Like all things in the world, the martial path had its own process of evolution.
In the beginning, combat between martial artists was nothing more than comparing who possessed more internal strength, who had greater explosive power, who held a stronger physique, and whose techniques were more exquisite.
Until one day.
When heroes vied for the title of Number One Under Heaven, a martial artist—pushed to the brink of life and death before formidable rivals from all corners of the land—entered an extraordinary state.
This state was exceedingly peculiar: for it was an arena upon which the eyes of the entire world were fixed, where victory or defeat would be known to countless masses, and the renown of hundreds of millions converged. That intangible "atmosphere" crystallized into a tangible psychological weight, nearly crushing the martial artist to the point of mental collapse.
Yet that martial artist was an epochal genius.
He endured.
What followed was an unimaginable qualitative transformation. His martial path was no longer confined to the physical body; he underwent a complete metamorphosis to focus on the power of mind and spirit.
Once a martial artist's mind could bear the weight of worldly renown, their spirit underwent a transformation, which in turn nourished their physical form. Its concrete manifestation was the ultimate evolution of the five senses: they could hear an ant crawling a hundred paces away, experience premonitions before danger struck, and slow down the world before their eyes.
In that era, that martial artist was revered as the Martial God.
He was the first martial artist to accomplish this spiritual transformation. In honor of this pioneer of the martial path, people named this power of the mind and spirit:
Divine intent.
The invisible net descended once more, vast internal strength coiled around every thread. In a daze, Wang Ping saw the great net morph into a sharp talon.
Heavenly Peng Dragon Seizing!
With this burst of power, Xu Bingzheng dropped straight to the ground. His foot stamped down heavily, and visible cracks instantly spiderwebbed across the earth beneath his feet.
Then, with every step he took fracturing the ground, his palm slowly lifted. It was clearly empty, yet looked as though it were holding aloft a towering mountain. Rolling waves of internal strength whipped up a howling gale, pouring entirely into the net suspended in midair, astonishingly outlining a tangible, invisible peak!
"Crush him!"
Before the move struck, his shout arrived first. What shocked Wang Ping was that Xu Bingzheng's vocalization produced an effect he had never anticipated upon reaching his ears.
Rumble!
It was as if someone had set off a firecracker right by his ear. A heavy, booming tremor tore through him from outside to inside, buffeting sinews and bones until his entire body resonated.
This vibration was utterly beyond his control. In an instant, his body lost all responsiveness, and a shadow fell over his mind. It was as though a colossal mountain were truly bearing down, freezing his thoughts so that he could only watch helplessly as the great net descended toward his head.
The process did not last long.
From start to finish, it took no more than the snap of a finger. Ordinarily it would not be worth mentioning, but in mortal combat between martial artists, a pause of a single instant was enough to decide life and death.
'So this is divine intent... It can even be used like this!'
'Bypassing the physical body to strike directly at the mind?'
Understanding dawned upon Wang Ping: he had already lost. Just now, his mind had yielded to Xu Bingzheng, turning into the little dragon seized by the Heavenly Peng.
And once the mind was defeated, the physical body would die!
In the spark of a flint, Wang Ping did not hesitate in the slightest. He whipped out an elixir bottle concealed on his person and hurled it at the great net falling over his head.
"Take the elixir!"
"Hmm?"
Almost at the same moment, Xu Bingzheng let out a surprised murmur. Yet he did not catch the bottle; instead, he recoiled violently, drawing back the invisible net with him.
This showed that the strike which had nearly cornered Wang Ping into certain death was far from his full power; otherwise, he could never have released and retracted it with such effortless control.
In the next second, the elixir bottle burst open. A shower of white powder sprayed into the air. A wisp of internal strength that Xu Bingzheng had failed to withdraw in time caught the powder and instantly combusted out of thin air. From afar, it looked as if a torch had been ignited beneath the veil of night, blending flames and rain into a single blur.
"Power-Dissolving Powder, capable of burning internal strength."
Xu Bingzheng frowned slightly. "It seems you hold not only restorative medicines, but toxic elixirs as well. Unfortunately, you still fail to comprehend the fundamental disparity between us.
"The path of utmost sincerity grants foreknowledge.
"Anyone else, dead set on securing the elixir and hearing your cry without time to think, might truly have fallen victim to your Power-Dissolving Powder.
"Yet to a titled martial master, such tricks are meaningless.
"For I have no need to think at all. I need only follow the intuition granted by my divine intent. Nothing harmful to me can ever touch me."
Wang Ping naturally would not stand around like a fool watching Xu Bingzheng posture. The moment Xu spoke, Wang Ping had already darted toward the courtyard exit, flinging out another bottle of poison—Gu Poison Pills, pitch-black pellets the size of rice grains.
Yet Xu Bingzheng paid them no heed.
Even though Wang Ping had calculated the trajectory precisely with his spiritual sense, Xu Bingzheng dodged the Gu Poison Pills with effortless ease, as if possessing uncanny foresight, and pressed closely in pursuit.
"A cornered beast's futile struggle.
"You broke through to internal strength too recently. You possess a whole body of martial cultivation, yet your skill has failed to keep pace. Your Cloud-Piercing Sky-Shaking Bow hasn't reached great completion yet, has it?"
Xu Bingzheng strolled leisurely, his tone relaxed:
"For us martial artists, skill is the foundation of life and livelihood. Without skill, no matter how high your cultivation or how strong your physique, you are nothing more than an unarmed monkey.
"And skill takes time to hone.
"With your crude, half-baked skill, you might have gotten lucky and killed Chen Haoyan, but before the divine intent of a titled martial master, you are just a puny monkey."
With those words, he abruptly clenched his fist.
With that single motion, the invisible net blanketing midair suddenly constricted. The voice that struck straight at the mind echoed once more, rolling through the sky like thunder:
"This fist carries twenty years of honing.
"What can you possibly block it with?"
Rumble!
Wang Ping looked up. The phantom image of the Heavenly Peng seizing the dragon surfaced in his mind again. His thoughts were suppressed, his soul shaken, leaving him frozen in place once more.
This time, however, he regained clarity far more swiftly.
'Break!'
A martial artist's divine intent could suppress a mortal's mind, but it could never shake an immortal cultivator's spiritual sense. At this moment, it suddenly flared, instantly seizing command of Wang Ping's body.
Beyond that, his spiritual sense captured a fleeting scene.
'This is...?'
In an instant, Wang Ping, who had already prepared himself to die, felt his heart leap. Like a flash of lightning cutting through the dark night, a doubt buried deep in his heart was finally resolved.
'It seems I'm not the only one being plotted against tonight... In that case, victory and defeat, life and death are not yet decided. Better to wage a desperate struggle—there might still be a chance!'
With this realization, Wang Ping unleashed his power decisively.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
A sound like a rushing river surged from within him. His sturdy skin turned crimson in an instant, looking as though blood could seep out at any second!
Next, the Black Hornless Dragon Bow appeared in his hand. Once again, he drew it into a full moon, but this time, creaking sounds like the straining of a bowstring erupted from his own body, faintly accompanied by a dragon's roar. His sinews and bones were vibrating, releasing explosive force, pouring the entirety of his strength into the weapon!
"Hmm?"
Almost simultaneously, Xu Bingzheng frowned.
For the moment Wang Ping broke through the psychological suppression, an intense sense of crisis—like thorns prickling his back, an impending catastrophe—suddenly surged within Xu Bingzheng's heart.
This was the intuition granted by divine intent; he could not doubt it.
Yet... why?
'What is happening?'
Xu Bingzheng was not surprised that Wang Ping could break through the mental suppression. Divine intent, after all, was not a physical object; incorporeal mental power inherently required gaze, sound, and speech to manifest its potency, and if the target was mentally prepared, its effect naturally suffered a steep decline.
He was, after all, merely a titled martial master.
To truly unleash the power of divine intent was something perhaps only martial arts grandmasters who had attained "Seeing the Divine" could accomplish, beyond his current reach.
Yet the question was:
'Even if he broke through my mental suppression, with his martial arts, even if he wagers his life with a desperate secret technique, how could he possibly threaten me?'
Xu Bingzheng's thoughts raced furiously.
In his eyes, the world's motion slowed down. This, too, was an effect of divine intent, affording him more time to contemplate countermeasures against the crisis.
In an instant, he devised over a dozen contingency plans.
He ran through each plan in his mind and checked the feedback of his intuition. Whichever plan reduced his sense of crisis, he would choose.
Yet this time, the outcome was different.
'...None?'
Xu Bingzheng found it inconceivable.
No matter which plan he chose, the sense of crisis did not waver in the slightest; as time slowed to a crawl, it only grew heavier and heavier!
'I... might die?'
What kind of joke was this?!
In the flash of a spark, Xu Bingzheng made his decision. The fist hurtling downward jerked upward, and the invisible net whipped back the rain, surging in reverse toward the sky.
Almost at the same moment, Wang Ping moved.
With this motion, the Black Hornless Dragon Bow twanged, Wang Ping's sinews and bones snapped, and his internal strength detonated with a roar. It was as though not one man was releasing an arrow, but an entire army firing a volley!
In an instant, the long arrow leaped from the string, not as a single straight line, but carrying a shattered, exploding flurry of internal strength arrows that smashed toward Xu Bingzheng like a raging storm. The tremendous momentum shattered the falling rain all around, blasting clear a rainless void several meters across.
At the same time, Wang Ping's vision went dark.
He had held nothing back in this strike, even using his spiritual sense to squeeze every ounce from his physique in a forced eruption. Now that the blow was unleashed, he felt utterly hollowed out.
Yet he dared not dally.
In the blink of an eye, the world froze. As heaven and earth spun, he found himself within the space of the Classic of Great Peace, swirling blood-red script surfacing across the scroll:
Perish with the Sun!
The numerous injuries Xu Bingzheng had inflicted upon him earlier were now fully recorded, converted into tangible retribution to be repaid in full!
Pfft!
Raising his eyes, the world returned to normal. A flower of blood suddenly blossomed on Xu Bingzheng's body—the retribution of Perish with the Sun—yet it was minuscule.
The injuries were too minor.
The gap between Wang Ping and Xu Bingzheng was far greater than that between him and Chen Haoyan before, and this time Wang Ping had suffered no severed limbs.
Thus the retribution was meager, causing Xu Bingzheng to stall for only an instant.
Yet as the saying went, in a martial artist's fight to the death, an instant's pause was often enough to decide victory or defeat, even life and death.
'Now!' Wang Ping's eyes went wide.
Without a sound, without a sign, as if born purely from someone's thought in the distance, another flower of blood bloomed upon Xu Bingzheng.
Bloom of a Single Thought.
"Shouchong—!!"
Xu Bingzheng's pain-wracked, venomous roar mingled with the sound of rain, the patter of falling blood, and the sonic boom of Wang Ping's all-out arrow volley, turning increasingly shrill and desperate.
Compared to the retribution from Perish with the Sun, the sudden intervention of Shouchong was what truly dealt him a fatal blow. That blood flower blossomed right on his chest, piercing not only his flesh, but his cultivation body as well, throwing his internal strength into total disarray, running rampant through his meridians!
And precisely at this lethal juncture, Wang Ping's life-wagered strike arrived!
Confronted with this life-and-death crisis, Xu Bingzheng made no attempt to defend. Instead of retreating, he advanced, the boiling internal strength within him erupting in that instant!
Yet at that very moment—
An aged chuckle drifted eerily from the curtain of rain: "Merely touching upon the 'Divine' without truly 'Seeing the Divine'—and with just that, you dare speak of foreknowledge?"
"You again... You lingering old ghost!"
Xu Bingzheng gritted his teeth, only to feel a tremendous mental pressure in that voice that weighed heavily even on him, dragging his thoughts to a crawl.
"Besides, what if it were true foreknowledge? So long as the force is great enough and the speed swift enough, so-called foreknowledge does nothing more than compound your dread.
"To give an example.
"With the next blade, I shall sever your right hand."
A flash of bloody light burst anew.
Xu Bingzheng's right hand was impaled, blowing open a bowl-sized bloody cavity on the spot as blossoming destructive force ravaged his bones and flesh.
The internal strength he had erupted with to deflect Wang Ping's desperate strike shattered alongside it.
He had perceived the danger in advance and tried to evade, yet could not.
All of this unfolded in the span of a flint spark. Even the exchange between Shouchong and Xu Bingzheng was transmitted through thoughts during the clash of their divine intents.
Martial artists who were not titled martial masters with minds refined to the subtle realm could neither perceive their collision nor hear that instantaneous conversation.
Swish! Swish!
The flurry of arrows arrived.
Dozens of small wounds instantly burst across Xu Bingzheng's entire body, while a long arrow skewered the left hand he desperately raised before his forehead.
In the next second, his silhouette vanished from the spot.
Almost simultaneously, four or five silver throwing daggers appeared out of thin air where he had just stood, each radiating a chill that made Wang Ping's scalp tingle.
'Where did he go?!'
Wang Ping's thoughts spun. As though struck by sudden inspiration, he looked up, only then catching sight of Xu Bingzheng's figure trailing bloody light as it rapidly vanished deep into a dark cloud.
The Immortal's Rope!
The origin of Xu Bingzheng's title—this cloud-scaling, sky-ascending lightness skill was the true foundation of his life, and in the final moment, he had successfully executed it.
"Hmph, he runs fast indeed."
Under the moonlight, the white-haired Daoist Shouchong strode out in his robes, lingering with a hint of regret upon the dark clouds before withdrawing his gaze.
Then he turned to Wang Ping and grinned broadly:
"Good disciple, I truly didn't misjudge you! You're a natural-born rebel!"
"Old bastard..." Wang Ping gritted his teeth.
"You knew all along that I killed Chen Haoyan, so you shadowed me the whole time, waiting for that corrupt dog of an official to notice something amiss and track me down."
"Quite so." Shouchong nodded with a beaming smile.
"The county yamen is heavily fortified; it wasn't convenient for me to force my way in.
"That Xu fellow is a cautious old tortoise who rarely shows his face. Fortunately, Chen Haoyan died, and Xu coveted the elixir in your hands, which finally made him reveal a flaw."
Without question, he had been used as bait by Shouchong once again.
Xu Bingzheng thought he had uncovered the true culprit, but in truth, it was a case of the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole lurked behind—he had been lured out of the yamen by Shouchong.
For tonight's grand drama, this old bastard was the director behind the scenes!
At this thought, Wang Ping looked up, about to speak, but saw only Shouchong's receding back.
"Though Xu Bingzheng escaped, his wounds will take at least a year or half a year to heal. Chaos is bound to erupt in the county seat, so this old man won't linger here.
"No time to waste—I'm leaving tonight.
"Good disciple, the rivers and lakes are vast and the road is long. Take care of yourself!"
Wang Ping: "..."
This old bastard really was utterly shameless!
Wang Ping took several deep breaths before finally catching his wind. He glanced over at Liu Ye, who had fainted on the spot the moment Xu Bingzheng fled severely wounded.
Checking his breath—lucky enough, he was still breathing.
What now?
Even though Xu Bingzheng was battered to that extent and posed no immediate threat, the county yamen and over a hundred constables were still there. Staying at the Su residence carried no small risk.
Looks like it's time to run.
Just then, Wang Ping felt a sudden intuition. Coming to his senses, he saw the woman standing beneath the eaves, her beautiful eyes staring straight at him.
At some point, Madam Su had awakened.
She seemed to have witnessed the entire ordeal. She knew Wang Ping had killed Chen Haoyan, understood that his life hung in the balance, and knew even better that he had to flee immediately.
Yet once Wang Ping fled, she would be left here alone.
When that happened, all alone, devoid of the power to protect herself, and stripped of Wang Ping's shelter, what sort of malice would she encounter, and what fate would await her?
She did not know, but it was sure not to be pleasant.
And so she simply watched.
Her dark, beautiful eyes, veiled beneath the curtain of rain, hid whatever thoughts stirred within her. Silent, she simply gazed at Wang Ping from across the rain.
The curtain of rain seemed to sever two separate worlds.
In the next second, Wang Ping hoisted Liu Ye onto his back, took up his bow and saber, and strode forward, breaking through the curtain of rain. Coming before the woman, he spoke in a light tone:
"Let's go. I'll take you out of the city."
Chapter 28