Chapter 3791 — Long in the Making
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
In the blink of an eye three more leg shadows came sweeping at Qiao Hongcai from three entirely different directions, and Qiao Hongcai again took them all just as before, letting out a muffled grunt and enduring them without so much as shifting his feet.
So this piece of trash really was the kind that could only stand there waiting to die! Only at this moment did the last of the guard in Meng Zhou's heart finally come down.
Once bitten, twice shy. Though he had loudly sworn he thought nothing of Qiao Hongcai, the truth was that even a man as arrogant as Meng Zhou could not help but feel a lingering dread after that first exchange, and though he knew full well he held the advantage, he had not dared strut about as brazenly as usual; he had been treading with the utmost care, right up to this moment.
But after so many probes, Meng Zhou was now certain that this good-for-nothing Qiao, even if he had succeeded in establishing his Foundation, was nothing but a Foundation-stage novice, and that apart from that one underhanded trick earlier, he had no power to resist at all and could be trampled on bold as you please.
"Die!" After long gathering, Meng Zhou's deadliest killing move at last arrived. Though the Thousand-Leg Art, Twenty-One Forms could conjure a thousand layered leg shadows, when all was said and done only this final, solid, flesh-and-bone kick was the true killer.
Bang! At the dull thud of bodies slamming together, the thousand phantom leg shadows scattered in an instant, and everyone below the stage could see plainly that Meng Zhou had driven his leg square into Qiao Hongcai's chest—no block, no defense at all.
Any normal man in that position would know the chest is the most tightly guarded and hardest place to attack; anyone else in Meng Zhou's shoes would surely have aimed at the back of the heart, or the back of the skull, some vital point. Yet Meng Zhou did the exact opposite, and it worked a wonder precisely because of it.
Pfft! Qiao Hongcai hung there a moment, then abruptly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood—a sight to make the eye recoil.
"Heh heh, take Meng Zhou's Thousand-Leg Art, Twenty-One Forms head-on like that, and even that grand-standing chief guard Wei Zhao couldn't have stood it, let alone a rank little underling who's only just established his Foundation. Truly, he doesn't know death when he sees it!"
Meng Jue Ming watched the scene and could not help but grin. The shock that had struck him moments ago upon discovering Qiao Hongcai had reached the early Foundation stage vanished into thin air, and he felt light all over.
The sight of that good-for-nothing Qiao spitting blood was a little unnerving, true, but to Meng Jue Ming's eyes at this moment it was pleasing no matter how he looked at it; one mouthful of blood was nothing—better the wretch spewed a whole vat of it, sprayed it ten li across the ground!
And not only Meng Jue Ming: any clear-eyed onlooker could tell that in this exchange Meng Zhou had most certainly seized the solid upper hand. Qiao Hongcai, a man barely into the early Foundation stage, had taken the blow full in the chest without the slightest defense; to survive it at all and come away merely gravely wounded was already a credit to him.
"Th-this junior brother Qiao won't be in real trouble, will he?" The put-upon senior brother below the stage felt his heart leap into his throat. True, the news that Qiao Hongcai had succeeded in establishing his Foundation had been a great and welcome surprise before the fight began, but even with a Foundation established, his cultivation was not yet steady, and he might not be a match for Meng Zhou.
Especially given how things stood now: never mind that Qiao Hongcai could still stand—he was badly hurt, and if he did not quickly call out his surrender, Meng Zhou would never let slip this chance to pull the weed out by the roots!