Dodging the claws, Ye Xiu panted as he watched the statue. He had thought that his original plan would work but for some reason, the statue had a built-in contingency plan that foiled his and Tian Bai's efforts. They had spent over a day switching back and forth, attacking the statue and when the statue's core finally ran out of Qi, it suddenly refilled to its maximum.

To say the least, Ye Xiu and Tian Bai were pretty pissed. Though they had been switching with each other to take a break, it was still pretty tiring. Tian Bai had already managed to get hurt twice and whilst the wounds weren't severe he had to sit out of the fight for a couple of hours so that Ye Xiu's pills would do their magic. Ye Xiu himself had been hurt once but it was a tiny nick on his arm which was an easily ignored injury.

Whilst he was fighting, Ye Xiu was doing his best to come up with an alternative to winning the fight. The only viable manner of winning he could think of was to win the entire battle in a single strike, piercing through the scales and directly destroying the core. It was the most foolish method that would use most of his Qi and it wouldn't even be certain that he would be able to break through the defence.

Ye Xiu was also unsure if he had any attacks that would pierce through the defences in the first place. He sincerely doubted that he could pierce through now since the statue's scales had changed. It was surprising when Ye Xiu saw the shifting scales to reveal scales that were even harder and thicker. Ye Xiu had to admit that the statue was ingeniously made due to how life-like it looked.

The only thing Ye Xiu could say was that the statue couldn't feel pain and react to it, though that had both advantages and disadvantages. Ye Xiu was debating whether to use his dragon blood essence strength enhancing technique to test whether it would allow him to use his strongest move and pierce through all the scales. He was hesitating since he only had a few drops of blood essence left.

Ye Xiu shook his head. 'I'll use it as a last resort. I can still try to use my Dragonoid transformation since it has much more strength behind its attacks then this body does.' He knew that using the enhancing technique would tire him much more compared to the transformation which was weird.

The statue still had its sword in its hand but the other hand was free so that it could its claws. It definitely wasn't fun trying to dodge either of the attacks though Ye Xiu steered clear of the claws. The claws were had a much vicious edge compared to the sword since the sword would only cause a single injury whilst the claws could cause multiple.

As time passed, instead of the statue growing stronger in its attacks or defence, its technique in handling a weapon increased. Ye Xiu was hard pressed since the statue was able to finally counter his attacks. The statue's counters were nothing to scoff at either since his katana would be flung away though Ye Xiu managed to get it back into his grasp using his whip as it was in mid-air.

Ye Xiu started infusing metal Qi into his attacks since the statue's scales seemed to be pierced through with much more ease than before. Ye Xiu wished that he had more practice with metal Qi techniques but his main focus has been on wood Qi and fire Qi. Ye Xiu had an idea once again but was unsure if he could make it work.

He had the theoretical knowledge which he could apply to his idea but he didn't have the practical experience which was needed for success. He lit a flame above his palm. Instead of using fire Qi to ignite the flame, he was using his inner flame. Ye Xiu rarely used his inner flame for anything besides Alchemy. His inner flame didn't have too many properties that would be considered useful for combat but it had a property that he knew would come in useful for what he was planning.

His inner flame had a property that aided in the conversion of Qi. He was planning to change wood Qi into a corroding poison. He had seen the effects of his metal Qi on the statue and was thinking that this was the reason why it was easier for him to pierce through the scales. He also felt like the corroding effect would allow him to continue striking the statue without it regenerating.

It all depended on how corrosive the poison would be. He had no skill in converting Qi but hoped that his inner flame would help him enough so that he would at least be successful. He was thinking about all of this whilst attacking the statue but Ye Xiu knew that even he wouldn't be able to fight and convert Qi for the very first time at the same time.

He called out to Tian Bai using the bond link so that he could take over for him. Tian Bai took over his position and Ye Xiu quickly moved over to where he wouldn't be disturbed. He took the chance to chuck a pill down his throat so his sore muscles could recover. The strong attacks caused substantial strain to Ye Xiu's muscles. When he finished taking the pill, he forced his wood Qi out of his body and towards his hand.

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It was a fairly delicate process since losing control would either change the effect of what he was trying to convert the wood Qi into or the entire conversion process would fail. 'I must not have what I am converting in contact with my body and I must use my 'Graceful Fingers' to control the conversion process so that I am not in contact.' He started to use his free hand to guide the wood Qi between his two hands.

Once that was down, he guided his inner flame towards the wood Qi and started to use his free hands to mould the wood Qi. The wood Qi would have to be continuously shaped so that the entirety of the wood Qi that was there would be properly converted. Intent played a very big part to conversion and Ye Xiu dedicated his mind to simply think about the properties that he wanted. From there a signal would be given to signify the most important part of the change.

Ye Xiu failed at the most crucial step several times before managing to grasp what was going wrong. The crucial step of conversion was different depending on the Qi type and what you are converting it into. Since he was converting his wood Qi into a corroding poison, it needed another ingredient that had a corroding effect to be placed together with the changing wood Qi.

Since using his metal Qi as another ingredient would cause the entirety of the conversion process to fail, he had to find another solution. He had tried using his metal Qi multiple times already but that definitely failed. The only suitable thing that he had left to act as an ingredient was a plant that he had managed to harvest during his time in the valley. At first, he had managed to get poisoned in the valley by accident when he got scratched by one of the petals but luckily his pills to neutralise it did the job.

The plant had a corroding effect much to his chagrin that day but he managed to nurse his injury back when he removed the poison from his body. He was now taking out a petal of the flower and was placing it into the middle of the wood Qi. He was crushing the petals with the Qi around it so that it would release the poison, and much to his relief, the conversion process had finally succeeded. The converted product was still flying in the air since it could be controlled by his Qi which was certainly a useful thing.

He placed the corroding poison into a bottle specifically made to store such things. He had taken about an hour for his first success and he needed to rest to recover his Qi. After finishing his meditation, he swapped with Tian Bai to take his place in the battle.

Ye Xiu knew that the statue had no defence against corroding effects, unlike his katana and whips which he had made sure which wouldn't be affected by such things. He coated the upper half of his katana's blade with the poison for good measure and started his attacks. The poison didn't completely stop the statue from repairing itself but it certainly slowed it down by a massive amount.

Ye Xiu knew that he would be able to get to the core easily at this point but the moment he thought about that, he seemed to have invoked Murphy's Law. He didn't mean to but it seemed like he was asking for it when he told himself that it would be easy. The statue moved much faster than Ye Xiu expected and the claws managed to claw past his fortified clothes completely and managed to get the body underneath it.

Five long gashes ran down his chest and they started to burn. Ye Xiu let out a grunt at the pain but nonetheless tried his best to dodge away from the quick statue. He used his free hand and set it on fire once again. He wanted to cauterize the wound but thought better of it. He directed his Qi inside of his body towards the wounds and started during battlefield healing procedures.

It was something he had to learn as part of his mastery of the Medical Arts and Shang Yang had to do the same. They kept up with their skill in the Medical Arts and they could easily mend most injuries if they had enough time. Currently, Ye Xiu didn't have that time and would have to focus on dodging whilst he healed himself.

The statue's claws had more strength behind them now and they carried a burning effect together with that strength when it managed to strike something. There were spikes on the statue's tails and they were just as dangerous as the claws which Ye Xiu found out when he got whiplashed once again in the chest where he had just finished healing his injury. Ye Xiu knew that he should really stop getting hit but what could he say, the thing was literally flying above him now.

Ye Xiu was resorting to his whips that had also now been coated in the corroding poison. His corroding poison would not dry off or disappear until it was washed off by water which was what he had been aiming for in the first place. Together with metal Qi and the poison, he was doing his best to whittle down the statue.

Whilst it was flying above their heads, it started to breathe flames down towards them. Luckily, they weren't those mystical dragon breaths that he heard about but they were just plain old flames. He had a high resistance to the flames so they barely affected him. Too bad for Tian Bai though who had to resort to using water Qi to extinguish the flames that made his fur catch on fire.

Tian Bai had to focus on dodging and taking the attention of the statue away from Ye Xiu if he recovered, not that he minded. Ye Xiu had multiple ideas he wanted to test out but he was happy with his Qi thorns on his whip that was completely made out of metal Qi. The normal Qi thorns were unable to even damage the scales but the ones made out of metal Qi were at least able to cause damage.

Ye Xiu was trying his best to end it quickly without using his finishing moves since the statue was still flying which meant that he wouldn't be able to reach it with his attack.