Chapter 4509 — Do You Know How It Ends?

"Oh? You know, do you have any idea how things turned out for all the people who made a habit of mocking me as a posturing tyrant?" Wei Zhao was in no hurry at all. Facing Cheng Haonan's full-bore eruption without the slightest fear, he fled backward to keep his distance while asking, mild as a drifting cloud.

"I don't know, and I don't want to!" Cheng Haonan sneered, his face twisted. In his eyes Wei Zhao was already a dead man, and he had no interest in wasting words on a corpse.

"Heh. Then let me be merciful and tell you. I'm soft-hearted, you see—I'd hate for you to die with your eyes open. They're all dead." Wei Zhao still wore his easy smile, the mockery on his face plain for all to see.

At this sight the whole hall could not help but look strange. Even Qi Wenmo and the others were certain Wei Zhao's odds were grim—who would have thought that at a moment like this he still had the heart to yank Cheng Haonan's chain...

Was this the boldness of a master's skill, or was it a man who knew doom was upon him and meant to feast his tongue one last time before he died?

"Hmph! At a time like this, big talk is all you've got left. If you're so capable, then why run? Hurry up and finish me!" Cheng Haonan cackled on and on, though a flicker of surprise stirred in his heart—Wei Zhao's footwork and speed seemed somehow different from yesterday's.

In yesterday's ring duel, the boy's movement arts had been exquisite, to be sure, and far faster than those of ordinary experts—but compared with Cheng Haonan himself, they still fell short. Otherwise he would not have spent the whole fight pinned and pummeled.

And now, besides, he had opened his full blackened state, his speed surging by a huge margin. In theory he ought to have closed the distance in an instant. Yet now, three full breaths had passed, and though the gap between them had narrowed somewhat, it was nothing pronounced.

Stranger still, the faint, half-there pulse of true qi emanating from Wei Zhao struck Cheng Haonan as oddly... like his own. Such a bizarre phenomenon had never once appeared yesterday.

"Could it be..." The thought that Wu Baoliang had died beneath a Wild Fire Thousand Bursts Fist identical to his own Wild Sand Thousand Bursts Fist sent a jolt through Cheng Haonan. Hard as it was to believe, if it had happened once it could happen twice—perhaps the boy truly possessed that fearsome ability to turn a man's own way against him, and had even stolen his top-tier body art!

The more he thought, the more his heart quailed, and Cheng Haonan's confidence drained away. Yesterday he had been able to suppress Wei Zhao on every front solely because the gulf between them in body art was so vast. Once that advantage was gone, even if he could still beat Wei Zhao, it was bound to become desperately hard.

This was no mere rabble, after all. This was a man who could blast Wu Baoliang head-on into oblivion. Against an expert of that caliber, even Cheng Haonan could capsize in a ditch if he was careless!

Seeing Cheng Haonan's face shift and darken by turns, Wei Zhao knew the man had caught on. He stopped hiding it at once. Without another word he unleashed the newly assembled Super Butterfly Microstep at full power, and his footwork and speed surged another notch—the distance that had been steadily closing was instantly torn open by several body-lengths.

"So it's true!" Cheng Haonan had now fully confirmed his suspicion. He was so furious he howled and yowled, both eyes spitting fire. This was not only his chance to avenge his son Cheng Qitian—it was the tribute of allegiance for his induction under the Old Sect of the Western Mountains. Killing Wei Zhao was the bare minimum, a thing to be plucked from his grasp at will—how could he permit any mishap?

The black qi around him abruptly thickened, and at the same time began to show signs of running out of control. Cheng Haonan's speed finally surged anew. He was risking everything.

What choice did he have? His speed came purely from his top-tier body art; he had never trained any profound movement technique of his own. Wei Zhao, by contrast, was a classic speed specialist, and now with the Super Butterfly Microstep he had sprouted wings—in this state alone he was faster than his opponent in full blackened form.

Of course, this was also because Wei Zhao had just broken through to the peak of mid-Golden Core. His base strength had risen by a notch, and now with the Super Butterfly Microstep added atop it, the two stacked together, the increase was naturally no small thing.

What was more, the same technique in different hands produced effects worlds apart. In top-tier body art and super-limit body art, Cheng Haonan was plainly the genuine article—yet now that he had run into a freak like Wei Zhao, the effect made him look like the knockoff. Who was he supposed to complain to about that?

Cheng Haonan was on the verge of spitting blood—not purely from rage, but because he had forced it out of himself.

The full blackened state was already the limit of what he could normally command. Now, to catch Wei Zhao quickly, he had pushed further at any cost. His speed was greater, yes, but he had taken no small internal injury in the doing. To leave a good impression in the heart of the Old Sect of the Western Mountains, he was trading his very life for speed.

"Stall him a little longer and I could wear him down to death, worse luck." Wei Zhao shook his head at the sight. One night's work had let him study the blackened state inside out, so of course he knew exactly what condition Cheng Haonan was in. Were it not for the Old Sect of the Western Mountains eyeing him like a tiger from the sidelines, he would have had every chance to play Cheng Haonan to death in this state.

As things stood, though, with Cheng Haonan rapidly closing the gap again, he could not afford to tangle with the man too long. Even if he killed Cheng Haonan today, he would have no way to get clear afterward.

For all that Wei Zhao's strength had grown alarmingly of late, the chasm between them was plain to see. However heaven-defying he might be, he could not possibly escape from beneath a mountain-opening titan of a heretic cultivator—he was only at the peak of mid-Golden Core, after all, not the peak of mid-Nascent Soul...

At any rate, getting away was the only thing that mattered—and that was exactly what Wei Zhao had been quietly scheming and planning from the very moment Cheng Haonan appeared.

"Wahaha! Weren't you the fast one? Let's see you run now!" Cheng Haonan, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, laughed wildly in smug triumph. He had caught the bastard at last!

"Run?" They were close enough to touch, yet Wei Zhao suddenly blinked, his expression unfathomable. "You think I was running because of you? Forget this life—next life, do pay a little more attention..."

"Bullshit—" Cheng Haonan was just about to sneer some victor's taunt when he saw Wei Zhao suddenly push one palm flat toward him. To a body-art expert versed in both inner and outer cultivation like himself, it looked wrong no matter how he turned it over in his mind. What killing power could such a slow, dawdling palm possibly have?

But when Wei Zhao's hand opened fully and he felt the thing in his palm—a mass tiny in size yet purple to the point of black—Cheng Haonan's face changed on the spot. His pupils flared wide, and his expression turned to one of boundless terror and savagery. (To be continued.)