Chapter 4484 — Fighting Machine
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Wu Baoliang's might lay solely in his Mad Sand Thousand Explosions Fist. Once that lethal killing move was broken, one found that his own strength was in truth not so heaven-defying after all. Cheng Haonan was different. His foundation was far sturdier and more substantial; every punch and every kick carried tremendous force.
Without the Mad Sand Thousand Explosions Fist, that great killing weapon, a specimen like Wu Baoliang would not even have been qualified to fight him—at most he would have been laid low at the first exchange, without suspense.
Even as Wei Zhao grew wary, Cheng Haonan on the other side was likewise muttering to himself. After three straight bouts with Wu Baoliang, he had assumed Wei Zhao's true qi must be largely spent, and that retaining fifty or sixty percent of his strength would already be remarkable. Yet the man was still brimming with true qi, showing not the slightest sign of fatigue.
"No wonder he could kill the strategist. This boy's strength is truly no small thing!" Cheng Haonan frowned inwardly.
Unlike a master like Wu Baoliang, who pursued only ever more powerful techniques, Cheng Haonan had built his name on ordinary fists and feet and had always excelled at them; his foundation ran far deeper than most men's. A connoisseur of the art, he could see at a glance just how solid an opponent's foundation was.
If Wu Baoliang's foundation rated ten, then this Ling Yi before him rated at least thirty—perhaps even fifty. They were simply not on the same level. Especially when both sides' techniques and moves were roughly matched, Wu Baoliang's utter rout had been a foregone conclusion; no wonder that one-sided spectacle had played out earlier.
From a single probing exchange, each man's threat had grown a layer heavier in the other's mind, and at the same time each secretly counted himself fortunate not to have been careless just now—otherwise he might well have suffered a great loss, and regretted it beyond remedy.
Watching Cheng Haonan from afar, still with his aura drawn inward, Wei Zhao's mind raced through his options for the fight to come. By his past experience, the better a master's foundation, the less likely he was to expose a flaw—above all, never a flaw wide enough to end him in a single blow.
Against such an opponent, one had to be prepared to fight a machine of war, for a machine of war does not err—and men like Cheng Haonan do not err either.
That left Wei Zhao precious few strategies to choose from—only two. Either grind out a contest of endurance, tangling with the man indefinitely while guaranteeing that he himself never slipped, and wait until the other erred; or pit raw strength against raw strength, meeting him head-on with the mightiest killing move and settling the matter with one hammer blow.
Each choice had its merits and its perils. The former seemed the safer and surer path, but it was exceedingly difficult: should his endurance fall short of his opponent's and he be the first to show a flaw, he would have spun the cocoon that bound himself.
The latter was desperately risky. Once committed to it, only two outcomes remained: either he blasted his opponent dead in a single strike—the ideal case—or the man weathered it head-on, and then Wei Zhao would surely be in for it, suffering a lethal backlash. (Update 7!) (To be continued...)