Chapter 3670 — Dangers upon Dangers
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Folding its wings and drawing in its feathers, the giant eagle plunged straight down at Wei Zhao, in an instant crossing a distance of dozens of zhang to appear directly above his head; the golden talons beneath its belly came clawing at him trailing a fierce, sharp energy, and the immense force generated in that one instant surpassed every divine weapon and treasure blade Wei Zhao had ever seen!
Bang! In his haste Wei Zhao threw his back hard against the rock, paying the price of injury as he pressed himself flat into the cliff face; this limited his movement, but at least he could still counterattack—better that than losing his footing and being snatched away outright.
At the same time, Wei Zhao clenched his hand into a fist and, back to the rock wall, launched a Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, the searing, fire-hot fist intent instantly meeting the giant eagle's incoming golden talons.
The Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist was now the second most powerful technique in Wei Zhao's arsenal, second only to the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, his strongest killing move.
Though it was somewhat inferior to the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, its advantage lay in not draining his true qi dry within a single move; on this cliff where he had neither sky above nor ground below, Wei Zhao had to save a bit of true qi for self-preservation.
Otherwise, he would not even need the enemy to exert itself—once he unleashed the Twenty-One Stance Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm, leaving aside whatever it might do to the giant eagle, he himself would be the first to capitulate, or simply plummet, his life or death left to the heavens.
The fist intent of the Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist was like a long-dormant volcano erupting all at once—not only tremendous in power, but ceaseless and unending; against an ordinary early Foundation Establishment expert, this single punch alone would have been enough to wound them.
But the problem was that what he faced now was a giant eagle of at least the mid Foundation Establishment stage. The Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist might be domineering enough for an ordinary early Foundation Establishment expert, but for this born overlord of the skies before him, it was still far from enough.
Wei Zhao had not truly placed much hope in this punch to begin with; it was purely out of a cultivator's pride that he refused to simply surrender without a fight. Yet utterly beyond his expectations, faced with his Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, this fierce bird that looked so invincible actually chose to shrink back!
"What's going on here? Could this thing be nothing but a gaudy pillow puffed up with empty bluster?" Wei Zhao could not help but wonder in astonishment.
Once strength reached the Foundation Establishment level, the spiritual intelligence of nearly all spirit beasts was already no different from that of humans, and it was no surprise for all manner of human-like thoughts to appear. Yet a leopard cannot change its spots; by ordinary reasoning, no matter how strong these spirit beasts grew, they would hardly abandon their innate love of valor and combat—least of all a giant eagle, a combat-type spirit beast born for slaughter.
If this giant eagle truly were as powerful as Wei Zhao had guessed, with strength at or above the mid Foundation Establishment stage, then faced with this Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist, it should not have chosen to dodge, but rather to answer in kind and crush him outright with a single talon.
But regardless, the giant eagle had indeed retreated before the Twenty-Two Stance Blazing Fire Fist—and then, in the next instant, it fiercely beat its wings at Wei Zhao!
Whoosh—!
At such close range, what did it feel like to be struck by the furious wingbeat of a pair of wings five zhang across?