Ling Wuyuan looked at the long sword in his hand, now reduced to little more than half its length, its tip already gone.
He showed no surprise at its destruction on the spot.
Although its quality was not actually poor—at most two or three grades beneath the weapon in Shen Zhenhai's hand—even if it had been outmatched, it should not have been so easily destroyed.
But Ling Wuyuan understood very clearly.
When weapons were of similar quality,
their strength depended entirely on the skill of their wielders.
And when one weapon was already inferior to the other, differences in technique could easily magnify the gap between them, causing the weapon to rapidly break apart at a speed far beyond expectations.
Thus, compared to the swift destruction of the sword in his hand,
what Ling Wuyuan cared about more was that previous instant—
Shen Zhenhai's grasp of the timing of his attack.
In an instant, Shen Zhenhai had perfectly caught the weakness in Ling Wuyuan's sword, then targeted it at the most appropriate moment along the trajectory of Ling Wuyuan's attack, making the sword even more vulnerable before destroying it in one stroke.
To be honest,
rather than saying that his sword had been destroyed by Shen Zhenhai,
it would be more accurate to say that Shen Zhenhai had used Ling Wuyuan's own strength to swiftly destroy it.
When facing weaker opponents,
Ling Wuyuan could do similar things as well.
Borrowing force to strike back with force.
Using one part of strength to achieve ten parts of effect.
But in his case, he was fundamentally just crushing weaklings.
Shen Zhenhai, however, had accomplished this while their strengths were comparable.
That fact
directly proved that
the other party's attainments in those areas truly surpassed Ling Wuyuan's by a tremendous margin.
Before him,