd witnessed. Theories flew back and forth. Maybe Xiao Rong had been caught off guard. Maybe he'd slipped. Maybe Long Aotian had somehow hidden his true cultivation all this time.
None of it explained what they'd seen.
Long Aotian stood where he'd delivered the slap, his left arm still extended from the follow-through. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths. For a moment, he simply stared at his own palm, as if surprised by what it had accomplished.
Then he lowered his hand slowly and turned his gaze toward Xiao Chen.
The taller youth froze like a deer caught in torchlight. His earlier confidence evaporated instantly, replaced by naked fear that showed in every line of his body. His hands, which had been resting casually at his sides, now trembled visibly. Sweat broke out across his forehead despite the cool morning air.
Long Aotian's eyes met his. Cold. Indifferent. Empty of the anger that should have been there.
That was somehow worse than rage would have been.
Xiao Chen's throat worked as he tried to swallow. His feet shifted backward half a step before he caught himself. His mouth opened and closed several times, but no words came out. Questions screamed through his mind, loud enough that they might as well have been written across his face.
How? How did he send Xiao Rong flying? How does a cripple possess that kind of strength? What's happening?
Long Aotian didn't speak. Didn't explain. He simply held Xiao Chen's gaze for three long heartbeats, then turned away as if the other youth no longer existed.
His footsteps were steady and unhurried as he walked toward the resource hall entrance. The crowd parted before him like water around a stone, people stumbling over themselves to get out of his path. No one spoke. No one dared.
Long Aotian's face remained composed and distant, showing nothing of the storm raging inside his skull.
Holy shit. How did I do that? One slap and I knocked him out cold. Am I really that strong now?
His mind reeled as he replayed the slap in his memory. He hadn't put any particular technique behind it. Hadn't channeled energy or executed some secret martial art. He'd simply swung his palm with as much force as his body could generate, and Xiao Rong had gone flying like a leaf in a hurricane.
The Dragon Blood Battle Body. It had to be the technique. One night of cultivation shouldn't have produced such dramatic results, but what other explanation existed? His bones and tendons had been infused with Dragon Blood Essence. His body had expelled impurities. Of course his physical strength would increase.
Long Aotian forced his breathing to remain steady as he analyzed the situation. Xiao Rong was at the seventh stage of Body Tempering. That realm focused on strengthening the body through constant training and the absorption of spiritual energy. Someone at that level should have been far stronger and more durable than Long Aotian.
However, Xiao Rong hadn't been prepared for an actual attack. He'd been leaning forward, neck extended, completely focused on whatever he thought Long Aotian wanted to show him. His guard had been down. His muscles relaxed. When the slap connected, all of Long Aotian's newfound strength had transferred directly into Xiao Rong's undefended face.
That had to be it. Surprise and physics combining to produce an exaggerated result. Long Aotian was stronger than before, certainly, but probably not strong enough to send a seventh stage Body Tempering cultivator flying under normal circumstances.
Probably