The crowd gasped. The Jinxi Patriarch had been doing such a good job building an image of his overwhelming might that they were suddenly taken aback to see him nearly skewered by a surprise attack. They saw him avoid the root lance even as a pink gas was spreading rapidly from it, catching his arm. The Jinxi Patriarch’s arm started to move oddly, making slow and loose movements like he’d lost control over it. There were many gasps of concern, but then they saw the look of confidence on the patriarch’s eyes and felt reassured.

Of course, what they had no idea of was that while the Jinxi Patriarch still looked confident, he was inwardly quite nervous. He’d spread his Spiritual Sense and felt that attack approaching from underground, but he’d wanted to put on a better show by narrowly avoiding the attack. What he didn’t realize was that the root carried poison. He knew this new branch head used poison, so he’d been very careful to keep his distance, but he’d not expected that the roots of the trees could be poisoned as well. Now, his arm had already gone mostly numb. It was completely unharmed, but without the sense of touch it became very difficult to properly control the body.

Across from the Jinxi Patriarch, Sage was smiling widely now. There was still sweat on his brow, blood on his lips, and his clothing was still a mess so he still looked in a far worse state. Even so, he was actually in excellent shape, as he’d only been injured because he let an attack strike him. Now that the crowd and the patriarch had been convinced of their superiority, everything he did would seem like a desperate move. It wasn’t that he wanted to show off his poisons, but if he didn’t start using his Law energy, then the Patriarch would never feel threatened. Sage aimed to draw out the old man’s attacks and then strike once he showed a weakness. The fight so far was basically just probing attacks. The reveal of his Killer Garden poison was intended to make the old man get serious.

The root beside the old man was standing tall and straight like a spear piercing out of the ground. It continued to emit that soft pink gas in a loose cloud around it. At the same time, the entire forest that Sage had grown did the same thing. The pink mist poured out of the dozens of hundred foot tall trees, giving them all a poisonous aura a few inches thick. The mist was more like a glowing halo around the surface of the trees and leaves rather than creating an actual cloud of smoke effect. If the Jinxi Patriarch got too close to any of them he would be exposed to more of the poison.

Then Sage opened his mouth and a thick white fog poured out. Killer Garden was a light hazy pink aura around the trees, while the Paradise Nightmare was heavy and cloying. It rapidly poured out and covered the ground, like an overabundance of dry ice. The thick white fog sunk to the ground and crawled out across the Dueling Arena. The Jinxi Patriarch waved his hand and his clothing started to sway. The thick fog stopped a dozen feet from the old man and then swept out to either side. A perfect circle was formed around him where not a single bit of the thick mist could encroach. The thick mist started to fall from the edges of the stage, but then some of the Elders waved their hands and a powerful array sprung to life, confining the mist into a dome around the stage.

At this moment, the thick mist covered the entire stage. The crowd suddenly thought that this is what it might look like when thick fluffy white clouds were viewed from above. They felt that they were looking at a piece of heaven. Thick tree trunks seemed to emerge directly from the field of clouds and shot high into the air where they spread out their immense branches. A beat up person in emerald green clan robes was standing upon the clouds in this field of divine pink trees. While across from him, it was like a piece of another world had a disc of it cleaved out and placed among this otherworldly heaven. Upon that clean disc there was an old man with a confident look on his face and an immense golden cricket standing above him. The cricket was the same height as a three-story building and nearly five times that in length.

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Even when surrounded by two types of poison and facing a grove of giant trees that were under the control of his enemy, the Jinxi Patriarch still didn’t seem discouraged. Instead he was smiling widely to proclaim to all how confident and powerful he truly was. He swept his eyes from the left to the right, scanning over all that had been brought against him, yet he didn’t rush to act. Instead the old man arrogantly brushed off some dirt from the sleeve of his poisoned arm. Then he used a single finger and struck a few points upon his arm. His hand moved rapidly and there was a soft thud from each strike. Then he grabbed his shoulder and his previously impaired arm lifted. He rotated it around at the shoulder, then opened and closed his fingers in succession. He formed a few handseals and then smiled again at his opponent, showing off that he’d already regained the full use of his limb.

It was no surprise to Sage what the old man had done, he’d acted like he was using some mysterious technique, but Sage saw him use his own Law energy to force out the Law of Corruption that was present in the poison. Then, he used a simple technique to force the poison out. Killer Garden was not all that difficult to remove. It was valuable because of its ease of use. It reminded him of a virus, once a plant was infected the plant used its own energy to create the poison and even then it didn’t require much. It didn’t really kill or cause many injuries on its own, but a sudden numbness could greatly hamper an enemy’s fighting capacity. By combining it with the Sacred Banyan he could build an impromptu battlefield filled with traps. Especially when the Paradise Nightmare was added to the equation to hide the movement of the tree’s roots.

Of course, combatants at their level all used their Spiritual Sense to greatly reduce the chances of a surprise attack, but the wider they spread it, the less concentrated it was. If they spread themselves too thin, they would become vulnerable to having their Spirit Sense targeted. Sage moved the roots under the ground towards the old man spreading them from every direction beneath the Dueling arena to test the range of the old man’s Spirit Sense. Once he knew that range he could set up attacks from just outside it. The further the distance the more time the Jinxi Patriarch would have to react, but for Sage that meant he would just need to act more root lances. He just had to make an inescapable wall of spears, right? If he knew how fast the old man could move and how much time he had to move, then he could figure out just how large an area this wall of spears needed to cover.

While he was calculating for his attack, the Jinxi Patriarch finally made his. The giant golden cricket above him stretched its legs and then opened its wings. It lifted its butt up into the air, tilting its back towards Sage. Then it pressed the edges of its two large front wings together and a chirp like no other was released. The thick mist that covered the arena rippled and was blown backwards by the sound. The trees swayed and creaked from the noise and Sage was blasted into the air, thrown backwards to slam into the trunk of one of the trees.