"Senior, why do you say that?" someone asked curiously.
"Chu Feng, for the sake of our safety, deliberately used his own power to restrain the shockwaves caused by himself and Soul Refiner as they fought, preventing the 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 individuals who care only for themselves and their own supremacy, with no regard for the lives of others."
"Just look at this Soul Refiner — he doesn't place any value on our lives at all. He even intended to wipe us out to demonstrate how powerful he is."
"As for that young master Li Ming, although his strength surpasses Soul Refiner's, and he didn't deliberately harm us, he merely wanted to defeat Soul Refiner. He made no effort to stop Soul Refiner's tyrannical behavior."
"Not that you could call young master Li Ming a bad person — it's simply that he still possesses the aloof pride common to most geniuses. While he doesn't commit evil, he also has no intention of putting a stop to it."
"But Chu Feng is different. In him, I see none of the arrogance that other geniuses carry." The old man heaped praise upon Chu Feng, and the more he praised, the more fervent the look in his eyes.
Hearing the old man's words, many of the younger generation finally understood what Chu Feng had been quietly doing all along, and their admiration for him only deepened.
"Still, Soul Refiner's strength is truly fearsome. I wonder whether Chu Feng can actually defeat him." Now that they had grown so favorably inclined toward Chu Feng, people only worried about him all the more.
After all, given Soul Refiner's character, if Chu Feng proved no match for him, Soul Refiner would certainly kill Chu Feng and his friends — and quite possibly some of the onlookers as well.
That, naturally, was not the outcome anyone wished to see.
Boom— At that moment, an ear-splitting roar rang out across the heavens.
Waves of shock rippled outward and thunderous booms echoed one after another. Even the vast expanse of the sky above was riddled with countless cracks, and then the void shattered into nothing, leaving the horizon pitch black.
The sheer power of the clash had torn the very void apart.
When the void began to repair itself and the shockwaves finally dissipated, people could at last see the full picture.
Chu Feng and Soul Refiner were both standing high above in the sky. Chu Feng was completely unscathed, but Soul Refiner's injuries were growing worse by the second. His chest had been punched clean through, and great gouts of blood were gushing out endlessly, impossible to staunch.
At the same time, Soul Refiner's aura had grown feeble, stripped of the formidable combat strength he had displayed before.
"He won — Chu Feng actually won!"
"It's Chu Feng who won!!!"
"Chu Feng beat Soul Refiner!!!"
Cheers erupted from the crowd.
It was plain to see how exhilarated the people were, how desperately they had wanted 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 in the slightest about his wounds, fixing Chu Feng with a gaze full of bitter unwillingness.
He simply could not accept it — could not accept that he had been beaten by Chu Feng just like this.
"First, I want to acknowledge one thing: you are strong. At the very least, stronger than I currently am," Chu Feng said.
"..."
The moment those words left Chu Feng's mouth, the crowd's expressions shifted and several people looked dumbfounded. They couldn't understand — Chu Feng had clearly won, so why was he saying he was inferior to Soul Refiner?
"Are you mocking me?" Soul Refiner grew even more furious.
Though he was unwilling to admit defeat to Chu Feng, and though he refused to accept that he had lost, he was still painfully aware that he had indeed been beaten.
So in his mind, after winning, for Chu Feng to say such a thing could only be an insult.
"I'm simply telling the truth. The reason I was able to suppress you so easily is that when you fought young master Li Ming earlier, I observed many of your techniques, so I already knew how to counter them in advance."
"Had I not witnessed your battle with young master Li Ming firsthand, and had I faced you with no knowledge of your abilities, I would never have won so easily."