Chapter 2264 — Thoughts of Retreat
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
But what good would not underestimating him have done? Even knowing the enemy was formidable, could he have simply looked the other way and given up the chase? Plainly not. So the outcome would have been the same either way.
Now Wu Chengtian could only pin his hopes on the Thunderstorm Beast.
"Awoo..." The Thunderstorm Beast, too, sensed the enemy's overwhelming strength—it had never expected Wu Chengtian to fall so easily, which in turn showed just how formidable the opponent was.
The black-clad man seemed utterly unconcerned by the pressure of the Thunderstorm Beast's roar, as if it had nothing to do with him at all; expressionless, he drove a fist at the beast.
That the Thunderstorm Beast blocked his killing of Wu Chengtian stirred neither joy nor anger in the man in black—only his target shifted from Wu Chengtian to the Thunderstorm Beast. Nor did his face show much fear of the beast, entirely unlike Big Mule.
Of course, Test Subject No. 02 had no mind of his own anymore; he obeyed only Big Mule, and Big Mule's order was to kill Wu Chengtian and the Thunderstorm Beast—he need only obey.
The Thunderstorm Beast could clearly have dodged the blow, but its hide was thick and it wanted to probe the black-clad man's limits, so it took the punch head-on. And having taken it, the beast's heart sank as well.
Still, the Thunderstorm Beast was fast: using the momentum of absorbing the blow, it swung a paw at the man in black. The man staggered from the slap—yet rose to his feet as though nothing had happened.
Dr. Yin and his fellow disciples had made a point of reinforcing Test Subject No. 02's endurance and defense, putting him in a different class from Test Subject No. 01; so the beast's swipe had truly done him no harm.
After all, he could now take ten consecutive blows from a Heaven-Rank expert—the Thunderstorm Beast's bit of force was nothing to him.
Seeing how matters stood, the Thunderstorm Beast at once conceived thoughts of retreat.
True, it was a spirit beast at the peak of the late Mystic Rank, with the strength to hold its own against a Heaven-Rank foe—but it was not Heaven-Rank after all. Holding one's own is holding one's own; it is not clashing strength for strength. The black-clad man's single punch had already laid bare his power: this man was at least a match for the peak of the late Earth-Rank. The Thunderstorm Beast knew that if it fought him with all its strength, head-on, the outcome would be no better than even odds.