Such remarks didn't even qualify as a bluff. Of course, Feng Bujue didn't expect the other party to believe him; he was just saying it for the sake of it.

Shiva simply chuckled at this nonsense, taking it as a joke. "In such a pressing life-or-death escape, you still have the mood to display your humor... Ha... That's certainly one of your remarkable qualities."

"No, from a psychological perspective, I'm establishing a psychological defense," Feng Bujue replied, simultaneously firing another freezing pulse backward.

"Is that so? That's a first for me," Shiva said, still easily evading the attack.

"Because I made it up," Feng Bujue added. "As long as you involve the word 'psychology,' it feels high-end, classy, and profound, doesn't it?"

"Hmph... Enough with the jokes," Shiva said, his expression subtly changing.

In the next second, the six stone discs of the Celestial Dance Hourglass appeared one after another, quickly catching up from behind and scattering around Feng Bujue, moving in the same direction as him.

There was still a weakness to this spiritual energy weapon that Feng Bujue hadn't observed: when these stone discs left the controller's line of sight, they became less responsive. Because Shiva had to keep his attention focused ahead during this chase, the group of discs had only just now caught up.

Although they were a little late, they had managed to catch up. The appearance of these stone discs practically signaled the end of this pursuit.

Feng Bujue also understood that continuing to run was pointless; he couldn't be faster than these flying objects. The only option now was to make a desperate gamble and turn around to fight the opponent.

However, he had now lost the protection of the Bloodthirsty Armor, and Spirit Consciousness Gathering was not a long-term solution. How could he compete with the player ranked second on the combat power list?

He had no time to think about this question, because the first wave of light beam attacks was already upon him.

In that instant, Feng Bujue stomped his feet on the ground to stop abruptly, squatted down, pushed off with his legs, and sprang backward in one breath. He approached his opponent with his back to Shiva, a whistling elbow strike coming at him.

Feng Bujue's action also embodied the principle of achieving victory through surprise. Usually, in this situation, the person being chased would likely dodge to the side or diagonally, but Feng Bujue chose to launch a surprise attack directly backward, turning defense into offense and turning the tables.

But who was Shiva? He could dodge the light beams from the Freezing Pulse Gun; would he not be able to react to a close-range attack?

A moment later, a "crack" sound was heard, and Feng Bujue's arm broke.

Shiva chose to meet the elbow strike head-on with his fist, but to his surprise, even his own fist broke.

"It seems your fighting ability isn't as bad as I imagined..." Shiva calmly retracted his hand, turned to the side, and followed up with a spinning kick.

After being momentarily stopped by the collision, Feng Bujue's body halted in mid-air, but the momentum of his previous movement hadn't completely dissipated. He saw Shiva's follow-up move, reacted immediately, and, using the force of the opponent's attack on his elbow, forcibly rotated his body in mid-air, twisting in the direction of the opponent's kick, using the remaining momentum.

Shiva really hadn't expected Feng Bujue to make such a move...

Thus, with this extremely strange dodging technique, Brother Jue brushed past Shiva and landed behind his opponent.

"If I hadn't seen someone do it, I really wouldn't have thought you could dodge a roundhouse kick like that," Shiva said with a smile. "Interesting, more and more interesting..." Shiva suddenly realized that Feng Bujue's fighting skills weren't as terrible as they seemed. It seemed that when he fought Todd earlier, it was because he had a bomb strapped to his body, so he couldn't use his full strength.

Actually... even Feng Bujue himself didn't know how he had just done that. This kind of flash of inspiration, a successful action by chance, would definitely fail if he tried it again.

"If it's interesting, let's keep going!" Feng Bujue said, unleashing the newly cooled-down [Look Out], again choosing the Fighting specialization.

After contending with strength once, Feng Bujue estimated Shiva's physical skills to be at least 30% stronger than his own with Spirit Consciousness Gathering activated... With this gap, and with the opponent having a powerful spiritual energy weapon as support, canceling the buff would be tantamount to suicide. Therefore, Feng Bujue used the skill first, wanting to temporarily suppress the opponent, at least to buy himself time to drink a health potion and maintain Spirit Consciousness Gathering.

Of course, Shiva had also paid a price in that earlier exchange.

Feng Bujue's left elbow was broken, and Shiva's right fist was also in bad shape. After all, the bone in the elbow is thicker than the bone in the fist. After that collision, Shiva's right hand—his five fingers, wrist, and metacarpal bones—were all damaged; either fractured or cracked.

Although this was a game, and the pain was lessened, the human instinct to protect one's body was difficult to overcome. It was like having a large blister burned on your skin; everyone knew you should pop it, but it was difficult to do cleanly and decisively.

No matter how much virtual combat experience Shiva had, he hadn't reached the point of being "unaware, unafraid, disregarding life and death, neither ghost nor god, resembling a mad demon." Therefore, instinct made the choice for him. He used his relatively weaker left hand, fist against palm, to receive Feng Bujue's attack.

In this fleeting moment, Shiva was also careful, secretly adding a skill to his fist. The skill itself was very weak, a multiple-use skill he had obtained at a low level, always kept in his skill bar, with only one use remaining. The effect was simply to increase the power of his punch by 20%.

On the surface, whether he used this skill or not didn't seem to matter much, but intuition told Shiva that Feng Bujue's palm strike might have a hidden plot. Earlier, Todd had been in a similar situation, assuming his strength was superior, and had naturally tried to block, resulting in a hidden loss.

Shiva didn't want to repeat that mistake. He preferred to add a seemingly dispensable weight here, just in case.

That's the difference between a top expert and an ordinary expert; it's the same in all fields. Details determine success or failure. Countless minute factors accumulate into a qualitative difference. To become a top expert, you have to be foolproof.

Bang—

The clash of fist and palm produced a muffled sound like two wild beasts colliding.

Two seconds later, Shiva's cold face, half-hidden by his long hair, was filled with shock.

He could clearly feel a powerful force pouring into his left arm, his bones shattering one by one... The skill he had added was swallowed up like a small boat in a giant wave before this force.

"How is this possible?" Shiva exclaimed.

Feng Bujue couldn't answer him, because Brother Jue himself didn't know what this skill was... If he knew, he would definitely shout that his luck had exploded, randomly getting a high-level, consumable active skill at this critical moment.

[Name: Ferocious Tiger Pushes the Mountain (Iron Palm Fifth Style)]

[Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, disappears after one use]

[Skill Category: Fighting]

[Effect: Severely injures the target with a fierce palm strike]

[Consumption: 50% of Stamina Value Limit]

[Learning Conditions: Fighting Specialization D]

[Remarks: Iron Palm, originating from the Iron Palm Gang of Western Hunan, is infinitely powerful and unmatched in the martial world. Those struck by it often die of multiple organ failure on the way to the hospital. Fifth Style, Ferocious Tiger Pushes the Mountain - starting stance: stand naturally, gather qi in the dantian, lightly lift one arm in front of the chest, palm facing forward and downward with a forceful shaking strike, exhale the sound "Hai" to aid the force, the palm wind comes out and immediately retracts, imagining the palm turning into a thousand layers, penetrating through the enemy's back, layered and superimposed, penetrating into the enemy's body and striking through.]

"Hahahaha! Scared, aren't you!" Feng Bujue said with a look of arrogance. "This is the second style of the Surging Waves Palm, Overwhelming Mountains and Seas." While saying that, he was clever enough to know when to quit while he was ahead. No matter what the opponent's reaction was, he jumped backward first to create distance. "I also know Seas Causing Chaos, Waves Surging Fiercely, Undercurrents Swirling, Rivers Joining the Sea, White Waves Raging, Great Waves Washing Away Sand, Hidden Tides Surging, Overturning Rivers and Seas, Mountains Shouting and Seas Roaring, Waves Roaring to the Nine Heavens, Calm Seas, Seas Drying Up and Rocks Crumbling, Blood Sea of Love, Sea and Sky Merged into One..." He said it all in one breath, without a single pause, like a cross-talk routine. "If you don't die after this set, I still have a trump card, Eighteen Subduing Dragon..."

"Okay, okay, okay..." Shiva repeated quickly three times. He quickly swallowed a Survival Value Replenishment (Large) and also used a [Universal Recovery] (this item is from the Thriller Paradise store, the effect is exactly the same as the item of the same name in Pokémon). "Don't talk nonsense, you and I both understand that even if you can occasionally launch attacks like this, you still can't beat me." He paused for a moment. "Let me make you a deal. You surrender immediately, which will save me some medicine. After the scenario ends, if Brother Feng is willing, how about I reserve a position for you as a core player in the Gods?"

"What!" Feng Bujue's reaction was a look of displeasure. He immediately pulled out [Miss Moxxi's Bad Touch] and the Low-Power Freezing Pulse Gun (putting it back in his bag before the returning elbow strike), one in each hand, raised them flat, "Do you think I look like the kind of person who would be subservient to others?"

"You [BEEP]!" Shiva was also provoked, shouting out loud.

"I do have one, middle-school syndrome." Feng Bujue curled up one corner of his mouth in a sneering reply.

Shiva was stunned upon hearing this and thought to himself, "Damn... how did he know that the words the system blocked for me were 'sick in the head'..."

"Hmph..." Shiva took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "Don't think I'm afraid of you..."

"Of course you're not afraid of me; you just think things are getting a little troublesome," Feng Bujue had also seen through the opponent. "If you continue to exhaust yourself like this, you might not have enough energy to deal with Seven Kills. That's what you're thinking, right?"

"I advise you not to keep acting up..."

Da da da, pew pew...

Before Shiva could finish speaking, Feng Bujue fired both guns at once.

"Hahahahaha..." Feng Bujue once again burst into insane laughter, laughing wildly as he said, "Your mouth says no, but your body is very honest! Hahahahaha!"

"Damn it..." Shiva rolled around, looking for cover, dodging the gunfire, and exclaimed from the bottom of his heart, "They don't even block such perverted language!"