Chapter 4900 — How Dare You Step on Me

"Mm, they say Ni Caiyue's beauty actually surpasses even her senior sister's. It's just that she's hardly ever appeared in public since childhood, so no outsider ever took notice of her—until she escorted her senior sister to the farewell banquet in the Profound Rank Sea Region, where someone caught sight of her by chance. Since then she's been hailed as a peerless beauty; even a casual portrait of her fetches a handsome price." Wang Xinyan smiled.

As the group was murmuring among themselves, over on that side the unconscious Chang Laiting, who had been trampled and kicked for no reason at all, suddenly gave a faint groan and came to. Though he had taken a heavy drubbing at Wei Zhao's hands, his injuries were not fatal; he leapt up at once in a towering rage.

"You vile wretch, you dare step on me? I'll kill you!" Chang Laiting snatched up the black sword lying on the ground a short distance away and, mad with fury, chased after Ni Caiyue, slashing wildly at her.

Ni Caiyue went pale with fright on the spot; screaming, she turned and ran. She was, after all, a capable practitioner of the early Mystic Ascension stage—even if her strength fell short of Chang Laiting's, on an ordinary day she could at least have fled for a good while on her movement arts.

Yet what left Wei Zhao and the others speechless was this: the girl had barely run a few steps before panic robbed her of even her movement arts, and she tripped over her own feet. With a shriek she tumbled into the grass, and in the blink of an eye Chang Laiting was right behind her.

As they watched Chang Laiting raise his sword to strike Ni Caiyue, everyone's hearts leapt into their throats. This fellow truly had no tenderness for beauty at all—was he really going to cut down a woman of such stunning looks just like that?

At that very moment Wei Zhao's figure flickered, and from a distance of several dozen zhang he appeared in an instant before Chang Laiting.

Chang Laiting nearly jumped out of his skin. He had glimpsed Wei Zhao's position just moments ago—the man had plainly been far away, so how had he arrived before him in the blink of an eye? Even the fastest speed could not reach such a degree, could it? Did this creature know some kind of teleportation?

Chang Laiting retreated several steps in fright. The Savage Molten Mist-Shadow Fist had already left him dazed, and to tell the truth, he was genuinely somewhat afraid of this Northern Island brat now!

"What are you doing? This is my family matter—you want to stick your nose into this too? Aren't you reaching a bit too far?" Chang Laiting pointedly said nothing of his earlier attempt to kill Wei Zhao, putting on instead the indignant air of an outsider who should mind his own business.

This fellow really was a piece of work! Wei Zhao was amused at once. He shrugged carelessly and said, "I've no interest in your damned family affairs. It's just that you've whetted my appetite for a fight, and I've only just warmed up and haven't had my fill. Let's continue!"

Ai! Hearing this, Chang Laiting wished he could slap himself twice on the spot. Had he known, would he have been so idle as to provoke this creature? Wasn't he just asking to be tortured?

Watching Wei Zhao slowly settle into his stance, Chang Laiting was so cowed he even felt like turning and fleeing. But he was, after all, one of the Four Young Masters of the Nascent Soul stage—a figure of great renown among all the academy disciples of the East Continent's Yellow Rank Sea Region. How could he slink away in defeat before a mere Northern Island disciple?

Once word of this got out, he would never be able to show his face in the East Continent again. Those lofty Profound Rank academies would never accept a coward like him; the greater his fame had been before, the harder he would fall.

"Hmph, such big talk! Just now I merely let my guard down and you got in a cheap shot—and now your tail's sticking up to the heavens. What a thing you are!" Chang Laiting stiffened his neck and blustered.

"Good, if you had no spine at all, I'd be embarrassed to use you as a test subject!" Wei Zhao laughed at the sight, then raised his hand and unleashed the Savage Molten Mist-Shadow Fist he had just created—except this time he had fused one more attribute into it.

Chang Laiting's scalp prickled at the sight of those savage molten waves on every side. The first time had caught him off guard, true, but even given ten days or half a month, he could not have devised the slightest countermeasure. There was no help for it—the gap in strength was simply that vast.

With no other choice, Chang Laiting could only resort to a method that was no method at all: clear a path with the black sword in his hand and use his movement speed to break out of the encirclement. It was the only workable plan he had.

In truth, this plan carried enormous risk, for when he fled his back would easily be left exposed. But it was better than being trapped in place as before—the several ghastly wounds on his body had already proven that course unworkable.

No matter what, even at the risk of being gravely wounded again, breaking out was better than sitting still and waiting to die.

To hell with it! Chang Laiting gritted his teeth and slashed at the savage molten waves raging before him—but the next scene nearly made his eyeballs pop out. Before, he had been able to cleave those molten waves apart easily with his black sword; this time, however, there came an extremely harsh clang of metal striking metal!

More outrageous still, the black sword he had used for many years actually could not hold against these suddenly metallized molten waves—it broke into several pieces on the spot!

Even Wang Xinyan and the others could not help drawing a sharp breath at the sight. Materializing true qi was nothing strange, but to meet a divine weapon head-on and snap it in two—that was truly appalling.

"Looks like the effect isn't bad," Wei Zhao muttered thoughtfully.

Without question, the attribute he had added to the Savage Molten Mist-Shadow Fist was the metal attribute, famed for its hardness and sharpness. If before it had been merely savage molten rock, then reinforced by the metal attribute it became a blade that nothing could withstand—and a fire blade at that, blazing at fearsome heat.

Chang Laiting's black sword, though a divine weapon, had already been scorched again and again at high heat, its hardness greatly diminished. One more wave of such powerful slashing, and breaking into several pieces was hardly surprising.

After so many trials, Wei Zhao had a rough grasp of the matter now: the more attributes, the greater the power—and the easier it was to seize an overwhelming, absolute advantage.

If the power of his single-attribute Savage Fire Fist was ten, then the power of the two-attribute Savage Molten Fist was thirty, and the power of the three-attribute Savage Molten Mist-Shadow Fist was sixty. Now this strike had reached an astonishing one hundred!

By comparison, Chang Laiting, whose utmost power could barely reach thirty, was naturally far from his match.

Wei Zhao's heart surged. So far he had used only four attributes; if he kept improving—five, six, seven, even eight attributes—what kind of spectacle would that be?

Of course, to create an eight-attribute martial technique on his own was a task of no small difficulty; it would require meticulous deduction and dedicated cultivation. Otherwise, even if he truly gathered all eight attributes into a single move, it would be merely simple physical accumulation, hard pressed to produce the astonishing chemical reaction of just now. That would take time and careful exploration.

Boom! With a great crash, Chang Laiting was sent flying backward, his whole body covered in ghastly charred wounds. This time his entire head was driven into the earth, and for a long while he did not stir. It seemed that even if he survived by luck, he had lost consciousness completely.