Executing the Wind-Cloud Hundred Styles with a long sword naturally had its flaws. Nalihai had a sharp eye and had long seen through the openings in Wang Chong's forms. With a thunderous roar, his hands darted straight down the centerline as he grinned savagely. "Zhou Yuchen, Eldest Senior Brother of the Kongtong Sect, who single-handedly leveled eighteen outlaw strongholds and was regarded by you Central Plains folk as the foremost swordsman of the younger generation in the southern martial world, had his sword seized and his skull shattered by me with a single move!
"To die beneath this very technique is an honor for you!"
Wang Chong thought inwardly, *So easy to fool!* He let the Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect perform his bare-handed blade-snatching art to seize the long sword. Wearing a face full of panic, Wang Chong struck out with a palm—appearing eight or nine parts flustered and clumsy, his palm force weak, scattered, and unsteady.
Nalihai sneered. Without even bothering to channel his sect's secret Diamond Prajna Palm Force, he carelessly thrust his palm forward to swat Wang Chong dead. But the moment their palm forces collided, he abruptly felt nine successive waves of palm force surging forth one after another! The force raged fiercely, a searing fiery energy invading his channels and eroding his meridians, burning and incinerating to the extreme.
This palm force was seventy to eighty percent similar to the Diamond Prajna Palm, yet starkly different in many respects. Nalihai was instantly horrified, realizing he had walked into a trap.
As the Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect, his renown among the eighteen grassland tribes was not inferior to Qian Luo Yi's.
Back when the eighteen tribes jointly elected the Divine Generals, Nalihai judged that his martial arts still had some imperfections and that he might not seize first place, so he simply chose not to participate. He often told his fellow disciples: "It was only because I didn't go back then; otherwise, Qian Luo Yi might not have secured first place so easily."
Though there was some boasting in those words, his true skill was genuinely formidable. In a direct head-to-head clash, Wang Chong would at best be evenly matched with him. But the present situation was obviously something else entirely.
Nalihai had never imagined that someone in this world could be as crafty and deceitful as Wang Chong!
The Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect urgently mustered his internal force, driving the Diamond Prajna Palm in an attempt to counterattack. But caught unprepared, he could only unleash five layers of palm force—over three layers fewer than his usual standard. With the first wave, the two sides were evenly matched. By the second wave, Nalihai felt an irritable heat rising in his internal force, clearly invaded by Wang Chong's blazing energy into his meridians. By the third wave, he clearly felt his own surge faltering, falling into a disadvantage. In the clash of the fourth wave, he felt as if he had plunged into a raging furnace. Against the fifth wave, he could no longer hold his ground, a sweet tang rushing up his throat. Yet Wang Chong still had four more waves of palm force! They forcefully shoved that mouthful of blood back down and made it spray violently from his seven facial orifices!
Having succeeded with one strike, Wang Chong saw blood spraying from the man's seven orifices, yet he still remained standing. At the same time, Wang Chong could tell that the Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect seemed to practice a protective hard-body art that allowed him to actually endure his Diamond Prajna Palm Force: Nine-Headed Fire Dragon Flash. It was too late to chamber another full technique, so he immediately followed up with the Nine-Headed Dragon King Aspect, Diamond Prajna Palm, First Variation. Although this move could not unleash nine layers of palm force, it gathered energy astonishingly fast—perfect for landing the finishing blow.
In the Western Regions, the Qingshan Sect possessed two great sect-guarding divine arts: the Diamond Prajna Palm and the Diamond Subduing Demons Divine Art!
Huogong Toutuo, the founding patriarch of the Qingshan Sect, had deeply coveted the Diamond Indestructible Divine Art, one of Shaolin's five great divine arts. When mastered, that divine art enveloped the entire body in protective astral qi, impervious to blades, spears, punches, and kicks, completely unaffected by any ferocious palm or fist styles. However, he had never learned it, so his envy was in vain.
By chance, while traveling through the kingdoms of the Western Regions with the Wudang renegade who had co-founded the sect with him, they encountered a cult master of the Great Asura Cult from the far west. A conflict arose, and the two joined hands to kill the cult master, obtaining the Great Asura Cult's sect-guarding art, the Infinite Radiance Sutra. This sutra was divided into seven chapters: Heaven, Earth, Water, Wood, Beast, Man, and Fire. Combining it with what they had learned, they created a protective divine art.
Spurred by a peculiar sentiment, Huogong Toutuo proclaimed to the outside world that this divine art was a fusion of Shaolin's Arhat Subduing Demons Art and the Diamond Indestructible Divine Art, naming it the Diamond Subduing Demons Divine Art.
Very few in the world knew the true history of this technique.
As the Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect who cultivated both of these supreme martial arts, Nalihai indeed had the qualifications to contend with Qian Luo Yi for the top spot among the Thirty-Six Divine Generals. Unfortunately for him, he ran into a freak like Wang Chong and was calculated against from head to toe.
Without uttering a word, Wang Chong unleashed twenty-seven consecutive palm strikes in a single breath. As the final palm strike landed, he distinctly felt a barrier shatter.
Nalihai staggered back seven steps, blood oozing from every single pore of his body. With a ghastly, ferocious look on his face, he snarled, "What a..." Before he could finish the sentence, he slumped limply to the ground, his whole body turning to mush.
Wang Chong had forcibly shattered his protective Diamond Subduing Demons Divine Art, pulverizing every bone in his body.
The clash between Wang Chong and Nalihai took only a few exchanges, swift as a falcon darting down. In merely a blink, Wuzhumuqin, Basar, and Wen Ducheng—who had all possessed supreme confidence in the Eldest Senior Brother of the Qingshan Sect and believed Wang Chong was doomed—could never have expected the battle to turn out so astonishingly.
Wang Chong severely wounded Nalihai with a single move, and within barely a dozen exchanges, he forcibly broke through the protective hard-body art that had made the man famous across the frontier, beating him to death on the spot.
In his white robe, Basar's face was filled with horror. He thought to himself, *Even if a grandmaster intervened, they couldn't kill Nalihai this easily. Who is this little rogue? Could he be one of the Four Paragons of the Central Plains?!*
As the foremost warrior of the White Camel Tribe, he was ultimately a powerhouse who roamed the frontier and had weathered countless storms. He immediately bellowed, "Let's join forces and kill this man at once!"
Both Wuzhumuqin and Wen Ducheng possessed sharp eyes. Though stunned that Wang Chong had dispatched Nalihai so easily, they could see that from feigning weakness at the start to striking ruthlessly in the end, Wang Chong had employed numerous ploys and set multiple traps; he hadn't killed Nalihai purely through superior power. Sharing the same thought, both aimed to kill Wang Chong first and almost simultaneously executed their lightness skills, lunging toward this formidable enemy.
Having just poured almost all his strength into slaying Nalihai—a martial artist comparable to himself—Wang Chong's true qi was heavily depleted. Naturally, he would not be so foolish as to fight the three of them at once. Employing his lightness skill, Riding Clouds and Treading Wind, he drifted lightly toward the southeast.
Had all four been present, there certainly wouldn't have been an opening. But with Nalihai slain, their encirclement had a breach. Wuzhumuqin, Basar, and Wen Ducheng each deployed their lightness skills and pursued relentlessly. They could never allow the person who killed Nalihai to escape.
As the four dashed off in pursuit, Yu Zao initially wanted to follow her master and contribute what little she could. But the little maidservant was clever; she immediately realized what she ought to do most. She shouted, "You three, follow the young master from a distance! Don't get too close lest you burden him, and make sure to leave markers along the way!" Then she turned and ran to find Monk Xuan Gang.
Tie Mingzhu, Nan Xinlan, and Wang Dong reacted differently. Wang Dong immediately bolted after them on foot. Nan Xinlan masked her face first before giving chase. Tie Mingzhu hurried back to her room to grab her pouch of iron lotus seeds, her usual hidden weapons, before snatching up her Qingfeng Sword to pursue Wang Chong.
Along the way, Wang Chong constantly circulated his energy to adjust his breathing. After sprinting seventy or eighty li, he had already recovered seventy to eighty percent of his true qi. Turning his head to look back, he saw that the three pursuers maintained a tacit understanding, refusing to separate and staying close together. He thought to himself, *I'll lead them in a few circles to test their true mettle.*
...Nalihai: "My martial arts were really high! Give me another chance—dying like this was way too hasty..."
...Zhou Yuchen: "Mine was the one that was hasty..."
Chapter 52