Chapter 363: Calculated
Translator: chuchutrain Editor: DavidT, Rock
This sword strike was completely out of Justice's expectations! However, to have moved unhindered everywhere for the last ten years, how would Justice lose himself to panic so easily? He merely closed his eyes and froze on the spot, forcefully halting his flight in midair! A stiff and rigid body, but he actually managed to keep himself suspended at the exact same spot!
Ling Tian's strike was still in place, however, this pause resulted in a displacement in his originally strongest, most tyrannical strike! The optimal point of his strike had disappeared, leaving behind a weakened version of it. The strike that originally posed difficulties to Justice was thus reduced in effect!
At this point, Justice suddenly let out a shout akin to a thunderclap as he drew out a long sword from god knows where. His bold and powerful internal energy gushed out in torrents, resulting in a 'weng weng' sound of vibration being heard from his sword. He displayed a shocking scene, where Ling Tian seemed to have been surrounded by swords from above to below, as though heaven and earth had connected with his sword with this strike!
Justice was indisputably the number one expert in legends, even with such a disadvantage, he was still able to forcefully alter the scenario! However, while Ling Tian's sword was displaced because of his actions, he too could not employ his full strength under such a situation!
"Ting ting ting…" The clustered sounds of metal clashing resounded continuously, as though a bowl of beads were poured onto a jade plate, or the rain splashing down onto the leaves of a tree!
What a pity that the swordplay of both parties was not at their peak! If they were to clash at their peak strength, then how glorious would this scene actually be?
With a couple of slashing sounds, two streams of blood rose up unbidden into the sky. One was from Ling Tian, who was knocked back, somersaulting and drawing a circle of blood as it sprayed from his wound!
Being in mid-air, Justice had no borrowing force to speak of, but with the advantage of his pinnacle level cultivation, he managed to alter the result of battle. However, in the end, he was still merely human, and with the combination of all the different unfavorable circumstances, he was also knocked back and forced to descend with a lacerated shoulder! While his internal energy was above Ling Tian's, he had spent the whole day in pursuit of Ling Tian, falling for Ling Tian's schemes and being poisoned. His consumption was naturally great! And with this surprise ambush from Ling Tian, as well as that godly blade Ling Tian held, it was no wonder he was injured!
In the past decade or so, this was the first time Justice was injured in an exchange! If this matter were to spread, Ling Tian's name would shake the entire pugilistic world!
As the adage goes, 'A person's name is like the shadow a tree casts'. Ling Tian definitely wished that he would be able to cleanly settle Justice in one strike, so his fame would be spread wide. But he was also aware that Justice's title was not something conjured out of nowhere, and so had already made preparations in advance. Upon descending, he wrapped himself around a huge tree, and kicked out viciously with both legs, launching himself into the sky once again!
Behind him, that tree that would take two men to hug suddenly toppled over! Falling down with a pressure akin to a mountain dropping, the tree headed straight for the head of Justice!
Before Justice had arrived previously, Ling Tian had come over and used his sword to hack through more than two-thirds of the tree, thus with the application of force, it produced this surprising result!
Justice had not even managed to touch the ground and could already see the shadow of the tree looming over him! He unconsciously sucked in a breath of cold air, and could not care less about his injuries, immediately increasing the speed at which he descended, followed by stomping hard and flying backwards, avoiding that life-threatening danger!
The tree smacked onto the ground harshly, as though an entire mountain peak had collapsed! The topmost branches of the tree even came into contact with the retreating calves of Justice, causing him to frown. Although it did not injure him in any way, this was still too embarrassing!
Justice flipped himself upright, and stared at his surroundings, only to find out that Ling Tian had vanished! To be unable to kill him in one hit, his fame would spread far and wide from now on!
Standing by the slope, Justice raised his sword and got another shock. This sword had been forged by a tempering fine steel a hundred times and had already accompanied him for over a decade without any blemish whatsoever. However, under the pressure of Ling Tian's Man and Sword as One, its edge was damaged and jagged, as though it had turned into a saw instead of a sword!
A deep pondering look passed through Justice's face at this time, before he suddenly let out a faint smile.
This figure, who had been looked upon as an outstanding person akin to a demon or devil since a long time ago, actually could not defeat a youth in one blow, instead getting himself injured. Furthermore, his beloved sword of ten years had actually been damaged, and the worst part of this was that he had even been at a disadvantage in their exchange!
However, not only was he not furious to the point of turning insane, but instead after a moment of contemplation, he suddenly smiled!
Justice did not fall into a rage and blindly dash forward like before, instead quietly sitting on a tree, head bowed as he recalled all that had happened the day before in his mind. From the moment he met Ling Tian in the Ling Residence, his every move, every expression, and every sentence was recalled, as well as his own answers and reactions!
"Hahaha… interesting, really interesting!" Justice suddenly laughed out in jubilation. "Ling Tian, you're motherf**king interesting!" He suddenly did not think that it was a grievance for him to have fallen to this state! Were it not for his current level of skill and cultivation, most likely this very place would have become this grave! The arrangement, schemes, and martial arts that Ling Tian had displayed really shocked him!
It was only now that Justice had found out that the moment he had walked into the Ling Residence, everything that happened had been under Ling Tian's control! It was a coincidence that Ye QingChen was present, and while Ling Tian did not ask Ye QingChen to scheme with him, his plan had made full use of Ye QingChen's presence to lead Justice to fall into the palm of his hand!
Ling Tian had taken advantage when Ye QingChen and Justice were talking to cut in the conversation, attracting attention to himself. Since Ye QingChen was on the scene, with Justice's character, he would definitely give face to Ye QingChen and not kill Ling Tian in front of him! He wanted to first let Ye QingChen finish talking, but Ling Tian had cut in and continued the conversation by himself.
Through this, Ling Tian had managed to successfully dissipate the killing intent Justice originally had for him into a three-way conversation. In front of an old friend, if his friend were to also smile and speak to you, you couldn't possibly just ignore him, right? Once he replied to Ling Tian, he had already fallen into Ling Tian's trap, and under these conditions, he would not take action in the Ling Residence.
Right after this, Ling Tian immediately took out the quality wines, and while Ling Tian only invited Ye QingChen to drink, without any intention to butter Justice up, being in the same sect as Ye QingChen and also with a mission at hand, how could Justice leave the area? He could also be said to be entitled to drink the wine!
And there was Ling Tian's second trap! The moment Ye QingChen raised his cup, Ling Tian took the chance to excuse himself so as to speak to Ling Chen. Ye QingChen couldn't possibly stop him from doing so, and thus could only turn to Justice! Justice even suspected that Ling Tian's words to Ling Chen were all designed with him listening in mind, because if the contents were really private, then Ling Tian could have used voice transmission instead. To resort to whispering in her ears, wasn't that akin to attempting to deceive oneself by believing that an expert would not be able to eavesdrop?
Following this was Ling Tian's provoking words, displaying his confidence and arrogance to him. But all this was actually spoken with his identity of being from Beyond Heavens in mind! By rousing Justice's arrogance through reverse psychology, Ling Tian made him accept a bet of a half year with him!
Once the bet was set, and when Justice himself was feeling pleased with himself, Ling Tian suddenly attacked him, catching him unprepared! To have thrown his face in front of his old friend, this would definitely incur his wrath, and thus he had completely fallen into Ling Tian's traps.
The following schemes were all designed to further provoke his ire, making him constantly fall into ambushes and sap him of his strength! Justice could predict that every path that he walked, Ling Tian had walked through it once, but with all the elaborate schemes that he employed, he ensured that Justice himself would spend enough time in there for him to walk the same route a few times. In this manner, Ling Tian gained the necessary time to continue scheming, and set this entire valley to become a death trap!
As for the poisoned needles behind his back, they were the pinnacle of assassination tools! Justice knew that if not for his quick reaction, the needles would have pierced into his eyes, and by then, whether he was the undisputed number one expert or not, he was as good as a fish on the chopping board! Thinking of this, Justice could not help but shiver.
Just like that, under Ling Tian's plotting, he had lost over half of his internal energy reserves. However, Ling Tian still pretended to be on the losing side, playing little tricks here and there as Ling Tian led him towards the kill site that Ling Tian had prepared long in advance. Again, Ling Tian made use of the territory to launch an abrupt attack, which if not for his movement techniques, he would have taken a serious hit! This did not end there, as surprisingly, Ling Tian had actually provided himself with a countermeasure, whether he succeeded or not! The clean slice through more than half of the tree trunk already told Justice the story. It spoke volumes about Ling Tian's meticulousness and attention to detail! Ling Tian did not even let go of any possibility!
With so many layers of schemes in place, Ling Tian finally achieved a result that would shock the entire pugilistic community — to be able to exchange blows with the Martial Order Medallion owner, Justice, on even terms! It was to the point that, if Justice was just a little bit lacking, he would have been finished off!
Justice laughed bitterly. He realized that he had made the wrong choice from the very beginning. From the moment the bet was made, he had always assumed it was for Ling Tian to escape from him. However, it was actually the opposite, that Ling Tian was actually plotting for his death while on the run! He employed all sorts of methods, despicable or not, just to kill him!
What an arrogant fellow who does not know of the immensity of the heavens and earth!
What an intelligent and treacherous Ling Tian!
Even a lion would use its full strength to catch a rabbit. Was it that his life had been too smooth flowing the last few years?!