The aura was so fierce that Bai Chongli and the others standing beside him had no time to react. A powerful gust of wind sent them staggering back a good dozen steps before they barely managed to regain their footing!
"Father?" Bai Chongli cried out, his face filled with disbelief.
He had never seen his father look so grave, as if facing a dire foe.
Bai Longfei ignored him, his gaze locked firmly on the figure opposite, who stood leaning on a cane.
In the next instant, Bai Longfei moved. With a flicker of his body, he shot into the air!
At the same time, his palms began to move, shifting unpredictably. The afterimages they left behind were as ethereal as drifting clouds, appearing without warning and vanishing without a trace, making it utterly impossible to predict where the next strike would land!
This was the very Martial Arts Technique he had painstakingly cultivated for decades: the Floating Life Cyan Cloud Palm!
This technique originated from a Daoist of the Zulong Dynasty, who, after achieving enlightenment by observing the clouds, created this profoundly unpredictable palm style.
When struck, the palms moved like drifting clouds. They appeared gentle, yet concealed lethal intent; they seemed erratic, yet pressed forward relentlessly!
From ten meters away, Bai Longfei unleashed a continuous flurry of palm strikes!
In their wake, dozens of invisible waves of force surged toward Lu Yun from all directions. They wove together into a dense, inescapable net, sealing off all of his escape routes!
No matter which way Lu Yun tried to dodge, he would collide with one of those waves of force!
Bai Longfei was putting his all into this attack. It had been many years since he had fought with his full strength.
Across from him, Lu Yun remained perfectly still. He simply raised his left hand and slowly clenched it into a fist.
In that exact moment, Bai Longfei’s pupils suddenly constricted.
He saw currents of an earthen-yellow energy, visible to the naked eye, swirling around Lu Yun’s fist.
The energy was condensed, refusing to disperse, and it emitted an aura that made Bai Longfei tremble to his very soul.
’True Qi of Divine Will! It’s really True Qi of Divine Will!!!’
’Are you kidding me? This is just bullying!’
The thought had barely flashed through Bai Longfei’s mind when he saw Lu Yun thrust his fist forward in a simple, unadorned motion.
An earthen-yellow projection of a fist, several meters high, tore through the air from where his own had been!
Wherever the fist projection passed, the dozens of waves of force Bai Longfei had painstakingly unleashed were instantly shattered, as if they were made of paper!
They failed to slow the projection’s advance in the slightest.
"What?" Bai Longfei’s eyes widened in disbelief.
’My Floating Life Cyan Cloud Palm, which I spent decades cultivating... My full-power strike as a Peak of Huajin master, the attack I took so much pride in... It was all so fragile before a Grandmaster of Divine Intent!’
His survival instincts screamed at him. ’Run! Run now! Get as far away as possible!’
But before his body could even react, the earthen-yellow fist projection was already upon him.
Then, Bai Longfei’s consciousness wavered. It was an indescribable sensation.
It was as if something had seized his awareness in an instant, plunging his entire being into a momentary void.
It lasted only an instant. By the time Bai Longfei came to his senses, the fist projection had already slammed squarely into his body.
Like a kite with its string cut, Bai Longfei was sent flying backward!
But far more terrifying than the physical impact was the scene unfolding in the depths of his consciousness.
He "saw" it. He saw a mountain—a colossal, boundless peak whose summit was lost to the heavens.
The peak descended from the highest heavens, bearing down on him with immeasurable weight, about to crush him completely!
Bai Longfei tried to move, but couldn’t. He tried to scream, but no sound came out.
In the end, all he could do was stand there in a daze, watching helplessly as the mountain drew nearer, grew larger, and became heavier, until it crushed him completely into the earth.
It was a pressure that crushed the very soul: the Martial Dao Will of a Grandmaster of Divine Intent exerting absolute suppression over a Grandmaster of Huajin.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally broke free from the trance.
He found himself lying on the ground, a trickle of fresh blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. His entire body ached.
Across from him, Lu Yun still stood leaning on his cane, not having moved so much as a single step.
Bai Longfei struggled to stand. After several attempts, he finally managed to prop himself halfway up.
He raised his head to look at the figure opposite him, his gaze a complex mix of emotions.
There was shock, awe, bitterness, and a faint, inexplicable trace of... relief.
’So this is it. This is what it means to be a Grandmaster of Divine Intent. The threshold I pursued for over twenty years... it was an entirely different realm.’
’To learn the Dao in the morning and die by evening is a fate without regret! It seems a Grandmaster of Divine Intent fighting a Grandmaster of Huajin isn’t a fight, it’s an attack from a higher dimension.’
’Even someone at the Peak of Huajin, like me, is utterly defenseless before a Grandmaster of Divine Intent.’
Bai Longfei suddenly recalled a saying he had heard in his youth: ’Below Huajin, all are but ants. Below Divine Will, all are but mortal dust.’
’And yet, back then, he refused to believe it.’
’Bai Longfei had thought that Huajin was the pinnacle of mortal achievement, that Divine Will was nothing more than a myth.’
’Now, he believed. He believed with every fiber of his being.’
Lu Yun watched Bai Longfei on the ground, but his mind drifted to another matter.
’That night in Nanfu City... I was struck in the same way by that strange foreigner’s black water, and my consciousness was instantly overwhelmed. If it hadn’t been for the soul barrier created by my Golden Fortress technique...’
’...I’m afraid I would have ended up just like Bai Longfei is now: completely at my opponent’s mercy!’
Lu Yun slowly pulled his gaze back. "Sect Master Bai, can we talk now?"
On the training grounds, Bai Chongli and the disciples of the White Cloud Sect were utterly dumbfounded.
They looked from Bai Longfei, collapsed on the ground, to the figure standing opposite him with a cane, and their minds went completely blank.

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