Chapter 3314 — The Fearless Intruder

"Pfft—" Gu Mengyao could not help but laugh at Wei Zhao's insult of Xiao San. "Wei Zhao, this id... idiot isn't one of ours from the Dark Night Palace. I haven't the faintest idea where he came from."

Out of her trust in Wei Zhao, Gu Mengyao simply echoed whatever he said, never doubting for a moment that these men were more than he could handle.

"Little girl, you think this brat being here means he can back you up? Idiot? Let's just see who the real idiot is!" Xiao San gave a cold snort and strode toward Wei Zhao. "A mid-Heaven-tier punk daring to strut before me? Today I'll show you why the flowers bloom so red!"

Xiao San's coarse thuggish talk was itself a disguise, a deliberate act to make himself out as some bandit crew from an ancient sect. His aim was to keep trouble from falling on Ancestor Xuanchen, to keep anyone from suspecting their true origins.

"Enough noise!" Wei Zhao rose to his feet, silently circulating the martial mantra of the Frenzied Fire Fist in his heart, while his face remained utterly serene, betraying not a shadow of a man facing a fearsome foe. As Xiao San drew near, Wei Zhao gave what looked like a casual wave, pushing out a single palm. Inwardly he murmured, "Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm—Eleventh Form!"

The fifty-percent attack-boost chance triggered right on cue. With this one strike unleashed, Xiao San's death was certain. Wei Zhao knew full well the power of the Eleventh Form of the Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm after its attack was amplified.

At first, Xiao San had paid Wei Zhao no mind at all—Wei Zhao's true strength had already been exposed, and with Xiao Wu's earlier assessment, he was merely a mid-Heaven-tier expert, nothing to fear in the slightest.

Moreover, when Wei Zhao had just stood up, he had circulated his martial mantra, letting Xiao San genuinely sense the level of power Wei Zhao displayed in that moment—mid-Heaven-tier, without a doubt!

So Xiao San was not the least bit afraid that Wei Zhao could stir up any trouble. In his eyes, Wei Zhao was his to butcher as he pleased. Yet the instant Wei Zhao's martial technique burst forth, Xiao San abruptly sensed something was terribly wrong!

No—this was absolutely not the power a mid-Heaven-tier expert could unleash. Absolutely not!

Xiao San hurriedly tried to circulate his own mantra and shield himself with true qi, but it was already too late. Wei Zhao's strike came at the speed of a spark in a flash of lightning, and Xiao San had been completely off guard. And so, Xiao San found himself in truly wretched, pitiful straits.

"BOOM—"

That seemingly offhand palm of Wei Zhao's slammed heavily into Xiao San's chest. The very man who had just been crowing about showing Wei Zhao why the flowers bloom so red was hurled off his feet and sent hurtling backward through the air, a fountain of blood spraying from his mouth!

"Yaoyao, look—he was right, after all. He finally let me see what it means for flowers to bloom so red!" Wei Zhao pointed at the sky, where Xiao San's blood rained down in a crimson shower, and smiled calmly.

"Mm..." Bloody as the scene was, Gu Mengyao, as palace master of the Dark Night Palace, had long since grown used to such things and found nothing frightful in it. On the contrary, her heart surged with boundless excitement—Wei Zhao was truly formidable, and those rumors... how absurd they seemed now!

Who was Xiao San? A genuine peak late-Heaven-tier expert, and he had been slain in a single exchange with Wei Zhao! And yet they said Wei Zhao was being hunted by a peak late-Heaven-tier expert from the Overseas Cultivators' Association?

Who was hunting whom? Had it all been turned around? Could it be that the Overseas Cultivators' Association had fabricated this lie to save their own face, making everyone believe that Wei Zhao was the hunted—when in truth it was they who were being hunted?

Of course, in that moment, it was not only Gu Mengyao who was stunned, but Xiao Si and Xiao Wu standing at the doorway, and all the men behind them!

Xiao Si and Xiao Wu watched Xiao San hurtle backward and were shaken beyond words. Instinctively they staggered back a few steps, staring at Xiao San, who had crashed heavily to the ground before them. His eyes bulged, blood streamed from every orifice, dyeing even his face mask crimson, and a vast crater caved in his chest. He was plainly dead beyond any doubt—even a fourth-grade peak Great Return Pill could not have saved his life now!

This one strike was too vicious, too savage. Yet what left them aghast was this: just what sort of expert was Wei Zhao? He clearly looked like a mid-Heaven-tier expert, and when he circulated his martial mantra, the strength he revealed was likewise mid-Heaven-tier. Even now, with the mantra still circulating through him, the power he displayed remained mid-Heaven-tier—so how could the martial technique he unleashed be so devastating?

They had seen their master, Ancestor Xuanchen, unleash martial techniques, and the power Ancestor Xuanchen brought forth was about this much and no more, perhaps. Only a grand-completion expert at the peak of late-Heaven-tier could strike with such colossal might, could slay a peak late-Heaven-tier expert in a single blow!

And moreover, this grand-completion expert at the peak of late-Heaven-tier could not be any ordinary such expert—it would have to be a top-tier figure like Ancestor Xuanchen, stronger than all other grand-completion experts, to accomplish such a feat!

Could it be that Wei Zhao's true strength now rivaled Ancestor Xuanchen's? But how could that be possible? Yet if one called it impossible, this was the fact they had witnessed with their own eyes—a hundred times more shocking than hearsay, and utterly impossible to fake.

So Xiao Si and Xiao Wu were somewhat dumbfounded. They had come to throw their weight around and pick a fight, still thinking of wounding Wei Zhao—but now it seemed it would be a mercy if Wei Zhao did not wound them!

No—rather, it would be a mercy if Wei Zhao did not beat them to death!

Xiao San was the strongest of the three fellow disciples, and yet this strongest of them all had been struck dead by Wei Zhao in a single move, dead beyond any shadow of doubt!

And their eyes had not deceived them: after killing Xiao San, Wei Zhao had kept circulating his martial mantra the whole time. His purpose in doing so was to replenish his physical stamina and true qi. Unleashing the Eleventh Form of the Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm in one go had not drained his bodily true qi entirely, perhaps, but it had consumed the greater part of it—what remained was not enough to unleash the Eleventh Form of the Frenzied Fire Eight-Trigram Palm a second time. So Wei Zhao had to seize that window while Xiao Si and Xiao Wu stood stunned, desperately restoring his stamina and true qi!