Chapter 2264 — Thoughts of Retreat

"Th—yes!" Big Mule was terrified, but since An Jianwen had ordered him to stop the car, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and find a deserted spot to pull over.

He did not get out himself, however; he sent Test Subject No. 2 out instead, while he stayed in the vehicle holding Wang Xinyan hostage and watching for any movement outside—at the first sign of trouble, he would floor it and flee.

As for Wang Xinyan, she was already bound inside the car, so there was no fear of her running off.

Seeing Big Mule stop, Wu Chengtian breathed a sigh of relief. He had genuinely feared the man would just keep driving; there was nothing he could do then but follow along, not daring to force the car to a halt. If Big Mule had kept to the back alleys and side streets, fine—but if he reached a crowded district, neither Wu Chengtian nor the Thunderstorm Beast could easily show themselves.

When Test Subject No. 2—the burly man in black—stepped out, Wu Chengtian instantly went on guard. This man had brushed his hand aside as casually as one might swat a fly; his cultivation was surely not low.

Knowing the Thunderstorm Beast was stronger than himself, Wu Chengtian shot it a look: you deal with No. 2, and I will take the chance to get on board and rescue Wang Xinyan.

But no sooner had he formed the plan than the man in black, as if deliberately set on thwarting him, attacked the moment he stepped down—no pause, no word of warning, just a fist driven straight at Wu Chengtian's face.

To Wu Chengtian's eye the punch held no technique whatsoever, nor any powerful surge of true qi, and yet for some inexplicable reason a warning rose in his heart, as though that fist carried boundless force that he could not resist.

Instinctively he twisted aside, unwilling to get tangled up with the man; he meant to slip past him and free Wang Xinyan from the car. But the man in black seemed to have singled him out: Wu Chengtian dodged, and the fist curved after him.

There was no avoiding it now. Wu Chengtian could only harden himself and put out his hand to trade blows—though inwardly he still nursed a hope: he was a practitioner of the Iron Hand art, and had already reached the early Earth-Rank, so surely he could handle a man who appeared to have no real strength?

But the instant his fist met the black-clad man's, Wu Chengtian knew he was wrong—badly, absurdly wrong. The other man's punch looked utterly ordinary, yet in truth it carried monstrous force; Wu Chengtian felt his own strength was no more than an ant trying to shake an elephant. A single blow sent him flying backward, coughing blood without cease.

Test Subject No. 02 could slaughter experts below the early Earth-Rank with ease, and Wu Chengtian, only newly advanced to early Earth-Rank, stood no chance against him at all. Fortunately he cultivated both inner and outer arts, making him somewhat stronger than ordinary inner- or outer-style experts of his rank, and his Iron Hand art let him meet No. 02's fist head-on and survive a single blow—otherwise he would already be a corpse.

Even so, Wu Chengtian was gravely wounded internally, and his heart filled with dread. Where on earth had these kidnappers come from? How could they be so formidable—seemingly no great expert, yet surpassing all measure?

Once down, Wu Chengtian could not rise again; the opponent's power had exceeded anything he had imagined.

He had broken through again and again to become an early Earth-Rank expert, and this was the very moment when his spirits were high and his confidence full, when he had just meant to show what he could do—and now he had been struck down.

Wu Chengtian stared fixedly at the man in black, refusing to accept it, watching him stride over one step at a time. Bitterness flooded his heart: he had badly underestimated the enemy, and betrayed Wei Zhao's trust.

But what good would not underestimating him have done? Even knowing the enemy was formidable, could he have simply looked the other way and given up the chase? Plainly not. So the outcome would have been the same either way.

Now Wu Chengtian could only pin his hopes on the Thunderstorm Beast.

"Awoo..." The Thunderstorm Beast, too, sensed the enemy's overwhelming strength—it had never expected Wu Chengtian to fall so easily, which in turn showed just how formidable the opponent was.

The black-clad man seemed utterly unconcerned by the pressure of the Thunderstorm Beast's roar, as if it had nothing to do with him at all; expressionless, he drove a fist at the beast.

That the Thunderstorm Beast blocked his killing of Wu Chengtian stirred neither joy nor anger in the man in black—only his target shifted from Wu Chengtian to the Thunderstorm Beast. Nor did his face show much fear of the beast, entirely unlike Big Mule.

Of course, Test Subject No. 02 had no mind of his own anymore; he obeyed only Big Mule, and Big Mule's order was to kill Wu Chengtian and the Thunderstorm Beast—he need only obey.

The Thunderstorm Beast could clearly have dodged the blow, but its hide was thick and it wanted to probe the black-clad man's limits, so it took the punch head-on. And having taken it, the beast's heart sank as well.

Still, the Thunderstorm Beast was fast: using the momentum of absorbing the blow, it swung a paw at the man in black. The man staggered from the slap—yet rose to his feet as though nothing had happened.

Dr. Yin and his fellow disciples had made a point of reinforcing Test Subject No. 02's endurance and defense, putting him in a different class from Test Subject No. 01; so the beast's swipe had truly done him no harm.

After all, he could now take ten consecutive blows from a Heaven-Rank expert—the Thunderstorm Beast's bit of force was nothing to him.

Seeing how matters stood, the Thunderstorm Beast at once conceived thoughts of retreat.

True, it was a spirit beast at the peak of the late Mystic Rank, with the strength to hold its own against a Heaven-Rank foe—but it was not Heaven-Rank after all. Holding one's own is holding one's own; it is not clashing strength for strength. The black-clad man's single punch had already laid bare his power: this man was at least a match for the peak of the late Earth-Rank. The Thunderstorm Beast knew that if it fought him with all its strength, head-on, the outcome would be no better than even odds.

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