Chapter 891 — Energy Bomb

"Oh, Yaoyao, you're such a fibber. You were scared stiff just a moment ago!" Shen Yushu called Gu Mengyao out on her lie right then and there.

"!" Gu Mengyao shot Shen Yushu a glare and ignored her.

Zhen Yingjun was dumbstruck. Where was Ma Zhu? Where had Ma Zhu gone? A Golden Bell Shield expert at the peak of the mid Mystic rank — how could he just vanish into thin air? At that thought, Zhen Yingjun's eyes went wide and he scanned the field, but aside from Wei Zhao, the only one left standing, there was no trace of Ma Zhu anywhere.

It was a long while before another figure crawled up out of the rubble. That person was Ma Zhu — but the Ma Zhu of this moment was a horrifying sight.

Half of his arm was completely gone, his ribs had caved in entirely. His whole right side had been reduced to a pulp of mangled flesh — even his right face was no longer recognizable as human! If there had been anyone else around, they would not have been able to identify this person as Ma Zhu!

From his wounds, blood poured in gushing streams, and the stark white of bone showed faintly through.

"What the hell? That's insane. This guy got blown to bits and he's still alive?" Shen Yushu exclaimed in astonishment at Ma Zhu's tenacious vitality.

Ma Zhu's eyes were filled with a look of utter horror, the arrogance and bluster of before completely gone. He could scarcely believe that he had actually been wounded — and wounded so grievously, so miserably. How was this possible?

He was a Golden Bell Shield eighth-layer external-school expert at the peak of the mid Mystic rank. How could Wei Zhao, an internal-school expert at the peak of the early Mystic rank, have wounded him? Ma Zhu could say without exaggeration or pride that ordinary bullets could not even scratch him — and yet now, he was wounded, and wounded severely!

The entire right half of his body had been blasted to ruin. His right arm was gone, even his whole shoulder was gone! His right face was a bloody mess, his right leg reduced to bare white bone. That he could stand at all was only by the most desperate effort.

"Impossible... impossible... this isn't real! You can't hurt me!" Ma Zhu refused to believe it. He truly refused to believe it!

"Idiot." Wei Zhao glanced at Ma Zhu indifferently. "I told you I was about to unleash my ultimate move. You didn't dodge, you didn't block — did you think you had health to spare?"

"Impossible... this is impossible..." Ma Zhu was going mad. He could not accept the reality before his eyes! Though Wei Zhao looked somewhat battered too, though his body bore many wounds, the man had not lost an arm or a leg — while he himself...

Ma Zhu could not accept it. His eighth-layer Golden Bell Shield — in that single instant, it had been completely destroyed! The martial power he had cultivated for years, the dream he had held since childhood — all of it shattered in this one moment...

The body of an external-school expert was as vital as the meridians of an internal-school expert. Once the body suffered grave injury, even after recovery, it could never again reach its former strength! Especially in Ma Zhu's case, where his entire body had been blasted to a pulp, even blasted away — his Golden Bell Shield cultivation was thoroughly broken!

Even if he nursed his body back to health, the newly grown flesh and skin would be no different from those of an ordinary person! Even if a bit of Golden Bell Shield body remained on his left side, what good would that do? In a fight, could he make his enemies refrain from attacking his right side?

Wei Zhao paid Ma Zhu no further attention. He had to scare off Ma Zhu and Zhen Yingjun as quickly as possible. He knew his own condition best — that he could stand at all right now was sustained purely by his last breath. His whole body was a bow drawn to its limit, an arrow on the verge of snapping.

That earlier strike had been the result of Wei Zhao draining every last drop of energy from his body, compressing it, and releasing it in an instant.

This kind of energy bomb — Wei Zhao had already tested it once on Yu Kun, and it had proven quite effective.

Only, the energy required to shatter the meridians within Yu Kun's body had been far less than what today's strike had demanded! This time, it had been a mad and reckless decision on Wei Zhao's part — a last resort when all other options were exhausted!

Ma Zhu was a cultivator of the Golden Bell Shield. No matter what attack Wei Zhao employed, it would have no effect on him — even ambush and assassination were useless, because the man simply did not fear being attacked!

Just when Wei Zhao was frantic with anxiety, helpless after being poisoned and on the verge of sitting down to await death, Ma Zhu had inadvertently exposed his own weakness with a single sentence. Perhaps Ma Zhu had not thought anything amiss about that sentence, but it had given Wei Zhao a tremendous inspiration!

Ma Zhu had said that the Golden Bell Shield had no weakness — unless Wei Zhao's rank was higher than his!

In Ma Zhu's view, Wei Zhao's strength could not possibly exceed his own. If it did, Wei Zhao would have won long ago. But Wei Zhao did not see it that way. Though his own strength was not higher than Ma Zhu's, the power generated by compressed energy increased exponentially!

Ma Zhu had the Golden Bell Shield protecting his body. Wei Zhao could not, as he had done with Yu Kun, inject energy into Ma Zhu's body to destroy his internal organs and meridians. He could only use the explosion generated by a far greater quantity of energy to blast apart Ma Zhu's physical body!

Whether this method would work, Wei Zhao was not certain — and even less certain what adverse consequences it might bring upon himself! For even if he retreated and dodged the instant he released the energy, the residual force of the explosion could still reach him!

In order to wound Ma Zhu, Wei Zhao had no choice but to drain the very last thread of energy from his body, and with the resolve to succeed or die trying, he had unleashed the most terrifying energy bomb in his history!

Fortunately, he had succeeded! Ma Zhu had been blasted into a cripple, his Golden Bell Shield shattered directly by Wei Zhao's energy! Even so, the defensive power of Ma Zhu's Golden Bell Shield still made Wei Zhao click his tongue in amazement.

Wei Zhao knew all too well what kind of power that energy bomb had produced when it detonated. Before the two of them, a deep crater had been blasted into the ground, its walls smooth and sheer, as though cut by a sharp sword!

Even rock had been reduced to such a state — and yet Ma Zhu was only wounded, not dead!

Wei Zhao did not know whether Ma Zhu still had any fighting capacity left, but he knew that he himself had none! Were it not for his astonishing willpower, he absolutely could not have held on until now, much less stood up! But he had to stand. He had to pretend he was unharmed!

He had to frighten off Ma Zhu and Zhen Yingjun — otherwise, whether it was himself, Gu Mengyao, or Shen Yushu, they would all be in danger!

So Wei Zhao ignored Ma Zhu and turned his gaze to Zhen Yingjun instead, saying coldly, "Now, it's your turn!"

Looking at the somewhat ferocious expression on Wei Zhao's face, Zhen Yingjun was scared out of his wits. Ma Zhu had been blasted into critical condition — so how would Wei Zhao deal with him now? He was the mastermind behind this whole affair! Ma Zhu was merely a hired thug, and even he had been beaten so miserably — how could Wei Zhao possibly let him off?

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