Chapter 3751 — Fooling You Once
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
With the might of the Life-Reaping Chain Sword, Twenty-Fourth Stance, let alone Wei Zhao—a mere peak early-Foundation Establishment expert—even a mid-Foundation Establishment expert would not still be standing here, not unless the sword qi had diced him to pieces!
Yet Wei Zhao, drenched in ghastly, glaring blood, answered with a faint smile: "Terribly sorry about that. I anticipated your second burst of sword qi long ago. The reason I deliberately let you hit me was simply to fool you one more time. I'm just that fond of a good joke—sorry to disappoint you. My apologies."
Before the words had even faded, Wei Zhao gave his opponent no chance to react. He drove the true qi he had long been gathering and struck the man's chest with a single palm—his strongest, most lethal killing move, amplified by the Essence Necklace: the Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm, Twenty-Second Stance!
At that very moment, Yu Jiang had just finished unleashing the Life-Reaping Chain Sword, Twenty-Fourth Stance, consuming a vast amount of true qi. He was wholly spent, with nothing left in reserve, and was utterly unprepared for Wei Zhao's palm.
A full-fledged mid-Foundation Establishment expert was sent flying a full ten zhang by that single palm. His chest gave a series of crackling reports and caved in; blood sprayed ceaselessly from his mouth, tracing a gory arc through the air. He could not even manage the most basic protective tuck as he fell, crashing to the ground, dead or alive unknown.
"Before absolute strength, all schemes and tricks are nothing but jokes—there's truth in that saying. I'll take it as advance praise from you." Watching the motionless Yu Jiang from afar, Wei Zhao drew a sharp breath and forced himself upright, then gritted his teeth and raised his hand to inspect the mangled flesh beneath his left armpit. Not bad—the wound was serious, but not overly so; it would not be too troublesome to recover from.
The wound had appeared beneath his left armpit precisely because Wei Zhao had foreseen the attack and prepared for it in advance.
In truth, he could have dodged the second sword strike and withdrawn unscathed, but doing so would have cost him the perfect chance to deal the enemy a grievous blow—and finding another such opportunity would not come easily.
So he had improvised this bitter-flesh stratagem on the spot, deliberately adjusting his body so that the opponent's second burst of sword qi would pierce through beneath his left armpit, creating the illusion that the sword qi had run him through in a fatal spot—when in fact, this wound was nowhere near enough to kill a man like Wei Zhao!
And once he had deceived the other's eyes, what followed was simple. One palm of the Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm, Twenty-Second Stance, and the world fell silent.
Given Yu Jiang's caution and cunning, Wei Zhao would have found such a killing opportunity very hard to come by no matter how much scheming he employed—for at the slightest sign of trouble the man would respond at once, and even if Wei Zhao landed a killing move, it might not have been enough to end him.
But after the Frenzied Fire Fist had burned him into a fury of humiliation, he abandoned thought of his own accord and chose to crush Wei Zhao with sheer strength—and that was the true root of his tragedy.
When the two sides' actual strength was roughly equal, a war of minds was the key to determining who would have the last laugh. After all, with strength so evenly matched, what did one have to crush the other with?
So the moment Yu Jiang abandoned thought, the outcome of this duel had in fact already been decided.
Wei Zhao let out a long, foul breath. After briefly steadying his breathing, he at once walked toward Yu Jiang.
Though today's battle had been a victory of the war of minds, it had been anything but easy. As the saying goes, to uproot evil one must be thorough and tear out the roots—having come this far, he would naturally not leave his opponent alive.