Guo Jing gave chase, soon spotting Ke Zhen'e and Ouyang Feng locked in battle not far ahead.
Before he could reach them, a dull boom echoed through the air.
The fine steel staff slipped from Ke Zhen'e's grasp and flew into the air.
The old man was thrown backward through the air by the immense force of the palm strike.
Guo Jing pressed down hard with his toes against the loose gravel, his robes trailing an afterimage in the wind.
He shot forward like a roc spreading its wings, extending both arms.
With one hand firmly supporting Ke Zhen'e's back, he used his inner energy to completely neutralize that overbearing palm force.
"First Master, how are you?"
Ke Zhen'e's chest heaved violently, blood bubbling from the corners of his mouth.
He reached back, grabbed Guo Jing's sleeve, and roared:
"I'm not dead yet!"
"Jing'er, cut off the Old Venom quickly! Don't let him get away!"
Guo Jing looked up. Not far off, Ouyang Feng was standing upside down on the ground.
With both hands propping him up on the yellow earth, his disheveled hair hung down, and his clothes were tattered like a beggar's.
Yet the overwhelming aura surrounding him was so oppressive that even the chirping of insects around them fell completely silent.
Guo Jing stared at him, his expression growing solemn bit by bit.
"First Master."
"Please step back."
Ke Zhen'e picked up his iron staff and retreated several meters.
Guo Jing took a step forward, his left leg bending slightly as his right palm slowly drew a circle in the air.
It was none other than Proud Dragon Has Repentance from the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.
Several zhang away, the disheveled Ouyang Feng abruptly froze and snapped his head up.
What he felt first was not the wind of the palm.
Instead, the surrounding air suddenly grew as heavy as lead, tightening the throat of anyone nearby.
The withered grass on the ground flattened against the earth all at once.
Fist-sized gravel began rolling frantically to both sides.
A small tree a zhang away, as thick as a bowl, began swaying despite the lack of wind.
Guo Jing pushed his palm forward in what seemed like a casual, ordinary strike.
Yet the mad, eccentric grin on Ouyang Feng's face vanished instantly.
Martial instincts etched into his very bones told him: he could not allow this palm strike to land directly.
With a strange screech, Ouyang Feng slammed all four limbs onto the ground, his back arching high.
His belly puffed up into a sphere at a speed visible to the naked eye, his neck swelling thick.
"Ribbit-croak—!!"
An extraordinarily dull and eerie croak issued from his throat.
The noise sounded like the ringing of a bell in an ancient temple; the sound waves it emitted actually shattered the bark of several nearby trees.
With both palms filled with inner energy, Ouyang Feng slammed them forward along the ground!
The ultimate art of White Camel Manor—Toad Stance!
Boom!
Two fierce, overbearing palm forces collided solidly head-on!
The hard yellow earth beneath their feet shattered like a spiderweb, collapsing directly into a deep pit.
Ke Zhen'e stood behind them, his robes snapping in the wind.
Yet he remained motionless, listening intently to the commotion ahead.
Ouyang Feng had thought he could flatten his opponent with a single palm strike.
Yet the instant their palms made contact, his expression shifted drastically.
Just as the first wave of force discharged from Guo Jing's palm was blocked,
a second, even more formidable hidden force surged forward like a raging tide.
Then came a third wave, and a fourth!
Layer upon layer, continuous and relentless, each wave stronger than the last!
Over these years, Guo Jing had practiced without missing a day.
His mastery of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms was far beyond what it had been in those early days.
Especially with this technique, Proud Dragon Has Repentance.
The most difficult aspect was never "ferocity," but rather "reserve."
Striking out was easy; holding back a reserve of strength was hard.
To allow follow-up forces to stack wave upon wave was true mastery.
Now when Guo Jing launched a palm strike, reserve force remained behind it.
One layer pressing upon another.
One wave chasing another.
This was a fundamental principle he had comprehended from the Nine Yin Manual.
A seemingly plain palm push could, the instant it encountered resistance, stack thirteen consecutive follow-up forces in a short breath of time!
Even Hong Qigong back in the day would have conceded defeat to the sheer purity and heavy depth of this single technique.
Ouyang Feng's feet sank into the yellow earth, the soil burying the tops of his feet.
Yet a terrifying brilliance suddenly burst from his murky, yellowish eyes.
It was not fear, but the ecstasy of a lunatic.
"Good!!"
"What powerful palm strikes!!"
Two more strange screeches ripped from Ouyang Feng's throat as he violently urged the reversed true qi inside his body.
With every hidden force Guo Jing added, Ouyang Feng's Toad Stance pushed upward by a full ten percent to match it!
Neither would yield to the other, pushing their inner energy to the absolute limit.
The air around them seemed squeezed tight.
Guo Jing's robes billowed backward.
Ouyang Feng's wild hair flew back behind him.
Neither of them took a step back, yet their feet began to move.
They were not walking on their own; rather, they were being forcibly pushed back and forth by each other's inner energy.
Soles ground through gravel.
Guo Jing dragged two deep furrows beneath his feet.
On Ouyang Feng's side, it was even more exaggerated; his feet practically plowed through the earth.
He looked like an old monster ramming forward against a mountain.
The surrounding air grew heavier and heavier, causing even Ke Zhen'e watching from behind to feel a tight pressure in his chest.
His expression altered slightly, and he took a few more steps back.
Just as both forces were pushed to their apex...
The two true qis detonated with a boom at the center point.
Guo Jing stumbled back three heavy steps—thump, thump, thump—each step leaving a two-inch-deep footprint in the earth.
Using the recoil force, Ouyang Feng let out a series of strange shrieks as he flipped five somersaults midair.
Smack!
His palms landed first, followed by his feet flipping over to settle firmly on the ground.
Both remained unscathed, looking across the scattered gravel at each other at the same time.
Neither made another move immediately.
Back during the second Mount Hua Sword Contest, Guo Jing was no match for Ouyang Feng.
However, over the past decade and more, Guo Jing had made courageous strides forward, thoroughly mastering the Nine Yin Manual.
Though Ouyang Feng's understanding of Nine Yin had been inverted and scrambled, he had relied on his own cultivation to forcibly forge a weird martial art characterized by reversed meridians and unorthodox moves.
This skill might not surpass orthodox Nine Yin, but it excelled in being bizarre and unpredictable.
Matching each other head-on today, they proved to be evenly matched, split right down the middle.
Guo Jing dropped his numb wrist, deeply shaken in his heart:
"More than ten years have passed, and though Ouyang Feng is mad,"
"his skills haven't regressed one bit. If anything, he's improved considerably!"
Ouyang Feng was also staring at Guo Jing, his head tilting slowly to the side:
"Brat, you..."
"are impressive."
Guo Jing ignored him, simply withdrawing his palms slowly.
Worried about Guo Jing and Ke Zhen'e, Huang Rong rushed over with Guo Fu, Da Wu, and Xiao Wu.
Hearing Huang Rong's approach, Ke Zhen'e knew strong reinforcements had arrived and immediately burst into wild laughter:
"Hahaha! Old Venom, even if you sprouted wings, you wouldn't escape today!"
"Today is the day of your death! I will send you to the netherworld to kowtow and repent to my five sworn brothers and sisters!"
As he spoke, a sudden pain shot through his chest, but he forced himself to endure it:
"This old debt..."
"...it's time we settled it!"
Hearing this, Huang Rong's face darkened as well.
Guo Jing said nothing, but he shifted half a step forward, ready to strike at any moment.
Yet Ouyang Feng did not fly into a rage; instead, he stood there with a look of utter bewilderment:
"Old Venom..."
He lowered his head and murmured the name over and over.
"Old Venom?"
Then Ouyang Feng stuck out a filthy finger, pointed at his own nose, and asked:
"Hey, old blind man."
"Are you saying I am Old Venom?"
Ke Zhen'e's beard trembled with rage:
"Who else would I be talking to?!"
"You despicable, shameless Old Venom!"
Ouyang Feng froze:
"So... my name is Old Venom?"
Ke Zhen'e shook all over in fury, slamming his heavy iron staff down into the pile of gravel with a sharp clang:
"Hmph! You act despicably, using poison to harm people."
"Your heart is even more venomous!"
"If you aren't Old Venom, what else are you?!"
"In this whole world, besides you, what other bastard is worthy of being called Old Venom?!"
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