Chapter 4484 — Fighting Machine

"Heh. Then it seems you've come to the wrong man." Wei Zhao's gaze narrowed slightly. He had not expected this creature to pin Cheng Qitian's death on him, without a single word about East Sea Divine Nun, who had actually struck the fatal blow. Such self-deluding ostrich thinking was enough to make one laugh and cry at once.

"Hmph! If you hadn't stirred up trouble, you miserable wretch, would my son have come to harm? One way or another, you die today!" As he spoke, the savage aura around Cheng Haonan suddenly—for some inexplicable reason—went calm. Apart from the ferocious, murderous cast of his face, at first glance he might have seemed no different from an ordinary man.

"Then try it." Wei Zhao remained as light and unruffled as drifting clouds, yet inwardly he tensed, and could not help but reassess this opponent before him with fresh wariness. He did not fear a man in a fit of rage; let him fly into a fury, it mattered not. But this state—like a bloodthirsty beast suddenly holding its entire breath—was the sign of a hunter taking aim at its prey. Utterly dangerous.

He did not yet know the man's true strength, but this alone was enough to show that Cheng Haonan, head of the Poison Eye Mercenary Corps, was far more difficult to deal with than Wu Baoliang had been.

Stirred by Cheng Haonan, the domineering aura Wei Zhao had let blaze forth after blasting Wu Baoliang to death likewise drew back, turning restrained and deep. What is rigid snaps easily; his ever-vigilant instincts told him that this opponent was not the sort to be crushed in a single move. He must tread carefully.

"The agency head's fifth challenge match: Ling Yi of Qingtian Escort Agency versus Cheng Haonan of Longzhou Escort Agency—begin!" Having whetted the whole crowd's appetite to the full, the presiding referee lost no time in declaring the contest open.

The words fell. The two figures on the platform vanished from where they stood at the same instant, and the onlookers all perked up—it seemed both men had adopted the same strategy: strike first to seize the advantage.

Both moved with extraordinary speed, and the platform was soon awash in blurred afterimages, so that for a time many could not even locate their true bodies.

The crowd could not help but be stunned and shaken. Such speed had long since broken past the limit achievable by a fine Gold Core-stage expert. That Wei Zhao possessed such strength surprised no one—his heaven-defying showing just now had seared itself into their minds. What no one had expected was that this Cheng Haonan of Longzhou Escort Agency was a master of the same caliber!

In his earlier bout, Cheng Haonan had deliberately concealed his strength, leading everyone to think him no more than that. Yet this creature, who appeared outwardly to be merely at Gold Core perfection, was in truth a madman on par with a Nascent Soul-stage expert.

First Wu Baoliang, now Cheng Haonan. The crowd buzzed with discussion—this little-known Longzhou Escort Agency really did seem to harbor hidden dragons and crouching tigers.

Bang! Amid the speculation, the two on the platform had already exchanged their first blow. Neither opened with a trump card; both were probing the other's strength with the utmost care and caution.

This one is truly strong! Wei Zhao's heart sank. True, it had been only a probing attack, but the twenty-nine forms of his Frenzied Fire Eight Trigrams Palm could by no means be called weak. Yet his opponent had taken it easily, head-on—apparently effortlessness itself, all at his fingertips. More to the point, the man had used no powerful martial technique, only ordinary fists and feet.

From this alone one could judge that Cheng Haonan's absolute strength must far exceed Wu Baoliang's—at the very least, the depth of his foundation was beyond any comparison with Wu Baoliang.

Wu Baoliang's might lay solely in his Mad Sand Thousand Explosions Fist. Once that lethal killing move was broken, one found that his own strength was in truth not so heaven-defying after all. Cheng Haonan was different. His foundation was far sturdier and more substantial; every punch and every kick carried tremendous force.

Without the Mad Sand Thousand Explosions Fist, that great killing weapon, a specimen like Wu Baoliang would not even have been qualified to fight him—at most he would have been laid low at the first exchange, without suspense.

Even as Wei Zhao grew wary, Cheng Haonan on the other side was likewise muttering to himself. After three straight bouts with Wu Baoliang, he had assumed Wei Zhao's true qi must be largely spent, and that retaining fifty or sixty percent of his strength would already be remarkable. Yet the man was still brimming with true qi, showing not the slightest sign of fatigue.

"No wonder he could kill the strategist. This boy's strength is truly no small thing!" Cheng Haonan frowned inwardly.

Unlike a master like Wu Baoliang, who pursued only ever more powerful techniques, Cheng Haonan had built his name on ordinary fists and feet and had always excelled at them; his foundation ran far deeper than most men's. A connoisseur of the art, he could see at a glance just how solid an opponent's foundation was.

If Wu Baoliang's foundation rated ten, then this Ling Yi before him rated at least thirty—perhaps even fifty. They were simply not on the same level. Especially when both sides' techniques and moves were roughly matched, Wu Baoliang's utter rout had been a foregone conclusion; no wonder that one-sided spectacle had played out earlier.

From a single probing exchange, each man's threat had grown a layer heavier in the other's mind, and at the same time each secretly counted himself fortunate not to have been careless just now—otherwise he might well have suffered a great loss, and regretted it beyond remedy.

Watching Cheng Haonan from afar, still with his aura drawn inward, Wei Zhao's mind raced through his options for the fight to come. By his past experience, the better a master's foundation, the less likely he was to expose a flaw—above all, never a flaw wide enough to end him in a single blow.

Against such an opponent, one had to be prepared to fight a machine of war, for a machine of war does not err—and men like Cheng Haonan do not err either.

That left Wei Zhao precious few strategies to choose from—only two. Either grind out a contest of endurance, tangling with the man indefinitely while guaranteeing that he himself never slipped, and wait until the other erred; or pit raw strength against raw strength, meeting him head-on with the mightiest killing move and settling the matter with one hammer blow.

Each choice had its merits and its perils. The former seemed the safer and surer path, but it was exceedingly difficult: should his endurance fall short of his opponent's and he be the first to show a flaw, he would have spun the cocoon that bound himself.

The latter was desperately risky. Once committed to it, only two outcomes remained: either he blasted his opponent dead in a single strike—the ideal case—or the man weathered it head-on, and then Wei Zhao would surely be in for it, suffering a lethal backlash. (Update 7!) (To be continued...)