White-Hot

It was now sunset, and the dying sun stained the white clouds in the sky red as it neared the horizon.

On the summit of Mount Hua, the fierce battle showed no signs of stopping.

Huang Rong watched the combat anxiously and with trepidation, for the scale of this fight was something she had never imagined. In her mind, Wang Ming had always sat one tier below the Five Greats, and her politeness toward him was mostly for Guo Jing's sake. Even though Wang Ming had taught her a few martial arts forms, she had never practiced them seriously.

In her worldview, all martial arts beneath heaven—aside from the techniques of the Five Greats and the Nine Yin Manual—were not worth spending extra effort on. Back then, she had wanted martial arts simply because she believed in seizing any available advantage, and she studied them because she found them fun and not overly difficult.

Yet today, her entire worldview was shattered.

Her father, whom she remembered as invincible, and her formidable master had both been easily defeated by the arch-villain Ouyang Feng, proving no match even when joining forces. At that moment, her inner world had collapsed like a crumbling mountain, and her long-held beliefs were crushed into dust.

Afterward, Ouyang Feng had demanded that she be buried alongside Ouyang Ke, and her despair then had surpassed even her terror during the shipwreck at sea.

Then, Mr. Wang Ming—whom she had never regarded with much importance—suddenly stepped forward just as she had resigned herself to death, holding off Ouyang Feng and standing his ground without losing an inch.

A profound wave of regret surged within her, and she could not help muttering to herself inwardly:

"I should have devoted more effort to Mr. Wang that day, extracting the dual-sword technique he taught Li Mochou and this style of Heavy Swordplay, so I wouldn't be as helpless as I am today."

In truth, how could she have known that Illusion Sword and Thousand Flowers Scatter Money were techniques Wang Ming had fought tooth and nail to bring back from a higher-tier world? As long as her internal energy kept pace, they were enough to let her walk unhindered across this realm.

Because her internal energy fell short, she had felt after using those two techniques a few times that they were inferior in efficacy to the Dog Beating Staff, and so she had set them aside. Moreover, those two martial arts did not match Guo Jing's personality, and she had hardly practiced them either.

Standing behind Huang Rong were three figures: Hong Qi, Huang Yaoshi, and Guo Jing.

Right now, the three of them sat cross-legged on the ground, fully engaged in healing their injuries and recovering their combat strength.

Today's battle had shattered their arrogance and completely upended their understanding of martial arts.

Especially for Hong Qi and Huang Yaoshi, this was the first time they had faced an opponent of such terrifying might since earning the renown of the Five Greats at the Mount Hua Sword Debate twenty years prior.

Long ago, they had heard Wang Chongyang speak of a higher realm—Innate.

Yet they had never found a pathway to breakthrough, which was why the later Four Peaks became so obsessed with the Nine Yin Manual, hoping to use the arts contained within to pierce the mysteries of the Innate realm.

Never had they imagined they would witness Ouyang Feng achieving an Innate breakthrough with their own eyes today.

Deep down, they felt a mixture of profound admiration for Ouyang Feng's martial prowess and fierce resentment toward his actions.

For Ouyang Feng to attempt to harm Huang Rong right before their eyes was to completely disregard them, and such contempt filled them with humiliation.

At the same time, facing the crisis that threatened Huang Rong, they never wished to experience that sickening sense of powerlessness again.

Guo Jing had already resolved to commit suicide and join Huang Rong the moment she died, only for Wang Ming to turn the tide.

Presently, the three men poured all their efforts into restoring their battle-readiness.

On the arena, the clash between Wang Ming and Ouyang Feng had entered a white-hot state.

Having broken through to the Innate realm, Ouyang Feng had opened his Heaven and Earth Bridge, allowing him to draw upon a sliver of the Qi of Heaven and Earth to replenish his expenditure.

What concept was this?

It meant that compared to acquired practitioners, Innate masters possessed a ceaseless, inexhaustible wellspring of true qi.

Furthermore, the Qi of Heaven and Earth absorbed by Innate masters amplified the lethality of their martial arts.

Thus, when facing acquired practitioners, Innate masters generally held a suppressive advantage.

Only by virtue of the might of his Heavy Swordplay was Wang Ming able to contend with him.

In truth, Heavy Swordplay possessed no complex sword stances; it utilized only three simple movements: sweeping, chopping, and thrusting.

Yet to his opponent Ouyang Feng, the Heavy Swordplay felt like nothing less than relentless impact and crushing weight.

How could any normal weapon dare call itself a sword?

One could easily call it a door-shatterer. With its massive blade, terrifying weapon weight, and the momentum generated by swinging it, an ordinary person who took a single blow would be crushed into a bloody pulp right down to their bones.

"Clang, bang, thump..."

Wang Ming's grand and unrestrained sword techniques unleashed a continuous, unyielding offensive against Ouyang Feng, resembling an old blacksmith hammering away at metal.

Regardless of whether Ouyang Feng used his venomous snake staff to launch a surprise attack, neutralized hardness with softness, unleashed the Toad Skill, or deployed the Spirited Snake Fist!

Even when utilizing his tyrannical Innate True Qi.

He was met solely by a single, simple sword stroke, and wherever that blade swept across.

Everything was cleaved to death!

Everything was smashed to pieces!

Crushed and annihilated!

That massive, unreasonable blade, paired with boundless strength and domineering true qi, coalesced at that moment into a single state of mind, a single method:

"Old man, I'll hack you to death!"

At that moment, the giant iron sword resembled a brawling ruffian, tearing and clawing without a shred of reason.

It smashed and shattered everything through sheer, brutal violence.

This was the ultimate offensive capability of a weapon.

Had Ouyang Feng not channeled the Innate Qi he had cultivated within his body to cloak the iron staff in his grip, that newly forged snake staff would likely have been ruined once more.

Even so, the shockwaves transmitted through the iron staff had already caused his palms to split and bleed, sending a dull, aching numbness through his entire skeleton.

He knew he could not allow their weapons to lock again, or he would be shaken to death by the sheer force.

Yet he could not dodge! Every single one of the kid's moves pressed the attack without retreat, leaving him no opportunity to counter.

That iron sword was simply too massive, its attack radius too vast to evade.

If he failed to block, the swinging iron sword would smash him into a puddle of flesh; if he blocked, the reverberating shock would kill him.

Knowing he could no longer drag this out, he mobilized all the Innate True Qi within his body, funneling it straight into the iron staff in his grasp.

"Hah!"

With savage force, he lashed out, whipping the staff toward the giant sword.

"Clang!"

The two weapons collided violently. The ferocious momentum of the giant sword was shattered, and the straight iron staff bent into the shape of a bow.

Ouyang Feng swallowed back a mouthful of blood that surged into his viscera from the shock of the impact, thrusting out his right hand while Wang Ming's old strength had faded and his new strength had yet to rise, grabbing hold of the iron sword.

Wang Ming immediately felt an endless, steadily intensifying force surging from the giant sword. Secretly startled, he thought: "This fellow's internal energy is actually this profound." Then he realized: "Since it has come to a contest of internal energy, the might of the giant iron sword cannot be unleashed. Ouyang Feng has practiced for a long time and possesses deep cultivation, and now he has even broken through to the Innate realm. If this drags on, he will inevitably gain the upper hand."

He prepared to withdraw the giant iron sword with all his might, when unexpectedly,

Two venomous snakes suddenly shot out from the hilt, aiming to sink their fangs directly into the hand gripping the sword. Wang Ming vividly remembered Hong Qi's agonizing experience after being bitten.

Instantly terrified, Wang Ming released the giant iron sword and executed the Horizontal Void Shift, darting backward to put a distance of about five meters between them.

Ouyang Feng had not anticipated that Wang Ming would abandon the giant iron sword so decisively. The tremendous downward momentum yanked him off-balance by the hand gripping the weapon, forcing him to let go as well.

"Thud! Splash!" Two sounds rang out.

The former was the iron sword crashing to the earth, while the latter was the two venomous snakes being crushed beneath the heavy iron sword, spraying blood and visceral matter from within their bodies.

Ouyang Feng's eye twitched involuntarily, accompanied by a sharp pang of heartache—those two venomous snakes were extremely precious, yet they had perished just like that.

As it turned out, when Ouyang Feng saw Wang Ming's giant iron sword before the battle, he had known its vibrational force was formidable and that leaving the snakes inside the snake staff would inevitably result in them being shaken to death.

Thus, he had slung the snake staff across his back, quietly retrieved the creatures, and concealed them within his wide sleeves.

Never had he expected that this would become the key to breaking his predicament.