Chapter 3800 — The Trick Backfired
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Striding onto the platform and planting himself there, Meng Zhou fixed Qiao Hongcai with a cold stare and sneered, "Last round you got the drop on me, and even then you barely managed to drag us both down together. Today your luck has run out. Even with my wounds unhealed, killing a man like you is no harder than killing a chicken—not so much as a flicker of effort."
To his surprise, Qiao Hongcai merely curled his lip and said carelessly, "Are those your dying words, Senior Newcomer Meng? Sounds to me like you still haven't got your affairs in order!"
Meng Zhou choked on the spot. He stood frozen for a moment, then ground out a cold snort through clenched teeth: "Sharp tongue, no sense of life or death."
Seeing that both sides were ready, the referee at once announced, "Fourth round, first match of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers' challenge tournament—Qiao Hongcai of Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain, challenging Meng Zhou of Cave Dwelling Twelve. Begin!"
The words had scarcely left his mouth when Meng Zhou's figure shot forth like an arrow loosed from a bowstring. Shedding the frail pretense of a man still gravely wounded, he launched at Qiao Hongcai without a flicker of hesitation the most powerful strike he had: the Twenty-First Form of the Thousand Legs.
He meant to cut through the tangle with a single blade. No disguise could be sustained for long; once it had served its purpose of throwing the opponent off, it had to be torn away at once and the deadliest blow delivered in the same breath. Drag it out too long and the flaw would show. Such was the strategy against an enemy that Meng Jueming had taught him.
By any ordinary reckoning, ripping off the disguise and unleashing a full-power strike the instant one opened was a sudden assault no opponent could possibly guard against—and if that opponent happened to be carrying injuries, a single blow to end his life was no idle boast.
And to make the effect as crushing as possible, Meng Zhou never even entertained the notion of feinting with phantom leg shadows. From the very first instant it was an all-out, fully committed blitz.
Yet what made Meng Zhou's jaw drop—and the jaws of Meng Jueming and his whole faction below the platform with it—was that this sudden strike, launched the moment he shed his disguise, was blasted right back at him by Qiao Hongcai's Twenty-First Form of the Iron Cold Palm!
"Aiya! You worthless piece of trash, you dared fake an injury to fool me? Shameless, despicable!" Feeling the searing pain shoot up his leg, Meng Zhou's face went green in an instant.
He had been so sure that a specimen like Qiao Hongcai could never get his hands on a rare elixir like the fourth-grade Great Restoration Pill, and that three short days could not possibly be enough to recover. So the moment he saw Qiao Hongcai's faltering steps, he had taken it as gospel that the man was still a walking invalid.
From first to last, neither Meng Zhou nor Meng Jueming had harbored a shred of doubt. It had never once crossed their minds that this worthless piece of trash might be playing the exact same game as Meng Zhou himself!
Otherwise, how could a mere invalid unleash an Iron Cold Palm so brimming with vigor and power—so domineering as to batter Meng Zhou's Twenty-First Form of the Thousand Legs right back in his face?
To trap a man he had been willing to sink a fourth-grade Great Restoration Pill into the scheme. And now? Not only had he failed to bring down the goose—he had been pecked in the eye first!
Below the platform, Meng Jueming felt his face burn. By his long-held understanding, that trash Qiao was cut from the same cloth as Meng Zhou—a hothead who went at everything head-on. How had he suddenly turned so devious?