Chapter 3801 — Nearly Vomiting Blood
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Yet for Meng Zhou, the present situation was not entirely a bad thing: while he had four points docked, his cave-dwelling ranking had also fallen back to Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain—landing him behind Qiao Hongcai and handing the initiative back to him.
And more crucially, though he was once again mired in the awkward position of grave injury, with Xiao Che—that champion of Wei Zhao's—planted at his back, leaving him utterly without power to fight back should he be challenged, he had already been challenged once today by Qiao Hongcai; by the rules of the challenge tournament, he had the right to decline any further challenges.
In other words, even if Xiao Che wanted to drop a stone down the well, this round at least he had no chance to do so. That was, at any rate, a rare piece of good news.
With a veteran hand like Meng Jiuming about, Xiao Che's early-Foundation-stage strength had already been seen through in the previous round when he faced Zha Wu; and judging by his prior foundation at the consummate Heaven Rank, even among early-Foundation-stage cultivators, Xiao Che's true fighting strength was likely above Qiao Hongcai's.
This was plain from the previous round, when Xiao Che had sent Zha Wu flying off the platform without so much as lifting a finger. Qiao Hongcai, who had likewise only just succeeded in Foundation Establishment, or even Meng Zhou, who had been at the stage for some time, could not have managed anything so fluid and effortless.
A single Qiao the Trash had already fought Meng Zhou to mutual ruin two rounds running; add another Xiao Che, stronger still, and whether it was Meng Zhou at the front taking the brunt or Meng Jiuming standing behind the scenes, all they could do was swallow the humiliation.
And the most ironic part was that these two were merely Wei Zhao's underlings. Wei Zhao himself need not lift a finger—his two subordinates alone had already thrown Meng Jiuming and Meng Zhou into complete disarray.
The august steward senior brother of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's new recruits, future third Pavilion Master of the Greeting Pavilion, laid low and addled by the mere underlings of a newcomer from the secular world—how was a man to bear such a thing?
Though thanks to the challenge tournament rules, Meng Zhou had escaped disaster this round, what to do next round remained utterly beyond him.
Qiao Hongcai before him and Xiao Che behind him, caught in such a pincer, Meng Zhou did not dare shift so much as an inch.
If he struck upward, he could either keep grinding away at Qiao Hongcai to the death or leap past Qiao Hongcai and go straight for new recruits with higher cave-dwelling rankings, seizing more points—but in either case, after the challenge he would inevitably be set upon by whichever of Qiao Hongcai or Xiao Che saw his chance.
If he simply held his current Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain and did not move, then Qiao Hongcai indeed had no right to challenge him of his own accord—but one must not forget that Xiao Che, blocking his rear, did; and then, to say nothing of being dragged into yet another fight to the death, the challenge points he could ultimately scrape together would be pitifully few.
In this challenge-tournament phase, Wei Zhao, the fool, had uncharacteristically woven a cocoon around himself, and with great difficulty had left Meng Zhou a chance to overtake him on points. Yet if Meng Zhou kept tangling with these two underlings of Wei Zhao's, that once-in-a-lifetime opening would slip right past him.
After all, the challenge tournament had only eighteen rounds in total, and this was already the fourth. If he did not hurry and find a way to shake off Qiao Hongcai and Xiao Che, then Meng Zhou would have no way at all to seize the hundred-odd points he had envisioned; at this rate, to draw level with Wei Zhao, let alone overtake him, was sheer fantasy.