The instant the black staff appeared, Li Yan performed a circling step beneath his feet and flashed to the side, narrowly avoiding the frontal strike of the flaming greatsword in a lightning-flash instant.
At the same time, borrowing the momentum of his twisting body, the movement of his feet drove the power of his waist. A force spiraled through his meridians and swiftly traveled into both arms.
His wrists shook in response, and with the momentum of his body's rotation, the black staff swung up. Everything had happened too suddenly; Li Yan needed to observe first. To conceal his cultivation, he did not fully use his strength.
As spiritual power surged rapidly from his palms, the yin energy spitting from the black staff abruptly swelled by more than a foot.
Li Yan's reaction was likewise incredibly swift. The black staff had barely begun its swing before it smashed diagonally into the blade of the descending flaming greatsword. Blue-black yin energy and red-gold flames collided in an instant.
"Boom!"
A heaven-shaking explosion rang out. Li Yan felt the ground beneath his feet shudder violently, while a mass of red-black airwaves erupted before his eyes.
The airwaves first rapidly contracted inward, then exploded outward in every direction amid the deafening blast! The red-gold radiance around Li Yan was immediately driven far away amid a frantic surging tide.
At that moment, Li Yan could even see the vast rocky ground beneath his feet with his naked eyes alone.
When Li Yan and the others had walked here before, it had been as though they had entered a mist. Light filled every direction, above, below, left, and right; they could not even see the ground underfoot.
"Whoosh!"
Amid the brief explosion, the black staff Li Yan had swung with the momentum only held against