He could feel it with absolute clarity: if he insisted on finishing his charge and unleashing the killing blow he’d prepared, the spear would mercilessly pierce his forehead long before he could.
’There’s no time!’
In a flash, Zhou Run abandoned any thought of a counterattack. He forcibly aborted his own killing blow, pouring all his strength into the longsword in his hands and hastily raising it across his chest to block the earth-shattering strike.
"CLANG—!!!"
The shriek of metal on metal, so piercing it threatened to shatter everyone’s eardrums, rang out with a deafening blast.
The tip of the spear struck the blade of Zhou Run’s horizontal sword with pinpoint accuracy.
In that instant, a visible white vapor cone erupted from the point of impact, expanding outward in a booming shockwave.
The terrifying shockwave transformed into a raging hurricane that swept across the entire battle platform.
Zhou Run felt as if he wasn’t blocking a spear, but a hyper-condensed meteorite slamming into him at high speed.
A terrifying and unstoppable wave of force, the likes of which he had never even imagined, surged through the blade and flooded into his arms.
"CRACK! CRACKLE!"
The light armor on his arms groaned under the strain as its surface instantly erupted with a fine mesh of spiderweb cracks.
He was sent flying backward, completely out of control.
His feet plowed two deep, spark-spewing trenches several inches into the hard alloy platform.
He slid for a full several dozen meters before he barely managed to regain his footing. The force of the impact had torn the webbing of his sword hand, leaving it drenched in blood. Waves of excruciating pain shot up his arm, and he could barely keep his grip on the longsword.
A look of utter, incredulous horror was written all over his face.
’How is this possible?!’
’We both have a life force index of 3600. How can he be so much stronger than me?!’
’So this is the kind of physical potential that breaks testing equipment.’
The old rumor about Qin Feng surfaced in Zhou Run’s mind once again: how, during his enrollment, he had blown out the potential-testing pod and been assessed by the system as having potential comparable to an Embryonic Stage Starry Sky Beast.
But on the battlefield, everything could change in an instant.
Qin Feng gave him no time to think, let alone catch his breath.
Seizing the initiative with "A Point of Cold Light" was only the beginning.
The very instant Zhou Run was knocked back, Qin Feng was on him like a shadow. The Alloy Long Spear in his hand became a roaring black dragon, unleashing a suffocating, storm-like barrage.
This was what made A Point of Cold Light so formidable.
Once A Point of Cold Light secured the first strike, it was inevitably followed by a relentless, dragon-like spear assault and terrifyingly absolute suppression.
"Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion!"
With a low shout from Qin Feng, his Long Spear swept out horizontally. The attack was immensely powerful, carrying a supreme might capable of scattering an army, and it aimed to cut Zhou Run in half just as he’d regained his balance.
The spear’s thrust was like rolling thunder, and the air cracked with a piercing sonic boom.
"Damn it!"
Zhou Run cursed under his breath. Ignoring the searing pain in his arm, he forced his longsword up, crossing it in front of his body to block the sweep.
"CLANG!!"
Another tremendous crash.
Zhou Run was once again sent stumbling back by the immense force, his Spiritual Energy churning within him.
But Qin Feng’s assault was like a great river, relentless and unending, with each wave of attacks cresting higher than the last.
"Flowing Light Chasing Shadow!"
The trajectory of the Long Spear changed abruptly, shifting from wide, sweeping attacks to a series of incredibly swift thrusts.
In an instant, the air filled with a storm of afterimages of the spear, descending like a sudden downpour and targeting every vital point on Zhou Run’s body from all directions. Each phantom spear was as fast as a streak of light, its angle cunning and unpredictable, making a defense seem impossible.
Zhou Run’s pupils contracted sharply.
He swung his longsword into a silver curtain of light, and a frantic series of TING-TING-TING-TING sounds, like a hailstorm on a tin roof, rang out wildly across the platform.
In just a single second, they had clashed over a hundred times.
Each impact sent a numbing jolt through Zhou Run’s arm, and the wound on his hand split open even wider.
The Long Spear’s advantage as a polearm—"one inch longer, one inch stronger"—was on full display.
Qin Feng always managed to attack from a range that was deeply uncomfortable for Zhou Run. To counterattack, Zhou Run would have to risk charging forward and breaking through the deadly web of spear phantoms.
But would Qin Feng’s assault ever give him such a chance?
"Fierce Owl Chasing Shadow!"
Hidden within the storm of afterimages, the most sinister and vicious glint of spear light appeared. Like a Fierce Owl hunting in the dead of night, it silently lunged from an inconceivable angle, aiming for the spot beneath Zhou Run’s ribs.
This was a fusion technique, combining a killing blow from the "Thousand Army Spear Art" with the "Fierce Bird Fist Art." It possessed both ferocity and swiftness.
Alarm bells screamed in Zhou Run’s mind. At the last possible second, he twisted his waist at an impossible angle, narrowly—so narrowly—avoiding the fatal strike.
But the sharp tip of the spear still scraped across his light armor, leaving a deep gash and showering sparks.
Before he could even recover his stance, Qin Feng’s next attack was already upon him.
"Wind and Thunder Chasing Shadow!"
The momentum of the spear changed once more!
The once nimble spear tip suddenly became impossibly heavy, as if wreathed in invisible wind and thunder. It carried a violent, penetrating spiral force as it slammed into Zhou Run’s sword yet again.
Zhou Run could only grit his teeth and block with every ounce of his strength.
"BOOM!"
This time, he failed to completely deflect the violent power.
A highly concentrated pulse of hidden power, vibrating at an intense frequency, shot through the blade of his sword and slammed viciously into his chest.