Chapter 238: The Tiger and the Whale (Part 2) (Bonus Chapter for Patron Chan Shiwu)

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's face showed surprise for the first time; his long staff lost control in an instant, the tip slammed violently into the ground, sending shards of stone flying.

Having exposed his long-hidden trump card so directly, Yang Yan's expression held no trace of despair—he stamped his foot on Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's staff and swung his long blade straight down at the hand gripping his forearm.

This was raw, unthinking combat—what gave you the right to step on Liu Sheng's staff?

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan twisted and shook; Yang Yan instantly lost his balance, while the man retracted his arm and pulled Yang Yan's own arm directly into the path of his blade.

In an instant, his lower body destabilized, his upper body locked in chaotic struggle, and Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's staff thrust forward again, mercilessly.

In this first wild exchange, Yang Yan slipped back into the same peril as before—worse even, because this time his blade held no restraining force.

The whistling tip of the staff made Yang Yan's hairs stand on end; without time to think, he stamped the ground with his tilted body and flipped upward.

He had dodged the staff—but his arm was still in Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's grip.

As expected, the next instant, Yang Yan's body went completely out of control; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan seized him with one hand and held the staff with the other, slamming the two together with brutal force.

This was true, unrelenting peril.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan drove the staff hard into Yang Yan's abdomen; the boy's fighting style suddenly shifted—he needed two or three exchanges to adapt, and this strike was meant to be caught again by that uncanny blade technique.

But no blade met it—in the instant before, Yang Yan had already swung his blade with full force toward the man's skull.

Yang Yan didn't wonder why he swung that blade, didn't know what move would come next, didn't even have the mental space to consider its effect—Seeing Pei Ye's earnest advice had long been cast aside.

In this fierce, dangerous rhythm of battle, all of Yang Yan's strategic thoughts had been buried beneath raw perception—only what lay before his eyes remained.

There was an opening—so he slashed it!

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan looked up; the bright blade light forced itself into his eyes, his pupils contracting slightly. This was a bizarre, unpredictable angle—the boy's body was still being pulled by him, and he had made no defensive preparation.

The boy's uncanny sensitivity to blade paths startled him, but power and speed were what they were; the man sidestepped, and the blade missed—but Yang Yan had closed the distance, and his staff was now awkward to wield; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan immediately released Yang Yan's forearm and drove a straight elbow punch into the face inches away.

Yang Yan arched his back and brought his blade up to meet the punch.

Wrapped in qi, the punch feared no iron blade—it should have crushed the blade into the boy's clavicle, but the moment it touched the blade's edge, the force vanished again.

This strange phenomenon occurring on his own fist was even more chilling, yet Zhang Zhang Zongyuan showed no pause; even as shock surged in his mind, his knee shot upward, slamming into Yang Yan's abdomen.

But the knee met not soft flesh, but another immense, ferocious force—Yang Yan had swung his blade back once more, and the previously swallowed power now poured out toward the knee.

At the very moment he felt that familiar punch energy, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan made his first tentative judgment of this uncanny technique—Dǒu Zhuǎn Xīng Yí?

As he thought this, facing the full force of his own punch, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan showed no hesitation or retreat—he charged forward, broke through the rebound, and drove his knee upward with relentless force.

Yang Yan twisted aside to avoid the center, but the knee still struck his side; the blade had been right beside him, yet Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's knee hit flesh—not the blade's guard.

The blade had become a streak of light.

After releasing that force, Yang Yan didn't bother checking if the knee had been repelled; as the man raised his knee, another opening appeared before his eyes—he slashed straight into it.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan sidestepped the cut, his knee's power halved; the next instant, his knee was seized by a hand—the same technique seemed turned against him.

Wu Sheng could not restrain Liu Sheng's movement; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan exploded his qi to shake him off—but in that shock, Yang Yan used the recoil to push himself forward, his blade suddenly reversed in a bizarre sweep; a flash of bright light, and Zhang Zhang Zongyuan reared back—but a deep, crimson gash opened across his chest.

A thunderous cry erupted from the viewing stands.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan reached to seize the blade—but the blade swallowed the force again. His raised knee did not retreat; it drove upward once more. This time, the force swallowed by the blade was far too weak to block the attack; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan, riding the blade's edge, slammed his full force into Yang Yan's abdomen.

Such a blow would have sealed Zhang Zhang Mozhu's defeat; Yang Yan's expression twisted in agony—but even as he took the strike, he somehow managed to pull his abdomen back from the blade, carving out a sliver of space, then flipped the blade and carved another unmistakable, bloody wound across Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's knee!

This extreme sensitivity to openings was as uncanny as the blade technique itself—and this move made Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's heart constrict for the first time: had his qi not intervened in time, this blade would have severed his tendons.

The dread in his mind ignited real fury; seizing the moment Yang Yan was momentarily thrown back, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan swept his foot, and the discarded staff flew back into his hand.

The boy clearly excelled in offense far beyond his defense, but Zhang Zhang Zongyuan had never feared a direct clash of assaults.

The moment the staff was in hand, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan moved to press forward—but Yang Yan leapt ahead first; pain still etched on his face, his blade already poised for attack.

He met it with Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's whistling staff.

The long blade deflected the staff's momentum; Yang Yan closed in, and the next instant, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan bled again.

Neither showed the slightest restraint or retreat; in the brief, narrow gaps, they unleashed furious assaults upon each other—within Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's tiger-like punches and staff strikes, Yang Yan's body swayed like a paper boat, as if about to be torn apart at any moment.

He teetered on the edge of death—he had always teetered on the edge of death, and still teetered on the edge of death!

No one knew when the boy would receive a fatal blow—but in this process, Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's body was already drenched in blood.

When all restraints were shed, Yang Yan returned to his most familiar rhythm—combat was meant to be heart-pounding! What space was there in the mind for overthinking?

See something—strike it. I don't care what lies behind it; when it comes before me, it's just another slash!

This was precisely what made Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's teeth grind tighter in fury.

He could unleash countless killing techniques, set countless traps—the boy would always keep falling into them—but the moment the trap tightened, he always barely escaped, and countered with a cunning slash.

Dodge, swallow, rebound, trade wounds, fight to the death—the boy's offense was like a dense downpour, without pattern or logic, like a swift, mad leopard: no matter if useful or not, if there was an opening, he seized it with all his might.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's suppressed rage built to unbearable levels, a suffocating sense of powerlessness filling him—but within this stifling fury, the man forced himself to calm down.

He had always excelled in tiger-like assaults, but when he realized he could not gain the upper hand against a low-level boy, he did not let anger cloud his mind.

His calm mind was his greatest weapon.

The boy's eyes held only the blade and the staff before him—but Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's mind still held the whole picture—if direct assault could not win, then change tactics.

By now, the boy's strengths and weaknesses were fully known. The reason he had dominated in the first five moves, and why he had since fallen into this strange rhythm, hinged on one thing—the boy had unleashed his force-releasing technique.

Otherwise, with his superior power and speed, even if the boy were the most agile and his blade the sharpest, he would have had no room to withstand him.

Because each time the boy slashed, he could neutralize two of Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's moves with a single pull and release.

So the key remained the blade—he had tried to seize it, but the boy was too wary, swallowing his force.

Then, try another method.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan locked his fury deep inside; his staff strike remained unyielding; Yang Yan's blade once again absorbed the force with its uncanny art, and he surged forward along the staff's slackened path.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan now knew that striking again with the staff was useless—the boy's blade waited to release; so he pulled the staff back and thrust his fist forward, planning to follow with a staff technique next.

This was a common pattern in their exchanges—sometimes Zhang Zhang Zongyuan grazed Yang Yan, sometimes Yang Yan carved a bloody gash into Zhang Zhang Zongyuan.

But this time, as if accumulated wounds had finally taken effect, the man's punch came a fraction faster.

Or rather—the staff in his other hand was a fraction slower.

It was an extremely narrow opening—many Liu Sheng cultivators might miss it—but in Yang Yan's eyes, it was a glaring, undeniable opportunity!

Give him an opening, and he would strike.

The force held in the blade erupted violently; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's fist was flung aside, his arm whipping out—surely injured—and the other hand's staff lagged slightly, leaving his left shoulder exposed for a fleeting instant.

Yang Yan moved swift and precise as lightning; his blade flashed like a darting fish—and vanished.

A wet *pfft*, accompanied by the scrape of bone, drove deep into flesh.

Joy bloomed instantly on Yang Yan's face; the stands erupted in unprecedented cheers. But when the boy's gaze lifted to Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's face, his heart sank—the pain on the man's face was twisted with a dangerous, ruthless intent.

At the same time, the boy, sensitive to momentum, sensed something wrong.

Something was gathering, rising.

The staff in his right hand had not yet thrust out—Yang Yan yanked his blade back.

But the blade was stuck, as if cast into a wall—motionless.

The blade was locked inside his body.

Yang Yan then realized why the strike had been so smooth—it was not his own doing; Zhang Zhang Zongyuan had deliberately guided his own bone seams to meet the blade's edge.

Such a subtle maneuver at the Liu Sheng realm escaped the boy entirely.

He immediately tried to abandon the blade and retreat—but failed; the man's hand, just thrown back, now gripped his shoulder tightly.

The blade was trapped, the body bound—now, other things would emerge.

Yang Yan's heart was seized by a sudden grip; he heard faintly the roar of a tiger. He turned sharply—the sound came from the staff in the man's right hand, the one that had lagged.

It was not lagging—it was gathering.

Yang Yan had heard this sound before—but this time, it did not come from the staff cutting through air. The staff lay still in his grip, yet a violent surge pulsed from within.

It was the sound of torrential qi, compressed and colliding inside—this furious roar, held captive, was like a caged tiger king tearing at the bars of his prison.

When it broke free, everything before it would be torn to shreds.

In *The Tiger-Repelling Staff*, the final technique of the "Tiger" section: *Chū Xiá*.

The tiger's greatest moment is not when it pounces, nor when it descends the mountain—in its natural state, its explosive power is limited. It is the king of the mountains; hunting deer and sheep is as effortless as walking through a courtyard.

Only when it is caged, its dignity insulted, its fury provoked—when it watches the puny creature before it kick the cage, whip it, and scream insults—only when the cage shatters can you truly witness the terror of the "tiger."

This is the core principle of *The Tiger-Repelling Staff*, profound and powerful, already reaching the *Mai Mai Chuan* realm.

At this moment.

At the very instant Yang Yan realized the heart-stopping power within, the cage shattered—the accumulated force, qi, rage, and stifled fury exploded outward like a tidal wave.

The staff whipped up a storm that swept across half the arena; the tiger's roar was audible throughout the hall.

Many realized they had underestimated this man; in prior discussions, most believed him inferior to Shang Qijiao Shang Huaitong—but this staff strike was before them, and even those who had seen *The Pulling Grass Section* dared not defend Shang Qijiao Shang Huaitong.

Three feet away, Yang Yan's chest and abdomen were crushed inward by the explosive wind.

This sudden strike made every muscle and hair on his body tighten; the man who had danced on the edge of death for so long had finally been fully ensnared.

Yang Yan knew this was a situation he could not handle.

Because the feeling was unmistakably familiar—the same sensation he had felt fighting Seeing Pei Ye, step by step misstepping, until he plunged into an irrevocable abyss.

Turn back—and the killing blow was already before him; the next step was defeat.

"The clever man always wins against a brute like you."

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan was clearly a far greater clever man; the staff was already pressing against his body.

But.

Before the outcome of grave injury and defeat, while his blood boiled, Yang Yan suddenly remembered.

He had won before.

Though rare, the number of times he had overturned utter despair was not zero—and the feeling was just as familiar.

It was precisely in such absolute despair that the feeling rose from deep within his body—just as now: his heart's gate shattered, his lungs opened, blood surged, his body turned icy cold, then his muscles began to tremble slowly.

Yang Yan did not drop his blade, did not leap, did not struggle or dodge.

He gripped the hilt of the blade, and suddenly his entire body fell still—the boiling blood and surging Qi all subsided.

The boy, who had just moved like a mad leopard, now stood as still as if fused with the air.

In the void, something seemed to drift closer—no one could see what it was, but the ripples from its tail were already enough to drown the entire arena.

Within this confinement, within Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's bone seams, the long blade made no motion, yet the vortex that formed abruptly began to devour everything.

No longer merely force, no longer bound by techniques—all elements composing the might of this 【Out of the Cage】 move, the entire momentum Ningju into this strike, were abruptly sucked into the long blade on his shoulder.

But if one widened the perspective enough, one would realize it was not truly anything "drawing in."

It merely opened its mouth, and the water surged inward and collapsed— the tiger released from its cage did not face a frail, upright creature; behind it stood a colossal beast, mountainous in size.

The Sea Devouring Scripture, Chapter Two · 【Whale】

The colossal beast closed its mouth and vanished from the void.

Zhang Zhang Zongyuan's body lost all strength in an instant; Yang Yan easily withdrew the blade, its surface glistening with blood—he flicked it away and laid the edge against the man's neck.

Everything I've won so far has relied on something that works sometimes and not others!

Still owe 29 more chapters!

(End of Chapter)