Chapter 3883 — Playing for Keeps
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Even without resorting to cheating tricks like true-qi bombs, Wei Zhao could rely on his own strength alone to fight Yu Jiang, a mid-Foundation Establishment expert, to a standstill—and even beat him half to death. And Murong Zhen was clearly a notch below Yu Jiang.
Hmph! Murong Zhen gave a cold snort at the sight, secretly vexed—and at the same time she put away the last trace of her earlier contempt.
The scene before her made it plain: Wei Zhao, an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, was looking down on her, a peak expert of the early Foundation Establishment stage!
"Brother Lin, do you know why this move of mine is called Phantom Finger?" Murong Zhen suddenly laughed in a sweet voice.
"Phantom Finger?" Wei Zhao raised an eyebrow. The move was certainly fast, and that piercing white light did have a dazzling effect—but it hardly seemed to deserve the word "phantom."
Yet just as Wei Zhao and the crowd below waited for her explanation, Murong Zhen suddenly moved. At first glance the move looked exactly like the one before—but that was only how it appeared to the onlookers below the platform. Standing where Wei Zhao stood, the sensation was something else entirely.
The Phantom Finger a moment ago had been nothing but a single flash of white light. Now, in Wei Zhao's eyes, dozens of white streaks shot toward him at once from every direction—leaving no blind spot in which to dodge.
Visual deception? Wei Zhao grasped it in an instant. Using visual deception to create a so-called phantom effect, leaving the opponent no way to defend?
But was that not a bit childish? At lower levels such a move would indeed be brilliant and impossible to guard against—but cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage and above, even with their eyes shut and no sight at all, could handle combat on the strength of their superhuman perception alone.
Wei Zhao's perception was unquestionably keen. Yet when he closed his eyes, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong—for with his eyes shut, those dozens of white streaks were still there in his mind!
"Did you think this fair lady's Phantom Finger merely deceives the eyes, Brother Lin? How naive!" Murong Zhen laughed coldly in triumph. If it were only such a low-grade technique, how could it possibly be her signature killing move?
Phantom Finger did not deceive sight alone—it deceived the divine consciousness itself!
At the Foundation Establishment stage, sight and hearing and the other basic senses were no longer enough to master combat; what cultivators relied on most was perception through divine consciousness.
And the core essence of the Phantom Finger that Murong Zhen cultivated was precisely the deception of divine consciousness. For the vast majority of cultivators, once even their divine consciousness could not tell true from false, they were utterly lost.
Blindingly fast, yet impossible to distinguish true from false; and Phantom Finger was a classic powerful technique that gathered all one's true qi into a single point to unleash explosive damage—while the spot Murong Zhen chose was invariably a lethal vital point like the throat.
Taken separately, none of these points was especially troublesome. But combined, even a peak expert of the early Foundation Establishment stage at her own level would be under enormous pressure.
"Interesting. So this woman is finally playing for keeps? Wei Zhao can only wait to die now!" Below the platform, Meng Jueming's eyes lit up.
To everyone else, Murong Zhen's move looked no different from her first probing strike; the only one whose divine consciousness was truly deceived was Wei Zhao on the platform. But Meng Jueming had heard people speak of this technique, the Phantom Finger.
To bystanders it looked utterly ordinary—but if this move were truly executed in earnest, it was terrifying, especially when the strong preyed upon the weak. Against such odds, this move was especially effective! (To be continued...)
(.)