The multi-colored gas sunk into the Peak Master’s body through his skin, but its effects were mild enough that the Peak Master was barely impeded. Surrounded as he was by the multi-colored gas and in the middle of a fierce fight, it took him a few seconds before he noticed that his senses had grown weaker and his body was rapidly bleeding energy. The problem was that at their level, a few seconds was enough for a dozen exchanges to happen, Sage’s arms were swinging rapidly to attack with those sword length blades extending from his wrists. At the same time the Peak Master was forming a symbol with his hands and fingers and focusing intently on controlling the blue lotus petals that he was using to deflect Sage’s attacks.

Sage couldn’t get any closer because of the spinning lotus blades, but the Peak Master was also trapped in place by the Winter Lotus flowers that Sage had placed in a large dome around him. The Peak Master used a giant lotus shaped fire to simultaneously fend off Sage’s attacks, while also trying to chop a way out of this trap. In the meantime he was being subjected to Sage’s poison. This poison which he called Nightmare Garden was the combination of Killer Garden, the pink gas he could transfer through plants, and Paradise Nightmare that he used to block vision and sweat his enemies. After embracing his attrition tactics the researchers tried many different formulations until coming to this current iteration.

At this time, the Peak Master was feeling the increasingly debilitating effects of the Nightmare Garden. In actual truth, this poison didn’t actually harm his enemies directly, it merely weakened one’s senses, making the light seem dimmer, the sounds quieter, smells and tastes to be less intense, and the body to grow slightly numb. At the same time it had the miraculous effect of making a Cultivator start to sweat out their own Qi. This Qi bled out into the air and mixed with the strange multi-colored gas. While within the gas the Qi that a Cultivator drew into their body was muddled and became many times harder to process. This meant that recovering one’s Qi while within the Nightmare Garden gas became much more difficult. Even for the Peak Master that was a Nascent Soul, his body was still drawing in Qi constantly to replenish his reserves, but while within this poison the amount he recovered was greatly reduced. He had to keep feeding the blue flames he was using to fight against Sage with so his Qi expenditure remained high, while his recovery rate was suddenly hindered.

It was at that moment that Sage noticed a hint of desperation in Xuegang’s eyes, which only earned the man a smile. Sage swung his arms even faster, chopping against those flaming lotus petals even faster than before. The Peak Master had thought he was foolish for trying to chop through the large sheets of flame. Could you chop through an immaterial wall? Did he think that disrupting enough of his flames would make room for him to jump between the spinning petals? It was only when he realized what the poison gas was doing to him that he understood Sage’s plan. The rapid attacks were merely meant to make him waste energy to build more petals of flame.

The Peak Master realized the trouble he was in and changed his plan, abandoning his total defense and collapsing the giant lotus petals into two smaller lotuses. He was previously surrounded by the giant flames like he was at the center of the flower in bloom, but the two smaller lotuses moved to his hands and flew out to either side of him. Xuegang twisted to the side and his arms crossed one over the other in front of his chest. One of the lotuses flew towards Sage, while the other went directly opposite of him, crashing against the Winter Lotus flowers. The brilliant sapphire fire made for a subtle contrast with the deep blue flower petals of the Winter Lotus. On the other side, Sage crossed his arms at the wrists to form an ‘X’ shape with his forearm blades, one which he used to block the tip of the flaming drill that flew towards him.

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While Sage was slowly being forced back by the rapidly advancing flames, the Winter Lotus that had formed into a wall almost immediately hit their internal limits and their color rapidly darkened to a deep purple. The Blue Winter Lotus was still a bud and it absorbed heat, constantly darkening until it was full. At that point the blue would have become a deep purple, and the Purple Winter Lotus bloomed, spreading its surprisingly hard petals out to create a wide shield with its body. The Peak Master had previously used a flaming lotus in full bloom to attack the winter lotus, but now that he’d switched to a more condensed and bud-like shape, Sage’s defending Winter Lotus had come to bloom and changed colors.

Without the whirling blades forming a shield around him, the Peak Master was more heavily subjected to the poisonous gas the Winter Lotus was emitting. At the same time, the heat of his flaming drill attack had already pushed the flower it was aimed at to the verge of collapse. Instead of letting the Winter Lotus fail, Sage switched from defense back to offense. The purple lotus petals suddenly shriveled up and fell off, just as a huge red seed pod grew larger and larger at the center. Burning hot seeds were shot out of the seed pods and assaulted the Peak Master from multiple directions as all the other Winter Lotus transformed into their attack forms all around him. In time with this burning seed attack, Sage’s lungs and neck bulged out, partially transforming into a stronger body on the inside and his head dropped forward, better aligning his throat to release an immense gout of orange flame onto the Peak Master.

The flaming lotus that had been drilling into his crossed blades was forced to spread its petals wide once more to form a shield against the wide cone of fire that was rushing towards the Peak Master. The other fiery lotus that had been assaulting the ‘wall’ had swept back over to his body, where he crouched down and the lotus petals spread out and fell over him like an overturned bowl. One of these smaller defensive lotuses spun around him, deflecting the seeds that were bombarding him from every direction, while the other was spread wide like an umbrella to divert the flow of the Samsara Flame away.

After a whole second of intense flame, the quick release of the Divine Breath technique was expended and the orange flames lost their intense propulsion. A few wisps of orange fire dripped from his lips with an almost liquid like grace as it spilled down to leave a sear on the floor. Then the green blades disappeared from his wrists, absorbed back into the armor like aura around his body. The seed pods continued to attack the Peak Master, but they were blocked by the bowl of energy around him. At the same time the other lotus was no longer blocking any flames so it spun beautifully in the air all on its own. Sage was standing in a low stance to brace his arms together, but at this time he brought his feet together and then spread his stance wide, leaning forward to bring his whole torso in line with the Peak Master.

The sapphire lotus tightened its petals and shot towards Sage like a giant bullet, aiming to strike at him while he was busy changing stance. Sage wasn’t going to give it time to build momentum and his jaw fell open so far that it had to have unhinged. He released an even bigger torrent of orange flames than the last time, but the sapphire bullet darted to the side to avoid the most dense portion of Sage’s attack. It burst through the orange flames and swung around the side to dart toward Sage’s body. Unfortunately, for the Peak Master, a large silvery frame jumped in front of the fiery attack and wrapped its arms around it. The Blacksilver Knight had recovered and jumped in the way to stop the attack just before it was going to hit his body. Of course, even without the Blacksilver Knight it would have still had to break through Sage’s Jade Mantle technique.

Another torrent of Samsara Flame bathed the Peak Master, locking him in place.