Nine Star Hegemon Body Arts

When Li Qi appeared, all the Shadow Stone Spirit race’s experts felt a suffocating terror well up within them.

At this moment, Li Qi had condensed six core veins, and every single one of them exuded thrumming killing intent. Their bloodthirsty eyes lacked any mercy.

Moreover, Li Qi’s once steady and gentle aura had transformed—now sharp as stone, yet as explosive as a volcano.

Bai Shishi, Tang Wan-er, Gu Yang, and Xia Chen were stunned. The Li Qi before them was almost unrecognizable.

Long Chen, however, simply smiled. He saw what the others didn’t—Li Qi had finally unleashed his true nature.

“We’re going!” shouted the leader of the Shadow Stone Spirit race. Feeling a deep sense of danger, he immediately signaled a retreat.

“You want to leave now? It’s too late.”

Li Qi stepped forward, appearing in front of the leader in an instant. With no hesitation, he swung his fist.

His hand was covered in radiant crystal, blazing like a miniature sun. The light was so intense that the Shadow Stone Spirits couldn’t keep their eyes open.

“You go too far! Since you want to die, fine!” shouted the leader of the Shadow Stone Spirit race.

Despite the terror clawing at his soul, he chose to fight. He had wanted to avoid provoking Li Qi, yet the latter showed no intention of letting them leave.

Roaring, the Shadow Stone Spirit race’s leader unleashed his full power. Nine core veins erupted behind him as he threw a punch.

Nine veins against six veins. Tang Wan-er and the others tensed—such a gap was overwhelming. They expected Li Qi to be at a disadvantage, but Long Chen didn’t seem worried at all.

BOOM!

The impact left everyone stunned. Li Qi’s punch directly blew apart his target into countless stone fragments.

“What???”

Xia Chen’s jaw nearly hit the ground. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Since when had Li Qi become this terrifying?

A fully guarded expert with nine core veins… wiped out with a single punch?

“Ah, I see! Li Qi’s crystal energy counters the Stone Spirit race’s power!” exclaimed Song Mingyuan.

Long Chen nodded. “Exactly. Crystal energy and stone energy are both hard and explosive. But when they clash, the harder one wins. Simple.”

It was like smashing two stones together—the weaker one shatters. The fact that Li Qi's punch annihilated his opponent proved his crystal energy was on an entirely different level. The usual advantage of three extra core veins meant nothing to him.

As the shattered remains settled, dark red energy rose into the air—the opponent’s essence. The Stone Spirit race had no blood, and this was their stone marrow, the concentrated core of their life force.

The moment it appeared, Li Qi’s heaven veins devoured it.

Instantly, his heaven veins turned a deep crimson, their aura surging violently. Even their eyes became bloodshot.

“This guy… he’s turning into a monster,” remarked Xia Chen.

Xia Chen couldn’t help being stunned by the wild aura of Li Qi’s heaven veins. This fellow was a bit frightening now.

Long Chen observed Li Qi closely. As expected, mastering this power would alter Li Qi’s very nature.

“Crystal Dragon Burial!” shouted Li Qi.

Li Qi suddenly changed to hand seals before slamming his hand on the ground.

BOOM!

The earth trembled as his six core veins surged downward, shooting to six different directions.

Wherever these crystalline dragons passed, the ground solidified into gleaming crystals. The Shadow Stone Spirit race’s experts barely had time to react. Before they could even struggle, they detonated into fragments. 𝔯ÁΝồᛒÈṤ

With a single attack, an entire force was wiped out. The battlefield was reduced to a wasteland of shattered stone, and the lingering stone marrow was instantly consumed by Li Qi’s core veins.

Xia Chen and the others stood frozen.

This wasn’t just strong.

It was terrifying!

“If they had even the slightest ability to wield soft energy, the outcome wouldn’t have been this one-sided,” Song Mingyuan remarked, surveying the devastation.

“When it’s hard against hard, it shows off just how powerful Li Qi is,” said Long Chen.

Xia Chen frowned as a thought struck him. “But what if Li Qi encounters someone with an even harder power than his…?”

His expression darkened. What had just been Li Qi’s greatest advantage was now his greatest vulnerability. If someone else possessed crystal energy superior to his, wouldn’t he face the same fate as these shattered Shadow Stone Spirits?

“That won’t happen,” said Song Mingyuan firmly.

“Why not?” asked Xia Chen.

Song Mingyuan smirked. “Because he has me.”

Long Chen chuckled knowingly. From the very beginning, he had accounted for this. Li Qi and Song Mingyuan had always been a pair—both earth element experts who had fought side by side for years. Among the Dragonblood Legion, they were strongest when working together.

Now, their roles had solidified. One hard, one soft. One attacker, one defender. They would become the Dragonblood Legion’s ultimate spear and shield. With them standing strong, Gu Yang, Yue Zifeng, and the others would have complete freedom to unleash their strength. The overall combat power of the Dragonblood Legion was about to soar to an unprecedented level.

Suddenly, the core veins behind Li Qi started to flash and grow explosively.

Startled, Li Qi hastily shouted, “Boss, my core veins are going to break through. I have to hurry and suppress them—sorry about this!”

Before anyone could respond, Li Qi vanished, retreating into the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest.

His heaven veins had absorbed an immense amount of stone marrow. If he didn’t control it in time, he would break through to the nine-vein realm immediately. But that wasn’t his goal. Instead, he intended to suppress the energy, refining it slowly to strengthen his foundation.

The battle had ended in an instant, yet its impact lingered in everyone’s heart.

”Good, now we have even more confidence,” remarked Gu Yang as he clenched his fists excitedly.

If Li Qi was already this powerful with six veins, then once he condensed nine, who could predict just how terrifying he would become?

Xia Chen exhaled in relief. “It’s a good thing only his aura changed, not his heart.”

For a brief moment during the fight, Li Qi had felt like a stranger. His sheer presence had been overwhelming, almost unrecognizable. But when he turned to look at them, Xia Chen saw it—Li Qi was still the same person.

Xia Chen had been worried that Li Qi’s newfound power might inflate his ego, much like Little Nine’s. That would have been difficult to handle.

With a comforting smile, Song Mingyuan said, “Little Nine will return to the right path soon. As long as Boss is here, it can’t stay overly arrogant for long. Besides, it’s been with us for so long—when has it ever had a real chance to act high and mighty? With Xiaole as its master, it never had a proper audience. Who wouldn’t want to show off a little?”

The Violet Pupil Nine Tail Fox race was born arrogant. It had the bloodline of an Emperor race, yet it had ended up with a master far weaker than it had expected. Naturally, it was very frustrated. It wanted admiration and reverence.

But in the Dragonblood Legion?

Admiration was hard to come by. Reverence? Impossible.

The Dragonblood Legion was a brotherhood, a family. No one looked up at each other with fear or worship—not even Long Chen. Here, status and lineage meant nothing. That left Little Nine in an awkward position. It felt… ordinary.

Now that it had grown stronger, it was desperately seeking attention, hoping to prove its worth.

Long Chen had once said, “The more someone brags about something, the more they’re missing it.”

Little Nine was a perfect example. Its arrogance wasn’t pride—it was a mask to hide its sense of mediocrity.

Understanding this, the group felt their worries go away. Instead of irritation, Little Nine’s behavior now seemed… almost cute.

Just as they were talking, the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest suddenly trembled.

They had crossed an invisible barrier.

And what lay before them was a sight they would never forget.