"Why would you say that?" someone asked curiously.
"In order to protect all of us, Chu Feng deliberately used his own power to contain the ripples generated by his clash with Soul Refiner, preventing those ripples from growing too violent and injuring us."
"That shows he has a kind heart. Nowadays, there are many geniuses, but most of them are arrogant people who only care about their own supremacy, with no regard for the lives of others."
"Just take this Soul Refiner, for example — he doesn't care about our lives in the slightest. He even deliberately tried to kill us just to show off his strength."
"As for that Young Master Li Ming, although his strength is even greater than Soul Refiner's, and he didn't intentionally harm us either, he only wanted to defeat Soul Refiner. He didn't bother to stop Soul Refiner's overbearing behavior."
"That's not to say Young Master Li Ming is a bad person — it's simply that he still carries the same aloof temperament as most geniuses. While he doesn't do evil, he also doesn't intend to stand against it."
"But Chu Feng is different. In him, I don't see the same arrogance that other geniuses have." The elder's praise of Chu Feng was ceaseless, and the more he praised him, the more fervent the look in his eyes became.
After hearing the elder's words, many of the younger generation finally understood what Chu Feng had been silently doing for their sake, and their admiration for him grew ever deeper.
"But Soul Refiner is so powerful — I wonder if Chu Feng can actually defeat him." Now that they had grown more favorably inclined toward Chu Feng, people found themselves all the more worried about his safety.
After all, given Soul Refiner's character, if Chu Feng proved to be no match for him, Soul Refiner would surely kill Chu Feng and his friends. And some of the onlookers present would likely meet a tragic end as well.
Naturally, that was not the outcome anyone wished to see.
BOOM—
Just then, an ear-splitting roar echoed across the heavens.
Waves of shock rolled outward, thunder rumbled in succession, and countless cracks appeared across the vast expanse of the sky. Then the sky itself shattered into fragments, leaving the firmament pitch black.
The sheer force of the clash had torn the very void apart.
As the void healed and the ripples began to dissipate, people finally saw what had happened.
Both Chu Feng and Soul Refiner stood high above in the sky. Chu Feng was completely unscathed, but Soul Refiner's injuries were growing worse by the moment. His chest had been pierced clean through, and great mouthfuls of blood gushed out endlessly, utterly impossible to stem.
At the same time, Soul Refiner's aura was growing feeble — he had lost the overwhelming fighting strength he'd displayed before.
"He won — Chu Feng actually won!"
"It's Chu Feng who won!!!"
"Chu Feng defeated Soul Refiner!!!"
At that moment, cheers erupted from the crowd.
It was clear just how excited everyone was. They had wanted so badly for Chu Feng to emerge victorious.
"Impossible! How could someone like you possibly defeat me?!" Soul Refiner's expression was twisted with fury. He seemed not to care about his injuries at all, instead fixing Chu Feng with a gaze filled with unwillingness and defiance.
He simply could not accept it — could not accept that he had been defeated by Chu Feng just like this.
"First, I want to acknowledge one thing — you are strong. At the very least, you're stronger than I am right now," Chu Feng said.
"..."
The moment these words left Chu Feng's mouth, the expressions of everyone present changed. They were dumbfounded — if Chu Feng had won, why would he say he was inferior to Soul Refiner?
"Are you mocking me?" Soul Refiner grew even more furious.
Though he was unwilling to admit his defeat to Chu Feng, and though he desperately didn't want to acknowledge it, he knew full well that he had lost.
In his view, Chu Feng saying this after defeating him could only be a form of humiliation.
"I'm simply telling the truth. The reason I was able to suppress you so easily is because I already observed many of your techniques when you were fighting Young Master Li Ming earlier. That way, I knew in advance how to counter your methods."
"Had I witnessed your battle with Young Master Li Ming with my own eyes, and then fought you without any prior knowledge, there's no way I could have won so easily."