Chapter 2223 — Unpredictable

"Who stays here isn't settled yet." Wei Zhao was in fact stalling for time, compressing his true-qi bomb—but the Fifth Protector, he suspected, would hardly grant him that much time.

"Hmph. A stubborn fool who won't see reason!" the Fifth Protector sneered.

"Fifth Protector, enough talk with the brat. Strike—kill him for me. But don't harm the woman beside him; tonight I mean to have her warm my bed!" Though Tagan Long had to silence Wei Zhao for good, he could not kill Sun Jingyan, and so he must keep up his show of being a foppish wastrel.

The Fifth Protector nodded and said no more. His legs shifted slightly apart, settling into a firm horse stance, his fists clenched, and in that instant the true qi upon his body surged to its peak! The strength of a late Earth-rank cultivator at his zenith was laid bare for all to see!

"Frenzied Fire Fist, Fourth Form!" Seeing that he could stall no longer, Wei Zhao chose to strike first. His mighty flame true qi burst forth once more alongside his fist, hurtling toward the Fifth Protector's face!

The Fifth Protector's pupils contracted. Watching Wei Zhao's fist come smashing at him, a cold smile cut across the corner of his mouth. "An Earth-rank martial art? Then let me show you what a true Earth-rank martial art looks like!"

With that, the Fifth Protector moved. In a single instant he evaded Wei Zhao's attack, his body circling around to come up directly behind Wei Zhao, and with a cold laugh he drove both fists savagely at Wei Zhao's back!

"Mountain-Splitting Fist, Tenth Form! Die, brat!"

Amid a thunderous roar, the Fifth Protector's twin fists came crashing down!

Wei Zhao was seized with alarm. The sheer force of that true qi made his body lean off balance—and that was before the fists had even touched him!

He could not take it head-on! Wei Zhao had not expected the Fifth Protector to be so ferocious as to have cultivated his martial art to the Tenth Form—though on reflection, for a master of peak late Earth-rank strength to unleash a Tenth Form technique was only natural.

If Wei Zhao were struck squarely, he would surely be gravely wounded!

"Vacuum Wave Fist!" Without so much as a glance behind him, Wei Zhao hurled out the true-qi bomb he had just finished compressing. And in the next instant he turned and ran, darting swiftly aside to where the Fifth Protector's fists could not reach.

"Playing tricks?" Hearing Wei Zhao suddenly cry out something about a "Vacuum Wave Fist," the Fifth Protector assumed he meant to meet force with force, and so his movement paused a fraction. How was he to know that Wei Zhao would not turn at all but simply flee? His fists, by instinct, rose and drove on!

But in the next moment the Fifth Protector sensed something amiss, for although Wei Zhao had gone, he felt a violent surge of true qi come rushing at him—and before he could react in any way, it was as though his fists had struck an orb of pure energy!

"Bang!"

The Fifth Protector gave a wretched scream. Flesh and blood flew from his fists, blood streaming down—the flesh upon them had been blasted clean away, laying bare the stark white bone!

"Waaah—yaaah—yaaah!" Staring at his own fists, the veins upon the Fifth Protector's forehead bulged. He fixed Wei Zhao with a sinister glare, never having imagined the brat could wound him. "Brat, you've succeeded in enraging me. But don't think that wounded fists leave you beyond my reach! I am no mere external-school cultivator. I have also cultivated martial arts for the legs!"

At these words Wei Zhao frowned. He had sought to cripple the Fifth Protector's hands precisely so that he could not smoothly unleash his techniques—but who would have thought the man had trained not only the martial arts of the fist but the arts of the leg as well!

"Is that so? Then I'll cripple your legs too." Wei Zhao said this flatly, then swiftly moved toward the Fifth Protector. Both fists extended level before him, he cried, "Vacuum Wave Fist!"

At those words the Fifth Protector flinched by reflex, his body once again pausing a fraction, for Wei Zhao's Vacuum Wave Fist was altogether too inexplicable! The Fifth Protector had never heard of such a martial art—to unleash a technique without turning, with one's back turned and neither fist nor foot striking toward the foe!

And the technique's lethality was truly too great. One need only look at his own hands and at the Eighth Protector's chest to know—this martial art was utterly vicious.

So the Fifth Protector went on full guard, watching Wei Zhao warily, and when he saw those twin fists come driving at his chest, he dared not reach out to meet them head-on. Instead he gathered all the true qi in his body into his chest, shielding it, lest he be harmed once more by Wei Zhao's uncanny art!

That Vacuum Wave Fist's lethal power the Fifth Protector had already felt in full. In his judgment, so long as he poured his true qi into guarding his body, he could take this blow of Wei Zhao's without injury!

What was more, the Fifth Protector was devising a most vicious scheme of his own: once his chest had withstood Wei Zhao's strike, he would seize the moment Wei Zhao drew close and unleash Mountain-Splitting Leg, Tenth Form, and kick the brat to death!

"Vacuum Wave Fist!" Wei Zhao shouted the words "Vacuum Wave Fist" aloud, but in his heart he cried—Wood Forest Illusion Thousand Transformations, Fourth Form!

Wei Zhao had found his inspiration in the way he could throw one Frenzied Fire Fist and one Vacuum Wave Fist at once. If the two hands could do different things, then could he not unleash techniques with both at the same time? Wei Zhao meant to try!

Wood Forest Illusion Thousand Transformations: its original move turned one fist into four, and now that Wei Zhao was using both fists, two would become eight! Apart from the two fists aimed at the Fifth Protector's chest, he could in theory strike six more blows—at the very least, two.

So Wei Zhao used a feinting move. He had seen that the Fifth Protector meant to shield his chest with true qi, and his own close-range assault had given the man hope of a counterattack—and that was precisely the effect Wei Zhao wanted!

While the Fifth Protector was off guard, he would deal him another fatal blow.

"Bang!" "Bang!"

The two fists landed upon the Fifth Protector's chest without question, and a smile appeared at the corner of the Fifth Protector's mouth—so this Vacuum Wave Fist was nothing much after all!

Because the true qi barrier at his chest blocked it, he did not notice how this Vacuum Wave Fist differed from the one before. He was eagerly preparing to launch his kick in Mountain-Splitting Leg, Tenth Form, when suddenly a violent agony exploded in his groin!

"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"

Six explosions rang out—Wei Zhao's remaining six fists had all smashed into the Fifth Protector's crotch! The move was despicable, yes, but in a fight against a master several grades above him, how could Wei Zhao afford to care about such things? (To be continued) RQ

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