Chapter 52 - The Green Sting
Gao Pan forced himself to continue to fight, even though his tower of confidence had almost completely collapsed.
Not long ago, he had claimed that he would he would win from his opponent by sheer strength. Because, with the help of both the golden cassock and the mighty Armor-Breaking Fist, he was utterly convinced that he’d be able carry on until the end of the fight.
Be that as it may, after being attacked by hundreds of fists, he felt dizzy and exhausted from head to toe.
What surprised him the most, was the strength that was exerted from the seemingly emaciated Xu Yi. He even wondered what kind of material Xu Yi was made of.
What made things worse, was that he had already vowed that anyone who quit in the middle of the fight, would be considered the loser. Now, he endlessly regretted his passionate, yet stupid commitment.
However, the spoken words were like the pouring out of water, there was no way to get it back.
Ironically, the millions of spectators had titled him as the god of war. Yet, their trust only made Gao Pan feel nervous and upset.
If he quit in the middle, he’d not only be a loser, but it’d also affect his credibility in Guanan.
- Boom! Boom! Boom! -
With three successive attacks, Gao Pan spurted backwards, keeping a distance of roughly ten meters from Xu Yi. Now, he deliberately went to the place where he had dropped his silver spear. However, he was still thirty odd meters away from the spear.
Watching this sudden movement, the spectators were screaming out, making a long and ear-piercing sound. A second later, the sound abruptly came to an end.
Gao Pan began dangling, as he could no longer stand steady. He felt as if there were hundreds of bees buzzing inside his brain.
When he had to choose between face and life, Gao Pan chose the latter, which was quite similar to Xu Yi’s choice on this matter. The difference was, that Xu Yi didn’t care about others’ opinion, as he had become indifferent to the way this world works, while Gao Pan still adhered to the dignity of a cultivator, which made him blush from head to toe.
Xu Yi glanced at Gao Pan, feeling satisfied with his own strategy – attacking the opponent’s weakness by using his own advantage. It was within his expectation that Gao Pan would lose due to exhaustion, but he didn’t expect that Gao Pan would quit so quickly.
The immense power of his physical strength and soul, were two major advantages that helped Xu Yi out in this fight. Which was something that Gao Pan didn’t even know about.
Each time Xu Yi landed his fists on Gao Pan’s golden cassock, there came a grating noise. Xu Yi knew, that under the hundreds of mechanical attacks, the cassock was on the verge of cracking.
Gao Pan stood there, like a spent bullet. Given his lack of strength, even if he picked up the spear, he wouldn’t be able to reverse the way this fight was going.
Suddenly, in order to gather more strength, Xu Yi stomped his left foot on the ground, leaving a dent on the surface. He then rushed towards Gao Pan.
At this moment, the stands burst out in a frustrated uproar, including all kinds of noises – hissing, abusing, wailing and shrieking. It was like the sounds came from the horrendous inferno.
The fact that Gao Pan had unexpectedly ran away, was absolutely a heavy blow for most of his supporters. At the beginning of the fight, they believed that Xu Yi’s sneak attack was a sign of incompetence, which made them feel reassured in Gao Pan’s ability to win this fight.
At the same time, during their prolonged fight, Xu Yi had kept almost completely silent, leaving an impression of cowardice. Whereas, Gao Pan howled like a lion, every time he exerted his fists. All of these clues led the spectators to the belief, that Gao Pan was quite easily dealing with Xu Yi.
More than 100,000 people had betted their money on Gao Pan, they could make a big fortune if Gao Pan won. Some of them even invested all of their savings into this gamble!
Despite Gao Pan running away, some of the supporters still bore hopes for Gao Pan, as they didn’t want to face the reality of losing their hard-earned money. They thought that Gao Pan might use this as a tactic to relax Xu Yi’s vigilance, and the situation would probably turn around. However, Gao Pan had vowed to the spectators that the first quitter in the battle of strength, would automatically be the loser. This brutal fact dashed their last string of hope.
When these greedy gamblers thought of the money they had invested and when they then looked at Gao Pan’s movements, they felt that their nerves were being greatly provoked by him. If Gao Pan was defeated, their money would be down the drain!
Again, numerous amounts of objects were thrown towards the arena, like a meteoric shower. Some of the spectators even jumped off their seats, screaming nonsense and behaving like lunatics. The stands were in complete chaos, if it wasn’t for the protective screening that separated them from the main stage, it’d be a disaster.
Gao Pan coldly watched what happened on the stands, as all of his attention was anchored on the ring on his left hand – the ring with the green sting.
Under such circumstances, the ring was Gao Pan’s last resort. The silver spear was not an advantage to him anymore, because it required great strength to use it. So he had given up on the spear and had turned to his final trump card, the ring.
Although he had promised Wensheng, that he wouldn’t use this expensive ring randomly, it had now become his final hope to win from Xu Yi. He deliberately got closer to the silver spear, distracting Xu Yi from discovering his real intentions. All he needed right now, was a second of absentmindedness from Xu Yi, so that he could secretly trigger the ring.
Unfortunately, the ring on his hand was worn in the opposite direction – the mouth of the snake was facing inward! Originally, he believed that the golden cassock and the silver spear were enough to help him win this fight. Thus he had put the ring on carelessly, not noticing its direction.
Since the ring was a concealed weapon, Gao Pan kept a certain distance from Xu Yi, and secretly turned the ring around. Once the direction of the ring was corrected, he let out a long sigh of relief.
He then staggered towards the silver spear, trying to mislead Xu Yi’s predictions.
Thirty meters, ten meters, three meters..
As he got closer and closer towards the spear, the noises from the stands gradually calmed down. The spectators regained their confidence in Gao Pan, as the spear was almost within reach.
As expected, Gao Pan started to stretch his large hands out towards the silver spear.
- Hoooo! -
A torrent of exclamations from the stands broke the silence.
Not disrupted by the sounds, Gao Pan and Xu Yi cautiously made their movements at this key moment. They were so wrapped up in this fight, that they felt as if they were the last two beings between heaven and earth.
Suddenly, Gao Pan turned around, instead of picking up the spear. He realised that Xu Yi was only ten meters away from him; it was time to use his concealed weapon.
Now or never!
Gao Pan calculated that Xu Yi would get closer to him when he turned back. At that time, he just needed to trigger the mouth of the snake and the fight would be over.
Within roughly three meters, the speed of the green sting would be too overwhelming, even immortals couldn’t manage to duck away at that time.