Finally Shangguan Long was unable to hold back; with a violent roar he leaped up, crossing the fishpond, and the dragonhead staff came crashing down on Kou Zhong's head.
A strong gust of wind incited the water of the pond, the water surface sank, billows whirled around, the fish were startled and leaped out of the water, and thus the hallow tranquility of the underwater world of the pond was disturbed.
A faint smile, brimming with confidence, escaped from the corner of Kou Zhongs mouth. The entire power in his body was concentrated on the Moon in the Well. A flash of lightning shot out.
‘Dang!'
The saber and the staff collided. Sparks flew in all directions, followed by an ear-splitting explosion.
Kou Zhong's body swayed, but Shangguan Long's entire body was jolted that it flew to the other side of the fishpond.
Although it was just one sharp and clear contact, everybody appeared to be dazzled by the fiery clash.
Nobody knew who did it, but someone shouted loudly, "The first move!” It was a female voice.
Ba Fenghan and Xu Ziling upstairs frowned, because they recognized Dugu Feng's voice.
Obviously she wanted to see Kou Zhong lose his prestige, hence she spoke to increase the psychological pressure on him.
Shangguan Long landed back on the edge of the pond; immediately he spin his staff into a slab of staff shadow to guard against Kou Zhong seizing this opportunity to strike back.
The staff shadow suddenly vanished.
Once again Shangguan Long adopted a stance with the staff held across his chest, because he simply could not move the more than a hundred catty dragonhead staff like that indefinitely, otherwise eventually he would be dead of exhaustion.
In the pond, the water calmed down, but the fish still leaped out of the water continuously.
The instant Shangguan Long held the staff still, Kou Zhong finally made his move.
Against all expectation, he did not move like Shangguan Long earlier, where he leaped at an angle across the pond and then strike down from the air; rather, with his sole on the surface of the water, he slid across the pond, as if he was sliding on a flat land. The Moon in the Well suddenly gleamed with yellow light as it struck the enemy.
The crowd roared in shock.
According to physical law, only by leaping vertically into the air will one be able to attack while advancing, defend while retreating.
By doing what Kou Zhong did, dashing horizontally and attacking from the front, as long as Shangguan Long was able to hold his ground steadily at the edge of the pond, he might be able to force Kou Zhong to fall into the pond.
Shangguan Long knew that Kou Zhong was ‘deceitful in many ways'. Although was fully aware that it was a bit unconventional, in this tense moment, he did not have time to think too much. Focusing his power on his arms, he roared and brandished his staff to sweep at Kou Zhong.
The strangest thing happened.
When Kou Zhong was at the middle of the pond, suddenly he sprang up to the air, not only to evade Shangguan Long's staff sweep, he also leaped above Shangguan Long's head to send a full blow downward.
Upstairs, Xu Ziling and Ba Fenghan stared in awe; they both guessed that Kou Zhong had used the fish as a stepping-stone, borrowing the reaction force to bring about this totally unexpected change.
Immediately cheers and applause thundered throughout Tingliu Pavilion, increasing Kou Zhong's prowess.
As soon Shangguan Long's staff swept across an empty space, he knew the turn of events was far from good.
With the saber blade pressing down overhead, in order to save his own life, he had to unleash the skill stored deep at the bottom of his chest to deal with the attack.
With a wild roar he raised the staff with both hands to block the full power that Kou Zhong had been amassing for quite a while; the saber strike that could break the gold and shatter the rock.
‘Boom!”
The saber and the staff collided again. But unlike the previous time, the sound of clashing was a low, distant and stifled rumble.
Spiraling energy rolled the dragonhead staff in, and continued to invade Shangguan Long's meridians via his two arms.
Of course Shangguan Long did not dare to be negligence; opening up his mouth wide, he spurted a mouthful of blackish violet rain of blood, while from the sleeves of his garment, the arms, which were raising the dragonhead staff high above his head, immediately turned blackish purple as well. It was extremely scary.
From all around the crowd cried and gasped in shock.
Although not many people have ever seen this kind of demonic martial art, but nobody doubted that what they were witnessing was a martial art technique that was definitely not from an orthodox school.
Borrowing the reaction force from the impact, Kou Zhong somersaulted toward Shangguan Long's back. Before his feet touched the ground, he already sent out a backhanded saber strike toward Shangguan Long, whose eyes were gleaming with purple light, and was brandishing his staff into tens of thousands staff shadow in a furious attack.
Now, even if the ten-move limitation was no longer in effect, but as soon as there was the slightest chance to escape, Shangguan Long would definitely take the opportunity to flee.
Success or failure, it depended on whether the saber strike would be able to control Shangguan Long, who was rushing his demonic skill to show its full potential.
This saber strike was carrying the full power he had amassed a moment ago; it was swift and fierce without equal. Its area of coverage was quite vast, as he did not wish to let Shangguan Long to find a gap that he could exploit to run away.
The saber light passed through.
‘Qiang!'
Shangguan Long was hit that he nearly stumbled into the pond, in an extremely sorry situation.
Letting out a long laugh, Kou Zhong moved like a shadow-following-shadow, to pursue and attack.
Shangguan Long's old face from purple turned black; clearly he was extremely frightened. Doing everything he could, he retreated by winding around the pond.
The sound of the saber clashing against the staff became more and more frequent, like the continuous ringing of bell or chime stones [ancient percussion instrument mad of stone or jade pieces hung in a row and struck as a xylophone], or the urgent beating of battle drum. The atmosphere was very intense.
Both sides were fighting speed with speed, like a rabbit zigzagging away from the falcon's hunt, unfolding into an incomparably intense hand-to-hand combat.
All around the crowd was watching with bated breath.
Those with rather inferior martial art skill were dazzled.
Anybody with a rather keen insight ought to know that when a long-weapon wielder like Shangguan Long was forced to deal with an opponent like Kou Zhong in a close-range combat, he would fall into an absolutely disadvantageous situation.
Suddenly, amid a loud ringing, the shadows separated.
‘Qiang!'
The Moon in the Well returned to its scabbard.
Kou Zhong stood at the edge of the pond, staring ferociously at the dumb-as-a-wooden-chicken opponent.
Not even half a sound was heard throughout the whole audience.
Victory and defeat has been decided.
‘Splash!”
The dragonhead staff slipped off from Shangguan Long's hands and fell into the pool.
The purplish black color from Shangguan Long's skin subsided; it was replaced with a morbid pale color.
After a bout of shaking, Shangguan Long dropped down on his knees, while continuously gasping for breath.
Several human figures, coming from several different places, separately darted over toward the two.