Extreme yang and extreme yin collided, driving every trace of air from between the two men. Across the black stone arena, cracks spread silently like spiderwebs.
Then a ring-shaped shockwave of red and black swept outward along the ground in every direction, like a gigantic two-colored scythe.
Bang!
The shockwave struck the defensive formation a Grandmaster had set around the arena. Its curtain of light shook violently, ripples spreading across it.
Beyond the formation, spectators in the front rows felt a gale of alternating heat and cold lash their faces. It stung their skin and stole their breath.
Light and turbulent air churned at the center of the arena, obscuring the view.
"My junior brother isn't human."
Qin Zhong swallowed, his throat dry despite the chill, and finally let out a heartfelt sigh.
He had learned from Li Xiang about the Nine Nether Force, a supreme art born from the Heavenly Demon's hand. Its difficulty was notorious throughout the Great Xin Dynasty.
An ordinary prodigy could spend months cultivating in seclusion and still fail to grasp even the basics of its first volume, Tendon and Bone Tempering.
Yet from the time Lu Zaizhou delivered the incomplete manuscript to the time Li Xiang returned it, his dear junior brother had held it for no more than a day.
One day.
A mere twelve double-hours.
Not only had his junior brother mastered it, he could now use the first seven volumes of its Martial Force to meet Zhang Qilan of the Celestial Master Mansion head-on, matching a Lesser Nine Heavens Force strike brimming with the majestic might of heaven.
That ability to dismantle and reconstruct Martial Force lay completely beyond Qin Zhong's understanding of the word genius.
Beside Qin Zhong, Hong Tianbao heard the remark. His round face remained unchanged, though a