The training hall fell deathly silent as Matt dropped to his knees. It was as if time itself had frozen, and especially the short-haired, long-legged woman who had been about to deliver a mocking remark—her expression had gone rigid, and she stared at Matt, unable to utter a single word for what felt like an eternity.
"This can't be!"
"What happened to Matt?"
The members of Phantom Myth were completely stunned by the sudden turn of events.
They knew Matt's strength and defense better than anyone, and his personality went without saying. Yet the scene before them looked like something out of a staged performance.
Shi Feng's palm strike had been incredibly gentle—just a simple push forward. Against someone like Matt, a master of external body tempering, it shouldn't have done a thing. Against an ordinary person, it wouldn't have caused an injury either. Yet here Matt was, collapsed on the ground, his face ashen and features twisted in pain from a serious blow.
At this moment, not only were Fang Shihan and the others stunned—even Lei Bao and the rest in the hall were watching with their mouths agape.
"What did Director Shi do? How could Matt not block it?"
The members of the Tiandou Training Hall stared at the scene, utterly baffled.
They had witnessed Matt's power firsthand—he had defeated Lei Bao in just three punches, and his defense was so formidable that even Lei Bao's full-power strike hadn't left a scratch. Yet now Matt couldn't withstand Shi Feng's gentle palm.
It was like a truck failing to injure a bull, only to be critically wounded by a falling leaf instead. Simply unbelievable.
"Vice President, could Shi Feng have used some kind of hidden weapon? Otherwise, with Matt's physical conditioning, how could he possibly be injured?" A young man standing behind Fang Shihan asked in a low voice. He was built just as imposingly as Fang Mingyu, with a physique that didn't fall short in the slightest.
Their team this time, aside from the old coach, had only Matt and Fang Shihan as its strongest members. With Matt injured and unable to speak, Fang Shihan was the most likely to have noticed what Shi Feng had done.
The others nodded in agreement, convinced that Shi Feng must have resorted to trickery. Otherwise, how could Matt possibly be hurt?
"No. He didn't throw one palm—he threw three in a single instant." Fang Shihan's gaze remained fixed on Shi Feng nearby, her expression unbearably grave. "And all three landed on exactly the same spot. It only looked like a single strike. His body control has reached a transcendent level."
"Three strikes merged into one? That's impossible!" Everyone was dumbstruck.
Setting aside the fact that three strikes had hit the same spot in an instant, the very act of throwing three palm strikes in that fraction of a second was already inconceivable. They couldn't even fathom the terrifying nerve-reflex speed and physical reaction time required to accomplish it.
"You're right. I did throw three palm strikes." Shi Feng didn't deny it, though he looked at Matt kneeling on the ground with some surprise at how poorly the man looked. "When I combine three into one, the power not only increases significantly, but the penetrating force nearly doubles. And yet I only managed to wound you a little. Your muscular density really is incredible. If this were a few days ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to do anything to you at all."
His time in Wind Roar Gorge had given him considerable insight into controlling an epic-rank magical body. It was completely different from the bronze-rank magical body he had manipulated before, especially when directing the flow of magical power within it—it was like channeling physical force through one's own body.
He had possessed the immense magical power of an epic-rank body, but his utilization of it was still at a very rudimentary level—much like his real-world body.
After becoming a Transformation Grandmaster, the hormones secreted by his brain had been continuously enhancing his physical attributes. His reaction speed and neural response time had both improved dramatically. But having the reaction speed was one thing—he only knew how to apply it at a basic level, unable to truly unleash his power the way one could with magical skills.