No one dared turn their back on Li Longchuan's arrows. Even Wang Yiwu, powerful as he was, was no exception.
When he turned, his fist was already unleashed.
And in the instant he threw the punch, the arrow had arrived.
This was the Arrow of Breath.
When one's vital energy stirred, the arrow fired of its own accord. And when vital energy moved, openings appeared.
An arrow wrapped in white trailing light and a long flame tail collided with Wang Yiwu's fist.
Violent air currents erupted. Flame winds whipped wildly.
Wang Yiwu pressed forward, his fist pushing against the arrow, striding ahead with great steps!
"Since you're so eager to die, I'll grant your wish first!"
On the battlefield, no one could afford to let a member of the Shi Gate Li clan linger. The longer time dragged on, the more openings they could find.
This had been universal knowledge ever since the Li ancestor had demolished a mighty fortress with ten arrows.
So if Li Longchuan had decided to strike, he had to be killed first.
The Arrow of Breath was pushed back by the counterforce. Wang Yiwu's stride was like a shooting star, closing the distance in an instant.
"Empty thoughts of distant mountains and rivers!"
Xu Xiangqian used his finger as a brush, writing characters in empty air.
Literary essence surged skyward like clouds, forming before Wang Yiwu.
Making it so that though he and Li Longchuan were close enough to touch, they seemed separated by mountains and rivers.
"A fine couplet!" Wang Yiwu sighed softly. "A pity it's not your own talent!"
His left hand seized the literary essence of mountains and rivers like grabbing a canvas, crumpling it into folds.
"Watch me pity the one before me!"
His right fist clenched, shattering the Arrow of Breath completely as it drove once more toward Li Longchuan's face.
How bold!
But dense vines erupted from the ground, tangling before the fist.
With Xu Xiangqian's brief interruption, Jiang Chen's Vine Serpent Wall was complete.
Atop the vine wall, flower buds opened wide, revealing bared fangs — the Flower of Devouring!
During this long journey, Jiang Chen had not been idle. His Dao techniques had grown ever more refined, and he had begun developing his own understanding.
Building upon the Vine Serpent Wall, he had completed a technique graft.
Combining the Flower of Devouring with the Vine Serpent Wall, he created offense hidden within defense. It was an independent enhancement of this particular art.
And Chong Xuan Sheng surged back into the fray.
"What are you waiting for? If we don't kill him, we all die!"
Even though he had advanced from Cycle realm to Heaven-Piercing realm, the pseudo-instant state of his secret art could not be sustained for long.
So even with his injured body, he had to unleash his strongest burst while in this peak state.
Earth spikes, wind blades, vine serpents, Golden Light Arrow.
Four Dao techniques instantly enhanced by the Gravity art howled toward Wang Yiwu's back.
Simultaneously, Zhang Yong shed all trace of his timidity. He raised his head, his gaze piercing as radiant light.
One glance at Wang Yiwu, and it was like thorns pressing into his spine!
Wang Yiwu was too powerful. He could no longer afford to hold back.
Everyone present had launched their attacks. Li Longchuan, facing Wang Yiwu head-on, would naturally not be the exception.
He stood tall and imposing.
Even before Wang Yiwu's mountain-crushing momentum, his expression remained unchanged.
A mountain could collapse before him, and his face would be as calm as a still lake.
Within the lake's heart lurked an arrow.
Water nourishes all things without contention, so the highest good is like water.
But when water contends, it sweeps away all in its path!
The arrow fired from between his brows, its momentum like a surging flood.
This was the Arrow of Momentum.
The fifty cultivators who entered the Celestial Residence could all be called elite fighters below the Soaring Dragon realm.
And the five here had been culled from those fifty, the strongest of the strong.
They could be said to represent the absolute pinnacle of the Heaven-Piercing realm.
Five of them attacking together — even an ordinary Soaring Dragon realm cultivator couldn't withstand it.
Yet Wang Yiwu showed not the slightest intent to dodge. With a visually constant speed, he clenched his fist, raised it, and threw it!
Five fists!
It seemed as though five fists appeared simultaneously.
In truth, they were afterimages from punching so fast.
And precisely because of these afterimages, the fist path appeared clear, even sluggish.
Wang Yiwu threw five punches in rapid succession at nearly the same instant.
Yet visually, all five erupted together.
No self, no victory.
No enemy, no self.
Majesty like mountains splitting, killing intent like a cyclone.
The No-Self Killing Fist!
Wang Yiwu designated Li Longchuan as his primary kill target. Correspondingly, Li Longchuan became the one everyone else had to save.
Military strategy is battle strategy.
Attack what the enemy must defend. I determine the battlefield. I decide the outcome!
In this moment, Wang Yiwu held nothing back, unleashing his most powerful No-Self Killing Fist. He was determined to settle this in one exchange.
BOOM!
The sound was deafening.
In truth, there were five simultaneous explosions, but they were so close together they merged into one.
Li Longchuan retreated three steps, sweetness rising in his throat.
Chong Xuan Sheng sat down hard on the ground, blood gushing frantically.
A line of blood trickled from the corner of Zhang Yong's eye.
Xu Xiangqian's right index finger twisted at an unnatural angle, broken.
Jiang Chen was sent flying far away, barely catching the edge of the stone platform with one hand to pull himself back from the abyss.
This was Wang Yiwu's strength.
In a single exchange, all five were wounded!
No wonder he had demanded Chong Xuan Sheng's withdrawal outside the Full Moon Pool.
No wonder he had arrived by striding over mountains, demanding everyone hand over their Azure Dragon's Horns the moment he landed.
No wonder he was so arrogant — he had the capital to be.
But in that single exchange, what surprised Wang Yiwu most was not Li Longchuan, nor Chong Xuan Sheng. It was that timid youth he hadn't even noticed at first.
His hawk-like eyes shifted, fixing directly on the target.
"You're not Zhang Yong. The Fengxian Zhang clan possesses no such eye technique!"
Even in this situation, such news was enough to shock Xu Xiangqian.
That downtrodden youth from a fallen clan — he wasn't the real person?
His teacher had once written poems in defense of the Fengxian Zhang clan, and he himself had spoken righteously at the Full Moon Pool's edge.
But the one who had appeared here was an impostor?
"Does that matter?" All trace of timidity had vanished from Zhang Yong's face.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his eye with a single finger.
With just a slight smile, the youthful naivety completely evaporated.
"I only wanted to sneak in and grab a divine skill, slowly recovering the power I'd lost. And now at the final moment, you go and lose your mind here."
"Wang Yiwu — remember, the one who kills... is forever killed!"
As his words fell, his eyes blazed open, his long hair whipping in the wind!
No one could see what happened.
ROAR!
Only a tiger's roar was heard.
Above Wang Yiwu's head.
A phantom image of a tiger talisman flashed and vanished.
Wang Yiwu didn't move a muscle, but Zhang Yong closed his eyes and toppled backward.
"You'd even expend the life-saving tiger talisman the War God gave you." Chong Xuan Sheng was inwardly shocked, though his mouth sneered. "Your devotion to Chong Xuan Zun is truly touching!"
What shocked him more was that Zhang Yong could actually force Wang Yiwu to this point.
And what shocked him even more was that Wang Yiwu was willing to go this far.
Zhang Yong's eye technique attack — Wang Yiwu might have been able to endure it head-on, but doing so would have cost him.
Even he couldn't be so arrogant as to fight five such opponents while not at his peak.
So he had decisively used the life-saving talisman given by Great Qi's War God Jiang Mengxiong, just to ensure absolute certainty. It showed how firm his killing intent truly was.
For Chong Xuan Zun's sake, was there anything Wang Yiwu wouldn't do?
For outsiders like Xu Xiangqian and Jiang Chen, this was one thing. But Li Longchuan's sword brows jumped violently, revealing the turmoil within.
"A man must first respect himself before others will respect him!"
Wang Yiwu abandoned any intent to finish off Zhang Yong, instead pivoting to charge at Chong Xuan Sheng with a devastating fist. "Let me see what gives you any right to compete with Chong Xuan Zun!"
His true fury had been unleashed.