Overwhelming Force

Chen Tie had a plan. He deliberately suppressed most of his Bone Forging force, leaving only a thin layer of sinew-and-bone strength to protect himself, pretending he had only just entered Bone Forging and was unfamiliar with controlling his force.

His footwork carried him hastily backward. His movements looked perilous in the extreme as he barely evaded the first wave of crushing punches.

Bang!

The wind from the punch exploded past his shoulder, and the residual force blasted a shallow dent into the arena floor.

Yue Feng's gaze chilled slightly. Seeing Chen Tie dodge so clumsily, he grew even more certain that his opponent had only recently entered Bone Forging and had an unstable foundation.

He pressed his advantage with an unbroken stream of punches. The Thousandfold Mountain-Crushing Fist piled layer upon layer, its shadows blanketing the arena and sealing every route of retreat for Chen Tie.

For just over twenty exchanges, Yue Feng completely dominated the fight.

Yue Feng's punches were fierce and powerful. Each one that struck empty air made it thunder. Whenever one grazed Chen Tie's arm or shoulder, it sent him staggering and shook his blood and Qi.

Everyone watching below felt their hearts rise into their throats.

"Looks like he can't hold on! Chen Tie just broke through. He doesn't know how to use Bone Forging force at all!"

"Yue Feng is too strong. Half-step Bone Forging is practically the same as real Bone Forging!"

"He's going to lose! He really is going to become a whetstone!"

On the raised platform, Yue Zhengshan's expression brightened. His eyes filled with satisfaction as he waited for Yue Feng to ride this momentum into a breakthrough.

The struggle continued in the arena.

The longer Yue Feng fought, the more smoothly he moved. His major-accomplishment fist technique had reached a furnace-pure mastery, with no hesitation in his transitions between attack and defense.

Sometimes he bore down with hard punches, charging head-on with the brute strength of his perfected physique; sometimes he baited his opponent with feints, abruptly turning fists into palms to slice at openings around Chen Tie's joints, wrists, and ribs.

The physical endurance of flesh refining perfection was terrifying. Even after a hundred exchanges, his breathing remained deep and steady, with only a little sweat seeping from his temples.

Chen Tie, by contrast, deliberately breathed in rapid gasps, his chest heaving. His movements grew slower, his evasions increasingly strained, and both arms trembled with every block, as though his strength were about to run dry.

Once they passed fifty exchanges, Yue Feng had already taken complete control.

His gaze burned as the desire for a breakthrough, dormant within him for years, was fully ignited.

The pressure of a bloody life-and-death struggle and the resistance of a Bone Forging opponent were precisely the opportunity he had lacked through his years trapped at perfection.

Yue Feng's blood and Qi began to grow faintly hot, a red glow rising beneath his skin and flesh. This was no abnormal phenomenon caused by a violently potent pill, but a sign that his own blood and Qi were boiling and he was about to break through.

Now!

Yue Feng shouted inwardly, driving his perfected blood and Qi to the fullest. His sinews and bones tightened to their limit, and his imposing presence abruptly surged to its peak!

"Mountain Suppresses Mountains and Rivers!"

This was his strongest hidden killing move, one he normally could not bear to use. Today, he unleashed it at full power for the sake of his breakthrough.

He hurled a punch. Its force no longer stacked layer upon layer, but condensed into one and thunderously compressed!

The air suddenly grew stifling. Fierce winds rose in the arena, and a heavy surge of force that bore down upon the entire venue shot straight toward Chen Tie's chest!

Carrying the might of half-step Bone Forging and the martial opportunity of a breakthrough at his doorstep, this punch was the strongest blow Yue Feng had ever thrown.

Everyone's pupils abruptly contracted. They thought the outcome had been decided.

Yue Zhengshan's lips even curled into a vicious grin of certain victory.

At this lethal instant, when everyone thought Chen Tie was certain to lose and Yue Feng was about to complete his breakthrough with this blow.

The distress and weakness in Chen Tie's eyes vanished in an instant.

"I put on an act for this long, and look how full of yourself you got."

He released all the pure Bone Forging force he had kept suppressed within his body!

Every strained movement, opening, and sign of exhaustion before had been an act.

"Flesh refining perfection is still only flesh refining!"

Chen Tie neither dodged nor retreated. His presence abruptly became that of a waking tiger-overbearing, vast, and suppressing everything!

Yue Feng was shocked, vaguely sensing that something was wrong.

Chen Tie's right arm tightened, his sinews and bones vibrating as he poured his long-suppressed Bone Forging force into his fist and met Yue Feng's lethal punch head-on!

Boom!!

An enormous wave of air exploded outward from the two men. Dust swept across the arena, and fine, spiderweb cracks spread through the bluestone surface!

Two extreme forces collided madly, clashing and grinding against each other!

Wild joy flooded Yue Feng's face!

He could clearly feel his brute strength at the pinnacle of perfection holding firm against the strength of a newly advanced Bone Forging martial artist!

Just as I thought! You're bluffing. This is all you amount to!

Yue Feng was ecstatic. His breakthrough was right at hand!

He gritted his teeth and drove his blood and Qi harder, trying to use the recoil from this collision to shatter the barrier between realms!

The entire audience erupted, all believing Yue Feng was about to enter Bone Forging!

But only Chen Tie himself knew.

He had used only thirty percent of his Bone Forging strength in that punch.

Chen Tie seized the opening as Yue Feng, impatient to break through, exhausted his previous force before fresh force could follow!

Chen Tie poured the seventy percent of his Bone Forging force he had suppressed throughout the fight into his arm.

His sinews and bones vibrated, his blood and Qi thundered, and an overwhelming strength far beyond the flesh refining level swept through his entire arm!

A piercing crack of breaking bones instantly drowned out the thunderous roar!

The wild joy on Yue Feng's face suddenly froze!

He felt the sinews and bones of his arms, as sturdy as refined iron, become like glass struck by a heavy hammer in that instant!

Chen Tie's incomparably overbearing sinew-and-bone strength surged savagely through their fists and into his arms!

Crack! Crack!

Two crisp, bone-chilling snaps rang out in succession!

The sinews and bones in Yue Feng's arms shattered inch by inch. His flesh caved in, twisting out of shape!

"Aah!!"

Agony swept through his entire body. He trembled all over, his arms hanging limply, unable to muster the slightest punching force.

The vast blood and Qi that had been on the verge of breaking through its shackles instantly fell into complete chaos. His opportunity to break through shattered on the spot.

The spectators' pupils abruptly contracted, their faces filled with horror!

No one saw clearly the terrifying disparity in strength. They only saw Yue Feng, who had just been suppressing Chen Tie, lose the use of both arms in a single clash!

Yue Feng trembled all over in pain, his face as white as paper.

He was just about to concede, but Chen Tie's assault did not stop.

While Yue Feng stood rigid, Chen Tie rushed in close and turned his wrist, gathering the residual Bone Forging force that had shattered his opponent's arms into the heel of his palm.

His palm swept forward with the remaining sinew-and-bone strength and slammed into Yue Feng's dantian Qi sea.

"Stop!"

Yue Zhengshan roared and lunged toward them.

Chen Tie turned a deaf ear to him and instead moved a fraction faster.

Thud-!!

A muffled impact rang through flesh!

Yue Feng's Qi sea collapsed, and the blood and Qi circulating throughout his body scattered!

"Pfft-!!"

Yue Feng spat out a great mouthful of blood. His body flew backward like a kite with its string cut and crashed onto the arena floor.

His face was deathly gray, blood flowing ceaselessly from his mouth as his entire body convulsed. Only despair and deathly stillness remained in his eyes.

The arena fell deathly silent.

Yue Zhengshan rushed to Yue Feng's side, gathered his grievously wounded, convulsing disciple into his arms, and quickly examined his injuries.

As his fingertips touched the ruined sinews and bones, Yue Zhengshan's face went from livid to deathly pale.

Yue Feng's cultivation had been crippled.

Yue Zhengshan stared at Chen Tie with bloodshot eyes, furious beyond measure.

"You wretch! How vicious you are!"

"This was only a sparring match! Why did you strike so ruthlessly, forcibly crippling my disciple's cultivation and cutting off his lifelong future in martial arts?"

Chen Tie cupped his hands, his expression calm.

"Hall Master Yue, your words are unreasonable."

"I only recently broke through to Bone Forging, and I'm still unfamiliar with my sinew-and-bone force."

"A fight between martial artists changes in an instant. I fought with all my strength and had no way to pull back. How is that vicious?"

"Besides, in the Martial Hall Grand Competition arena, fists and feet have no eyes, and blades and swords show no mercy."

"Yue Feng stepped into the arena of his own accord, treating me as a whetstone and seeking to step over me to break through. His attacks were vicious in the extreme."

"If I had held back midway, I would be the cripple lying on the ground now."

Yue Zhengshan's chest heaved violently, his clenched teeth grinding audibly.

He knew perfectly well that Chen Tie had deliberately crippled his opponent.

But he could not refute him.

Chen Tie's reasoning was upright and aboveboard, without a single flaw to pick apart!

Hatred surged sky-high in Yue Zhengshan's eyes. He glanced at Mo Hong, who had arrived, and could only forcibly swallow his fury and resentment.

Holding back his rage, Yue Zhengshan picked up the gravely injured and unconscious Yue Feng and swept another fierce glance across the arena.

"Let's go!"

The people from the Blazing Mountain Martial Hall hurried after him, their heads hanging in dejection.