Chapter 891 — Energy Bomb

"Oh, Sister Yaoyao, you're such a hypocrite — you were scared stiff just a moment ago!" Shen Yushu called Gu Mengyao out on her lie right then and there.

"!" Gu Mengyao shot Shen Yushu a glare and ignored her.

Zhen Yingjun was dumbstruck. Ma Zhu? Where had Ma Zhu gone? A Golden Bell Shield expert at the peak of the middle Xuan rank — how could he just vanish like that? At the thought, Zhen Yingjun's eyes went wide and he scanned the field, but aside from Wei Zhao, the only person left standing, where was there any sign of Ma Zhu?

After a long while, another figure finally crawled up out of the rubble. It was Ma Zhu — though the Ma Zhu of this moment was a truly horrifying sight.

Half of his arm was gone entirely, his ribs had caved in completely; his entire right side, one might say, had been reduced to a pulp of ruined flesh — even the right half of his face no longer looked human! Had anyone else been present, they might not even have recognized this man as Ma Zhu!

At his wounds, blood gushed and pooled, and gleaming white bone could faintly be seen!

"Holy crap? That's insane — the guy got blown to bits like this and he still isn't dead?" Shen Yushu marveled, somewhat astonished at Ma Zhu's tenacious vitality.

Ma Zhu's eyes were filled with a look of utter horror; the arrogance and swagger of before were gone without a trace. He could scarcely believe that he had actually been injured — and injured so grievously. It was truly a wretched state. How could this be possible?

He was a master of the external school at the peak of the middle Xuan rank, one who had cultivated the Golden Bell Shield to the eighth layer. How could Wei Zhao, an internal-school expert only at the peak of the early Xuan rank, have wounded him? Ma Zhu could say without the slightest exaggeration, and with pride, that ordinary bullets could not even touch him — and yet now, he was wounded, and wounded badly!

The entire right half of his body had been blown to ruin. His right arm was gone, and even his whole shoulder was gone! The right side of his face was a bloody smear, and of his right leg only bare bone remained. That he could stand at all now was nothing but sheer force of will.

"Impossible... impossible... this isn't real! You can't hurt me!" Ma Zhu refused to believe the truth of it. He truly refused to believe it!

"Idiot." Wei Zhao gave Ma Zhu a faint glance. "I told you I was about to unleash my big move. You didn't dodge or block — what, did you think you had health to spare?"

"Impossible... this can't be..." Ma Zhu had gone half mad. He could not accept the reality before his eyes! Though Wei Zhao looked rather battered too, and though Wei Zhao's body bore many wounds, the man still had all his limbs — whereas he himself...

Ma Zhu could not accept it. His eight layers of Golden Bell Shield — in that single instant, all of it was ruined! The power he had cultivated for years, the dreams he had harbored since childhood — in this moment, all of it was shattered...

The body of an external-school master was as vital as the meridians of an internal-school expert. Once the body suffered grave injury, even after recovery it could never again reach its former strength! Especially in Ma Zhu's case, where his whole body had been blasted to pulp, or even blasted away altogether — his Golden Bell Shield martial arts were thoroughly broken!

Even if he nursed his body back to health, the newly grown flesh and skin would be different from before — no different, in fact, from an ordinary person's! Even if a bit of the Golden Bell Shield's conditioning remained in the left side of his body, what damn good would it do? When he went out to fight, could he make his enemies promise not to attack his right side?

Wei Zhao paid Ma Zhu no further mind. He had to frighten off Ma Zhu and Zhen Yingjun as quickly as possible. No one knew his own condition better than he did — that he could stand at all now rested entirely on his last breath. His whole body was a bow drawn past its limit, its string about to snap!

That move earlier had been the result of Wei Zhao draining every last drop of energy in his body, compressing it, and releasing it in an instant.

He had already tested this kind of energy bomb once on Yu Kun, and it had proven quite effective.

Only, the energy required to shatter the meridians inside Yu Kun's body had been far less than what today's strike had demanded! This time, it had been a wild and risky decision on Wei Zhao's part — a last resort, taken when he had no other option left!

Ma Zhu was a cultivator of the Golden Bell Shield; whatever attack Wei Zhao adopted would be useless against him. Even sneak attacks and assassination tactics were of no avail, because the man simply did not fear being struck by him!

Just as Wei Zhao was growing frantic, helpless after being poisoned and on the verge of sitting down to await his own death, Ma Zhu had gone and exposed his own weakness with a single sentence. Perhaps Ma Zhu had not thought anything amiss about that sentence, but it had given Wei Zhao a tremendous flash of inspiration!

Ma Zhu had said that the Golden Bell Shield had no flaw — unless Wei Zhao's level was higher than his own!

In Ma Zhu's view, Wei Zhao's strength could not possibly surpass his; if it did, Wei Zhao would have won long ago. But Wei Zhao did not see it that way. His own strength might not be greater than Ma Zhu's, but once energy was compressed, the destructive force it produced multiplied exponentially!

Ma Zhu had the Golden Bell Shield guarding his body. Wei Zhao could not do to him what he had done to Yu Kun — drive energy into his body to rupture his internal organs and meridians. He could only rely on the blast produced by an even greater mass of energy to blow Ma Zhu's physical body apart!

Wei Zhao was not sure this method would work, and even less sure what harmful consequences it might bring down upon himself. Even if he retreated and dodged the instant he released the energy, the residual blast of the explosion could still catch him in its fallout.

To wound Ma Zhu, Wei Zhao had no choice but to drain the very last shred of energy from his body, and with the resolve to succeed or die trying, he had released the most terrifying energy bomb he had ever conjured.

Fortunately, he had succeeded. Ma Zhu had been blasted into a cripple; his Golden Bell Shield had been shattered outright by his own energy. Even so, the defensive power of Ma Zhu's Golden Bell Shield still left Wei Zhao clicking his tongue in amazement.

Wei Zhao knew all too well what kind of force the energy bomb had unleashed when it exploded. It had blasted a deep crater between the two of them, its walls smooth and sheer, as if carved by a sharp sword.

Even rock had been reduced to this, yet Ma Zhu was merely injured, not dead.

Wei Zhao did not know whether Ma Zhu still had any fighting strength left, but he knew that he himself had none. Had it not been for his astonishing willpower, he could never have held on this long, much less risen to his feet. But he had to stand; he had to pretend he was unhurt.

He had to scare off Ma Zhu and Zhen Yingjun. Otherwise, whether it was himself, Gu Mengyao, or Shen Yushu, all of them would be in danger.

So Wei Zhao paid Ma Zhu no more attention. Instead, he turned his head and looked again at Zhen Yingjun, and said coldly, "Now it is your turn."

Looking at the somewhat ferocious expression on Wei Zhao's face, Zhen Yingjun was scared out of his wits. Ma Zhu had been blasted into serious injury, so how would Wei Zhao deal with him now? He was the mastermind behind this whole affair, while Ma Zhu had merely been the hired muscle, and even Ma Zhu had been beaten so miserably. How could Wei Zhao possibly let him off?