Chapter 1288 - 625

Fang Cheng’s footsteps paused for half a second.

The masked man saw this and dared not delay, quickly adding:

"This is not the right place to keep fighting. If we continue, the Special Search Team’s reinforcements will soon lock onto this location."

"Once we’re surrounded by the main forces, both of our true identities will be completely exposed, and by then, there will be no escape for us."

"I’m just an ordinary examinee here to take a physical test."

Fang Cheng’s eyes remained indifferent as he stepped forward with his right foot, crushing a dry branch:

"I’m not afraid of exposure. The one who should be afraid is someone like you, sneaking into the examination venue with ill intentions in the middle of the night."

The masked man heard this, and the corner of his mouth behind the mask twitched violently.

Barehandedly, he had beaten the Reproductive Armor to the point of near destruction.

The entire forest was about to be plowed into ruins by the opponent’s brute strength.

This monster actually calls himself an "ordinary examinee"?

If this counts as an ordinary examinee, then am I not just useless without the qualifications to even attend the Special Search Team’s exam?

But the masked man did not dare to reveal these criticisms, suppressing his disrupted breathing, he said in a deep voice:

"Honest men do not engage in underhanded deeds. With the strength you’ve shown tonight, you could easily hold a leader-level position in any organization, enjoying wealth and power. There’s no need for you to attend the Special Search Team’s exam as an ordinary operative."

"Since you went to such lengths to infiltrate, you must have your personal schemes and goals."

Fang Cheng did not respond.

The golden flames scorching around him were especially striking in the darkness.

His pursuit of life and thirst for power had long surpassed the realm of material enjoyment and fame and fortune.

Ordinary people certainly could not understand, nor did he care to explain to someone who was about to die.

Seeing Fang Cheng remain silent, the masked man continued to probe:

"You don’t need to explain, and I have no curiosity about probing others’ secrets."

"Ultimately, there’s no deep-seated enmity between us, tonight is merely a brief clash over interests..."

"Have you finished your last words?"

Fang Cheng suddenly interrupted him:

"Now let me send you on your way."

With those words, his right arm muscles swelled instantly, veins bulging like dragons.

The dense True Qi from his Dantian surged rapidly into his fist, the golden flames burst forth, erupting in suffocating heat.

Without any hesitation, Fang Cheng’s waist forcefully exerted, with overwhelming power, punched toward the masked man’s face.

The masked man was shocked.

At the brink of life and death, he suddenly tilted his head back, shouting at the top of his voice:

"I believe you!!!"

"Boom—"

Fang Cheng’s right fist, carrying an ear-splitting sonic boom, stopped just half a centimeter in front of the masked man’s nose.

The violent Gang Wind engulfed in his punch swept through his body.

The mud ground behind the masked man was instantly cleared, forming a fan-shaped area several meters long.

Broken branches mixed with soil fragments rained down on his face and shoulders.

The masked man’s pupils trembled violently, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest.

Though his face was hidden behind a mask, he still forcibly straightened his back, not taking a single step back, stubbornly standing his ground.

Faced with life and death, this courage indeed befits that of a strong individual.

"Believe me?"

Fang Cheng squinted his eyes slightly, keeping his fist steady in the air, looking down at him:

"What do you mean? You’d better explain while I haven’t made up my mind."

The golden flames around him pulsed like breathing, emitting a scorching smell of burning grass and wood, radiating an unsettling sense of oppression.

The masked man’s chest heaved violently, he took a deep breath, his tone quickly regaining its usual calm:

"You’ve already passed through the entrance to that relic, to the Otherworld, right?"

Fang Cheng’s gaze remained calm as water, the flames on his clenched fist still blazed fiercely.

He neither confirmed nor denied.

"Brother Fang."

The masked man met Fang Cheng’s cold gaze unabashedly, his tone became particularly sincere:

"I now believe that you rely solely on pure physical strength to penetrate that Golden Light Barrier and cross the interworld passage."

His sidelong glance couldn’t help but dart to Fang Cheng’s deadly fist:

"Achieving this is indeed remarkable, so much so that it seems incredible and demands my admiration, but..."

After a bit of flattery, the masked man’s tone shifted, becoming extremely resolute:

"The internal structure of the space passage is extremely unstable. Relying solely on brute force to traverse recklessly can easily trigger spatial turbulence. At best, you’ll be lost in the void, and at worst, torn to pieces by the violent force of space."

Pausing for a moment, he fixed his gaze on Fang Cheng’s eyes:

"Brother Fang, you returned hurriedly just a few hours after entering the Otherworld. Presumably, you sensed the unstable tearing force of the passage, worried about being unable to return from prolonged stay, or perhaps you suffered from this kind of ordeal during the crossing?"

A faint glimmer of light flashed in the depths of Fang Cheng’s eyes, but he controlled it well, maintaining a detached expression.

When he returned from the Otherworld earlier, it was indeed while withstanding a strong spatial repulsion force.

The tearing sensation inside the passage, nearly crushing his bones bit by bit, was something he was deeply familiar with.

Seeing Fang Cheng standing there in contemplation, the masked man knew he had made the right bet, speaking with growing confidence:

"Brother Fang, although your strength is formidable, you clearly don’t understand the specific workings of the space passage. You don’t know how to establish a stable frequency, nor have you mastered the true method to open the relic’s entrance."