By now, Duan Tianhong’s face had completely darkened.
“What, did I not speak clearly enough?”
Seeing that Duan Tianhong had been provoked, Chen Zui pressed on relentlessly.
He leaned against the spear shaft with his arms crossed, his casual posture carrying far more humiliation than any vicious snarl ever could.
“Then let me explain in greater detail.
After presenting the successor’s severed head, you smoothly gained entry into the Directorate of Ceremonial’s Hall of Consecrated Retainers.
The eunuchs rewarded you with a few pills to help you break through your realm.
Only by relying on the power of medicine did you barely force your way through the bottleneck of the Abyss-Facing Realm and join the ranks of Martial Arts Grandmasters.
So at the end of the day, this cultivation of yours is nothing more than an empty shell that never even properly crossed the threshold of the Abyss-Facing Realm.”
He paused, tilting his head to glance at the imperceptible tremor in Duan Tianhong’s right knee.
An undisguised sneer curled the corner of his lips.
“Right, speaking of which, that reminds me.
A true Wind-Riding Realm Grandmaster is one with heaven and earth, their qi harmonizing with all things, doing as they please without transgressing the bounds.
Yet what about you?
You can’t even keep your own right knee in check.
Although Cao Zhengchun was physically deficient and crossed the Abyss-Facing Realm only with difficulty, even he was far stronger than a medicine pot like you.”
Chen Zui raised his right hand and hooked his index finger at Duan Tianhong in an intensely contemptuous gesture.
“Do you even deserve to be called a Grandmaster?”
Those words rang out like shattering metal and cracking stone, exploding through the valley.
The last thread of Duan Tianhong’s restraint snapped completely!
A man in his sixties, cursed to his face before his entire sect of disciples by a youngster barely in his twenties as a traitor and a fake Grandmaster.
Who could possibly endure such humiliation?
His face flushed from iron-green to a purplish-black, his eyes bulging so hard they seemed on the verge of bleeding.
The dignity of a martial senior, the bearing of a Grandmaster, the calm prudence of age—all of it was cast to the winds in that instant.
He wanted nothing more than this young man’s life!
“Insolent brat, you court death!”
Duan Tianhong roared, the sound wave rattling the pine branches along the official road so violently that pine needles rained down in rustling showers.
The nine-ring broadsword in his hand burst into a crescent of snow-white blade light, the nine brass rings along the blade’s spine shrieking in deafening unison.
He stomped violently against the ground, rocketing toward Chen Zui like a cannonball bursting from a barrel while trailing a shrill sonic boom behind him.
When a Wind-Riding Realm Grandmaster struck in fury, their momentum was truly astonishing.
Before the blade light even arrived, the blade wind had already swept in.
Gravel within several chi of Chen Zui was swept backward by the gale, crackling and slamming into the cliffs on both flanks to gouge out a dense pattern of shallow craters.
Chen Zui had been waiting for this very moment.
He had seen through Duan Tianhong’s bottom line long ago.
Overeager for credit, prone to rage, inept at prolonged entanglement...
The dossier’s assessment from Zhizhou Tower was spot-on to the letter.
He had deliberately spoken of Duan Tianhong’s sordid past just to enrage him and throw his mind into total disarray.
Furthermore, the old bastard’s old right knee injury was a fatal flaw that even he could not control.
A true Wind-Riding Realm Grandmaster could harness the energy of heaven and earth as their own; a mere old wound could be compensated for in a hundred different ways.
Yet Duan Tianhong’s Wind-Riding Realm was artificially stacked with medicine.
His foundation was flimsy, his internal energy impure, and whenever he struck with full force, the injury to his right knee inevitably hampered his footwork and power generation.
Chen Zui activated his Dragon Roam footwork. A fraction of a breath before the blade light fell, his figure swayed faintly, gliding out along the flank of the blade.
The nine-ring broadsword cleaved down right past his left shoulder. The blade wind tore an opening three cun long in his robe, yet failed to graze even a sliver of his flesh.
Duan Tianhong’s slash hit nothing, yet his momentum could not be checked in time.
The heavy nine-ring broadsword slammed solidly into the bluestone slabs of the official road.
With a thunderous crash, shattered stones flew in all directions, and a fissure over a zhang long exploded across the stone slabs!
The bluestone along the edge of the crack was shattered to dust by the blade force, kicking up a cloud of choking gray mist.
And from within that gray mist, Chen Zui’s counterattack arrived.
The spear pierced through the gray mist, breaking the air!
【Coiling Serpent Willow Spear】
Since Zhizhou Tower noted that this man was inept at prolonged entanglement, using this Coiling Serpent Willow Spear against him could not be more fitting.
This spear strike lacked the bizarre unpredictability of the Thirteen Ghost Shadow Spears, nor did it carry the biting chill of the Wind and Snow Night Return Spear.
It had only one characteristic: entanglement.
The spearhead shook out dozens of spear shadows the instant it thrust forward. Each spear shadow wrapped around Duan Tianhong’s right leg like a nimble serpent, sealing off every possible foothold.
The spear momentum was not fast, but its angles were tricky and vicious to the extreme.
Duan Tianhong had just unleashed a heavy slash with his center of gravity pressed onto his right leg. The recoil from that heavy blow had aggravated his old injury, and a dull ache was already throbbing behind his knee.
At this point, shifting stances to dodge was completely out of the question.
“Sect Master, watch out!”
A Mountain-Viewing Realm elder cried out in alarm, drawing his sword to rush forward.
Yet it was already too late.
The tip of Chen Zui’s spear tapped with pinpoint precision onto the Weizhong point behind Duan Tianhong’s right knee.
In that split second, Duan Tianhong felt as though a red-hot iron skewer had been brutally plunged into his right knee.
A piercing, excruciating agony shot straight from his knee to the crown of his head.
His entire right leg below the knee lost sensation completely.
With a muffled groan, his right leg buckled, and he collapsed onto one knee upon the gravel ground.
Only by propping himself up with the nine-ring broadsword did he avoid falling completely.
By now, cold sweat covered Duan Tianhong’s purplish-black face.
His lips were pale and his teeth clenched tight, clearly enduring immense torment.
Chen Zui, however, gave him no room to breathe.
Taking advantage of the momentum, the spear swept horizontally, the shaft carving a half-arc through the air.
In the twilight, the spearhead dissolved into dozens of winding, serpentine trajectories.
They snapped toward every vital spot across Duan Tianhong’s body from different directions and angles.
Yet every thrust Chen Zui made retained thirty percent of its power, not seeking to kill with a single blow.
If a strike missed, he seamlessly shifted stances, chaining technique after technique.
The spear momentum was endless, wrapping around him layer by layer like a silkworm spinning its silk.
Though Duan Tianhong’s nine-ring broadsword was heavy and devastating, the weapon’s sheer weight meant changing moves was nowhere near as agile as the spear.
Every slash he threw carried the profound internal energy of a Grandmaster.
Wherever the blade wind passed, gravel scattered and the ground cracked.
Yet every single slash struck empty air.
Chen Zui’s spearhead always evaded the blade edge a step ahead.
And in the briefest gap when old strength was spent and new power had yet to rise, it would wind right back around him like a lingering ghost!
After twenty exchanges, Duan Tianhong’s blade momentum began showing signs of scattering.
After thirty exchanges, under the intense, continuous maneuvering, the old injury in his right knee flared up completely.
With every step he planted, a teeth-grinding creak could be heard from his knee joint.
His breathing grew increasingly ragged.
Yet Chen Zui’s spear grew ever faster and denser.
The hissing sounds of the spearhead tearing the air merged into a continuous drone, pressing in on Duan Tianhong from all sides.
Those serpentine spear traces wove together in the twilight into a net that drew tighter and tighter.
And by now, the prey caught in the net was already suffocating.
Duan Tianhong finally realized he had fallen into a trap.
From the very beginning, this young man had never planned to clash head-on against him.
That relentless mouth, those words aimed squarely at his sore spots—all of it had been designed to enrage him and bait him into going all out.
Once he went all out, the flaw in his right knee would be laid bare.
And this spear technique focused on entanglement could lock him firmly inside an ever-shrinking circle, leaving him with a body full of Wind-Riding Realm brute force without being able to unleash even half of it.
“Little bastard!”
Duan Tianhong roared fiercely. Disregarding the excruciating pain shooting through his right knee, he gripped the broadsword with both hands and unleashed Sweeping Away a Thousand Armies.
The nine-ring broadsword carved a blade ring over a zhang wide around his body, ripping the air apart wherever it passed and producing piercing explosions.
As the blade ring swept past, Chen Zui was forced to retreat three steps.
Duan Tianhong propped himself up with the nine-ring broadsword, struggling to his feet.
Then, a crisp crunch sounded as he bit down on a pill hidden behind his teeth.
“Hm? Starting to pop pills now?”
Seeing this, Chen Zui’s brows furrowed slightly.
Rate on N.U.
