Nine Star Hegemon Body Art (WN)
chapter-4197

Long Chen persistently battled against the dragon claw, resulting in him being draped in painful, bloody wounds. His determination drove him to relentlessly press on in the fight.

He had gone from barely enduring a few blows to now lasting dozens of exchanges. It could be said that he had brushed against death countless times. Throughout this ordeal, he was dancing on the blade of the death god.

“Idiot, what are you doing?! One slip and you’ll die! Why don’t you understand it yet?!” Finally, the dragon expert couldn’t endure it anymore and cursed at Long Chen.

Long Chen had just gone through an intense fight and was in the midst of healing. Originally, he had been quite pleased with himself, thinking that he had made great improvements by being able to last this long.

"Did you fail to notice that its attack consisted solely of the dragon claw, not the entire dragon body?" the dragon expert demanded.

“Yes?” Long Chen could only thicken his face.

“And why is that?” asked the dragon expert.

Long Chen was dumbfounded. How was he supposed to know? All he knew was that when he entered this space, that dragon claw would randomly attack him. He could only face it passively.

Long Chen blindly guessed, “Because it hid its body?”

“Idiot!” The dragon expert was speechless. “You really are a fool! Its body isn’t there as a hint! All of its power is concentrated in the dragon claw, so this claw is unstoppable, tearing through heaven and earth, leaving no openings. If you want to attack its body, you must first defeat this claw. Your human race often says that you must be skilled in both offense and defense. But to our dragon race, that’s dogshit logic. If you are strong enough, your opponent can only defend. How would they have a chance to attack you? If you split your power, you end up with a weak offense and amateur defense. How could anyone accomplish anything big with such a power distribution?”

Hearing the dragon expert’s words, Long Chen was instantly enlightened. This principle was similar to that of sword cultivators. One stroke of their sword contained their full heart and spirit, as they focused entirely on offense.

If their opponent could block their killing blow, then it proved that their opponent was simply stronger, and you had lost. Even if you launched a second blow, it would change nothing.

If you were stronger than your opponent, then one stroke of your sword would decide life and death. Why bother with defense then?

The dragon race’s divine abilities walked a similarly domineering path. All people who walked this path had to be extremely confident in themselves.

“You fool, I even warned you, and you still fought like an idiot. Did you think stalling for time meant that you were improving? You already went off on the wrong path! The more you think about blocking its next attack in order to drag out the battle, the more it proves your lack of confidence. You don’t even have the determination to defeat your opponent, which signifies that you don’t have the confidence to win. Without that confidence, why bother cultivating?” The dragon expert grew even angrier as it explained, only a bit off from cursing Long Chen.

“Senior, please give me your pointers!” Long Chen obediently admitted his mistakes.

Long Chen berated himself as well. When did this happen? It felt like his head had really become slow, not being able to see such an obvious thing. It seemed that he really had become a fool.

The dragon expert finally stopped cursing when Long Chen admitted his mistakes. It also stopped speaking to him.

Having regained his composure, Long Chen took a deep breath. After bringing his essence, qi, and spirit to their peak condition, he once more entered the space within the immortal character.

“Cloud Dragon Immolation Claw!”

Long Chen let out a resounding roar, his entire body radiating a brilliant glow. At the same time, the 108,000 dragon scales on his body ignited, their runes flowing like a powerful tide into his palm.

This time, Long Chen didn’t hold back. With all his dragon power concentrated into this claw, it became a claw that would either break through all obstacles or die trying.

BOOM!

With a heaven-shaking explosion, the opposing dragon claw exploded, and Long Chen’s hand was blown into a bloody pulp.

Long Chen then retreated from that space. Looking at his hand, he was pleasantly surprised. He had managed to shatter that terrifying dragon claw.

The dragon expert said, “There’s nothing to be excited about. The circulation of your energy was incorrect, so your power was not concentrated enough. After all, you cannot concentrate this power by just compressing it into the dragon claw. Your dragon claw must be the one summoning all your power. The order is wrong. First comes the dragon claw, then comes the support of the dragon power. Only then can you reach the realm of attacking as you will, your power flowing with your heart. In a clash between experts, a thousand things can occur in an instant. Others won’t give you time to accumulate power. Thus, you must be able to unleash the dragon claw the moment you need to, making your full body’s power flow with your will. As soon as you will it, your power is there. Remember, aim and shoot, not shoot and aim. If you cannot reach this point, you will not set foot in the realm of experts. Right now, you are distracted by too many things, so your head is not focused enough. You should remember, no matter what era it is, power is always number one. Your focus must be on cultivation. Thus, don’t waste time on ephemeral things that are not real. Even if you manage to see through them, if you don’t have enough power, it is still meaningless.”

Ephemeral things that were not real? Upon hearing this, Long Chen’s heart shook. He seemed to understand what the dragon expert was referring to.

However, these words also gave him a sense of alarm. Without realizing it, his perception had actually fallen. He had to be vigilant and focus more on cultivation.

Long Chen then extended a claw. However, he was still used to pouring his energy into his arm. In other words, he was still mobilizing his power before unleashing the claw.

According to the dragon expert, that was a mistake. He should instead directly unleash the claw, and his power would naturally follow.

However, this was contrary to Long Chen’s habit when fighting, so he would need to break his habit first.

Even so, once a habit was formed, it was difficult to break. Thus, Long Chen was constantly unleashing his claws to find that feeling.

The dragon expert didn’t say any more thing and allowed Long Chen to keep practicing. Fortunately, while this habit was deeply ingrained in him, he hadn’t been training in the Cloud Dragon Immolation Claw for long, so he could still break this habit for this technique.

Changing it was still difficult though, but after a few thousand attempts, Long Chen gradually began to grasp this feeling.

As soon as Long Chen grasped it, he felt much more confident. With each subsequent practice, his claw strikes began to release piercing whistling gusts, gradually transforming into ear-splitting sound explosions.

The sound explosions intensified to the point where they rattled his ears, but their rumbling eventually subsided. The ear-piercing explosive sounds and the whistling winds gradually dissipated as well.

However, at that point, Long Chen’s claws were already leaving tears in the void, looking as if they would claw the void apart.

His dragon scales then began to turn dim, all of their power naturally flowing into his claw.

Long Chen was lost in this state. It felt like this claw encapsulated all the essence of the paragon techniques of the world. It was as if learning this one move was equal to controlling the entire world.

What Long Chen didn’t know was that as he repeatedly practiced this technique, the dragon expert who had been cursing angrily was murmuring to itself.

“This little fellow’s comprehension is really terrifying. One pointer was all he needed. There’s no need for me to even teach him the second realm of the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art. Hehe, this Sage King Convention will be interesting. The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. All lifeforms are game pieces, but these game pieces might not be so easy to control!”