護花近衛 - 第2242章 不是對手 - 翰墨軒

At that thought, Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and made ready to flee, but the Grand Protector seemed to have seen right through him. "Boy, do not think of running," he said coldly. "If you dare to run, I will first strike your woman dead with a single palm, and then come after you!"

The Grand Protector had divined Wei Zhao's misgivings and threatened him outright.

"Despicable..." Two words slipped from Wei Zhao's mouth. He had not expected the Grand Protector to see through his plan. Yet for all his fury, Wei Zhao had no recourse whatsoever! Whether the old man's words were true or false, Wei Zhao did not dare put them to the test.

"A small man may be petty, but a true man stops at nothing," the Grand Protector said dismissively. "I had meant to leave you a whole corpse, but you have exhausted my patience. Boy, you may go and die now!"

As he spoke, the Grand Protector raised his hand, and a soft whip appeared in his grasp!

A weapon... Wei Zhao drew a sharp breath. He had heard that the martial techniques of a Heaven-rank expert could be used together with a weapon, multiplying their might enormously, but he had never witnessed it. He had never thought his first sight of it would be here!

And earlier, a single blow from the Grand Protector that had used no martial technique at all had already left Wei Zhao unable to cope. Though all that dawdling had let Wei Zhao recover most of his injuries, who would have guessed the old thing would simply pull out a weapon?

Wei Zhao's mouth twitched twice. His luck really was rotten. Ever since he reached the Ulonghot Mountains, he had suffered setback after setback. Had his luck been too good before, his fortune overflowing without pause, so that it was all used up at the Hidden Families Assembly?

"To deal with a mid Earth-rank, is a weapon even necessary?" Wei Zhao said, drawing a deep breath.

"Hmph!" The Grand Protector paid him no heed. He had seen it too—this boy before him was cunning and would not let slip a single chance to turn the tables. Since that was so, he would hold nothing back. The soft whip snapped upward, instantly sheathed in a layer of azure true qi, and lashed at Wei Zhao: "Raging Sea, Furious Waves—First Stance!"

A vast and mighty force came crashing down on Wei Zhao, and he was greatly alarmed. Not daring to meet it head-on, he swept Sun Jingyan up from behind him, circulated his inner-energy method to shield them both in true qi, and with urgent, darting steps flung himself to one side.

"Boom!"

The soft whip struck where Wei Zhao had just been standing. The enormous force hammered into the bluestone paving with a deafening crash, and the stone slabs flew up on that vast surge of energy, bursting apart and scattering in all directions. Where the paving had been, a huge crater now yawned.

Fast as Wei Zhao had dodged, the gust of force carried by the whip still sent him stumbling, and the sleeve of his right arm was split open in a long gash. On his arm a wound had been cut clean to the bone, a mass of mangled flesh and blood.

Too strong! That was the only thought in Wei Zhao's mind. He had already dodged, and with true qi shielding his body besides, yet the force from that whip had still wounded him so grievously—to say nothing of what would happen if the whip struck him squarely.

It was likely just as the Grand Protector had said: one blow, and it would be fatal. He would be staying here for good.

Dust filled the air. Feeling his right arm, which had all but lost sensation, a grim look passed across Wei Zhao's face. An early Heaven-rank expert—such terrifying power. He did not know how many times over it surpassed a mid Earth-rank like himself, and the thought only deepened the bitterness in his heart.