Chapter 3667 — A Narrow Victory

Wei Zhao hurriedly twisted aside, throwing everything he had into evading it, though the clothes over his chest still bore several slits left by the force of the wind that came with those claws.

Roar—!

That Wei Zhao could dodge this sudden killing blow clearly caught the giant mountain leopard somewhat off guard; by its past experience, against a skilled hand of the early Foundation Establishment stage, that strike should have been a sure thing—the several skeletons piled in the corner stood as proof enough.

But surprise or no surprise, the giant mountain leopard did not pause for even an instant: one claw missed, and the next came hard on its heels, faster and fiercer than the one before!

In his haste Wei Zhao could find no opening for a counter-kill, and was forced to retreat again—for however much faith he had in his own strength, he would not rashly trade blows with a powerful brute of such tremendous force.

To know full well how dangerous the foe is and still strike out recklessly without first taking its measure—that is not courage, that is folly.

But this claw was not so easy to get past as the first: as Wei Zhao retreated, it pursued, and though he pushed the Butterfly Microstep to its very limit, even weaving back and forth and changing direction, it clung to him without letup.

This was no longer a mere attack of beastly instinct but true high-grade martial technique—so profound that even human experts could not master it; no matter how fast you are or how agile your footwork, once it has locked onto you, there is no shaking it off!

Before this, Wei Zhao had still thought to rely on agile footwork to run circles around this huge brute, but the moment its second claw came out, all such hopes burst like a bubble! If he could not break free no matter what, what use was footwork, however nimble?

Wei Zhao sighed inwardly—early Foundation Establishment combat-type spirit beasts really were none of them easy prey!

In the end this claw drew blood from Wei Zhao's left arm, leaving three gashes deep enough to show bone—a horrifying sight—that bled without stopping.

And that was only because Wei Zhao had used the cave wall behind him for cover; had the giant mountain leopard not slightly slowed its speed out of some scruple, that claw would not merely have left three gashes—most likely it would have carried off his entire left arm!

Yet beyond the heart-stopping terror, this scene had also given Wei Zhao a little inspiration: this brute, deadly as it was in every motion, kept its strength under very careful control, unwilling to release even the slightest excess of force, as though afraid of damaging this tree hollow—most evident when it had nearly raked the cave wall just now!

In truth, however hard the cave walls might be, both man and beast were of early Foundation Establishment strength, and if the two truly went all out, to say nothing of this little tree hollow, the whole giant tree being blasted to splinters would have been only natural! Those experts who had died here before had most likely been killed in an instant, without surviving even the first claw!

Having discovered this, Wei Zhao laughed to himself: did the creature mean to keep using this tree-hollow trap to snare more victims? It certainly had lofty plans!

A powerful early Foundation Establishment spirit beast was no ordinary wild animal, after all; its intelligence was in no way inferior to a human's, and its ways were far from the straightforwardness of common beasts—every movement had its own particular purpose.

There were even legends that some spirit beasts, once they set foot on the Heavenly Dao, could take human form—but the scope of the Heavenly Dao was far too broad, and who could say whether early Foundation Establishment sufficed?

But in the midst of battle, thinking too much is not always a good thing.

Yet just as Wei Zhao was pondering how to make the most of this, the giant mountain leopard, though both claws had come up empty—which by any normal reckoning should have left it overextended and exposed—was not so at all; far from being spent, its assault grew all the more ferocious!

With both claws thrust into empty air, the giant mountain leopard spun at once, and before Wei Zhao could do more than register a flicker of surprise, the slender, powerful tail at its rear came sweeping at him with a whistling cry.

And this was no ordinary tail sweep: in an instant the leopard's tail grew too fast for the eye to follow, one becoming three, three becoming nine, until a dense swarm of tail-shadows bore down on him!

This thing was vicious indeed! By Wei Zhao's estimate, the force of this Phantom Lash of a tail was already a match for the twenty-first stance of his own Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm!

If that caught him again—even a graze like the one before—he would be lucky to come out alive.

The giant mountain leopard was brimming with confidence: this was its trump card, and no early Foundation Establishment expert could hope to survive it; even a peak early Foundation Establishment expert, stronger by a notch, would be gravely wounded if not killed outright facing this move!

Little did it know that the mightier the killing move, the more likely it is, at certain moments, to betray an unexpected and fatal flaw. Though this giant mountain leopard already possessed intelligence no less than a human's, its thinking still had the same fatal blind spots as any ordinary creature.

Facing the swarm of tail-shadows, Wei Zhao did not choose to dodge as he had before, but leapt straight up into the air.

Contempt flashed at once in the giant mountain leopard's eyes: to leap into the air before its trump card—this creature was simply in too much of a hurry to die!

But the next moment it suddenly sensed something amiss: though Wei Zhao had sprung into the air, his whole body was pressed flat against the cave wall behind him, and if its lashing tail went sweeping through, it might indeed kill Wei Zhao, but it would just as surely wreck the tree hollow.

And so the giant mountain leopard hesitated instinctively—and that gave Wei Zhao his chance to turn the tables.

One step of the Butterfly Microstep against the cave wall behind him, his footwork and speed driven to their utmost in a flash, and in the blink of an eye Wei Zhao had vaulted over the swarming tail-shadows and closed straight in above the creature's head.

Then came the twenty-first stance of the Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm—and with the attack bonus of the Essence Necklace, at full power!

Boom! The whole giant tree shuddered, sending countless twigs and leaves raining down outside, and with a great rustling clatter startling up a flock of harmless little birds.

"Hoo—!" Looking at the giant mountain leopard lying motionless on the ground, Wei Zhao finally let out a breath. From the moment the creature had blocked the opening, he had been in extreme danger the whole time, and that last hair's-breadth palm strike had been a snatching of life from the very jaws of death!

Had he not, in the course of it, caught that infinitesimal flaw in his opponent, then even if Wei Zhao could in the end kill this giant mountain leopard, it would surely have been a mutual ruin, and he would have needed a good long while to recover.

Yet even so, that one strike of the twenty-first stance of the Blazing Fire Eight Trigrams Palm had still drained every last drop of true qi in his body!