Chapter 209 - Specter vs. Smoke
'He's starting to get nervous. It’s time to fight back.'
As soon as Huli Xieren thought so, her eyes lit up with a fighting spirit. Harnessing her tail made of spirit power, she slammed into the fighting stage floor to rise into the air.
"Fire Law, Wisp!"
Quickly in the free hand that wasn't holding the sword, a small ball of fire the size of a fist formed. Soon after, the young woman hurled this fireball at Bao Yeong-Cheol.
"Break!"
With a scornful cry, Bao Yeong-Cheol made one of his jagged blades move against the fireball. The rumble of lightning struck the spherical flame and tore it apart. Then he too jumped up and moved his second blade.
Slash!
The blade whipped through the air but missed Huli Xieren once again. Even though they had shifted to air combat, she hadn't lost her agility of movement. However, she soon brought the fight back to the ground.
'Air combat is not recommended given the range of his blades. I still don't have enough flight maneuverability that can match my movements on land.'
It was right. Even though spirit soldiers could fly, they would rarely fight using their flight ability. This is because their amount of spirit power and their ability to control it still weren't enough to match their ground fighting skills. Thus, Huli Xieren decided to bring the fight back to the ground where she could use the floor to bounce her body thanks to her tail.
"Fire Law, Wisp!"
Even though the idea of air combat had been discarded, Huli Xieren didn’t just defend herself. Whenever she got a breather, she would send a fireball towards Bao Yeong-Cheol. However, each of these fireballs contained low attack power and were all easily destroyed by Bao Yeong-Cheol's attacks.
"Can't you do anything else? Such a poor technique can never defeat me!" Bao Yeong-Cheol said as he smiled. He was initially concerned because Huli Xieren had started attacking. As a result, he feared he was on the verge of losing control over the course of the battle. Fortunately, Huli Xieren was always using the same technique, which didn't have enough attack power to worry him.
'Considering my attack pace, she probably doesn't have the time and clarity to use other techniques. She uses the same move because it's easy to create and doesn't consume much spirit power. Is she trying to create an opening so she can hit me? I'm sorry, but you're off track if you think you can screw me like that.' Bao Yeong-Cheol analyzed, reinvigorating his fighting spirit. Now that he knew what his opponent was aiming for, he just had to pay attention to it and wouldn't lose.
Indeed, Bao Yeong-Cheol's reasoning wasn't wrong. Huli Xieren was using the same technique with little power to breach into Bao Yeong-Cheol. But the young woman didn't want to strike using an opening in Bao Yeong-Cheol's fighting stance. Instead, she wanted him to believe that she was aiming for it so that he didn't notice the real trap.
'Time to finish the fight.' Huli Xieren told herself as she gathered her spirit power.
"Fire Law, Adherent Flame!"
As soon as she said this, tiny red granules lit up all over Bao Yeong-Cheol's body, including his staff. But it wasn't just Bao Yeong-Cheol. The spot on the floor he was stepping on was also full of red granules, as well as other areas on the fighting stage. By analyzing the granules' conformation, it could be deduced that these formed a trail that mimicked the movements that Bao Yeong-Cheol had made. And the next instant, all the grains of fire away from Bao Yeong-Cheol poured towards the young man.
Blaze!
It all happened in an instant. The granules on Bao Yeong-Cheol's body exploded, generating a purple and red flame that increased in intensity as the other granules of fire fell upon Bao Yeong-Cheol.
"Arghhh!"
Seeing himself engulfed in flames, Bao Yeong-Cheol tried to move from where he was. And yet, strangely, he couldn't. It was like he couldn't move from that point at all.
"What is happening? It is as if I am glued to the floor. I can't even get altitude."
At this time, Bao Yeong-Cheol's confident and bold attitude was gone. Fear had taken its place - the fear of defeat. He knew very well that if he didn't free himself soon, he would end up losing. Therefore, he began to unleash more spirit power to infuse greater power into the lightning, covering his serrated blades.
'If I can't move, then I'll get my weapons moving. Once that bitch’s concentration is destroyed, I can free myself from this technique. ' Bao Yeong-Cheol thought as he tried to calm down.
Despite his efforts, however, his weapons also suffered from the same effect. At the moment, it was at the mercy of the flames, and although they wouldn't have melted that easily, they were stuck in place with no sign of moving.
"Fire Law, Fox Hold."
Seeing Bao Yeong-Cheol struggling, Huli Xieren intervened. Now that she had him, she wouldn't let him free himself for the world. She then approached Bao Yeong-Cheol's burning body and then wagged her tail of spirit power. The tail wrapped around Bao Yeong-Cheol, breaking away from Huli Xieren's body. At that point, the flames surrounding the Bao Family's young man rose in intensity so much that you could smell the smell of burning flesh.
"The winner is Huli Xieren." declared Song Yazhu, who saw, beyond the block of flames, the breaking of Bao Yeong-Cheol's defensive layer of spirit power. Without that layer to protect him, the young man's body would soon be charred.
At the proclamation of Song Yazhu, Huli Xieren didn’t immediately put away her flames but left them for a few more seconds. She hadn't forgotten the insulting comments about Feng Chen, and her anger still hadn't subsided. Luckily, she wasn't a woman who would get overwhelmed by emotions and didn’t forget about the current situation. Thus, although her flames had burned Bao Yeong-Cheol, the latter wasn't injured so badly as to risk his life. Then, without giving Bao Yeong-Cheol another look, Huli Xieren turned and walked back to the battle stands.
Such an action obviously provoked the Bao Family members' anger, who had come to watch the tournament. Initially, they were overjoyed to have two family members among the 32 fighters qualified for the tournament's main stage. Yet despite everything, both of their representatives had lost in their first round.
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This might also have been acceptable if the opponents were powerful and famous, such as Long Tian, Feng Chen, or Hu Jie. However, those who had beaten their promising martial artists came from two families they didn’t hold in high regard - the He Family and the Huli Family.
And it was mainly because they had lost to the latter that they felt anger and hatred. But since the Feng Family was behind the Huli Family, they could only grind their teeth and congratulate the Huli Family members in the VIP stand.
“The next fight will see the last of the Imperial Prince's guards, Hide. His opponent will be Wei Yaling." Song Yazhu proclaimed the names of the next challengers.
The first was Hide, the last of Long Tian's four guards. His three companions had all won and advanced to the next round. So he was the only one left, and the Imperial Prince's faction would achieve a complete victory. His opponent for the first round was Wei Yaling, a woman with long black hair and a complexion rather pale as if she were ill. She had a lit smoking pipe over her mouth and occasionally released puffs of dark gray smoke.
"Let the fight begin."
At Song Yazhu's signal, Hide proceeded to draw his weapon, a spiked mace also known as the morning star. The shape of the weapon and the spike's presence gave the morning star a terrifying power capable of smashing the opponent's bones on impact if the latter hadn’t had the defensive layer of spirit power active. Soon after, without waiting for Wei Yaling's response, Hide swooped in on her, raising his morning star spiked mace.
Peng!
There was a loud bang of something crashing to the ground, and this something was none other than Hide's morning star. The weapon ended up hitting the floor even though it should have touched Wei Yaling's body first. But this wasn't the most unusual thing. No, instead, it was the fact that the young woman had been split in half as if a vertical line had separated her body. But there were no traces of blood and entrails leaking out, but the body's areas along the vertical cut possessed a dark gray gaseous form.
"Gas Law. Specifically, the Smoke Law. I see." commented Hide, who immediately understood what had happened.
"Even if you have understood it, it is now too late." Wei Yaling replied as her body vanished from sight, leaving behind only a cloud of smoke. Soon after, she reappeared behind Hide and, inhaling with her pipe, released more smoke from her mouth. This smoke engulfed Hide in a vise until it even covered his head.
Clench!
The smoke closed tightly on Hide without letting him escape. Unless he possessed a speed that far exceeded that of a spirit soldier, Hide couldn't dodge that grip using a displacement technique. After all, Wei Yaling had impressive control over the smoke she generated and had carried out her attack within seconds.
Boom!
There was another bang, and Wei Yaling flew several meters while spitting blood. Her mind was in chaos as she tried to figure out what had happened. Obviously, given the participants' combat skills, it didn't take long to get to the answer.
“Ghost Law, specifically the Specter Law. It's rare to meet someone with that kind of Elemental Law. " Wei Yaling said as she wiped the blood from her mouth. Even if her defensive layer of spirit power had parried most of the damage, the impact had been so powerful that she still lost blood.
Regarding the Ghost Law, it had to be remembered that the latter was divided into three: corpse manipulation, bone manipulations, and specter mode. If the first allowed you to control corpses and the second to manipulate your body's bones, the Ghost Law's specter mode allowed its user to become a specter, capable of making one's body immaterial and passing through everything.
It was thanks to this that Hide freed himself from the grip of smoke. Making his body spectral, he effortlessly went through the hold of smoke and, as soon as he made his body tangible again, he moved his morning star, landing a direct attack on Wei Yaling.
“I am also surprised. After all, it isn’t so common finding someone of the rank of a spirit soldier who cultivates the Smoke Law and can break down their entire body into smoke. I'm curious to see how long you can keep that state." Hide answered Wei Yaling's comment. Then he attacked again.
From that moment, a kind of cat and mouse game began, with Hide playing the part of the cat and Wei Yaling, the mouse. Wei Yaling would use her pipe to create smoke and limit Hide's movements continually. However, the latter possessed a high-level movement technique and, even when he ended up in a dead-end, it was enough for him to make his body incorporeal to free himself quickly.
However, even though he couldn't get trapped, Hide couldn't land another hit. In fact, Wei Yaling would break down her body into smoke and bring the distance back to how it was before, thus nullifying the advantage of the morning star - its enormous impact power. Therefore, the fight turned into a tiring struggle of nerves, where the first to get caught would lose.
'Her mastery of the Smoke Law is greater than I expected. I have to take the initiative, or she will understand the weakness of my technique.' Hide thought quickly before making a decision.
The Ghost Law had one major flaw - it had no offensive techniques. After all, it didn't manipulate a specific element but focused on making the body immaterial. For this reason, the fighters of this Elemental Law compensated for this defect by using weapons with great impact power. However, even if they compensated for this flaw, another problem had to be considered - the difficulty in learning the Elemental Law itself.
Unlike the other classical Elemental Laws, it was difficult to find anything in nature that could give the martial artist insights into cultivating the Ghost Law. After all, was there anything in nature capable of making one's body incorporeal?
Nevertheless, if one had mastered the Ghost Law, one would indeed become the nightmare of almost any martial artist. It was no coincidence that the few Spirit Emperors in history who possessed the Ghost Law were all frightening existences.
"Ghost Rush."
Hide activated his displacement technique and sped toward Wei Yaling. The young woman tried to hit him with projections of smoke but in vain. Any projection of smoke would pass through Hide's body without causing damage. So Hide was once again in enough range for his morning star.
"Intento of the Morning Star, Star Crush!"
Hide stood in front of Wei Yaling and was lowering his spiked mace. He had analyzed the time it took for Wei Yaling to make her body smoke, and that was why he had increased his speed. He wanted to catch her off guard and stop her from dematerializing her body.
"Smoke Elemental Essence, Smoke Impalement!"
Anticipating Hide's plan, Wei Yaling activated her Elemental Essence, which increased the power of her elemental techniques. Then, instead of using that power boost to escape, she chose to attack instead.
“As long as you remain incorporeal, I cannot attack myself, but the same goes for you. You also can't hold that state for a long time. Therefore, the moment you become corporeal again is my chance of victory. " Wei Yaling revealed with a fierce look.
Only one chance. She could only use this trick once and had to achieve victory right now, or else she would have to continue with the battle of attrition.
'He possesses the Ghost Law. Since it is a law focused entirely on support, it is unthinkable that he will get tired before me. I have to close the fight now!'
"Specter Law, Partial Specter."
Boom!
It happened in an instant. The spiked mace that should have been without force crashed into Wei Yaling's head. The young woman took the full blow and became disoriented as she struggled to focus. Unfortunately for her, however, another spiked strike came soon after and broke her defensive layer of spirit power, sending her flying again.
"The winner is Hide." proclaimed Song Yazhu, who called the support martial artists to assist Wei Yaling.
Hide raised his head in triumph and put his morning star back in his space ring as he let out a sigh of weariness.
Partial Specter.
As the name suggested, it was an advanced technique that allowed only a specific part of the body to be made incorporeal while leaving the rest of the body tangible. Using this technique, he made the area affected by the smoke spikes immaterial while leaving his arm intact. In doing so, his morning star didn’t lose strength and struck Wei Yaling with full force. However, because it was an advanced technique, and the normal specter state was difficult to maintain for long periods, Hide felt tired.
On the other hand, however, he had obtained the victory, not losing face towards his other comrades who had all won.
"Closing the first day of the tournament will be Lian, the second young promise from the Forgotten Ocean, and Tu Ling of the Tu Family." Song Yazhu then called the last two challengers for the first round of the tournament's main phase.