Wang Battles Lei Gong

Just looking at that thunderous getup, if you weren’t Lei Gong, who would be…? Old Wang nodded. "My surname is Wang. Please!"

He strode forward with the bearing of a dragon and tiger, while Madame Gao and the others drifted ahead to Lei Gong’s side.

Though he hated the traitors to the bone and wanted to execute them on the spot, such important traitors had to be judged by the Jade Emperor. With a casual wave, Lei Gong tossed the Five Fingers into the Kunlun Gate.

"Leave the Quinjet here and activate stealth mode. Don’t let S.H.I.E.L.D. or Tony find it."

Old Wang gave the order and led Stick and the other two through the gate.

Lei Gong turned around, and the gate closed automatically, as though it had never appeared at all.

Space was a wondrous thing, difficult to describe with words. If you understood it, you understood it. If you didn’t, you didn’t.

Although they had entered through a spatial barrier at the edge of K’un-Lun, they emerged onto a stone platform built from rock. It had an ancient charm and a distinctly Chinese style.

Old Wang looked into the distance.

Though K’un-Lun was not small, it was not particularly large to Old Wang. He could see its end at a glance.

It was roughly equivalent to a valley, lush with branches and leaves, springlike all year round.

K’un-Lun lay in another dimension, yet like Kamar-Taj, it enjoyed everything Earth had to offer, such as sunlight.

People could see the snow-capped mountains in the distance from within, yet had no desire to leave. They were even more homebound than the Pandaren of Pandaria.

The platform stood high atop a mountain. Below were all sorts of buildings: martial training grounds, temples, and rows of low residential houses.

There was no trace of advanced technology anywhere in sight. This place resembled China before the Ming Dynasty, where men farmed and women wove, living peacefully and contentedly.

The people here looked healthier and sturdier than those outside. Even elderly men and women in their seventies and eighties could sprint while carrying sacks weighing dozens of pounds. Probably because they often worked the fields or practiced martial arts, both men and women had thick, muscular arms and legs.

Sure enough, there were no beauties in the martial world.

A good figure was precious, a pretty face more so;

But for the sake of martial arts, both could be cast aside!

Only by cultivating True Qi could one change one’s physique and skin. Yet no matter how talented someone was, by the time they reached that level, they would no longer be young. They would have long passed the age of caring about figures and faces.

Youth that could never return.

Old Wang wanted to release his spiritual power and see where that alien spacecraft was hidden, but Lei Gong, who had lived for who knew how many years, stood right beside him. His spiritual probe would certainly not escape Lei Gong’s notice, and that would be impolite.

Forget it.

There was plenty of time. He could deal with it later.

"Master Wang."

Lei Gong looked Old Wang up and down a few times. "Martial artists do not stand on ceremony. I’ll speak plainly."

I actually quite like formalities… Old Wang nodded slightly. "Grandmaster Lei Gong, please speak freely if there is something on your mind."

Having come to a place resembling ancient China, seeing such an unconventional martial arts grandmaster, and hearing such polite forms of address, Old Wang followed suit. Even in plain speech, he had to throw in a few idioms and adapt to local customs.

"At our level, it is difficult to find suitable opponents to spar with. I have not made a move in a hundred years." Lei Gong stood with his hands hanging at his sides, lonely and solitary.

Old Wang was somewhat curious. "I heard that every elder of K’un-Lun is a Martial Arts Master, and that the Jade Emperor is the lord of K’un-Lun. Are they not qualified to make you act?"

Could it be that K’un-Lun’s strongest person was not the Jade Emperor, but Lei Gong?

"A hundred years ago, the Five Great Elders of the Council of Elders joined forces to challenge me. I defeated them in only thirty moves."

Lei Gong said, "After that, I challenged the Jade Emperor again and was defeated by him in three moves. It has been a hundred years. The Council of Elders does not dare challenge me, and I do not dare challenge the Jade Emperor. We are not on the same level."

So you dare challenge me instead? What kind of logic is that…? Old Wang’s interest rose a little. "Could the Jade Emperor be a Grandmaster?"

Master, grandmaster, and Grandmaster were entirely different levels.

Back when Old Wang became Pandaria’s foremost Monk, he had bestowed the title of "Grandmaster" upon a large number of adventurers. In truth, those people were not even as strong as Old Chen or Taran Zhu. At most, they were merely Masters.

Old Chen and Taran Zhu were the true grandmasters.

There had only ever been one Grandmaster Monk in World of Warcraft: the last emperor, Shaohao.

Later, with the help of the Four August Celestials and the Monkey King, he successively sealed away the Six Sha, transformed into Pandaria’s mists, and became one with Pandaria. He had already surpassed the Grandmaster level and become a demigod.

From then on, for more than ten thousand years, the Pandaren had never produced a second Grandmaster Monk, until Old Wang emerged out of nowhere.

With Old Wang’s help, Old Chen and Taran Zhu successively advanced to Grandmaster.

But by then, Old Wang had already become history’s second Monk demigod. Even the August Celestials were no match for him, so he could only go to Ulduar and the Halls of Valor to spar with the Titan Keepers.

Although he was still at the grandmaster level in terms of True Qi, his physical attributes far surpassed those of grandmasters, while his soul and spirit far surpassed Grandmasters. His overall strength naturally stood at the Grandmaster level. He truly wanted to find a Grandmaster to exchange moves with and see his actual strength.

"…No."

Lei Gong frowned slightly. "Grandmasters enter the Dao through martial arts. K’un-Lun has not seen one in several thousand years."

"If he isn’t a Grandmaster, how has he lived so long?" Old Wang did not quite understand.

The Jade Emperor had lived for at least several centuries.

In World of Warcraft, a Grandmaster who entered the Dao through martial arts held strength and status equivalent to a demigod-level mage, such as Aegwynn or Medivh. Only upon reaching the demigod level did the various professions gain the ability to extend life and achieve immortality, excluding certain naturally long-lived races.

"The Kunlun People have unique constitutions. Ordinary people can live to a hundred. Once they cultivate True Qi, they can live to two hundred. Masters and grandmasters live even longer." Lei Gong did not explain further, since it involved K’un-Lun’s secrets and could not be revealed to outsiders.

I see… Old Wang was somewhat disappointed.

K’un-Lun was still a little too weak. Let alone Asgard, it could not even compare to Kamar-Taj.

Legends were ultimately just legends, not myths. China’s true myths still remained unknown.

However, at its peak, K’un-Lun had Wu Fengji, the "Strongest Iron Fist," who could even defeat the Phoenix Projection. Her strength should not have been inferior to Ancient One’s, but she had long since left K’un-Lun and flown into the depths of the universe.

For a moment, Old Wang lost all interest. Everything felt dull, and he had no desire whatsoever to fight Lei Gong.

Bullying the weak with strength was not the way of a martial artist.

A martial arts grandmaster’s senses were sharp. Lei Gong sensed Old Wang’s disdain and snorted. "The Kunlun People have unique constitutions. Not only do we live long lives, but our strength, speed, endurance, and reaction time all surpass those of Earthlings! Master Wang, please enlighten me!"

Before the words "please enlighten me" had finished echoing through the air, he had already launched a fierce attack.

A series of sounds like popping beans rang out, followed by deafening tiger-and-leopard thunder.

In the blink of an eye, others could only see an afterimage. Before they could even react, Lei Gong had ridden wind and thunder to Old Wang’s side. Space itself seemed about to be torn apart. Absolute power, accompanied by surging True Qi like a mighty river, was condensed through extraordinary control into a fist shadow no larger than a small ball.

At that moment, Elektra, the "Black Sky," involuntarily took a step back. It felt like facing the Beast once more, only more real and more terrifying!

No matter how powerful the Beast was, it had only projected a tiny fraction of itself into her body. Lei Gong, however, truly stood before her.

This punch could crush anything in its path.

Let alone a person—even a wall, a car, or an African elephant would be instantly killed, perhaps even sent flying.

Daredevil and Stick felt it even more intensely.

Having lost their sight, their senses had grown sharper. At that moment, what they sensed was not a man at all, but a fierce tiger—a saber-toothed tiger from ancient times, savage, terrifying, ready to devour its prey.

The same thought appeared in all three of their minds:

Let alone facing him one-on-one.

Even if the three of them were tied together, they could never possibly be this man’s match. They were not on the same level at all.

But so what?

The three of them looked at Old Wang at the same time, their hearts shaken.

In their senses, Old Wang, standing with his hands behind his back, was not a person, not a wall, and certainly not an African elephant.

He was not even a dragon.

He was a bell.

An incomparably massive golden bell, as though it had weathered a thousand years of wind and rain within an ancient temple.