I find her somewhat exaggerated. Those are trees, not wooden stakes. Trees that grow on mountains are extremely resilient. If you were to compare a concrete pillar and a tree of the same thickness and try to shovel them with a loader, the concrete pillar might break more easily.
"Still don't believe me?" Chu Qi asked.
"Uh… I'll reserve judgment," I said with a smile.
"The power of the legs is far greater than that of the fists and palms."
"...That's true," I admitted. I'd tried it as a child; I couldn't break bricks with my palm, but a kick would shatter them. However, I still found it hard to believe someone could break such thick tree trunks with a single leg sweep, even a master.
Chu Qi took about ten steps back, stood with her hands behind her back, and spread her feet slightly. "Come on, throw bricks at me."
Perhaps to demonstrate her leg techniques, I picked up a brick and tossed it over cautiously.
The brick lazily traced a high parabolic arc through the air, landing near Chu Qi's feet. Chu Qi shook her head. "Too slow…"
With that, she raised her leg and kicked. Not a stomp, but a kick, using the instep of her foot. *Crack!* The entire brick was pulverized, with the highest fragments flying at least twenty meters.
The power of that single kick was evident. And she was wearing ordinary canvas Vans, not thick leather boots, essentially bare-footed!
Doesn't it hurt?
I looked down at my own sneakers. Despite the padded tongue, I still wouldn't dare try it.
"Again, too slow! Smash them at my head!" Chu Qi, not yet satisfied, called out.
"Can I try?" Yao Yao smiled.
Seeing Yao Yao press her hands down, as if preparing to use shamanic arts, Chu Qi hesitated before saying, "Don't send more than ten at once, or I won't be able to handle it!"
"Then ten it is!" Yao Yao declared. With a gesture, ten bricks from the pile were manipulated by her, scattering in ten directions, about a meter apart, forming a fan shape.
"Here they come!"
"Don't go too fast!" I quickly advised. Bricks are essentially earth, and I had witnessed the ferocity of Yao Yao's earth-element spells.
"Don't worry, she won't get hurt," Yao Yao replied, pointing her hands forward.
The ten bricks shot towards Chu Qi's face like ten short, fat missiles.
Before the bricks could reach her, Yao Yao twisted and controlled another wave of bricks, then a third, fourth, and fifth wave.
A total of fifty bricks attacked Chu Qi from all angles and heights. Chu Qi, completely unfazed, slightly bent her knees and sprang into the air. With a single aerial sweep kick, she destroyed the first wave. Immediately after, her toes danced in the air like a ballerina, tapping away the second wave of bricks one by one. The third and fourth waves arrived almost simultaneously. I felt that with the leg speed she had shown earlier, she wouldn't be able to handle them. Chu Qi indeed didn't try to block them head-on. After shattering two bricks with her feet in mid-air, she used the rebound force to lighten her body and leaped backward, performing a backflip and moving about three meters away.
It was precisely this three-meter distance that caused Yao Yao's third and fourth waves of bricks, due to their different flight speeds, to separate into two groups. The fourth wave arrived first, and Chu Qi, upon landing, swept them away with a back leg kick. The third wave arrived just then. After her back leg kick, Chu Qi followed with an aerial back leg kick, switching legs to sweep away the fourth wave again.
Just then, the fifth wave of bricks attacked from high, middle, and low trajectories. However, because Chu Qi had retreated, the overall positions of the three paths were lower. Chu Qi had to switch to a low sweeping leg, executing another double sweep to knock away about seven or eight bricks in the middle and lower trajectories. Three bricks remained in the air, aimed at her head. This time, Chu Qi truly couldn't react in time and could only raise her hand, delivering a diagonal palm strike that cleaved the three bricks in two!
While the description may seem lengthy, the entire attack and defense process took less than two seconds.
Fortunately, I hadn't deliberately suppressed the manifestation of the Whale God's demon core, so my eyesight was quite sharp now. Otherwise, I might not have been able to clearly see how Chu Qi defended herself; it was so dazzlingly fast, faster than the wingbeats of a hummingbird!
However, because the bricks shattered so intensely, the dust that billowed up left Chu Qi looking dusty and disheveled. After completing her defense, she quickly took a pack of wet wipes from her pocket and wiped her face, neck, and other exposed skin.
Yao Yao applauded, "Amazing! Truly amazing! I couldn't react at all to that speed just now!"