But there was no time to marvel once again at the boy's uniquely profound command of sword techniques, because this move of his had not, at this moment, been used to evade those three bursts of flame at all!
Or rather, he had not evaded them completely.
The strike delivered by Shell Shedding met the burst hurtling toward his eyes. He could have leaned aside to evade the other two, but he expressionlessly abandoned that opportunity. This [Shell Shedding] did not feint left to go right, but feinted left to go forward!
He actually pressed forward again behind his sword!
A sudden surge of killing intent was already gathering momentum.
Eyes, throat, heart-the three points roughly formed a line, but there was a clear bend in it, particularly between the latter two: a thirty-degree slant.
Within the gap created by that bend, Pei Ye turned slightly sideways, letting one strike pierce the top of his shoulder and another tear open his upper arm. Blood sprayed, and in a single step he had crashed right up to Shang Huaitong!
Their eyes met, blazing!
In the stands, countless people leaned forward, eyes wide, mouths open but speechless.
It was an extremely dangerous, utterly unreasonable move, and now an extremely dangerous, utterly unreasonable situation.
They had watched five or six consecutive exchanges of advances and attacks. Everyone was waiting for a "retreat"-which, of course, had to come.
Because this was an inevitable law of combat: a stretched spring had to recoil, an opening could accommodate only so many moves, and a breath could be held for only so long. Without openings and breathing room, a swordsman could not strike either.
Every fight required retreat; the only question was who would retreat first.
And when Shang Huaitong's four-fire sword appeared, the answer had become