Chapter 300

Zhu Ba lectures Fang Yuan on humility, warning that his insult will cost him later. Fang Yuan laughs it off, accusing Zhu Ba of hiding behind pure defence because he cannot attack while juggling at least three Gu at once, and calling the watching crowd fools for not seeing it. The crowd erupts in anger at him. Zhu Ba’s expression turns grave, and he curls his whole body into a giant meatball wrapped in blade aura, cracking the stone floor as it rolls toward Fang Yuan; spectators name it his killing move, rolling blade meat. Bai Ning Bing, watching, judges that only a body as huge as his could amplify a rolling attack into something this dangerous. ^{ch. 300}

Fang Yuan meets the charge head-on with vertical crash Gu and a boar phantom, and is sent flying, again and again, as the audience calls him suicidal and mocks his overreach. Each time he gets back up. On his next charge, his fist wedges into the meatball instead of bouncing off, but the blade aura lashes him like a dark waterfall in return, shredding his canopy Gu’s armour until it fails completely and leaving him bleeding from wounds all over his body, though his tendons stay mostly intact and his bones take no damage. Self-reliance Gu stops the bleeding and starts closing the wounds, though his tendons mend more slowly. Bai Ning Bing worries he cannot win on healing alone, until golden light flares and his golden shield Gu activates in place of the failed canopy Gu, a second rank three defence he had kept in reserve. Zhu Ba only rolls again and sends him flying once more, still urging him to yield. ^{ch. 300}

Fang Yuan tells him to stop stalling. He drops his eyes, waits, then dodges the next charge sideways with horizontal charge Gu before turning and closing fifty steps with vertical crash Gu, a brown bear phantom flashing just before impact. Zhu Ba’s fat folds and sends the force back, knocking Fang Yuan several steps away, but Fang Yuan charges straight back in and begins circling him, striking from every angle until Zhu Ba can no longer keep pace and his counter-shock returns nothing at all; furious, he drops the meatball form and returns to human shape with blade aura flying. The narration calls Fang Yuan a man who cannot be stopped once he commits to a goal, and now he draws on a horse phantom, closing fifty more steps thirty percent faster than the boar phantom’s own speed, catching Zhu Ba unprepared as his blade aura hits empty air. ^{ch. 300}

One punch shatters the floor beneath Fang Yuan’s own feet and shakes the stage. Zhu Ba tries to disperse it and send eighty percent back as before, but a second punch lands while his concentration is still split across his other Gu, and his defence fails. Eighty percent of the first punch’s force explodes through his unshielded body as backlash, and his heart stops from the pain. Fang Yuan presses the opening, bear, boar, crocodile, and horse phantoms flashing in turn as his punches drive the far larger Zhu Ba backward, howling. Pain nearly drowns Zhu Ba’s consciousness and leaves him barely able to raise his defences at all, and he begins to show the whites of his eyes as the crowd watches in stunned disbelief at the reversal. ^{ch. 300}