The full force of Chongyue's punch blasted into the lakebed, then reflected upward, turning the bottom of Black Tortoise Lake within a thousand meters into a medium for transmitting his punching force. Viewed from high above, a gigantic fist imprint appeared in the rock beneath Black Tortoise Lake, covering the entire lake.
Then that force rebounded from the bottom. The water beneath Zhang Liao's feet exploded all at once, and the reflected punching force thrust upward like enormous invisible pillars of dark iron. Zhang Liao was blasted off the water.
Chongyue's figure abruptly grew larger before him. Seizing the instant he was airborne, Chongyue closed in, his right fist tearing through the air as the Dark Steel Armament Haki concentrated over his knuckles slammed toward Zhang Liao's chest. Before the fist arrived, its pressure had already compressed the space around Zhang Liao into ripples like those on water. Drawn by the momentum of that punch, all the water in Black Tortoise Lake surged back toward Chongyue's fist. Streams poured in from every direction, gathering over his knuckles into a rapidly spinning ring of water.
Zhang Liao had nothing to push off and no way to dodge. The Sacred Sword was still in his right hand, but the fist had already reached his chest. In a thousandth of a second, he made his only choice-spitting out the Intrepid Sword he had kept clenched in his mouth, letting it fall straight into his left hand.
Both swords crossed before his chest at once.
"King's Shield · Absolute Defense."
Zacian Power condensed before him into the phantom of a golden sacred shield. Its edges were inlaid with the radiance of Zacian's unique dual types: the silvery white of Steel and the gold of Fairy. The two powers converged and spun over the sword-shaped