At that moment, Zhang Yinli suddenly felt like he had seen a ghost.
‘The integration of Heaven and man. Yes, I definitely sensed the integration of Heaven and man.
‘But how can a state like that appear on a Force Grade martial artist? Isn’t that state desired by even martial artists at the peak of Extreme Grade? Why does this world feel messed up? Is this world even the world that I used to know?’
Zhang Yinli’s face turned green. He felt like things were going out of his control again.
He had initially thought that Ou Yangming could not perform the Blood Flight Art in the dense forest, so if they met here, Ou Yangming would be a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. There was no way the young man could escape from him.
However, after witnessing the integration of Heaven and man, Zhang Yinli knew perhaps the situation was going to go against his will once more.
No matter what, he was already left with no choice. As tough as it would be, he must not let Ou Yangming go.
Afterward, Zhang Yinli roared and stepped forward with the urumi in his hand.
He would be humiliating himself in front of Ou Yangming, who was in the state of the integration of Heaven and man, if he was still thinking of using petty tricks or unique skills. Therefore, the only thing Zhang Yinli could do now was to suppress his opponent’s boundary with absolute power.
If his power was mighty enough, he could naturally defeat skill with power.
“Ding…”
The saber and the sword clashed again, but Ou Yangming was the one who moved backward this time.
He was equipped with armor, a helmet, a military saber, arm guards, and greaves, which gave him 11 points of Power in total.
In terms of power only, the fact that Ou Yangming also had the cultivation base of Force Grade Class Five made him superior to Zhang Yinli. Despite that, Zhang Yinli the Yang Grade powerhouse was clearly well-equipped too. Though he did not have as much as 11 points of Power, the addition of equipment on his original strength did not make him inferior at all.
Of course, the main point was if Zhang Yinli used his essential Qi, the impact and destructive power from the explosive moment could not be matched by Ou Yangming.
It was natural that the essential Qi of a Yang Grade martial artist was more powerful in a battle than those from a Force Grade powerhouse.
Ou Yangming staggered two steps back, but quickly found his footing. Nonetheless, Zhang Yinli was not going to show mercy, so he made continuous attacks with his sword. Each time he attacked, he excluded all his skills and technique, where he only used his power stab after stab.
On the other hand, Ou Yangming casually blocked the attacks. He constantly hit the weakest spot of Zhang Yinli’s sword force, but even then, he kept moving backward due to the mighty impact from his opponent.
Moreover, Ou Yangming also felt his body tremble violently each time his saber clashed with the sword. Wave after wave of formidable essential Qi penetrated his weapon to crash his meridians, causing them to hurt.
This was the effect when Zhang Yinli exerted all his force to attack by transferring his essential Qi. He was determined to make ou Yangming suffer internal injuries.
If Ou Yangming was not abundant in Qi and blood, did not have the Substitution Gem to resist the attack, and did not have the unloading power from the integration of Heaven and man, he would not have withstood Zhang Yinli’s full-forced attack and would have been stabbed in his chest already.
After fighting for another brief moment, Ou Yangming suddenly said, “What a nice move of breaking the situation with force. I can’t defeat you, so I’ll make a move first!”
Zhang Yinli fixed his gaze on Ou Yangming and attacked faster with his sword. Given the circumstances, how could he let Ou Yangming escape his sword force’s zone?
That said, Zhang Yinli saw a blood light at the next instant.
Yes, it was the blood color that had frightened him before. Following that, Ou Yangming vanished from his sight.
Zhang Yinli froze on the spot. He felt that his limbs were ice-cold as though he had fallen into a ten-thousand-year-old icehouse that had no warmth at all.
‘How could that fella perform the Blood Flight Art in this place?’
Even though Zhang Yinli did not possess a similar ability, he had more or less heard of legends with some peculiar techniques. ‘But aren’t all Blood Flights uncontrollable and only have a straight flight path?
‘How can one find an unobstructed path if one performs the Blood Flight here?’
Zhang Yinli’s face twitched hard at that moment. Next, he looked up the sky to let out an earth-shaking roar that was full of rage, then recollected himself to pursue the blood light.
No matter how Ou Yangming escaped, he must not give up halfway.
‘Unless Ou Yangming comes across reinforcements that I can’t overcome, one of us would have to stay here forever.’
Before they exchanged blows, Zhang Yinli had always thought that he would be the one leaving the dense forest alive. In spite of that, a shadow emerged and lingered in his head, which gave him an unbearable discomfort. Zhang Yinli had a strong hatred again, but it was directed at Zhang Yinfan instead of Ou Yangming
‘How could that fool offend such a powerful enemy? He really deserves to die!’
Zhang Yinli would have never thought, but would also never admit how he reacted when he first saw Ou Yangming and confirmed that the young man had killed Zhang Hanyu. Back then. Zhang Yinli had also regarded Ou Yangming as an insignificant threat that could be easily eradicated. It was not Zhang Yinfan who chose to attack Ou Yangming halfway instead of actually seeking reconciliation. It was himself.
People were all like that, after all. Nobody would care about unimportant people whom they regarded as insignificant. In their perspective, the unimportant people were born to serve them and to sacrifice for them.
Nonetheless, one day, they would realize that the unimportant people would grow up too. The unimportant people would rise to be opponents who could resist them, and would become unreachable, important people who could pin them down…
“Yah —”
An aggressive horse that was ridden by a soldier galloped back to the military camp at the speed of light.
“Halt, or you’ll be executed right away!”
A squad leader at the entrance yelled out loud. He could not let anyone barge into the military camp like that no matter what happened, or he would be the one whose head would be chopped off.
The soldier instantly stopped his horse, but he fell down due to the strong force.
Upon seeing this, the squad leader furrowed his eyebrows as he somehow had a bad feeling about this.
He could tell at once that the soldier was actually adept in riding a horse, but he still fell off the horse in that manner. This could only mean that the soldier was in a confused state of mind and was flustered.
Something terrible must have happened to cause a man to be so panicked.
The squad leader’s face changed. He immediately recalled a frightening matter, so he asked with a shaky voice, “Wh-what happened? Is there a sign of a beast tide?”
“Sir, it’s not a beast tide,” the soldier who fell got up and answered quickly.
The squad leader secretly sighed a breath of relief and responded, “As long as it’s not a beast tide. Why are you making such a fuss then?”
“Sir, we found roughly ten corpses 10 kilometers away from the camp. They belong to our brothers in the military, and one of them is Squad Leader Lin Chao from the South Camp!” The soldier replied to him loudly.
“What?” The squad leader’s face took on a ghastly expression.
He was in charge of guarding the gate today, thus he naturally knew why Lin Chao had left the camp. Lin Chao was ordered by Commanding General Fang Yihai from the South Camp to escort Master Ou Yangming to the prefecture.
‘If Lin Chao’s corpse is found on the main path, what about Master Ou?’
The squad leader took a big stride forward to pull the soldier by his collar, then he questioned angrily, “Are you lying to me?”
“I’m also from the South Camp, and I was temporarily transferred to the Provision Camp. Earlier, I was escorting forages with my squad leader, but we found Squad Leader Lin’s corpse halfway through our journey, which is why I’ve returned to report this.” The soldier smiled bitterly, then added after a pause, “A military order is like a mountain, how would I have the guts to speak nonsense and to curse a high official?”
“Wait here!” The squad leader’s face twitched.
He quickly turned to run toward the South Camp, and shouted while he ran, “Quickly notify the West Camp’s commanding general and the Armament Camp, why are you still standing there!”
After 15 minutes, the entire South Camp and the West Camp were in an uproar. Two commanding generals fumed with anger as they rode their horses out the camp with their Guards.
On the other hand, Tian Boguang could not help but laugh when he received the news in the East Camp. Although the incident had nothing to do with him, he felt happy to see Chen Yifan suffer.
That being said, he was soon unable to celebrate in joy anymore.
This was because Ni Yunhong had hurried to his residence to reprimand him in his face, “Tian Boguang, does the attack on Ou Yangming have anything to do with you?”
Tian Boguang was the East Camp’s commanding general but was shockingly polite toward Ni Yunhong.
If anyone had called him to account like that – even Commanding General Deng Zhicai from the Middle Camp — he had the guts to rebuke.
However, when Tian Boguang noticed Ni Yunhong’s face that was red with anger, the slight dissatisfaction that he was initially feeling disappeared right away.
“Eldest Young Master, you’ve misunderstood, this has nothing to do with me at all!” Tian Boguang dared not hesitate and quickly swore that he spoke the truth.
“I hope it has nothing to do with you,” Ni Yunhong uttered after looking deeply at him. The look in his eyes was fierce and unusually aggressive. “If I find out who it is, the Ni family will make him pay in blood, kill nine generations in his family, and not even fowls and dogs will be spared!”
Tian Boguang was dumbfounded as he could not make sense of why Ni Yunhong was so furious. It did not seem like an act of pity.
“Elder Brother, this isn’t good! Old Craftsman passed out!” Ni Yinghong hurried over and called out to his brother anxiously.
Ni Yunhong’s face changed. “How is he now?”
“Old Craftsman is quite old now, and he spent a lot of thought on designing a divine weapon for Chen Yifan, so when he suddenly heard of Ou… His news…” Ni Yinghong replied hesitantly, then shook her head and said, “I’ve informed our family through Starlight Messenger Technique to ask them for a spiritual pill, but I don’t know how long he can hold on for.”
Tian Boguang gasped. ‘A spiritual pill, they’re actually going to use a spiritual pill?’
He finally realized that the siblings valued Ou Yangming much more than he had imagined.
On the other side, the two commanding generals who had arrived at the scene of the incident were infuriated.
Many orders were given, and the soldiers began to work.
‘Bring him back, dead or alive!’
‘Whatever it takes, find Ou Yangming!’
‘Whatever it takes, avenge our brothers’ deaths!’
