Chapter 28: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

Like everything else in the world, the martial dao had evolved.

In the beginning, life-and-death struggles between martial artists came down to whose Internal Force was deeper, whose explosive bursts were fiercer, whose physique was stronger, and whose techniques were more profound.

Until one day.

During a tournament to claim the title of the world's strongest, a certain martial artist, pushed to the brink of death by formidable foes from all corners of the realm, entered a highly peculiar state.

This state was born on a stage watched by all under heaven. The outcome of the battle would be known far and wide, gathering the renown and expectations of hundreds of millions of souls. That invisible atmosphere coalesced into a tangible, crushing weight upon his mind, nearly driving the martial artist to mental collapse.

Yet that martial artist was a peerless genius.

He endured it.

What followed was an unimaginable qualitative leap. His martial dao was no longer confined to the flesh; it had been reborn, rooted instead in the power of the mind and spirit.

Once a martial artist's mind could bear the weight of the world's renown, their spirit would transform and feed back into their physical body. The tangible result was the ultimate evolution of the five senses. They could hear ants crawling hundreds of meters away, feel a sudden premonition before danger arrived, and even slow down the world before their eyes.

In that era, this martial artist was honored as the Martial God.

He was the first martial artist to achieve this spiritual metamorphosis. To commemorate this pioneer of the martial dao, the people named this power of the mind—

Divine Intent.

The invisible net descended once more. Boundless Internal Force wrapped around every thread. In a daze, Wang Ping saw the massive net take the shape of a sharp claw.

Heavenly Roc Dragon Capture!

With this explosive burst, Xu Bingzheng landed squarely on the ground. His feet stomped heavily, and visible cracks instantly spread outward from beneath him.

The earth then shattered with his every step. He slowly raised his palm. Though his hands were empty, it looked as if he were hoisting a towering mountain. Surging Internal Force whipped up a howling gale and poured entirely into the massive net suspended in midair, astonishingly outlining a tangible, invisible mountain peak!

"Crush him!"

The voice arrived before the technique. To Wang Ping's shock, Xu Bingzheng's bellow struck his ears with an entirely unforeseen effect.

Rumble!

It was as if someone had set off a firecracker right next to his ear. The heavy, booming reverberation pierced inward, violently impacting his bones and muscles and sending his entire body into resonance.

This tremor completely exceeded his control, causing his body to instantly lose all ability to react. A shadow fell over his mind. It truly felt like a massive mountain was pressing down on him, grinding his thoughts to a halt. He could only watch helplessly as the great net crashed down toward his head.

The process did not last long.

From start to finish, it took only the span of a snapping finger. Under normal circumstances, it would not be worth mentioning. But in a life-and-death struggle between martial artists, a momentary pause was enough to determine exactly that—life and death.

'So this is Divine Intent... it can actually be used like this!'

'Bypassing the physical body to strike the mind directly?'

A clear realization surfaced in Wang Ping's heart. He had already lost. Just now, his mind had yielded to Xu Bingzheng, and he had become that little dragon captured by the heavenly roc.

And when the mind was defeated, the body would die!

In that lightning-fast instant, Wang Ping did not hesitate in the slightest. He drew a pill bottle hidden on his person and hurled it straight at the descending net.

"Take the pill!"

"Oh?"

At almost the same time, Xu Bingzheng let out a slight hum of surprise. Yet he made no move to catch the bottle. Instead, he retreated violently, retracting the invisible net along with him.

This proved that the strike which had nearly doomed Wang Ping was far from his full strength. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to retract it so effortlessly.

The next second, the pill bottle shattered. A cloud of white powder splashed through the air. The slivers of Internal Force that Xu Bingzheng hadn't withdrawn in time touched the powder and instantly burst into flames out of thin air. From a distance, it looked like a torch being lit in the dark night, fire and rain blending into a single mass.

"Energy-Dissolving Powder, capable of incinerating Internal Force."

Xu Bingzheng frowned slightly. "It seems you hold more than just tonic herbs in your hands; you have poison pills as well. What a pity. You still don't understand the fundamental gap between us."

"The Dao of utter sincerity allows one to foresee the future."

"If it were an ordinary person dead-set on obtaining that pill, distracted by your words and given no time to think, they might have genuinely fallen victim to your Energy-Dissolving Powder."

"But against a Titled Martial Master, this is meaningless."

"Because I don't need to think at all. I only need to follow the intuition given to me by Divine Intent. Nothing harmful can possibly touch me."

Of course, Wang Ping wasn't going to stand there like an idiot and watch Xu Bingzheng show off. The moment the man started speaking, Wang Ping had already bolted toward the outside of the estate. At the same time, he hurled another bottle of poison—Gu Poison Pills, pitch-black pellets the size of rice grains.

However, Xu Bingzheng paid them no mind.

Even though Wang Ping had used his spiritual sense to calculate the exact trajectory, Xu Bingzheng effortlessly dodged the Gu Poison Pills as if he had the gift of prophecy, maintaining his relentless pursuit.

"The struggle of a cornered beast."

"You've broken through to Internal Force far too recently. You have martial arts, but your technique completely lags behind. You haven't mastered the Cloud-Piercing Heaven-Shaking Bow yet, have you?"

Xu Bingzheng strolled as if walking through a quiet courtyard, speaking unhurriedly.

"For us martial artists, technique is the foundation of survival. Without it, no matter how profound your cultivation or how strong your physique, you are nothing but an unarmed monkey."

"And technique requires time to hone."

"With your third-rate skills, you might have gotten lucky and killed Chen Haoyan. But in front of a Titled Martial Master's Divine Intent, you're just a frail monkey."

As his voice fell, he violently clenched his fist.

With a single movement, the invisible net covering the sky abruptly contracted. The voice that had struck directly at his mind echoed once more, rolling across the sky like thunder.

"This punch holds twenty years of refinement."

"How will you block it?"

Rumble!

Wang Ping looked up. The phantom of the heavenly roc capturing a dragon surfaced in his mind once again. His thoughts were suppressed, his spirit shaken, and he froze in place once more.

But this time, he snapped out of it much faster.

'Shatter!'

A martial artist's Divine Intent could suppress the mind of a Mortal, but it could never shake the spiritual sense of an immortal cultivator. In that instant, it erupted violently, immediately taking control of Wang Ping's body.

Beyond that, his spiritual sense had caught a glimpse of something else.

'This is...?'

In a flash, Wang Ping, who had already prepared for death, felt his heart skip a beat. Like lightning slicing through the dark night, a doubt buried deep within his heart was unraveled.

'It seems I'm not the only one being schemed against here... If that's the case, then victory and death are still up in the air. Better to fight with everything I have—there might still be a chance!'

With that thought, Wang Ping decisively erupted.

Whoosh! Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A sound like a rushing river roared from within his body. His originally sturdy skin instantly turned blood-red, as if it could drip blood at any moment!

Immediately following, the Black Hornless Dragon Bow appeared in his hands. He drew the bow to a full moon just as before, but this time, a sound like a taut bowstring echoed from his own body, faintly accompanied by a dragon's roar. His bones and muscles were vibrating, generating force, pouring his entire body's strength into the weapon!

"Hmm?"

Almost simultaneously, Xu Bingzheng frowned.

Because exactly as Wang Ping shattered the mental suppression, a powerful sense of crisis—like a prickling thorn in his back and a looming catastrophe—suddenly rose in Xu Bingzheng's heart.

This was the intuition born of his Divine Intent. He could not possibly doubt it.

But... why?

'What happened?'

He wasn't surprised that Wang Ping could break through the mental suppression. After all, Divine Intent was not a physical object. Illusory mental power inherently required a medium like a gaze, a voice, or words to project its might. If the target was mentally prepared, its effectiveness would naturally plummet.

He was, after all, only a Titled Martial Master.

To truly unleash the full power of Divine Intent, one would likely need to be a Martial Dao Grandmaster who had achieved Seeing Divinity—a realm he had yet to step into.

But the problem was:

'Even if he broke my mental suppression, with his level of martial arts, even if he fought to the death and used a life-risking secret art, what right does he have to threaten me?'

Xu Bingzheng's thoughts raced furiously.

In his eyes, the world's movements slowed to a crawl. This was another effect of Divine Intent, giving him more time to formulate a strategy against the crisis.

In a split second, he devised over a dozen contingency plans.

He mentally ran through each one, checking his intuition's feedback. Whichever plan lowered his sense of crisis, he would choose.

Yet this time, the outcome was completely different.

'...None of them?'

Xu Bingzheng found it inconceivable.

No matter which plan he chose, the sense of crisis didn't waver in the slightest. In fact, as the slowed time trickled by, the sense of doom only grew heavier!

'I... might die?'

What a joke!

In that fleeting instant, Xu Bingzheng made his decision. The descending fist abruptly pulled back, and the invisible net swept up the rainwater, surging back toward the sky.

At almost the exact same time, Wang Ping moved.

With this movement, the Black Hornless Dragon Bow thrummed. Wang Ping's bones and muscles thrummed. His Internal Force exploded with a deafening roar. It didn't sound like a single man firing an arrow; it sounded like an entire army firing a volley!

In a flash, the long arrow left the string. Yet it did not fly as a single, straight line. Surrounded by shattering, explosive arrows of Internal Force, it smashed toward Xu Bingzheng with the violent fury of a torrential storm. Its momentum was so immense that it directly pulverized the falling rain, blasting open a rainless zone several meters across.

Simultaneously, Wang Ping's vision went black.

He had held nothing back in this strike. He had even used his spiritual sense to squeeze his physique to its absolute limits for a forced eruption. Now that the blow had landed, his entire body felt hollowed out.

Yet he didn't dare to slacken.

In the blink of an eye, the world fell still. The world spun, and he found himself in the space of the Taiping Sutra. Lines of blood-red text rapidly surfaced on the scripture scroll.

Perish Together with the Sun!

Xu Bingzheng had inflicted quite a few injuries upon him earlier. They were all recorded now and converted into tangible karmic retribution, ready to be entirely returned!

Pfft!

Looking up, the world returned to normal. A spray of blood abruptly burst from Xu Bingzheng's body. It was the retribution of Perish Together with the Sun—yet the effect was minuscule.

The injuries had been too light.

The gap between Wang Ping and Xu Bingzheng was vastly larger than the gap between him and Chen Haoyan had been. Furthermore, he hadn't suffered anything like a severed arm this time.

Thus, the retribution was minor, only causing Xu Bingzheng to stall for a fraction of a second.

However, the rule remained: in a life-and-death struggle between martial artists, a fraction of a second's pause was often enough to decide victory, defeat, and even life and death.

'Now!' Wang Ping's eyes widened.

Without a sound, and without any warning—as if it were merely a thought from someone far away—a blood flower bloomed on Xu Bingzheng's body.

flowers bloom with a single thought.

"Shouchong—!!!"

Xu Bingzheng's roar of hateful agony mixed into the noise of the rain, the splatter of blood, and the piercing shriek of Wang Ping's fully powered arrow, sounding all the more wretched.

Compared to the retribution from Perish Together with the Sun, the sudden appearance of Shouchong had delivered the true fatal blow. That blood flower had bloomed right on his chest. It didn't just breach his physical body; it shattered his martial foundation, causing his Internal Force to completely spiral out of control and run wild through his meridians!

And right at this critical, fatal moment, Wang Ping's desperate strike arrived!

Yet, facing this life-or-death instant, Xu Bingzheng showed no intention of blocking. Instead of retreating, he advanced, and the boiling Internal Force in his body erupted!

But it was also at this moment.

An aged chuckle drifted eerily from the curtain of rain. "You merely touched 'divinity' but haven't truly achieved 'Seeing Divinity'. With just this, you dare speak of foresight?"

"You again... you lingering ghost of an old bastard!"

Xu Bingzheng gritted his teeth. However, he felt a tremendous mental pressure carried within that voice—a pressure so intense that even he felt burdened by it, slowing his thoughts.

"Furthermore, even if it truly was foresight, so what? As long as the power is great enough and the speed fast enough, this so-called foresight only serves to multiply your terror."

"For example."

"With my next blade, I will sever your right hand."

A bloody light bloomed once more.

Xu Bingzheng's right hand was pierced through. A bowl-sized bloody hole exploded on the spot, and the violently blossoming power frantically crushed his bones and muscles.

The Internal Force he had erupted with to block Wang Ping's desperate strike subsequently collapsed.

He had sensed the crisis in advance and had tried to dodge, but he couldn't.

Everything happened in a flash of lightning. Even the conversation between Shouchong and Xu Bingzheng had actually been transmitted purely as thoughts during the clash of their Divine Intents.

Anyone who wasn't a Titled Martial Master—a martial artist whose mind had reached the realm of profound subtlety—would not sense their collision at all, nor would they hear this instantaneous exchange.

Swish! Swish!

The flurry of arrows arrived.

Dozens of tiny wounds instantly exploded all over Xu Bingzheng's body. Simultaneously, a long arrow pierced through the left hand he had desperately raised to shield his forehead.

The next second, his figure vanished from the spot.

Almost instantly, four or five silver-white throwing knives appeared out of thin air exactly where he had just been standing, each radiating a chilling aura that made Wang Ping's scalp tingle.

'Where did he go!?'

Wang Ping's thoughts raced. Then, as if struck by sudden inspiration, he looked up, just in time to see Xu Bingzheng's figure trailing bloody light as he swiftly disappeared into the depths of a dark cloud.

Divine Rope!

This was the origin of Xu Bingzheng's reputation. This cloud-climbing, sky-scaling movement art was his true foundation for survival, and he had managed to successfully execute it at the very last moment.

"Hmph, he runs fast."

Under the moonlight, the white-haired Shouchong, clad in a Daoist robe, strolled out. His gaze lingered with a trace of regret on the dark clouds for a moment before withdrawing.

Following that, he looked at Wang Ping and grinned broadly.

"Good apprentice, I truly didn't misjudge you. You were born to be a rebel!"

"You old bastard..." Wang Ping gritted his teeth.

"You knew all along that I was the one who killed Chen Haoyan. You stayed by my side the whole time just waiting for that dog official to notice the clues and come looking for me."

"Correct." Shouchong nodded with a beaming smile.

"The County Yamen is heavily guarded; it wouldn't have been easy for me to force my way in."

"That man surnamed Xu is an old tortoise who rarely shows his face. Fortunately, Chen Haoyan died, and Xu coveted that pill in your hands. Only then did he reveal an opening."

Without a doubt, he had been used as bait by Shouchong yet again.

Xu Bingzheng believed he had found the true culprit, but in reality, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. He had been fished straight out of the County Yamen by Shouchong.

For tonight's grand play, this old bastard was the mastermind behind the curtain!

Thinking of this, Wang Ping looked up, about to speak, only to see Shouchong's receding back.

"Although Xu Bingzheng escaped this time, his injuries will take at least half a year to a year to heal. The county town is bound to fall into chaos because of this. This old man won't stay here any longer."

"There's no time to lose; I leave tonight."

"Good apprentice, the martial world is vast. Take care of yourself!"

"..." Wang Ping was speechless.

This old bastard really isn't human!

Wang Ping took several deep breaths before finally calming down. He glanced beside him at Liu Ye, who had instantly fainted the moment Xu Bingzheng fled with heavy injuries.

He checked his breathing. Good luck, the man was still breathing.

What next?

Although Xu Bingzheng was injured so badly that he wouldn't be a threat for the time being, the County Yamen and those hundred or so bailiffs were still around. Staying at the Su Family estate posed a considerable risk.

It seemed he had to run.

Right at this moment, Wang Ping suddenly felt a sense of awareness. He turned his head and immediately saw the woman standing under the eaves, her beautiful eyes staring straight at him.

Sometime during the chaos, Madam Su had awakened.

She seemed to have witnessed the entire process. She knew Wang Ping had killed Chen Haoyan, understood that he was currently in grave danger, and was well aware that he needed to flee immediately.

However, once Wang Ping fled, she would be the only one left here.

When that time came, all alone, lacking the power to protect herself, and stripped of Wang Ping's shelter—what kind of malice would she suffer, and what kind of fate would she face?

She didn't know, but she figured it wouldn't be anything good.

So she merely stood there, watching.

Her beautiful eyes were deep and profound, blurring into the curtain of rain, making it impossible to read her thoughts. She didn't speak. She just stood quietly across the rain, gazing at Wang Ping.

The curtain of rain seemed to separate two different worlds.

The next second, Wang Ping decisively hoisted Liu Ye onto his back. Carrying his bow and blade, he strode right through the curtain of rain, arriving in front of the woman. With a relaxed tone, he said, "Let's go. I'm taking you out of the city."