The fierce wind howled beside Yang Ge’s ears.
Looking down from a height of twenty or thirty zhang up in the air, the white-haired elder below appeared as insignificant as an ant.
But in Yang Ge’s eyes, that same white-haired elder was as towering and majestic as a high mountain, emanating a sense of grandeur that felt impossibly out of reach and left him with a feeling of helplessness as if a bird unable to cross over!
The reality was indeed so; he had just chased after that old turtle, hacking away with over a hundred full-powered slashes, yet he hadn’t been able to harm even a single hair.
However, it was precisely this sense of powerlessness, the realization that he had squeezed out all his strength to no avail and had backed himself into a corner, that kicked Yang Ge into a complete dead end!
At this moment, his mind was a whirlpool of thousands of thoughts—life and death, success and failure, honor and disgrace, pros and cons...
But his heart was eerily empty, reflecting only one brilliant thought: ’Break through that mountain, crack open his turtle shell!’
Even he hadn’t noticed that, in a desperate move, he had already unleashed his strongest technique, which he hadn’t used for a long time.
That mix of hysteria and inexplicable calmness ripping through his emotions might be named: without madness, there is no survival!
On the ground...
The white-haired elder had also discarded numerous distracting thoughts in a very short time, adjusting his mental and physical state to their peak. Under the increasingly oppressive aura of Yang Ge, he pinched a sword technique with composed ease, bellowing with a full voice, "The universal Qi whirls boundlessly, my Dao thrives day by day... No demons shall prevail!"
He pointed his sword finger sharply towards Yang Ge suspended in the air, and his profound and abyssal Protective True Qi burst forth fiercely. In an instant, endless torrents of Sword Qi surged skyward, like a great river rolling backwards, a hanging river rising high, similar to the wrath of the heavens unleashing a thunderous catastrophe to cleanse the mortal world of all its filth!
The impenetrable tide of terrifying Thunder Sword Qi was like a gleaming, smooth ribbon of bright purple, rushing endlessly and mightily towards Yang Ge as he descended with his slashing strike.
Seeing this, Yang Ge released a long-accumulated blade intent, manifesting as a blindingly bright sword light too dazzling for the naked eye, cleaving down upon the Thunder Sword Qi tide!
There was no radiant splendor of the ceaseless rotation of the five elements and yin and yang.
There was also no overwhelming presence of invincible Evil Qi.
Just one point of pure, extreme, bright sword light!
Or to say...
The five elements, yin and yang, the invincible Evil Qi... all were encompassed in that one point of sword light!
From simplicity to complexity, and then from complexity back to simplicity, Yang Ge had finally refined his blade art to its true essence.
The dao of the blade is fierce!
"Shiii, shiii, shiii..."
The bright blade light struck upon the Thunder Sword Qi tide, akin to a sharp knife cutting through cloth hung out to dry.
Yang Ge’s descending momentum didn’t slow down in the slightest as he cleaved through the mighty tide of Thunder Sword Qi and plunged directly towards the white-haired elder on the ground.
The white-haired elder, seeing this, pinched a sword gesture with his left hand and pointed desperately at the sky, his beard and hair flying as he roared, "When the demon rises an inch, the Dao rises a foot, duh!"
"Zzi."
A crackling sound, like electricity escaping, resonated, and the Thunder Sword Qi tide shone brilliantly. The originally purple-tinted white Thunder Sword Qi tide flashed a bleak white, casting light upon his distorted face from straining too much, savage as an enraged lion!
After another eruption, the Thunder Sword Qi tide, which had been smoothly cleaved by that one point of blade light, finally stabilized.
Just when it looked like they would be locked in stalemate again...
At that moment, a mad roar from Yang Ge echoed from high above, his voice hoarse with desperation, "One move, no return, break for me!"
The white-haired elder, hearing this, suddenly opened his eyes. Just as he was taking a closer look, he felt a breath of sharpness to its extreme, clearly traveling down his own Sword Qi, and his fingertips seemed to already sense the icy touch of that blade’s edge!
Before he could react, he felt a cold sensation at his chin as a sliver of fine Sword Qi cut off a strand of his white beard and grazed past his neck, flying into the distance...
Shocked, the elder’s vigor momentarily dissipated, and he instinctively stepped back.
This retreat caused the blindingly white Thunder Sword Qi tide to flash erratically, lighting up and dimming. The originally trickling sharp aura became a torrential waterfall, overwhelming him.
The white-haired elder did not dare to hesitate and, without thinking, shouted "Explode" as he retracted his move and leaped backward.
The next second, Yang Ge who swung down with his blade crashed heavily in the spot where the elder had been standing. The blade light turned into an overwhelming wave of Sword Qi that burst forward, attacking the retreating white-haired elder.
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"Boom..."
A deafening roar erupted, and amidst the quaking earth and hills, a giant mushroom cloud rose in the forest.
Yang Ge and the white-haired elder, like two pieces of tattered cloth, were sent flying backward, spewing blood, smashing through several large trees before finally steadying themselves and immediately, as if by unspoken agreement, turned tail and ran.
The good news was that Yang Ge had won this exchange!
The bad news was that it was a pyrrhic victory!
His final burst of Sword Qi had struck the elder who was busy fleeing and whose Protective True Qi was at its nadir.
But he, being at the center of the residual forces of the explosion, had neither the strength nor the time to dodge and had to endure the full brunt of the exploding residue of the Thunder Sword Qi tide.
Who ended up worse off was hard to say...
After running through miles of forest while coughing up blood, Yang Ge finally managed to stabilize his boiling True Qi. Leaning against a large rock, checking his body for damage, he didn’t forget to threaten the old turtle, "In half a month’s time, if you don’t return every penny of my money, I’ll come looking for you again!"