Zhen Shi couldn't help but grin proudly at the success of his scheme. But honestly speaking, while this 'scheme' had been a strategic maneuver, it was mostly a gamble!

He had been unsure of whether a bull 'manifestation' could be distracted just by the color red and a random challenger, especially since bulls and cattle are generally color blind!

He knew that bulls were more enraged and threatened by motion than the color red itself. Even so, he had moved along with his plan hoping that the battle-lusting Will O'Dale would attack the bull and enrage it.

He had also found some mentions about the use of red clothing in bullfighting, mostly demonic bull beasts, in the Southern region of the Central Plains from some obscure books in the {Scholarly Library}.

So while a real bull wouldn't actually be enraged by the color red, a bull manifestation based on the thoughts and conceptions of Lord Turnbull and his army, possibly could.

As such, Zhen Shi had made a gamble, and... fortunately, it had paid off! His scheme had worked. The fortress formation was safe and completely undamaged!

He was now reaping the rewards while calmly watching Will O'Dale and the bull dashing towards each other.

But, as the scarlet and black figures lunged forwards, the crowd of spectators couldn't help but wince in pity.

The difference in strength between the pitch-black bull manifestation, launched by a Law Holding Stage Proclaimer plus his hundredfold army, and the comparatively puny rage empowered Will O'Dale was obviously wide.

The spectators couldn't help but feel pity for Will O'Dale who was mindlessly dashing towards the bull and seeking death.

Forget the spectators, even Will O'Dale was pitying himself!

As the terrifying metallic bull dashed towards him, he began to fantasize how his untimely death would be spoken of, "Young Master of the O'Dales accidentally impaled to death by his own employer's bull! In fact, he dashed towards his own death like an idiot!"

As this thought arose in his mind, poor Will grew frantic, 'An O'Dale cannot die in such a pathetic and shameless manner! I still have to protect our proud lineage going back countless centuries!'

Unfortunately, despite his thoughts, Will was unable to stop his rage-fuelled body from dashing towards the bull.

Zhen Shi heaved a heavy sigh when the two figures were only a few seconds away from colliding heads-first. Even he wasn't heartless enough to let Will O'Dale die in such a manner.

He quickly flicked the golden disc in his hands and issued a command. Instantly, the formation talisman that had retreated to the back of Will's neck activated, spreading out to form the colorless formation dome that Myne had used before.

BOOM! PU!

A loud explosion rang out as Myne's formation was cracked into smithereens under the powerful bull horns. Will O'Dale was thrown backward into a pavilion wall while coughing up blood. Several of his ribs had been cracked.

But fortunately, due to Myne's formation and his strange scarlet blood energy he had survived. Even so, he continued to remain in a daze for a few moments.

The Bull came to a surprising halt in the air and curiously observed his attacker that had somehow survived it's powerful but 'innocent' horn thrust.

Ignoring that, Zhen Shi who was still inside the sea fortress couldn't stop himself from shouting out a clever retort, "Aiya! Turnbull what on earth are you doing? In what world does the 'savior' attack the victim?"

Lord Turnbull grimaced in shame and displeasure, especially due to the silent agreement of the spectators.

Zhen Shi continued with a sudden 'gasp of realization', "Wait... if the employer is attacking the employee, is this what they call a toxic workplace?"

The crowd gasped as well, 'Holy heavens! Could this be true? Lord Turnbull does have a horrible track record of mistreating his subordinates. And that could explain him attacking his own subordinate for no reason...'

Seeing the faces of the crowd, Lord Turnbull finally spat out unhappily, "Shut up! I just lost control--"

But he didn't get to speak much else as Zhen Shi interrupted him, "Hold on a minute. If this is how Lord Turnbull treats his ordinary employees, what do you think he could do to the poor soldiers in his army? Aren't they even more expendable? Wouldn't he squeeze every drop of usefulness out of them?"

The crowd gasped loudly once more and proceeded to stare at the soldiers in pity. Even the soldiers were confused for a moment and froze in thought.

And just like that, with a few well-placed words, Zhen Shi had planted a seed of doubt within the hundred-fold army!

Lord Turnbull was exploding in rage towards 'this annoying fellow' hiding within the sea fortress. He was already pissed over the fact that his full-powered edict attack had been rendered useless, due to a simply 'bull'-shit reason. And now he was even being insulted... with falsehoods spun into truth!

Meanwhile, Will O'Dale was slowly regaining control of his body since the sudden deadly attack had greatly reduced the power of the divine curse. Even so, he continued to gasp in pain while holding on to his wounded chest.

After all, he had faced an attack that would've easily killed a novice Law Holding expert. Luckily, the strange scarlet energy had grown stronger in intensity from amidst the blood seeping out of his wounds and kept him barely alive.

But, even with his bloody scarlet energy, he definitely wouldn't be able to survive another attack like that.

Fortunately for him, the Bull continued to watch with curiosity giving him a precious few moments to rest and gather energy.

Putting all of that aside for a moment, Myne suddenly clapped Zhen Shi's back in acknowledgment and asked with curiosity, "How... did you do this? Even if the Bull was outside Turnbull's control, how could you change the primary objective of a qi manifestation like this?"

Zhen Shi puffed his chest out in pride and gave a knowing wink, "You are several millennia to early to understand the true skills of this handsome and scholarly self!"

Myne was caught speechless as Zhen Shi had turned around the clever words he himself had spoken just a short while ago. And Vivienne had to struggle to hold back her laughter.

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Thrum!

Unfortunately, their conversation cut off as the scarlet energy enshrouding William suddenly intensified; almost reaching up to the sky. One could vaguely glimpse a gigantic bloodied hand moving in a strange manner within this energy.

Under its effects, all the blood that had seeped out of Will's body was pulled back inside an unnatural manner.

Within a few more moments, his wounds closed up leaving no external signs of his injured state. However, Will's face grew visibly pale as if he had over-exerted himself. Having done its job, the scarlet energy retreated. 

Immediately, the crowd broke in gasps of fear. They had heard and witnessed several fearsome practitioners with unnatural abilities, but they had never seen such a bloody and inhuman method of healing from a near-death state. Especially one that was so eerie...

Despite their horrified reaction of the crowd, Will broke out into a grin of relief as the pain of his injuries had greatly receded. But, his happiness was short-lived.

This was because the Bull who had gotten tired of curious observation had decided to attack and give Will another taste of its sharp horns. As such, with great power and child-like innocence, the Bull suddenly jumped forwards horns first.

Will O'Dale was shocked. He had no plans to stay in the same place and enjoy a first-hand experience of getting impaled. So, the moment he saw the Bull jumping with its horns pointed at him, he immediately prayed to the heavens and ran away.

But... would the proud Bull admit defeat just like that? Especially when its 'enemy' was running away in such a cowardly manner? No way!

The Bull snorted a cloud of wispy smoke and began to chase and jump after poor Will O'Dale.

"SHIT! Brother Bull, hasn't your mother ever told you that it isn't wise to jump horns-first? You must think before you jump!" Saying so, Will began to desperately run away from the crazed bull while frantically shouting, "Help! Help!"

Unfortunately, no one volunteered to help him. Realizing that the Bull was slowly catching up, he screamed in fear and began to run about in circles.

Luckily for him, the Bull was unable to maintain a high speed while constantly turning to run in a circle.

Either way, the final result of this was rather comical; a black bull happily chasing after a screaming 'red' person, around a serious battlefield, again and again.

Will O'Dale continued to scream loudly and desperately, while the Bull seemed to be almost grinning, as it happily and innocently chased after this loud red fellow.

The crowd was stupefied, 'Ehh? Is this still a serious battle? Or has the god of comedy, who was rumored to have visited our golden bridge, made a second visit to our market hall?' while struggling to hold back their laughter, in fear that it might sound insensitive...

Lord Turnbull would've vomited blood for seven days and event nights seeing his grand actions leading to this ridiculous situation, had it not been for his burning rage.

In the end, he finally lost his patience with this 'bull'-shit edict and roared in rage, "Edict: Attack!" Instantly, a terrifying amount of different types of qi was dragged out of each soldier forcing about half of them to fall onto their knees in fatigue.

But, unlike before, the multitudes of energy merged into a single entity forming a simple black spear.

It was pitch-black as if it would absorb all light and the raging out from it was even greater than that of the bull!

With a flick of Lord Turnbull's hands, the spear was launched directly at the sea fortress formation. Unlike the charge of the Bull which had been focused on strength and pure power, this was an attack focusing on speed and piercing power! Thus there was only a very short window of time to react...

Myne's eyes glowed in silver light as he smoothly flicked his hands. Instantly, silver-grey bricks were dragged out from around the fortress and gathered around a single spot forming a focused defense.

Whoosh!

The wind whistled loudly as the spear struck the walls of the sea fortress, at the very spot that Myne had improved defense. But, even with Myne's defense, the spear impaled half-way through the fortress walls causing faint cracks to spread out from the point the spear had struck.

Merlin grimaced as he flicked his hand once more, causing the silver-grey bricks to return back to normal and the cracks to fade away.

Even so, the damage had already been done and Lord Turnbull who knew this couldn't help but crack a satisfied grin.

But the fact that Will O'Dale was screaming like a banshee as the bull chased him around in circles, rather ruined his satisfactory mood.

Myne turned to Zhen Shi and spoke seriously, "We won't be able to hold out against a couple more of those attacks. Do you think you can get out and take down some of those soldiers?"

Despite Myne's words, there was a flicker of genuine concern in his eyes. But it dissipated immediately as his eyes fell upon the ring on Zhen Shi's hand. So Myne continued to speak, "I'll keep Turnbull busy and since I need Vivienne to maintain the ocean water... only you can do this."

Zhen Shi paused in thought for a moment. He had nothing against going outside the fortress as long as Turnbull was taken care of. And of course, he trusted this brother of his.

So with a confident grin and a slight nod, he immediately jumped out of the sea fortress.

Myne grew silent with a serious glint in his eyes. Even he could see that Zhen Shi was acting with blind faith.

But the moment that Zhen Shi jumped out, Lord Turnbull stared daggers at him and roared, "So you must be the fellow that insulted me!" with a murderous grin on his face.

His shout would've seemed much more fearsome had it not been for the bull that was constantly chasing a screaming red man in circles around them.

Zhen Shi hurriedly shook his head and explained politely, "Lord Turnbull, you're mistaken! I'm an innocent fellow! The one who insulted you is obviously the formation master who is maintaining the formation! The formation master and the culprit of this crime is actually my senior brother who is still inside," while pointing back at the sea fortress with a straight face.

Myne almost face palmed himself to death, 'FUCK! Brother, how can you be so shameless?'

Lord Turnbull frowned but nodded slightly since this made sense. Nevertheless, he shouted once more, "Edict: Attack!" causing more soldiers to collapse down on to their knees.

After all, even if Zhen Shi was not the one who had insulted him, he still had to get rid of his opponents for the appraisal competition.

However, Zhen Shi wasn't going to stay still either. The instant he heard Lord Turnbull shouting, he activated the first step of [Draconic Wind Steps] to the maximum and dodged to the side, trying to bypass the attack.

Even so, the law tier edict attack was well on its way to rip apart one of his arms.

As the deadly pitch black-spear reached Zhen Shi's arm, the timeless sea fortress behind grew faint, as if it would fade into the river of time...

Simultaneously, the ocean surrounding the sea fortress began to churn in a mystical manner. And in a single instant, an arm of oceanic water stretched out of that spot and paused defensively in front of Zhen Shi.

SPLASH!

The sound of the spear skewering through the water rang out as the spear was forcibly halted just a few millimeters away from Zhen Shi's hand. Zhen Shi's eyes alternated between the spear and his arm as he gulped nervously.

Moments later, both the spear and the arm of ocean water dissipated into sparks of qi and aether. As the arm of water dissipated, the sea-fortress slowly returned to normal. But it seemed a bit fainter than before...

Myne suddenly spoke in Zhen Shi's mind, "We can hold out against 2 or 3 more attacks like that at best! You'll need to start taking down some of those soldiers soon."

Zhen Shi nodded wordlessly. He disregarded the near-death experience he had just faced and manifested his bow silently.

He was getting pissed at this Lord Turnbull's continuous deadly attacks and intended to teach the fellow a good, painful lesson.

With rage dancing in his eyes, he took a deep breath and loaded one of Myne's chaos arrows into his bow.

With his mind calm, he pulled back the arrow with the full force of his hidden draconic physique.

At first, he thought of attempting the [Bow]-[Arrow] intent fusion that had power almost in the Law tier. But he soon realized that this would use up all of his warrior intent and make it unusable for several hours. So, if he were to miss the shot, it would be a big waste.

So instead, in a sudden bout of inspiration, Zhen Shi lit the arrow with both the and .

At first, it almost seemed as if the opposing nature of the two flames would cause them to explode out on the spot. But with the method of combining the Bow and Arrow intent still vaguely present in his mind, Zhen Shi was somehow able to calm the two flames down.

As the two opposite flames combined, it formed a rather unstable mixed product, a strange flame of life and death. The energy wafting out from this flame was rather weak in terms of aura, but it was mystical in terms of nature...

Next, instead of using his spiritual roots and elemental aether, Zhen Shi tried to focus on the formation engraved on the arrowhead, the chaos energy within the divine bow, and the primordial chaos in his dantian. He almost felt that he succeeded, but nothing much happened...

TWANG!

Either way, his eyes glowed in bestial rage as he impatiently let the arrow loose at an unfortunate soldier.