The intensity of Leonard and Conrad’s battle made it convenient to respond to attacks with magic. Dust swirled all around them, enough to completely fill the shield covering the fighting ring. They couldn’t see anything in front of them, but this was good for Leonard. After all, he already opened his mind’s eye long ago.
Dust Cloud is bigger than I expected, but it won’t last for long.
Even though it was summoned with magic, it was still made of dust. If he and Conrad clashed with augmented sword energy, it wouldn’t take long for the dust to be blown away due to the force of each strike. Leonard estimated that Dust Cloud would only last for about one minute at most.
Sixty seconds…That’s enough.
For a Transcendence Tier martial artist, it was a long period of time.
Five Elements Sword Qi: Augmented Assimilation
Though the audience couldn’t see anything inside the cover of dust, there was a sharp, black glint of a blade. It was the signature color of an augmented sword energy created with Black Tortoise Qi.
If he used White Tiger Qi, which used the wind element, it could blow away the cloud, and if he used Vermillion Bird Qi or Azure Dragon Qi, there was a high probability that they would make the earth ignite and cause an explosion.[1]
In the end, Leonard chose this Black Tortoise Qi through the process of elimination. The qi pulsated silently.
He took a step forward into the dense cloud of dust.“Gahahaha!” Conrad appeared through the haze, laughing like a lunatic.
All his senses should be enhanced to their peak, so he’ll still be able to find me even if he can’t see in front of himself.
Leonard pointed his sword with a calm face.
At the same time, Conrad swung his dark crimson Aura Blade. After activating the drug, he’d surpassed the Tenth Degree External Force Tier and was now a step into the Transcendence Tier. His attack was unrefined but weighty and could only be described as a berserker’s sword.
Leonard took a quiet step back and raised his own blade higher.
Five Elements Style
Black Tortoise First Form: Soul Deflecting Shell Mirror
Deep red augmented energy met a jet-black one, and the blades ripped into each other.
Crack.
The impact made the ground rupture, and web-like shapes shot out from under Leonard’s feet. Even if Leonard used the rebound force to harm his opponent, Conrad would only heal his injuries, so he simply deflected the blow and prepared a different counterattack.
He took over the madman’s lead and held out his sword. Most of the thirty-six Black Tortoise forms were used for counterattacks or defensive measures, but some could be used as offensive attacks.
This was one of them:
Five Elements Style
Black Tortoise Nineteenth Form: Dragon Tail Slash
Leonard’s sword slithered with no sound or trace, like the snakehead attached to the Black Tortoise’s tail.[2] Then it stabbed his opponent.
As soon as the Black Tortoise Qi pierced through Conrad, it paralyzed all the surrounding nerves, so he didn’t feel pain or register the wound.
“Hah?”
Conrad tilted his head, not knowing what had happened. He took a step back before his knees buckled, and he powerlessly fell face-first onto the ground.
It wasn’t a wound his regenerative abilities could heal.
Leonard knew this.
This occurs with the members of the Deadly Asura Squad too. Even if you cut them with a sword, punch them with a fist, or even burn them with fire, their flesh regenerates and closes the wound.
However, they couldn’t use their healing abilities on an injury caused by Frigid Yin Qi. Unlike jiangshi,[3] which were reanimated corpses, the scoundrels of the Blood Cult overflowed with vitality. The first had potent yang, while the latter had excessiveyang, making them weaker to yin.
When someone who was overflowing with yang was attacked with Black Tortoise Qi, which was associated with yin, their body’s essential functions halted, making them go stiff like a wooden doll. So, Dragon Tail Slash could freeze the opponent and either kill or incapacitate them without pain. It was a fitting attack, as the Black Tortoise represented the yin attributes of coldness and virulence.
“Now, why don’t you struggle until the very end?” Leonard turned Conrad’s own words against him as he watched him writhe.
Though he wasn’t entirely sane, Conrad had to have understood the taunt, as the look of confusion in his eyes was replaced with a burning bloodlust.
“Guaaaah!”
His physical abilities swelled like an explosion, and he now had 300 years’ worth of cultivation. His sword energy grew past two meters, and his genius swordplay was now two or three times more advanced.
“Hm.” Leonard assessed his newfound power and dismissed it. “I should win within ten moves.”
Conrad fiercely kicked off the ground with one leg and rushed the boy, as if to prove him wrong. Even though he only had one good leg, his sword was still extremely ferocious. He even took an irregular trajectory, shifting between accelerating and decelerating. His ability to use feints was phenomenal—even though it meant his body would fall apart in no time.
But even as Leonard praised his talent, he interrupted Conrad’s bloodlust-fueled strike.
Five Elements Style
Black Turtle Ninth Form: Great Moon Anti-yin Mirror
In less than half the time it took to take a breath, Conrad’s attempted attack with his Aura Blade ripped through the dust with such force that it made the dust fly away. Yet he still could not break through the full-moon shield protecting Leonard, so his sword merely slipped across the surface and hit the ground.
After being blown away by the continuous attacks, the dust began to swirl in the air again. Conrad froze temporarily as the consequences of pushing his physical abilities to the highest of limits caught up to him. It was only for a quarter of a second, but in a duel between two superhuman fighters, the opening was too large.
Five Elements Style
Azure Dragon First Form: Thundershock
Jet-black lightning shot out from Leonard’s fingertips, hitting Conrad’s collarbone, heart, and then side. The attacks made his flesh freeze, so they didn’t bleed, but because the attack used dark augmented qi, his healing abilities couldn’t activate. His heart, the source of all his vitality, stopped. Conrad was already half-dead.
And yet he could still move.
“Cough! Gah! Ahhh!”
It seemed that one of his lungs had frozen when his heart was attacked, so Conrad couldn’t even scream as his body thrashed like mad. The dark red Aura Blade lost its rhythm and grace and swung around wildly. After it hit the barrier that Bermuda had set up several times, the shield began to flicker, growing unstable.
Class 7 and even Class 8 spells would inevitably become overwhelmed when struck with augmented sword energy over and over again. The people in the audience who hadn’t caught on to what was occurring began to grow unsettled.
“This is it. That was the ninth strike,” Leonard said. He held out his sword, ready to end the battle with the next attack.
Conrad lifted his own sword as if in response to his declaration, his body covered in wounds. For the first time since he activated the drug, he assumed a proper stance.
Leonard spotted a spark of lucidity in his madness and smiled, pleased with Conrad’s determination.
“Yes, it would be better to meet your end as a martial artist than as a beast.”
His opponent didn’t respond.
Killing intent spilled like a breeze from their swords, intertwining before slowly receding.
That was the signal.
Christopher War Sword Style
The dark red Aura Blade raged. Even as a man who’d never learned a proper sword style and made his way with innate talent alone, he did have a certain image of strength in his heart: a beautiful, powerful predator carved into his childhood memories.
A seawolf?
Conrad used an augmented qi technique, shaping the energy into an orca. The giant predator opened its mouth, showing off its rows of giant, sharp teeth.
Leonard had faced many techniques shaped like wolves, tigers, dragons, and bears, so this one was refreshing. Therefore, he decided to meet Conrad with his own sincerity.
Five Elements Style
Azure Dragon Thirty-Sixth Form: Surge of the Dragon King
The energy enveloping Leonard’s sword changed to augmented thunder qi. It released blue streaks of lightning before revealing its true form: the divine beast who was the guardian of the east, the one who summoned the winds and called the rains, the god of wood.
The technique was invoking the Azure Dragon itself.
The augmented thunder qi shooting out of Leonard’s blade finished shaping itself into the mystical dragon, but his sword couldn’t handle the power and shattered.
Boom!
The dragon majestically settled into its form and lunged toward the arrogant orca that growled at it.
Even the seawolf, which was often admired as one of the strongest predators, could not face a divine beast of legend, as Leonard’s Five Elements Augmented Sword Qi was incomparably powerful compared to Conrad’s poor, unrefined augmented qi.
The Azure Dragon ripped apart the orca in a matter of seconds, then dove for Conrad as if to consume him.
“!!!”
A tremendous shockwave exploded and made the arena’s barrier shatter, thus marking the end of the match.
***
“The results are invalid!” Carmen shouted. She was the Bermuda executive in charge of Aiolos Hall or, in other words, the Rank A expedition teams.
She couldn’t help herself. Not only was the captain of the team she raised herself dead, but their Fifth Sea District exploration permit, which essentially defined their Rank A status, was stolen.
But above all, the biggest problem was that the team that had stolen the permit was Aquamarine, a team treated poorly and assumed to be a has-been.
If that audacious girl returns, my position will become unstable!
Those who didn’t know better saw Frances as a poor, fragile girl, but Frances was the complete opposite. No matter how amazing a vessel the Aquamarinewas, maintaining a Rank B status with just one bodyguard was a near-impossible task. It was only possible because its captain spent every single day accepting commissions and making detailed analyses of maps to find the course with the highest chance of success.
Frances Ler von Okeanos was a genius.
Those who knew this were itching to declare the duel invalid no matter what it took.
“Leonard used a highest-grade artifact!” Carmen declared heatedly. “He used three Class 5 spells alone, and the sword was able to overpower Captain Conrad’s Aura Blade! Indeed, he seems to have exhausted its power by the end, but it could even make a dragon out of an Aura! The existence of the artifact itself makes a mockery of Swordmasters!”
Some people nodded in agreement while others let out long sighs, saying that she was speaking nonsense.
There were almost no restrictions on weapons when it came to duels. Other than high-grade magic scrolls and explosives, there was nothing in the rules that stated only certain grades of artifacts were allowed.
They had set only two rules for the match: it would be fought to the death and surrendering wasn’t allowed.
Carmen kept insisting on her argument despite knowing this. Even Bermuda’s executives were considering whether to declare the duel invalid now that they were faced with a precarious solution, though they pretended they weren’t considering it.
If Aquamarine restores its former status, some councilors won’t be pleased…
But if we’re forced to take some of the blame too, things will become troublesome.
Carmen continued, as if encouraged by their silence, “That elf Vivian is the problem! She’s the one who orchestrated the duel! How dare she accuse Bermuda of approving a fraudulent contract? It’s a direct insult to our fairness and integrity!”
She had no right to say that as the one who had corrupted said fairness and integrity, but there didn’t seem to be anyone who was going to refute her.
Though Bermuda was originally founded to protect the rights and interests of explorers, there weren’t many people who remembered this. And none of them were high-ranking executives of the organization.
Carmen was interrupted.
“What an interesting take.”
Immediately, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to the sound of the voice—because they knew, they knew who that idle voice belonged to and why he was present.
“The match was invalid, you say? I, Jack Russell, was written down in the contract as an official witness. So, do you think I am nothing more than words on a page? How curious.”
It was the Chief Elder of the Atlantis Magic Tower.
The Class 7 Archmage looked around the meeting room, which had become as cold as ice.
“Do tell me, do you agree with that wench?”
The verbal attack made Carmen’s face go as white as a ghost.
1. This is due to their elemental relationship. Dust represents earth, Vermillion Bird represents fire, and Azure Dragon represents wood. The fire is self-explanatory, but earth and wood have both a regulating and a destructive relationship. Wood sprouts from the earth, but it can also deplete it and hence cause an adverse reaction in combat. ☜
2. This is how the mythological creature is depicted: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tortoise#:~:text=The%20Black%20Tortoise%20is%20one,meaning%20of%20tortoise%20and%20snake." ☜
3. Chinese mythological monsters, also called hopping vampires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangshi☜
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