90 The demons smile. (1/2)
Seeing the calm smile on Li Yang's face and feeling the shiver that ran down her spine, Yuan Yijun instantly grew furious. Just how long had she been one of the top five outer disciples? How could she possibly feel fear when facing Li Yang, how could she possibly allow him to humiliate her like this? Even if she ignored him viciously beating her favorite lover, she had to at least stand tall and show the pride a person of her status should have. She stood up and straightened her back, her eyes narrowing slightly.
”Don't think that just because you countered my soul cultivation that you have the right to look down on me. Like I said earlier, let me show you the might required to be one of the top five outer disciples!”
Yuan Yijun stretched out her arms as she spoke, the robes that covered her arms and legs suddenly bursting and revealing her fair limbs. But right now the veins on her arms and legs were protruding and wriggling like worms, the sound of blood rushing through them clearly audible in the arena. Mixed with the sound of blood rushing was the sound of bones creaking and scraping against each other, Yuan Yijun's face turning deep red in color, a few veins in her eyes popping and turning her eyes crimson.
Li Yang's eyes narrowed faintly when he saw her current state. She had clearly activated some sort of strengthening technique, but Li Yang had no idea what type of strengthening technique it was, nor did he know the exact strength of the technique. He wasn't surprised that she had a strengthening technique, as one of the top five outer disciples, she clearly had one or two tricks up her sleeve.
He was good at improvising and acting on the spot, but he disliked it when unexpected things or things he didn't understand happened, they would often cause the situation to leave his control so they made him uneasy. And because of that, Li Yang decided that the best course of action right now was to beat down Yuan Yijun before any more unknown things appeared.
Li Yang took a step forward and turned into a blur, the sound of muffled thunder rumbling over the stage as he dashed towards Yuan Yijun like a furious bolt of lightning. While he dashed, tall walls of ice rose up from the ground around Yuan Yijun, blocking all sides except the one that Li Yang came from.
Yuan Yijun completely ignored the walls of ice, her eyes fully focused on the approaching Li Yang. She suddenly punched out with her fist, the attack so fast that her arm nearly vanished from sight. Her attack seemed like it would just strike empty air, but just as the audience thought her attack was a fluke, Li Yang arrived in front of the fist.
Both of them moved so fast that they appeared as little more than blurs, but both were still able to keep track of the other one. Yuan Yijun knew that if Li Yang wanted to finish his dash, he had to pass by the place where her punch was headed, so she perfectly calculated the timing needed for the dashing Li Yang to reach the spot where she was punching, forcing him to meet her attack head-on.
But just as she thought her fist was going to make contact with Li Yang, he suddenly vanished. He didn't dodge or dash away, he simply vanished, completely dumbfounding her. But Yuan Yijun didn't let her shock stun her, moving into action immediately. The moment Li Yang vanished, while her arm was still in its punching motion, she used her law of motion to kick her own legs out from underneath her, resulting in her falling face first towards the ground.
She opened her punching fist and dug her fingers into the stage, supporting her body and preventing her from falling onto the stage. As she did this, Li Yang popped out from the wall of ice he had set up behind her, now wearing an icy blue robe. He aimed a punch at her spine, but as Yuan Yijun had thrown herself towards the ground the moment he vanished, his punch ended up passing over her.
Using the hand dug into the stage to support her body and with her law of motion as support, Yuan Yijun did half a front flip that raised her lower body and aimed an upward kick at Li Yang, her heel smashing into Li Yang's solar plexus. Her Qi and law of motion flooded into his body, two of Li Yang's ribs twisting and shattering themselves before he was able to force her Qi out of his body. When her kick connected, Yuan Yijun's lips curled into a slight smirk.
”Did you think that I hadn't gathered any information about you? I already know that you used a similar technique on the mission you took with Xiang Wuying, dodging using the surrounding flame. I guessed that since you were able to do that with fire, you would likely be able to do the same using ice.”
Her words weren't wrong, but what she didn't know was that Li Yang had only recently become able to turn his entire body into cold and use surrounding ice to rebuild it. Her words weren't meant as a sign of arrogance, they were meant to sow unease and worry in the mind of Li Yang, causing him to constantly question which of his techniques she might already know about.
When faced with normal cultivators, her tactic might prove to be somewhat useful. But when had Li Yang ever been normal? He completely ignored her words and the pain coming from his shattered ribs, grabbing onto Yuan Yijun's leg and pushing it away from him, forcing her to take half a backflip and return to a horizontal position, with only her one arm supporting her body.
Li Yang then did half a frontflip, leaning down so far that his forehead smashed into the back of Yuan Yijun's head, fire and lightning scorching her hair and scalp, horribly cold ice flooding into her mind as he gave her a mighty headbutt. Jinwu's eyes could freeze immaterial things, so even the enemy's mind and thoughts could be frozen if Li Yang was strong enough.
The attack didn't come without a price though, as any contact with Yuan Yijun would allow her to flood Li Yang with her law of motion. The short moment he had grabbed onto her leg was enough for Yuan Yijun to break three of the fingers on his left hand.
The force of the attack smashed Yuan Yijun into the ground, her forehead crashing into the stage and cracking it. Right now Yuan Yijun was using one of the aspects of her law of motion, the speed of motion, to drastically increase all her abilities, even the speed at which her thoughts moved. This allowed her to easily keep up with the speed Li Yang could reach thanks to his law of lightning.
But even with that, Yuan Yijun now felt her thoughts slow down, a glacial feeling flooding her mind and even drowning out the pain she felt from having her head crash into the stone stage. She quickly flooded her own mind with Qi, forcing out the glacial feeling and allowing her mind to return to its forcibly heightened state.
Once her mind was no longer slowed down, she noticed that Li Yang had already changed his position, having front flipped over her during the short moment her thoughts were slowed down. He was standing in front of her with his back turned to her, so he had clearly just landed from the frontflip. He gave a quick spin of his body, raising his left leg as high as he could, bringing it down mid-spin, aiming to stomp Yuan Yijun's head into the stage.
Yuan Yijun swiftly reacted by activating her law of motion and causing her body to slide backward, causing the stomp to shatter the stage in the spot where her head had just been, fire, ice, and lightning mixing together to create a deep hole. She was confident she would be able to survive if that attack hit her, but it would instantly render her unable to continue battling.