Chapter 3204 — A Strike Begets a Death Feud

"Who struck her?" As Wei Zhao spoke, he stepped into the room, the full force of his early Heaven-rank cultivation laid bare for all to see.

"I struck her. What, are you going to stand up for her?" Elder Chen glanced at Wei Zhao and asked in a bland, disdainful tone. In his eyes, Wei Zhao was nothing but a minor early Heaven-rank expert, wholly beneath his notice.

So as he spoke, he likewise released the full pressure of his peak mid Heaven-rank strength. In truth, he did not know that even had he concealed it, Wei Zhao could see his cultivation plainly enough.

"Yes." Wei Zhao nodded. "I have no wish to make an enemy of the Overseas Cultivators' Association, so I will give you one chance. Leave now, and this matter ends here. Otherwise, what lies between us will be a death feud."

"A death feud? Haha!" Elder Wang burst out laughing from the side. "How absurd! A death feud? Are you even worthy to speak of a death feud with our Overseas Cultivators' Association? Do you fancy yourself formidable? An early Heaven-rank expert is still nothing worth looking at in my eyes!"

"Are you from Snow Valley as well?" Elder Chen asked instead. Wei Zhao was, after all, an early Heaven-rank expert—quite unlike Tang's mother, that lowly Mystic-rank fighter. Heaven-rank experts were prized by any sect, just as they prized Tang Yuqi, and so it was with Wei Zhao. Should any harm come to Wei Zhao, his sect would not let the matter rest.

"No. My name is Wei Zhao, and I am an unaffiliated cultivator," Wei Zhao said coolly. "If you have heard my name, you had best leave now. As I said: make an enemy of me, and it is a death feud."

"An unaffiliated cultivator?" Elder Chen was briefly taken aback, then laughed heartily. "Good—very good. Then I would like to see what this death feud of yours looks like! I will tell you plainly: when we leave, Tang Yuqi leaves with us!"

Wei Zhao had held back from striking directly because he did not want to put Tang Yuqi in a difficult position. But now he could endure no more. He had given his warning; if Elder Chen would not heed it, there was nothing more to be done.

"Raging Fire Eight-Trigram Palm—Ninth Form!" Wei Zhao struck out of a sudden, driving one palm toward the still-laughing Elder Chen.

Wei Zhao's abrupt attack caught Elder Chen somewhat off guard, yet he was not overly alarmed. Taking this blow, he would at worst be injured—and then he would have all the more reason to kill Wei Zhao. Besides, he had a Great Restoration Pill in hand, so he had no fear of injury at all.

Moreover, Wei Zhao had unleashed only the ninth form of a martial technique. Elder Chen had never heard of any Raging Fire Eight-Trigram Palm, but that did not matter; he well knew the power of a ninth-form martial technique, and taking it head-on could hardly do him any real harm.

What he had not anticipated was that Wei Zhao's ninth form of the Raging Fire Eight-Trigram Palm would actually unleash the might of a fifteenth-form Heaven-rank martial technique! Struck by that blow while wholly unguarded, he was doomed beyond any doubt.

But by the time he understood this, it was already too late. Wei Zhao's palm landed on him, and Elder Chen followed in Tang's mother's wake: his body hurtled through the air, smashed into the wall with a thunderous boom, and dropped down beside Tang's mother, blood frothing at his lips, barely drawing breath—plainly a dying man. He fared even worse than Tang's mother; after coughing up but two mouthfuls of bloody foam, his legs kicked once and he was gone.

"Ha!" Tang's mother, just now come to, her meridians ruined beyond repair but her voice restored, broke into wild laughter at the sight of Elder Chen dead beside her. "You old wretch! Weren't you putting on airs with me? Dumbstruck now, are you? Dead, are you?"

Elder Wang, meanwhile, was stunned. Elder Chen was dead? Just like that? He stared at Wei Zhao in disbelief, unable to credit it. Wei Zhao was only an early Heaven-rank expert—how could he possibly have killed Elder Chen, whose strength stood at the peak of the mid Heaven-rank? It was utterly impossible! It overturned everything he thought he knew.

A cultivator of such vastly inferior rank could actually kill across levels and slay one stronger than himself? What sort of logic was that? He felt his mind could scarcely keep pace.

"You... you killed Elder Chen?" Elder Wang finally stammered out in horror.

"He's dead, all right. I told you before—if I strike, it is a death feud. And so he is dead, is he not?" Wei Zhao shrugged indifferently.

"You..." Elder Wang did not know what to say. "An unaffiliated cultivator like you dares to kill our Elder Chen? Are you not afraid of the vengeance of the Overseas Cultivators' Association?"

"Vengeance? Very well. The more lice, the less the itch. Before you take your vengeance, you may ask around—ask how many ancient sects I have wronged, how many Heaven-rank experts I have already slain," Wei Zhao said.

"Ah?" Elder Wang was briefly taken aback, his face shifting with doubt and alarm. He had not expected Wei Zhao to be so formidable. To have made enemies of so many ancient sects and still be alive—who could say whether it was true or false? But that he dared not act rashly was certain. His own strength fell short of Elder Chen's; to stir up trouble now would, in his estimation, mean certain death. So he could only say, quaking, "Very well, then. We shall meet again."

Elder Wang dared not utter any bold, imperious threats; he feared that saying too much would lead Wei Zhao to keep him there as well. Hoisting Elder Chen's corpse onto his back, he leapt swiftly out the window and vanished from sight.

Tang Yuqi let out a breath of relief and said gratefully to Wei Zhao, "Brother Lin, thank you for resolving this—otherwise I truly would not have known what to do... Only, you should not have let Elder Wang go just now. You should have made him leave the Great Restoration Pill behind. As for my second aunt, if she does not take a Great Restoration Pill, I fear she will be a cripple for the rest of her life!"

"Oh, that is no matter. Open a room for me and help Aunt Wang inside—I will treat her myself." In truth, having just unleashed the ninth form of the Raging Fire Eight-Trigram Palm, Wei Zhao's body was greatly weakened; he merely did not show it. His request for a room to himself was also so that, under the pretext of treatment, he might first recover himself.

"Brother Lin can heal her?" Tang Yuqi was astonished.

"Yes. Wei Zhao is a skilled physician as well—an injury like this is nothing to him," Qiu Lingshan explained on Wei Zhao's behalf.

"Ah... very well!" Curious as Tang Yuqi was, he restrained himself from asking. After all, Wei Zhao's ability to treat Tang's mother was likely some sort of secret. So he swiftly opened a room, and together with Qiu Lingshan he helped Tang's mother inside.

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