Chapter 41 - Foot-work
Hu Anjing was going to fight a core disciple named Cui Tai. From what I know about him he is on the eighth stage of the meridian formation realm but compared to Hu Anjing who is at the twelfth stage of the meridian formation realm, I don't think he has even the slightest chance of winning in this fight.
If I remember correctly, Cui Tai is proud of his mastery in footwork technique so he might think that he has a chance but as someone who had fought with Hu Anjing almost daily, I wouldn't think much of his mastery in anything against the raw strength of the second stage of the Copper body.
With her level of body cultivation, you would be punching yourself out before you can do anything effective to her with your attacks.
I just hope he won't try to show off in front of Hu Anjing or she would easily shit on his pride, no doubt about it.
After a minute or two, the stage got slightly repaired and reinforced with some formation runes again to ensure its resistance against the attacks. The last fight wasn't on a scale to do much damage but this is a normal procedure for these kinds of things. After they checked and double-checked everything, they allowed for the next fight to proceed.
Hu Anjing from one side and from the other side Cui Tai come to the stage to fight. Hu Anjing had her playful personality as always and winked at me as she was going on the stage. Of course, I winked back at her to not lose in the teasing game.
Seeing my reaction as if she was satisfied, she looked at her opponent.
Cui Tai was a short man with a bald head and a constant smile on his face. He looked like the first evil boss in an anime.
Cui Tai who was standing straight, used this moment to speak. In these kinds of fights, the rules state that you can start your fight the moment you set your foot on the main stage, but it's common courtesy to talk a little to show that you are not using your opponent's unawareness about the start of the fight to land a hit...
Not that it is a friendly talk, you can think about it as the trash talks that the UFC fighters do before their fights.
"Senior sister, it's an honor to fight against you." Cui Tai said as he bowed a little.
This was a good method to talk to your opponent to make them see you as a friendly figure and in turn, make them don't go all out when fighting you. If successful, your chance of winning would increase a lot.
But to Cui Tai's dismay, Hu Anjing wasn't that type of person who would give a rat's ass about these types of schemes. She was the type who would fuck you up if you dare to play tricks on her.
'Oh boy, now you have done it…' I shook my head. Couldn't he fight like a normal person and don't play these petty tricks? Now he is definitely going to get wrecked.
"Sure." Hu Anjing's answer was short. Well, I think she could easily see Cui Tai's plan in between his words. After many years of being an assassin, she could see this ploy from miles away…
Hu Anjing's answer was not something that Cui Tai expected so he didn't have an answer ready to respond. Because of this, he couldn't say anything for a few seconds. Just as he was about to talk Hu Anjing beat him to it.
"Let's waste no more time, show me what you got." Hu Anjing said with a grin on her face.
As someone who is very familiar with Hu Anjing's grin, I couldn't help but shudder when remembering our training sessions.
Cui Tai who was oblivious to this fact didn't react to Hu Anjing's grin and spoke.
"My footwork mastery is on the top five in our heavenly sword sect, if not the top one." He said proudly.
Hu Anjing only had a small smile on her face and just listened to his boasting.
"So I wanted to give you a warning before I make a move." His tone was warm but his words were cold. Not that it mattered to Hu Anjing. She was looking at him like he was an idiot.
"Good, then let me see the so-called top five…" Hu Anjing didn't hide her mocking remarks and ridiculed him openly.
Cui Tai didn't talk anymore and started doing his move to attack Hu Anjing. With his movement technique, he was many times harder to detect, but it didn't work on me and obviously didn't affect Hu Anjing.
But the audience didn't know about it and were shocked by this speed and technique.
"How fast!"
"So this is his strong point!"
"No wonder he was prideful about it…"
The crowd talk as they always would and at the same time, they glued their eyes to the stage to not miss a single detail.
But what was shocking more was that as Cui Tai was performing his movement technique around Hu Anjing in search of an opening, Hu Anjing was as calm and carefree as always.
Because of this, the crowd was not that sure anymore about Cui Tai's technique effectiveness…
"Why is she so carefree?"
"Do you think she can't discern him from her surroundings?"
"Fart, how can a chief disciple be that easy for the like of us to figure out?"
Like this, the discussion continued amongst the spectators and Cui Tai was circling Hu Anjing.
The spectators could only see that Cui Tai was circling Hu Anjing and she wasn't doing anything about it. But Cui Tai himself knew how grim his situation was at this moment.
The reason for his constant movement around Hu Anjing was to find an opening, but despite his best attempts and seemingly wide-open posture of Hu Anjing, he couldn't find any opening.
Meaning that, although it seemed Hu Anjing was wide-open to any attack, when you were closer to her you would know that there wasn't any opening that you could use.
And that resulted in him constantly moving in fear of Hu Anjing's retaliation if he were to lower his speed.
So this fight that to others looked like Cui Tai having an upper hand, to himself looked like a devastating situation.
Just as he was losing all his confidence he finally spotted an opening on Hu Anjing's back.
Without any hesitation, he decided to use this chance and attack. He knew that if he didn't use it, he might not find any more openings in the near future.
As he was attacking Hu Anjing's back, he didn't see the devilish grin on her face. If he saw that, he would have at the very least surrendered on the spot.
Within a fraction of a second Cui Tai was ready to lunge his sword into Hu Anjing's back but all of a sudden everything went black.
The moment that Cui Tai wanted to land his attack, Hu Anjing did a roundhouse kick into his face and after flying for a second, his head was embedded into the stage floor.
Keep that in mind that the floor was reinforced a couple of times so Hu Anjing's attack should have been a very powerful one to make a dent on it.
As if nothing had happened, Hu Anjing slowly put her foot down.
The crowd could only follow her movement as she looked at the unconscious Cui Tai.
"Well, it seems that my foot-work was stronger…" Hu Anjing smirked.
The audience broke into cheers and the sound of the referee announcing Hu Anjing as the winner was buried in the sea of sounds.