Chapter 206: Look Out For Yourselves
Jerrison and Merk glanced at each other when they saw that their fires were of no avail when it came to threatening and defeating Zen. Until now, they had been unafraid but this realization seemed to bring some tinge of fear in their eyes.
Perhaps they really were wrong. They shouldn't have treated Zen as an ordinary outer disciple. Furthermore, they should have paid heed to other aspects of Zen's ability rather than his mere cultivation level.
Although he had just reached the first tier of the nature level, he still had been able to produce a powerful fairy weapon and amazing life vitality using merely his strength...
Clearly, Zen was no ordinary person and they had miscalculated.
To be frank, both Jerrison and Merk had been completely dominated by avarice just now. As a result, they had not taken several factors into account which affected the situation they were in. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Zen had so easily counterattacked against both of their assaults. It was only after they had pondered over their entire battle that they were coming to the realization that they might have been wrong.
Zen wasn't an ordinary target and they shouldn't have underestimated his powers.
Oh, well! The damage was already done now. No matter how much they regretted their rash decision to lay their hands on Zen without proper tactics, the situation was irreparable. Since they had chosen to battle Zen, their regret was useless and meaningless now. In addition, Jerrison and Merk hadn't given their best while fighting Zen. So they were thinking that Zen would lose if they started to strain every nerve in their battle.
Apart from getting themselves a fairy weapon directly, more importantly, they also had a chance to force Zen to reveal his secret on producing one once they defeated him.
As the saying goes, fortune and wealth are achieved through risks. To transcend himself and occupy the position he yearned for, one had to face a considerable amount of risks. And right now, both Jerrison and Merk thought that the risks they faced were worth taking.
“Merk, don't be lenient!” Jerrison warned his ally. His eyes were fixed on Zen as though he were a hawk. Suddenly, he took a spear out of his space ring. Along with that, a glimmer of bloody light was flashing on its tip, and two spiritual textures were imprinted upon it.
This spear was a medium grade spiritual weapon, named Beacon Spear. For Jerrison, this was his most satisfactory masterpiece.
At the same time, Merk brought a ghostly machete out of his space ring, on which two spiritual textures were inscribed. Just like the spear, this ghostly machete was also a medium grade spiritual weapon.
In general, warriors who were not born in big noble clans could hardly have their own superior weapons. Although both Jerrison and Merk were not from big noble clans, they definitely didn't lack money since they were weapon refiners. What was more, both of their spiritual weapons had been refined by themselves.
Zen stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his sword standing in front of his chest like a crouching dragon. His cold eyes were fixed on both of them.
As Jerrison kneaded his spear, it trembled intensely and wisps of purple fire surged into its pike. Then, the purple fire spread along the textures it had imprinted on till its tip. At last, the fire jetted out of one side of the pike tip. The purple fire spurted out on a nonstop basis as if it were a tassel of the pike.
Right beside him, Merk was wielding his ghostly machete, which had been refined with heretic techniques. As he was brandishing his machete, utter dreary cries and howls were heard from over the sky. It sounded rather miserable and terrible.
And at that moment, Jerrison and Merk did not hesitate at all. They directly besieged Zen, one from the left and one from the right.
Even though they were weapon refiners, they had been staying in Cloud Sect for several years now. Their achievements in martial arts were not as great as their attainments in weapon refinement, but the gap between the two wasn't that immense.
“Purple dragon circling around the sun!”
Jerrison's spear, which was pointed directly at Zen, shivered. Soon afterwards, the entire spear bent itself into a bow and suddenly, without warning, it shot abruptly like an arrow towards Zen. In very simple words, this was a mighty assault.
“Ferocious ghost engulfing the heaven!”
While Jerrison used the spear he was proud of, Merk, on the other hand, wielded his machete over the sky. As he chopped towards Zen, the giant knife in his hand emitted a streak of light from its end. Somehow, it was bright but black. With his chop, an ambient sound much like the whistle of ferocious winds was heard. It was followed by a long, desperate wail, like that of a ghost or a wolf in pain.
The attacks that Zen faced were enormous and, to be frank, rather extravagant compared to his response. In face of the two men, he gently moved back a couple of steps.
It was Jerrison's Beacon Spear that reached Zen's chest first, beating Merk's machete. Noticing it getting closer, Zen simply stepped sideways and easily dodged away. If it were anyone else, he would have been impaled on the tip of the spear and if not, he would have been burnt alive at the very moment that he dodged. A streak of light abruptly left the tip of the spear and directly dashed towards Zen's chest.
At the sight of this, Zen simply gave a sneer. Without any sign of worry or fear on his face, he slightly and gently swept the Streamer Sword in front of his chest, thereby blocking the light that the spear had emitted with its blade.
In general, swords were rarely used for defense, since their blades were rarely wide enough to properly block an attack. In addition, they could be easily broken.
In this case, however, as the streak of light from the tip of the pike touched the Streamer Sword, it bent the sword completely into a bow-like shape. It was true that the attack was powerful but after all, the sword was a fairy weapon and could not be so easily broken.
After blocking this second luminescent attack from Jerrison, Zen moved forward and used his basic sword tactic.
“Lift up sword!”
“Tinkling!”
A high pitched clanking sound shredded the atmosphere as Zen lifted up his sword to block and push Jerrison's pike away at an extremely fast pace.
“Circle parry!”
“Flick the sword!”
As Jerrison retried his moves, Zen defeated him in two easy steps. First, he directly knocked Jerrison's Beacon Spear off the ground. Second, he flicked his sword towards Jerrison.
All his moves were executed so fast that Jerrison never got time to react at all. Before he knew what had happened, his Beacon Spear was lying on the floor, chopped into pieces by Zen's sword. And when he did see that, Zen had already pointed his Streamer Sword at him right towards his face.
Now, Jerrison looked a little scared. Somehow, he felt that time was passing more slowly than ever right now, perhaps because he thought that he was right on the brink of death. As he saw the beaming bright silver light on Zen's Streamer Sword inches away from his throat, he knew that his end was near. He yelled loudly, “My life is destined!”
Even though he was totally certain that it was impossible for him to dodge Zen's sword now, and that his end was near, he lifted both of his arms up and crossed them in front of his chest in a desperate attempt to protect himself as if it was some sort of conditional response.
“Puff!”
The Streamer Sword stabbed into one of Jerrison's arms through two shinbones and came out of the other side. Then, it was withdrawn at the same rapid pace and flew straight towards his chest, finally ready to land the coup de grace. However, it suddenly stopped flying just as it pierced his clothes and pricked his skin.
The sudden stop astounded Jerrison. He could sense a tinge of chill running from the tip of the sword into his chest through the small prick it had made. He was totally sure that he would be undoubtedly put to death now. So why did Zen stop suddenly? Jerrison was confused.
Frightened, trying not to move a muscle, he shifted his gaze towards Zen, who looked rather cold. He saw nothing on his face but heard him snorting. Immediately after that, Zen pulled his sword back. Except for the fact that the sword had injured his arm, not a single wound had been made on his body by Zen. He was completely intact elsewhere. The Streamer Sword had been fairly sharp but even so, when Zen pulled it back from Jerrison's skin, no blood dripped off. Even the wound left on Jerrison's arm was remarkably small. It wasn't until after a long while that a few drops of blood trickled.
It was mere a minor injury for a nature creature. Initially, Jerrison had thought that his death at the hands of Zen was certain. After all, who would have spared one's enemy in such a situation? But it was totally beyond his expectations that Zen would pull his punches. Jerrison was completely confused about why Zen had let him off the hook.
After Zen took his Streamer Sword back, he turned around and made another move with his sword. “Chop upwards.”
At that very moment, Merk's machete was shining with an intense light; a light which felt gloomy and terrifying despite its radiance.
“Bang!”
The bright silver light on Zen's Streamer Sword, which looked like a streak of meteors, was passing over the sky, interlaced with the light on Merk's machete. At the moment that the two lights converged, the wails and the howls became more sonorous than before. Immediately, a black shadow of a skull head started floating around the light of Merk's machete. Its mouth was wide open, and with its fangs showing, it was staring ferociously at Zen, as if it had sworn to mangle him.
But the light on Zen's Streamer Sword was extremely intense. It was interlaced and fused only for a short while and soon enough, the dazzling light that Merk's machete had emitted was shattered into infinite small fragments like confetti by Zen's radiance.
After the light of Merk's machete collapsed into fragments, it scattered away in all directions. Due to its effects, the ground around them which had been originally flat suddenly got full of bumps.
With the Streamer Sword swinging arbitrarily in his hand, Zen approached Merk step by step.
Merk's face was betraying his flustered emotions now.
Just now, he had adopted his best striking technique. In applying this technique, the “ghostlike wails and wolflike howls” were emanated to threaten and scare his opponent, which would render him less likely to defend himself. Apart from this outstanding technique, he had also made the ghostly machete all by himself. When he used his refinement methods in combination with this ghostly machete, Merk was capable of even challenging others with higher levels of cultivation.
And perhaps Merk was not as good as Jerrison at refining weapons, but his fighting capacity was still absolutely recognizable among weapon refiners.
Nevertheless, just now, Zen had merely swung his sword once by his most fundamental swordsmanship but the power that he had yielded and the defense he had put up had been deadly and mighty.
All warriors were required to cultivate different skills at the very beginning of their cultivation, including arts of fist duels, basic knife skills and fundamental swordsmanship... It was not until they grew up that they could choose what skills they would focus on during their cultivation dependent upon their strong points. Although Merk had been devoted to his life path as a weapon refiner, he still had certain knowledge about basic swordsmanship.
Thus, he was certain that the swordsmanship that Zen had adopted against him was only a basic skill. Hence, he judged that Zen wasn't used to employing swords.
If so, Zen must have harnessed some hidden skills that he had mastered, as he had been able to confront with and defeat Merk, merely by employing very fundamental moves.
By weighing all factors, Merk deduced that he might be no match for Zen...
As this idea came over to Merk, his brain totally went out of control. At this moment, all he could think of was escaping.
But as soon as he threw his ghostly machete away in an attempt to flee, Zen exclaimed, “Hey! I have already spared the life of that guy behind you, so I will naturally not kill you. Besides, do you think you can run away in this situation?”
Merk stopped immediately as soon as he heard Zen's words. To be honest, they sounded quite plausible. As Zen had said, Merk was in no situation to flee away based on his current strengths even though he strongly intended to run away. Just now, Zen could have directly killed Jerrison when he had stabbed his sword at him. However, neither of them was dead. Initially, Merk was rather confused about how the pair of them were alive in such a critical situation. At last, he realized that it was Zen who had pulled his punches.
Zen was not a philanthropist, but a warrior. For warriors, it was considered a taboo to be kind to their enemies, since they wouldn't be kind in return. Zen was quite clear that he would most likely be imprisoned, questioned, and interrogated closely about the secrets on how to condense fairy weapons if he failed to defeat Merk and Jerrison today.
And finally, he would be turned into a dead corpse and buried on a secluded hilltop whether he disclosed the secrets to them or not. As time passed by, he would be forgotten by the world.
Zen definitely would not have gone easy on them if this battle had taken place outside the Cloud Sect. In his opinion, anyone who dared to take advantage of him deserved to be killed whoever he or she was.
But after all, Merk and Jerrison were masters in the Cloud Sect. And many people knew that Zen had come to the Quenching Peak. If Zen killed them today, he would cause considerable troubles to Aura and himself, especially if the Cloud Sect investigated their deaths and found out the truth.
“I have spared your lives, only because you are masters in the Cloud Sect, although I badly wish to kill the pair of you, you black sheep!” Zen flatly insulted Merk and Jerrison. After a moment of pause, he added, “I have spared your lives today, so I think it is best if you understand one thing now. Shut up and order your disciples not to gossip about here and there!”
If Merk and Jerrison hadn't gotten this near-death experience in today's battle with Zen, it would have been difficult for anyone to shut them up and prevent them from spreading any rumors.
But as masters in the Cloud Sect, the two of them had a very important reason to keep quiet. Today, they had disgraced themselves. So, they were far less willing to let anyone know about how badly they had been defeated.
As soon as Zen ordered them, Jerrison immediately responded, “Please, don't hurt us! Rest assured that we will not gossip about what happened today! No one will know about today's events.”
“All that group of people are my disciples. I will make them shut up. Then, they will not dare to reveal anything about what happened here today,” Merk promised too.
Zen flatly smiled at their promises and stated, “I am just reminding you. It won't matter that much even if others come to know about today. From this moment on, you should look out for yourselves.”
There were a thousand people on the Quenching Peak, and hundreds of people had witnessed Zen's refinement of fairy weapon. By this moment, all the disciples of the Quenching Peak knew about that. Zen didn't believe at all that Merk and Jerrison could really prevent so many people from revealing such a big secret.
It was only after Zen had left that Jerrison wiped the sweat on his forehead. They had been extremely lucky that Zen had some misgivings when he was deciding whether to kill Merk and Jerrison or not. Without his decision to do otherwise, Zen would have killed them without doubt. Besides, from his words, Jerrison had realized that Zen had let Merk and him off the hook not purely because of his misgivings. Deep in his mind, Jerrison felt that Zen didn't take the two of them seriously.
“Nowadays, all these young people are rather cruel,” Merk remarked. He was picking up his ghostly machete from the ground. He hadn't recovered from the battles panic until now and it could be heard in his voice.
“You are wrong. It's wrong to say that all young people are cruel,” Jerrison responded while shaking his head in disagreement. Except for the fact that he lagged behind Merk in terms of fighting capacity, he was much better than Merk in regards to his knowledge, experience and foresight. After some further thought for organizing his words, he continued, “Today's young people are still as cruel as before. But now, another cruel man has joined our Cloud Sect.”
Zen had the strength and the capability to challenge Merk and Jerrison, both of whom had reached the seventh grade of nature level. Furthermore, he had defeated the two of them with ease and carelessness. His strength was such that they even saw his attacks coming. What was more unbelievable was the fact that Zen was capable of condensing and refining fairy weapons. So far, perhaps not a single figure like Zen had ever been seen in the Cloud Sect since its establishment.
“Hmm, what if he is cruel? He is just an outer disciple. I will surely play some tricks on him if I get a chance!” Merk swore in an angry, grudging tone.
However, Jerrison shook his head, sneered and responded, “Play tricks on him? You? Hehehe, Merk. I don't mean to blame you, but I have to say that you were defeated rather badly by him just now. Zen just didn't want to haggle with us. But do you still plan to play some tricks on him? If so, I think you will gain nothing but seek death!”
Merk was still unwilling to submit, but he spoke in a lower and lower tone. Like Jerrison, he also understood that men like Zen were sure to make some outstanding achievements one day. He should be grateful since Zen had not been so serious with him. After clearing his throat, he responded, “I was just complaining. However shrewd that guy is, he is not a clairaudient, so is it possible for him to hear what I have said about him?”