Chapter 3749 — A Contest of Minds
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
At this very moment, only a single body's width separated him from Wei Zhao. By rights, with his superior strength preying on the weaker, this was the perfect distance to kill Wei Zhao—there was no possibility of escape.
Yet simply because he had fallen into this one carefully designed psychological snare, the situation had lurched violently about, and the one truly holding the upper hand was now Wei Zhao, this "weakling"!
Having missed his sure-kill strike, his move spent and its force not yet renewed, Yu Jiang—a worthy expert of the mid Foundation Establishment stage—had, in the space of a single exchange, exposed a fatal flaw before this "weakling" Wei Zhao!
Such a carefully crafted opening was not one Wei Zhao could let pass. At once he closed his hand into a fist and, seizing the moment when Yu Jiang's follow-through faltered, drove a punch straight at his face. Blazing, fiery fist intent surged forth and in an instant slammed unimpeded into his opponent's chest.
The Frenzied Flame Fist, Twenty-Third Stance!
"Hah! All that scheming to make me fall for it, and this is all you've got!" Having taken the blow, Yu Jiang seemed none the worse—but before his words had died away, his body convulsed with a great shudder.
WHOOSH! The cloth over his chest was burned to ash in an instant, and the flesh revealed beneath it was blackened and charred, a sight to make the heart quail.
More horrifying still, the blazing fist intent of the Frenzied Flame Fist did not disperse. Like fire clinging to his body, it went on searing him. Though Yu Jiang used his formidable true qi to suppress it and keep it from spreading further, the stricken flesh still burned with unrelenting pain.
This was a new variation Wei Zhao had only lately mastered after cultivating the Frenzied Flame Fist to its twenty-third stance.
The first twenty-two stances had always followed the path of utmost yang and utmost rigidity. That gave them devastating power, but left little room for variation and a certain lack of spirit; once their killing force failed to tell, one easily fell on the defensive in a duel between high ranks.
The twenty-third stance, however, for all its fierce and domineering heat, had bred a thread of unbroken after-force—and it was precisely this after-force that left Yu Jiang, having taken the blow, suffering an additional burning wound.
Thus the practical value of the Frenzied Flame Fist was greatly increased. Against a high-ranked opponent, even if its killing force could not inflict fatal damage, its lingering burn remained very useful indeed.
For a burn means agony, and under agony even the profoundest schemer often loses his ordinary reason.
Of course, the burn could only cause agony. Forbidding as it looked, and though it might well be fatal to an ordinary man, for a formidable mid Foundation Establishment expert like Yu Jiang, to burn him to death by such means was simply impossible. (To be continued)