Chapter 178 – Enemies on a narrow road
“Wu Ji Sword – Wu Ji Reversal!” Wu Ji Xuan lost his patience and straight away cast out his final move.
A network of hundreds of blades slashed outwards and converged to form a very large blade.
“Brother Leopard, quickly retreat!” Jing Feng shouted as he ducked out of the way.
The spotted leopard was in the middle of pouncing at Wu Ji Xuan, and even though he tried to twist his body to dodge the attack, escape was difficult at this point.
“Boom!” the sword hit the spotted leopard and sent it flying.
The Spotted Leopard was nearly cut into pieces; death was the inevitable end after being struck by such a heavy blow.
“I concede the fight!” Jing Feng promptly abandoned the fight and ran over to his partner’s dead body. Tear drops fell like rain drops from Jing Feng’s eyes as he held the bloodied corpse of his friend.
Real men don’t cry easily; Jing Feng’s tears of blood were a clear indication of the sentiments that he held in his heart for his pet.
“Consider this may payback for the Mangalica Pigs that your ‘Pet Slayer’ has killed in this tournament.” Wu Ji Xuan stated coldly.
Jing Feng ignored Wu Ji Xuan’s words and silently incorporated the Spotted Leopard’s corpse into his Yin Yang pouch, and returned to his Sect’s dressing room.
“Brother Jing Feng…..”
“I’m fine; I just want to be alone right now.” Jing Feng waved his hand.
Everyone knew that Jing Feng was very sad and enraged, which is why no one dared to bother him about it.
“I wish I could get my hands on Wu Ji Xuan.” Bi Fan said.
Mo Nan said: “Brother Bi Fan, if Wu Ji Xuan is this powerful…. then I’m afraid that only you can beat him.”
“I will do my best.” In fact, even Bi Fan wasn’t certain of a victory.
Jing Feng hadn’t been able to draw out Wu Ji Xuan’s true strength, and it was evident that he had more tricks up his sleeve.
Since Wu Ji Xuan’s true threat was still unclear, it was hard to comment on the subject of defeating the man.
As the afternoon round proceeded, Mo Nan was met with Wu Ji Sect’s Xuan Wu Ji, and since his rival’s pet had already been slain in battle, Mo Nan was able to win the match.
Mo Nan’s results had been very good so far, and he was now at par with Jing Feng, having lost only one match over the course of the contest.
As for Ji Ying Lan, he was also quite lucky and b.u.mped into Li Bei’s Li Jia and managed to win his match as well.
Bi Fan was pitched against the Rising Sun Sect’s Gu Da Tong, who tactfully conceded the fight, allowing Bi Fan to bag a walkover victory.
Apart from the disappointment of Jing Feng’s pet, Bi Fan had learnt a lot of new things, while Wu Ji Xuan’s ‘Wu Ji Sword’ had broadened his horizons.
Since Wu Ji Xuan had been able to a.s.semble his own martial style, Bi Fan was now confident that he could also achieve something similar.
Bi Fan had one advantage over Wu Ji Xuan in this respect: ‘The Immortal Finger!’. ‘The Immortal Finger’ was a very powerful attack and was capable of being fused with a very wide range of martial laws, which meant that Bi Fan could pick his moves from a very wide range of skill sets.
Moreover, ‘The Immortal Finger’ was a very powerful attack and was so taciturn in nature, that it would be very hard to detect it if it was used slyly with a sword-based skill.
After returning to his room, Bi Fan once again recalled the memories from the day. By now, his knowledge base had become far broader, and even his perceptive abilities had seen a major boost.
Nowadays, Bi Fan was capable of identifying the flaws in most martial laws by just looking at them once.
However, Wu Ji Xuan’s case was very different, and even though Bi Fan inspected his skill set very carefully, he was still unable to find any flaws in it.
But Bi Fan didn’t give up immediately and was convinced that he’d be able to find some, in time.
Bi Fan studied the skill throughout the night, but was only able to find very minor flaws in Wu Ji Xuan’s martial law.
Even though he had managed to tear holes in this cloth, Bi Fan knew that he wouldn’t be able to exploit his findings in battle since Wu Ji Xuan was very tactful, and would actively change his skill during the course of the fight.
Bi Fan could make out that since Wu Ji Xuan’s skill was near perfection, he must have spent a lot of time in creating and practicing it.
The next day arrived in no time at all. Today was the final day of the third round and the rankings would be announced at the end of the day.
If two or more contestants were drawn in terms of points, then the contest would proceed for two more days and would go into the tie-breakers.
Since this day was potentially the last day of the tournament, a huge gathering had a.s.sembled inside the stadium. Some of the spectators had urged that they were willing to watch the contest even if they weren’t able to find seats to sit on.
Since they were still willing to pay the full price of a ticket, the City Sect gladly allowed it.
On the other hand, Jing Feng’s morale seemed restored after a good night’s rest.
“Brother Jing Feng, how are you feeling?” Bi Fan seemed a bit worried.
“Brother Leopard’s death won’t affect me in this contest Brother.” Jing Feng stated.
Bi Fan recalled that he still had a couple of Jungle Python eggs in his possession, and figured that he could give one of them to Jing Feng since it would help in making him feel a little better.
But this wasn’t the time or the place for such acts, and Bi Fan decided to wait for the right time.
Once the balloting was over, the contestants started gearing up for the final day of the third round, and seemed awfully focused on getting the best out of their respective situations.
Today, Jing Feng’s first opponent was his old nemesis: Jiang Wen.
“Jiang Wen, last time, I lost to you by a very small margin. This time, I will make up for it.” Jing Feng narrated.
“Jing Feng, if your beast pet was still alive, then I would have conceded the fight early, but now, I don’t think that you’ll have it easy against me.” Jiang Wen replied.
Jing Feng calm demeanor suddenly changed to an angry one, the moment Jiang Wen mentioned the death of his pet.
“Yes, well, I will beat you today!” Jing Feng stated in a cold voice.
The moment the referee announced the start to of the fight, the two men charged out towards each other.
Since Jiang Wen and Jing Feng knew each other’s strengths quite well, the fight’s tempo escalated very quickly.
The contest was extremely exciting, and the audience was naturally enjoying watching it.
However, since the two men knew each other’s abilities so well, both men were able to protect themselves, and neither man seemed to be gaining any advantage over the other.
Both men were already using their full strength, but still neither seemed to be superior to the other.
“It looks like Brother Jing Feng and Jiang Wen’s fight is going to end in a draw…. If Brother Jing Feng’s spotted leopard was still alive, then he would have won this fight quite easily.” Mo Nan sighed.
“They both understand each other quite well, and are equally matched in every respect…. So I’d say that it would come down to a case of ‘who wants it more…’.” Ling Xin Ya commented.
Jiang Wen and Jing Feng, both wanted to win the fight desperately, and both men were fighting ferociously. Both men were consuming a lot of energy and it seemed like they would both be running out very soon.
Even now, both men seemed tied in every respect, and it was still impossible to predict a winner.
Both men got rid of their weapons, in order to reduce energy consumption, and started engaging each other in hand-to-hand combat. Their sweat studded bodies were clearly depicting the state of their energy consumption, while the reducing speed of their movements was indicative of their respective fatigue.
“Who will win this match?” almost everyone was craning in their necks to know.
“Jing Feng! Jing Feng! Hit Jiang Wen….”
“Jiang Wen! Jiang Wen! Beat Jing Feng!”
Both men were very popular, and it seemed that their fans were having a compet.i.tion of their own since it seemed like they were trying to subdue their favored contestants’ enemy’s supporters, and the arena was witnessing an unprecedented uproar of cheers.