This was a head-on collision of strength and momentum. Around the two men whose palms had met, not only did smoke and dust billow, but even their auras became a blur.
The windblown sand and flying snow lashed outward, carrying a terrifying pressure.
The soldiers crowded atop the wall scrambled down in fright. Every military officer still inside the courtyard vaulted out over the wall, feeling as though they would be crushed to pieces if they stayed.
They even had the illusion that the entire Xiangshan Zen Monastery was trembling slightly.
Only Duan Silie fought down the terror in his mind. With his feet seemingly rooted to the earth, he stood his ground and refused to move.
Inside and outside the monastery, everyone-from the troops stationed farther out to the unsuspecting pilgrims being detained, and even the monastery's own monks-felt a tremor that did not come through their physical senses.
Ordinary people were not without perceptions beyond the body; those perceptions were simply too weak most of the time, and too easily influenced by other things.
But at that moment, everyone in Xiangshan Zen Monastery felt their minds reel, their faces filled with astonishment. Though they did not know what had happened, they knew something must have.
The disturbance in the courtyard was tremendous, but it did not actually last long.
Heads began popping up over the wall again, and the military officers who had fled returned one after another. Duan Silie kept his eyes fixed on the center without blinking.
Monk Wufa and Yi Shuyuan now stood facing one another, their palms still touching, neither making another move.
The ground beneath and around their feet, roughly twenty feet square, had become a funnel-shaped depression. Its lowest point had sunk more than two feet, and less than half the shattered