Chapter 173: Grabbed The Sword With Bare Hands
Each droplet of water contained a remarkably strong and numbing icy power.
One simple condensation of the moisture in the air could form such a powerful ice ball.
If these water drops touched anyone, the person could seriously get hurt.
After residing in a secluded area to practice for quite some time, Roger's abilities had improved a lot. It took a lot of dedication but now he had reached the fifth-grade of the nature level.
Despite everything, however, he found Zen effortlessly tossing him for more than a hundred feet away!
Immediately standing up from the ground, Roger tried to give Zen a hand. However, when he saw the man stand as steadfastly as a hill, a wonderful feeling overcame him.
'Is he so confident that he would succeed in his fight against Bob?' he wondered.
Truthfully, Zen was not a reckless person. In Roger's opinion though, he appeared quite irrational when he had lost his temper and picked a fight at Dragon Fort as well as the army camp. It did not seem to matter that most of his rivals were simply stronger.
On the other hand, the results indicated that he was a reliable and confident man, even before each fight.
'With Bob as his rival this time, does he really think he is more powerful?' Roger thought to himself. As soon as he made the assumption, he could not help but be skeptical.
Somehow, Roger thought he knew the big difference between the first grade and the top grade of nature level. Beside him, Steward Cao knew about it too. And Bob knew it even better than both of them.
It was common knowledge since all of them had practiced from the first-grade of the nature level to their present level.
But then, why was Zen so confident?
It was either he was, indeed, powerful enough to overcome his opponent --- or he was just another cocky idiot!
By the looks of it, Zen did not look like the second option. What could it be then? Was he perhaps powerful enough to win this battle?
With a gust of wind, Zen waved his fists in the air while the water droplets scattered.
Demonic life vitality unceasingly flowed before him as he waved his fists, forming a defensive barrier to protect himself.
The dark purple demonic life vitality reflected an unusual glow of light.
Inside the demonic life vitality, some glistening star strength emitted blue light.
“Are you trying to repel my chilly water drops with your life vitality alone?” Bob asked incredulously, and then he snorted. “Dream on! Like that's ever going to work!”
However, the man he was taunting remained silent. Paying no attention to him at all, Zen appeared to be rather calm and serious behind the demonic life vitality.
Although he was confident that he could repel every attack from different nature creatures, he knew that Bob's power had almost reached an Illuminating Soul Realm master's level, and the disciples of Cloud Sect had always been stronger compared to the practitioners outside.
Even though he felt the first drop of water tearing down the demonic life vitality barrier easily, he did not do anything to get out of the way.
Instead, he waited for a perfect chance in silence to retaliate.
Soon, more water droplets breached the demonic life vitality barrier, and they drew closer to him with barely any resistance.
Some of the water droplets were dangerously close to Zen, probably less than three feet away from him. The chillness emanating from these water droplets made him feel the sudden dip in temperature. A thin layer of frost covered his eyelashes and hair.
However, he continued to stand still as if he was being nailed on the ground.
After most of the water drops had entered the range of the life vitality, Zen abruptly shouted, “Explode!”
With an uncommon rumbling sound, he released the overwhelming energy of the star power in the life vitality.
Meanwhile, it triggered the explosion of the stars around it.
“Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!”
More stars exploded at once.
One by one, little by little, from point to surface and to the whole life vitality space Zen had arranged, a violent and overwhelming reaction ensued.
The energy released by the exploded stars emitted a dazzling white light.
The light was brighter than sunshine. Looking at it was nearly unbearable. If an individual glanced at the white light for even just a short moment, he would be unable to look at other things for a long while due to temporary blindness. Although impermanent, it would take a while for one's eyes to recover.
Except for Zen, the three other men lost their eyesight temporarily as they had watched the stars explode.
Zen had turned his head away and closed his eyes right at the time the overwhelming energy burst out.
When Zen opened his eyes again, the stars' explosion wiped out the chilly water droplets. Unlike him, Bob's eyes had not completely recovered from the white light yet.
Of course, Zen dared not to miss such a great opportunity.
Before Bob could see again, he had rushed towards him like a cheetah running on the grassland.
Although Bob could not see anything at that moment, he was still alert enough to counterattack.
All nature creatures possessed sharp senses such as taste, smell, hearing, and sight. So it was only right that Bob had acute senses.
Even with his eyes closed, he could still detect Zen's presence.
After seeing Zen's competency, Bob could not calm himself down anymore.
Initially, he had thought that Zen just wanted to use his life vitality as a barrier to block his attack. If so, the man would die rapidly, as the impact of his chilly water drop was much stronger than that.
To his surprise, Zen had taken a more direct and violent method!
He had triggered the explosion of his life vitality directly. Bob never imagined that the energy of the explosion would be so horrible, it even eliminated all his chilly water drops!
It was why Bob panicked. He wondered why Zen's life vitality was so powerful. The energy of the little stars in Zen's life vitality was so great that Bob's heart trembled.
However, as a master at consummation of the nature level, Bob's mind had already tampered in various kinds of situations in the process of cultivating from a beginner to such a high level.
He realized that besides keeping himself calm, he should counterattack his opponents immediately.
After sensing Zen's location, Bob waved his sword to him. He waved so hard that the sword, which was as thin as a cicada's wings, was almost bent to its breaking point. Then, tens of thousands of chilly water drops suddenly shot out.
'Anyhow, these water droplets should be able to hold off Zen's attack, ' Bob thought to himself.
However, he had gravely underestimated Zen's speed.
In fact, Zen had not dodged those water droplets, not because he could not deflect any of them, but that he just did not try.
Since the situation was quite different at this instant, he tried his best to suppress Bob.
The Phoenix Crystal in his right arm suddenly gleamed. The energy coursed through his veins and then spread all over his body.
“Whew!”
Suddenly, Zen turned into a blur. Like a gust of wind, he dispersed those chilly water drops from the sky covered by them.
Just then, the vision of Roger, Cao and Bob returned. When they saw Zen had turned into a blur, they were so surprised that they almost thought it was an illusion.
“How fast!” Roger could not help but cry out.
At the same time, Bob realized he could not perceive Zen either.
'Where's he?' he wondered, looking around. He placed his sword in front of his chest horizontally and maintained maximum alert as he waited for Zen to strike.
All of a sudden, Bob felt a small hint of wind coming from above his head, and then he waved his sword upward instinctively.
Reaching out from above the head of Bob, Zen aimed at Bob's sword blade.
'You want to grab my sword with bare hands?' thought Bob in surprise.
Immediately, he laughed and shouted, “You're dicing with death!”
The sword in Bob's hand was a middle-grade spiritual weapon. As it was made of the 'Polaris steel', it was extremely thin.
This particular sword had been sent to the weapon-refining workshop of his family before. After being burnt to red by the weapon refiner, the sword blade had become nearly transparent.
So one could imagine how thin it was! Being so thin, if the sword had been made of ordinary material, it would have broken soon after the slightest touch. Only when it was made with the Polaris steel, which was tough enough, could the sword be refined so thin.
Being so narrowly thin, it was much sharper than ordinary swords.
'How dare the young man grab my sword with his bare hands! Let me cut his hands off!'
Thinking about this, Bob shook his arm hard and the sword vibrated quickly before cutting towards Zen's wrist.
With a slight smile, Zen pushed his right hand forward lightly and pinched the tip of Bob's sword in the blink of an eye.
'So fast!' Bob shouted in his heart.
He wondered why Zen could control his speed to such a degree. Sometimes fast, other times slow. The man's moves were so unpredictable! Although Zen pinched his sword blade, Bob did not worry about it. He suddenly withdrew his sword and tried to stab Zen again.
Shocked, Bob's face turned pale when he tried to withdraw his sword. In spite of the advantages he had, he still failed to grab his sword back.
First, as he was holding the sword handle, whereas Zen was only pinching the sword blade with two fingers, it would have been much easier for him to apply force on the sword.
Second, Bob had reached the consummation of the nature level while Zen had just reached the first-grade of the nature level.
In every way one looked, Bob should have had an absolute advantage in terms of strength.
When Bob tried for the second time however, he failed again. The sword appeared as though it was embedded between Zen's fingers.
With an utmost disbelief expression on his face, Bob looked like he had seen a ghost.
There was no doubt that he had met many people who were born with great strength.
He knew a man who seemed to possess endless strength. When this man had just reached the marrow refining level, he was able to compete with the masters at half-step into the nature level.
However, even though they were born with great strength, they had their limit.
How could the strength of a corporeal body like Zen's have reached such an extent!
There was a world of difference between the top-grade nature level practitioners and the first-grade nature level practitioners. Now, because of Zen, Bob had changed his view.
No one saw it coming. Not even he could have imagined that he would somehow admit that Zen was much stronger than him.
After recovering from a brief shock, Bob immediately activated the life vitality in his body.
By any means, he was not someone who would throw in the towel so easily. Losing to a young man at first-grade of the nature level was very unacceptable for him.
The life vitality came out from his arm and emanated upward along his sword before solidifying into white snowflakes on the sword's blade.
Then, the snowflakes formed a long and thin line and quickly mounted on the tip of the sword blade.