Third Elder saw the streak of blood on Li's face and instantly understood what Li had just done!
This guy had actually withdrawn from the range of his sword radiance in an instant, then charged straight in front of him the moment he sheathed his sword. His sword radiance was indeed unstoppable—let alone a person, even the Third Hokage's Enma could not take a slash unharmed. But all things in this world had their weaknesses. As powerful as the sword radiance was, its endurance depended on how intense the emotions one unleashed at that moment were.
Li also understood Third Elder. Back then, he had failed to keep an appointment, resulting in Mao Zhihua's tragic death. The boundless remorse in his heart would not fade anytime soon. Trying to wear him down until he lost would indeed be somewhat difficult.
And if he truly did that, even if others considered Li the victor, Li himself would not acknowledge it!
So Li chose another method: feigning weakness. He pretended to be terrified of the countless sword radiances Third Elder had unleashed, baiting Third Elder into repeatedly using that move. Of course, Li was not foolish enough to think Third Elder would exhaust himself to the point where he could no longer maintain the sword radiance.
Third Elder's current state was like a mage with infinite mana. Trying to make him stop casting spells was simply a joke. Yet every move had a wind-up and a recovery phase. This was not an online game, where action games had tricks for canceling wind-up and recovery animations.
But this was reality. Such tricks were not entirely nonexistent, but it was fundamentally impossible to pull them off whenever one wished. What Li had calculated was precisely the wind-up and recovery of Third Elder's previous move.