As the battle dragged on, Yang Sheng's Yin-Yang Whip had run out of tricks. It wasn't that he was underperforming—quite the opposite. He was performing exceptionally today, flawlessly, one could even say he was surpassing his own limits.
Yet even so, he couldn't break through the sword aura his opponent had created.
Yang Sheng was absolutely seething with frustration. He had always been supremely confident in his Yin-Yang Whip, confident that the control it granted him was enough to compete with even those supreme geniuses at the very top—even if he couldn't outright defeat them.
Now it seemed, how delusional that had been.
He couldn't even handle Pill King Zhen, who had risen from the secular world and climbed up the Rising Star Rankings—and he wanted to challenge the top of the Young Lord Rankings?
One had to admit, Yang Sheng's thinking was exceedingly naive.
The spectators watching from all around had picked up on the situation too. They could all see that Yang Sheng was just flailing blindly.
And with that, the jeering only grew louder.
The martial culture in Liuli King City was quite healthy—they wouldn't hold back their boos just because Yang Sheng was a true disciple of Peacock Sacred Mountain. As long as they didn't like someone, no matter how high that person's status, they could get booed. Unless you were someone truly revered who had genuinely made great contributions to Liuli King City.
Take the Peacock Emperor—he had protected Liuli King City for thousands of years. Everyone in the city, from top to bottom, revered him like a god. They would never boo him.
Forget about booing—even if they heard someone badmouthing the Peacock Emperor, they would argue on his behalf, even get into a fight with the offender.
That was absolute devotion, and the Peacock Emperor's personal charisma fully deserved such loyalty.
The former Young Lord Fan had once enjoyed such devotion as well.
And now, Pill King Zhen was enjoying the same treatment.
Yang Sheng, obviously, enjoyed no such treatment. Truth be told, plenty of people in Liuli King City knew of him, but what contributions he had actually made to the city—that was hard to say.
As a disciple of the Peacock Emperor, Yang Sheng had always kept to himself, rarely showing his face in the secular world. He treasured every moment, spending each minute and second on his cultivation.
That was understandable enough, but since he kept himself above it all and refused to mingle with the secular world, the martial artists below naturally felt a gap between them—a sense of distance that made any closeness impossible.
This was something Jiang Chen had done very well.
Time and again he had held open lectures and stirred up all kinds of buzz, making countless contributions to Liuli King City.
Never mind the crowning glory of representing Liuli King City to defeat Dan Fire City. Just the contributions Taiyuan Pavilion was making in the field of pills was already astonishing enough.
This was, of course, not the Wei Family's doing. The one who had brought about a fundamental change to Liuli King City's pill market was Pill King Zhen!
In that moment, it seemed like the entire city had started booing Yang Sheng.
Yang Sheng's fury erupted, and his whip became even more vicious. Before, he had maintained at least a semblance of composure, but after the jeering, his rage burst forth in full. He no longer cared about appearances—all he wanted was to knock Jiang Chen off the stage in one blow.
Unfortunately, in a ring match, defeating your opponent wasn't something you could achieve through anger or emotional outbursts alone. At the end of the day, strength was what talked.
Yang Sheng was indeed powerful—ranking seventeenth guaranteed a certain level of strength. He was a cut above Fang Yuan and Zhuang Jie, that was certain.
But Jiang Chen had always been the type to grow stronger when facing a stronger opponent.
Yang Sheng's Yin-Yang Whip relied on binding force to control the force field, while Jiang Chen's "Inversion of Heaven and Earth" sword technique was specifically designed to disrupt and overturn force fields.
One could say that Jiang Chen's technique had, inadvertently, become the perfect counter to the Yin-Yang Whip.
Of course, this technique wasn't just a counter to the Yin-Yang Whip—it was a counter to any attack that relied on force field control.
You set up a force field, but I can turn its operation upside down.
But Yang Sheng refused to believe it. Gritting his teeth, he spoke: "Pill King Zhen, you keep using the same trick over and over. Don't you think that's awfully boring for a martial exchange?"
Seeing this guy gritting his teeth like that, Jiang Chen secretly found it amusing.
"You see only one move from me, but you can't see the thousand variations hidden within it. If you look down on this technique of mine, go ahead and show me whatever amazing skills you have. With just this one technique, you still won't break through."
Jiang Chen had also been provoked into a bit of a temper by Yang Sheng.
He had originally wanted to make Yang Sheng back off on his own, but he hadn't expected the fellow to be so lacking in self-awareness.
Yang Sheng's figure flickered, and with a snap of his wrist, the whip straightened into a rigid spear.
"Yin-Yang Void-Breaking Spear—break!"
Yang Sheng had finally changed his technique.
The whip flickered, transforming into a spear.
The profundity of this spear was clearly different from that of the Yin-Yang Whip. The whip focused on force field binding, but the spear that now formed carried a destructive mystery specifically designed to tear through force fields.
Named the Void-Breaking Spear, its void-breaking force was formidable indeed.
Fortunately, Jiang Chen's technique wasn't about creating force fields either—his sword strike was one of destruction as well.