The palace of confidence he had built in his heart had now mostly collapsed.
Not long ago, Gao Pan had been confident that whether it came to a sturdy armor or sheer punching power, he far surpassed his opponent. He only needed to wear him down until he was utterly exhausted, and victory would be his.
But reality was that after throwing hundreds of punches in a row, his opponent's armor had not cracked, and his strength had not waned. Instead, Gao Pan himself was exhausted to the extreme, his spirit even growing faint.
He simply couldn't imagine what the gaunt man across from him was made of. More than a hundred punches in, his power hadn't diminished in the slightest, as if they had only just begun trading blows.
What made Gao Pan most anxious, though, was the bold declaration he had made earlier: "If we're going to trade punches, then we trade them to the end. Whoever can't hold out first is a cowardly turtle!"
Worse still, countless spectators in the stands believed Gao Pan was a god descended from heaven and that his victory was certain. Their cheers and shouts of encouragement threatened to pierce the clouds.
At a time like this, if Gao Pan retreated, then fine, he'd be a cowardly turtle—but how could he ever show his face in Guang'an Prefecture again?
Boom! Boom! Boom!
After enduring three more exchanges, Gao Pan finally couldn't take it anymore. He suddenly leaped backward, opening up three zhang of distance, then dashed off to the left. His silver spear lay dozens of zhang away in that direction.
The instant Gao Pan retreated, the million or so people in the arena seemed like a flock of cackling roosters whose necks had suddenly been squeezed. The tsunami of shouting came