Just as Yan Hao executed his Elephant Armor, Zhou Yuanjue had already rapidly closed the distance.
SCREEE!!
Countless fist shadows tore through the air, creating a piercing shriek as they displaced it.
Falcon's Cry!!
These countless strikes blended hard and soft, the path of his fists countless times more eerily unpredictable than the Fist Technique Yan Hao had displayed.
Beneath the piercing shriek and the blur of countless fists, Yan Hao actually found himself feeling dazzled.
HAH!!
He let out a furious roar, slightly arching his back. He guarded his head and chest with his thickset arms, bracing himself to withstand Zhou Yuanjue's Fist Technique.
The fists, which whistled through the air with enough force to easily shatter stone, struck the Elephant Armor. Yet, aside from leaving a series of shallow, bloody indentations, they failed to cause Yan Hao any substantial harm.
Amidst Zhou Yuanjue's flurry of attacks, Yan Hao suddenly lifted his right foot and stomped it violently onto the ground.
BANG!!
The crowd below the stage felt the ground seem to tremble violently. For Zhou Yuanjue, standing within a meter of Yan Hao, the sensation was the most intense.
The ground trembled and cracked in that instant, causing him to lose his balance for a moment.
Seizing the opportunity, Yan Hao unleashed a vicious straight punch, aimed directly at Zhou Yuanjue's chest.
Zhou Yuanjue's eyes remained calm. He instantly brought his hands back to shield his chest. He used his unbalanced leg to push off the ground, harnessing the ferocious power of Yan Hao's punch to send his own body flying through the air. He landed more than ten paces away.
His arms were numb. His bones, and even his internal organs, trembled slightly from the impact.
"The Dragon Elephant Unmoving Style... I understand it now."
With a calm expression, Zhou Yuanjue shook out his arms. The trembling numbness in his bones quickly subsided.
"So, you've realized it. You cannot defeat this body of mine. Your Martial Dao is impressive, but some things are simply destined from birth."
Yan Hao said coolly.
"You're quite confident in your Talent. But I'd like to ask you something. In your opinion, what are 'the martial arts'?"
Zhou Yuanjue asked.
"A useless question. Only the weak dwell on such metaphysical nonsense, as it gives them room for delusion. However, if you insist on an answer... the martial arts are a tool. A tool for defeating one's opponents. The strong take up this tool and become stronger. As for the weak, even with this tool, they are no match for a strong man who is empty-handed."
Yan Hao said slowly.
"I agree with one of your points. The Martial Dao is indeed a tool. However, its true purpose is not to defeat opponents, but to conquer oneself."
"The beauty of the Martial Dao lies in this: anyone can become a dragon!!"
As his voice faded, every part of Zhou Yuanjue's body swelled violently, as if being inflated like a balloon.
He held nothing back, swelling every inch of his muscles and unleashing all the power within his body.
But what was most striking were his hands.
Veins bulged on his skin as his hands, engorged with blood, swelled to nearly double their size. They took on a crimson hue, like demonic hands clawed straight out of Hell.
The Red Falcon Fist was so named for two reasons. The first was its method of Power Release. It focused on "piercing" and "penetrating" strikes that, by cutting through the air, produced a shriek like that of a falcon.
The second reason was that upon achieving Mastery of the Fist Technique, a practitioner's hands would swell and turn crimson when they struck with all their might. This carried the grim implication that a blow from this fist would inevitably draw blood, thus earning it the "Red" in its name. That is the origin of the name Red Falcon Fist.
And now, having personally experienced the Dragon Elephant Unmoving Style and needing to break through the formidable defense of the Elephant Armor, Zhou Yuanjue began to fully unleash the entire might of his Red Falcon Fist at the Great Success level.
Fueled by his immense stamina, his eyes shone with a terrifying light.
Under Zhou Yuanjue's gaze, Yan Hao felt like prey being stalked by a falcon. For a moment, he instinctively looked away, as if not daring to meet those eyes.
Then, he caught himself, and a furious rage surged within him.
'A weakling! How dare he make me look away?!'
"Don't you get it yet?!"
Yan Hao let out a deafening roar.
BOOM!!
The two of them shot forward at almost the same instant. Their bodies tore through the air, met in a flash, and then...
COLLISION!!
SCREEE SCREEE SCREEE SCREEE!!
BANG BANG BANG BANG!!
The sharp shrieks of displaced air and the dull thuds of fists intertwined, tearing at the air around them. Spectators sitting closer to the stage could clearly feel the shifts in the airflow.
"Truly... unbelievable..."
Watching the two men collide again and again like wild beasts, Sun Dao'an found the shock in his heart increasingly difficult to put into words.
In terms of pure fighting skill, Yan Hao was no match for Zhou Yuanjue.
Zhou Yuanjue's speed and reflexes were incredible. While dodging and parrying Yan Hao's attacks, he would always counter from strange, unexpected angles, bypassing Yan Hao's guard to strike different parts of his body.
This time, he was no longer using his fists. With his Red Falcon Fist at the Great Success level, his palms were swollen and engorged with blood, his muscles taut. His ability to withstand impact had increased severalfold. Thus, he now employed the Cunning Hand, striking like the beak of a falcon. The shriek of the falcon's cry grew even more intense, and his Attack Power was far greater.
And yet, despite taking more than a dozen of these terrifying strikes, the attacks landing on Yan Hao's Elephant Armor were still unable to deal a fatal blow.
"Don't you get it yet?!! It's useless, useless, useless..."
Yan Hao roared, but before the words could fully leave his mouth, he started to feel that something was wrong.
It started with the left side of his body, a faint sense of stagnation and numbness. Then it spread to his right side, then his waist... Finally, his breathing grew ragged, his heartbeat became erratic, and his blood and energy began to churn violently.
Under this intense physical distress, the Elephant Armor he maintained through muscular tension and blood engorgement began to rapidly fall apart, his body reverting to its normal state.
SCREEE!!!
With one last, explosive falcon's shriek, Zhou Yuanjue's blood-red Cunning Hand struck Yan Hao's Shanzhong acupoint. His entire middle knuckle sank deep into the muscles of Yan Hao's chest.
DRIP!
Blood dripped from his hand. The scene fell utterly still.
Zhou Yuanjue's swollen muscles rapidly returned to normal as he slowly withdrew the hand buried in Yan Hao's Shanzhong acupoint.
Then, everyone watched as Yan Hao's massive, muscular frame seemed to lose all support and began to slowly topple backward.
THUMP!!!
Yan Hao's body crashed heavily onto the stage, shaking the entire platform. Only then did the crowd notice the five deep, bloody holes in his body.
There had been at least two dozen attacks that landed on Yan Hao, but only five bloody holes remained. And upon a closer look, those five holes seemed to correspond to several of the body's major acupoints...
The middle-aged man nearby gaped. He knew exactly what this meant.
'Those two-dozen-plus strikes weren't random. While dodging and blocking Yan Hao's attacks, he bypassed his opponent's guard and focused all twenty-something hits onto five specific acupoints. By stacking the force of repeated strikes, he managed to forcefully bore right through the terrifying physique Yan Hao was so proud of!'
'To accomplish something like that in the middle of a constantly shifting, lightning-fast battle... that's more difficult than dancing on a tightrope!'
'What terrifying Fist Technique and skill!!'