A master might defeat me, but he could not kill me. It sounded like an utterly cowardly thing to say, but with a heavenly martial artist as the opponent, one would understand just how arrogant and self-assured those words were.
Because it meant that even if the middle-aged monk truly defeated Meng Zhao, his victory would not truly be a victory. Even if Meng Zhao lost, his defeat would not truly be a defeat.
The wording was somewhat convoluted, but stripping everything away and seeing the essence of it, it was merely a matter of who held the initiative and who was passive.
If one could win, kill, and control Meng Zhao's life and death, then one naturally held absolute initiative and could slowly pry from Meng Zhao the opportunities and fortunes within Merit Heaven and Earth.
If one could win but not kill, then there was essentially no real initiative to speak of. They would be on equal footing; if you could not crush me, how could you possibly learn the secret from Meng Zhao?
To put it even more simply, such a victory was dry and hollow—like playing League of Legends, getting kills and racking up countless heads, yet never managing to turn that advantage into victory, only to die with bitterness in the end.
The middle-aged monk did indeed take Meng Zhao's invincible martial path seriously and was even quite interested in it.
But taking it seriously and being interested did not mean Meng Zhao possessed the ability to wrestle with him. After all, the gap between them was an entire major realm, two wholly different levels.
"Oh? Dragon King Meng is so confident? You possess a special bloodline and have even become a Great Grandmaster, yet you seem not to understand the methods and capabilities of