Respect Zi Yu, The Greatest Swordsman Under Heaven! (Feng Shen Ji)

Zi Yu, The World's Greatest Swordsman

Zi Yu, brother to the former emperor of the largest kingdom of men in China, began entertaining dreams of being a swordsman ever since he was a young child, primarily to fulfill his and his brother's wish to see through to completion their father’s dream to unfetter humanity from the clutches of tyrannical gods. Secondarily, he desired to find the strongest opponents possible in the world. Never loved by the only woman he ever found worthy, he mastered his craft and became known as the strongest human being in the entire world within a short few years, setting his sights on helping his nephew overcome the very gods themselves.

---

Key Terms

• Gods: "Gods" in this world are actually a race of artificially evolved humans, given superior strength, speed, and stamina than humans and implanted with a divine spark called Transcendent Vigor, which gives their entire species supernatural and world-shaking abilities such as regeneration, indestructible bodies, the ability to summon monsters, control the elements, and see the future.

• Divine Power: A result of Transcendent Vigor; divine power manifests in one of 7 ways: Eternal Life, Asura, Indestructible, Seer's Vision, Heaven and Earth, Underworld, and Monochrome. Eternal Life: the ability to heal, help souls find their way. Asura: the ability to summon creatures and powerful allies to aid in battle. Indestructible: the ability to harden the user's body for offensive and defensive capabilities. Seer's Vision: the power of precognition, the ability to see the future and scry as well as see other's thoughts. Heaven and Earth: the ability to gain control over a specialized element, be it Thunder, Lightning, Wind, Fire, et all. Underworld: the ability to summon pestilence, spread disease, and control putrefaction. Monochrome: heralded as the most powerful ability of all, the ability to manipulate vitality, dampen other's powers, and create powerful walls of such power they drain the world of its very color.

• Divine Skill: When a God achieves mastery of their Divine Power, they can channel it into a singular (or in rare instances, multiple) ability called Divine Skill, in which they adapt it to fit more potent uses. A practitioner of Indestructible may, for instance, be able to turn his fists into a barrage of blows so potent they form a quite literal sea of fists to an observer. Divine Skill is a hallmark of the most powerful of Gods.

• Smelting Aura: An ability spawning from an alternate plane, the very particles of this other world can be forged and manipulated into weapon forms and freely regenerate on their own, making masters of the Aura capable of bombarding persons with literally dozens to hundreds of weapons at once. Smelting Aura also can create life, giving birth to the citizens of this alternate plane, whose bodies are tougher than most materials given the nature of their existence.

• Dark Ones/Soul Gear: Dark Ones are a race that existed 100,000 years ago in harmony with ancient Gods, and were chased to the realm of Hell itself after a massive battle. The descendants of this race have become weaker versions of their ancient selves, similar to how the Gods' bloodline has become watered down as well. Dark Ones possess a nearly unique ability, called Spiritize, in which they gain dominion over a piece of equipment special to them called their Soul Gear and literally imbue it with their very soul, augmenting it to new heights of power. Soul Gear can achieve a state known as Limit Break, in which physical bounds no longer govern the piece of equipment, allowing it to literally grow to any shape or size so long as the soul is powerful enough to allow for it. This ability can be shared with humans if the Dark One in question surrenders his very soul, augmenting their physicals to new peaks.

---

Physical Feats

Strength:

• In his base human form, Zi Yu can wield a sword weighing over a ton

• Blocks an attack that sends him and his one-ton sword flying backward with ease

• Easily shatters iron chains

• Splinters a solid stone wall with another human. Zi Yu had been unmoving and in captivity for years prior to this feat.. This applies to the next three feats as well.

• Without effort, counters a strike from a being who easily shatters stone and small buildings

• Catches a God’s blow and craters the stone with the God’s body

• Catches himself after a blow that slightly craters the stone beneath his feet with no injury

• While free falling, can punch a human with enough force to send him dozens of meters directly upward, against gravity, to safety

• Can send a human flying with a single sword blow

Post-Spiritized

• Immediately after power up, Zi Yu can leap literally dozens of meters into the air, claiming to reach the clouds

• Blocks a blow from an Ancient God, Chi Long, who himself has enough power to actually start cracking Zi Yu’s Heavy Iron Stance sword.

• Blocks another blow from Chi Long and is able to redirect it

• Slices off the horn of Chi Long, who is renowned for being a literally perfect master of Divine Power: Indestructible. Doubles as a speed feat.

• Pierces Chi Long with a direct strike

Durability:

• Can withstand a severe punishing that craters stone

• No seriously, this guy takes a hit. Punishment, his words not mine

• This is seriously a long beating

• After all of the above and this, Zi Yu is bleeding and hurt yet continues to fight

• Survives a blindsided tackle from the aforementioned god that can break stone and buildings

• Is headbutted hard enough to crater a castle wall

• Continuation of the above; Zi Yu’s body shatters a castle wall. He is perfectly fine afterwards

• Enjoys being headbutted apparently

• Charges into an attack, that is causing soldiers dozens of meters from the attack to bleed out of every orifice, without harm

• Only when within a few feet does Zi Yu begin to suffer adverse effects from the attack that can incap soldiers from dozens of meters

• Blocks a blow from a user of Indestructible bare-handed; Zi Yu suffers only a slight fracture as a result

• Is crushed by a gigantic statue and easily survives and even counters the blow

• Survives the Karmic retribution of all his former attacks being directed into him, and tanks yet even more of it; he does die from this eventually, but not before having a moment of sheer badassery which destroys the illusory world he was in. Note: he gets better

Post-Spiritized

• Survives being crushed through solid crystal by the King of Gods, Tian

• Withstands a blow that easily flings himself and his Heavy Iron sword through the air Note: this blow cracked his sword

• Struggles to fend off Tian

• Continues to fight regardless of suffering a shockwave that ruptures his organs

• Blocks a blow from Tian in their first clash; note this is with his sword not in Heavy Iron form

• Tian crushes him through more crystal

• Tian really hates crystal and uses Zi Yu to take out his rage

• Forces Tian to use his ultimate technique to make him back down; White Wall forces Zi Yu’s body to shut down in a blinding field of white andeventually ruptures his every internal blood vessel and organ. This defeats Zi Yu finally even though he does not die.

• Tanks being bullrushed through multiple buildings all at once, and is still enjoying headbutts. This feat doubles as a scaling feat for Chi Long.

• Tanks a punch from the Chi Long with naught but his swords and hands

• Directly tanks an uppercut from Chi Long

• Takes a direct punch to the face from Chi Long

• Is blasted through yet more buildings by Chi Long

• Literally singlehandedly blocks an attack that destroyed the building around him with pure fire and explosions

Speed:

• In the middle of a siege on a castle, Zi Yu leaps into the enemy archer line and decapitates numerous men before they can even realize what he’s doing

• Instantly slices up a pack of spirit wolves the moment they’re summoned, alongside the god who summoned them

• Blitzes a god with a sword through the chest

• Easily steps off the hands of battle-hardened gods, ones whom are among the 100 best of the gods’ warriors

• Dodges a gigantic Buddhist statue’s attack

Post-Spiritized

• Agile enough to dodge around Tian

• Dodges a spear strike from Tian just barely

• Easily goes FTE to Tian

• Slices off one of the dragon heads from Tian’s shoulders in retaliation to a strike

• Quickly covers a vast swathe of city

• When a support beam made from a large tree is thrown at him, Zi Yu easily slices it up mid-air

• Can move quickly enough to be FTE to Chi Long

• Easily surrounds an opponent in a field of blades; his opponent confirms it happened faster than could be tracked

• Is fast enough to catch Chi Long off-guard, who pushed Zi Yu to his limit in his base human form

• Can spin quickly enough to turn into a drill; result of the drill attack

• Dodges a point-blank blow

• Moves quickly enough to create after images

• Can outright disappear from sight in a way different from typical FTE movement, as we see his blurs are still visible on-screen; he’s just so fast he physically cannot be seen anymore.

• Creates clones of himself; this scan is related to the two above, and shows this is a result of Zi Yu’s pure skill and speed, but each one is a distinct feat I believe.Each clone is capable of attacking

• Begins an attack wherein his sword creates dozens of after-images, and eventually becomes an avalanche of blades

---

Special Abilities

Smelting Aura of the Blade: Sword Aura: This technique is what fuels all of Zi Yu’s swordsmanship. He summons blades at will and attacks with them in a variety of ways.

• Pierces an opponent with enough force to shatter stone

• His swords hit with enough force to hold back an opponent who easily shatters castle walls

• His swords don’t exist in reality until he summons them

• Explanation of how Smelting Aura replenishes itself

• A possible limitation of Smelting Aura

• Can summon a hail of swords with a moment’s notice

• When Zi Yu concentrates, he can summon an enormous amount of blades

• If his swords are being countered, Zi Yu can merely focus and create more powerful blades

• Has little trouble with multiple enemies at once

• Can create a torrent of swords later in the series

• Can focus over time to create new techniques and swords

Sword Aura: Heaven Punisher

• Forges a blade via the last feat above that specifically kills Gods

• Heaven Punisher accomplishes it’s job quite well, and even ignites the surrounding area, further destruction from its flame

• Can combine his rain of swords with his Heaven Punisher and dispel even large AoE god powers

• Even though it was forged to dispel god powers, when used against Tian theHeaven Punisher fails to affect him, showing it has limitations

Soul Gear: Blade of Murderous Intent: When imbued with the powers of a Dark One, Zi Yu gained their ability to spiritize a weapon

• This isn’t so much a feat as just a really awesome scan that I had to include

• In spiritized form,Zi Yu is overwhelmed by a killing intent thanks to the soul’s original owner

• Reason for the badass name further explained

• Breaks through Chi Long’s defenses by turning himself into a drill in this form and focusing on one point

• Can create an avalanche of blades through sheer speed alone

• Creates numerous clones that can each attack with skill and speed

• Directly tanks an uppercut from the Chi Long

• Takes a direct punch to the face from Chi Long

---

Miscellaneous Feats

• Has impeccable fashion sense

• Has some medical knowledge

• Has exceptional will; he senses he is in a dream world and confronts the god who trapped him there, forcing the god to eventually give up

• Apparently has bested a hundred men at once back before his sword aura was a thing, and these guys see just how it happened

• Can see the shape and emotional intensity of a soul, judging it by its anger or other emotions

• Is a philosopher to some degree, believing in true freedom