Jianmen swung his guandao from lower right to upper left, then swiped right after the Grand Defiler dodged the first attack in an attempt to strike his opponent with the back of the blade. The forceful swipe struck the Grand Defiler on his right shoulder, pushing him towards the right side of Jianmen, and before the Grand Defiler could react, Jianmen’s right foot landed on his chest.

“Boom!” The Grand Defiler was sent flying through the room and his back banged on the wall behind him. Yet there was still a smile on his face, and he instantly got up from the ground.

“You are good. But it takes much more to actually fell me.” The Grand Defiler adjusted his clothes like a human and said: “And I must admit - I am no expert in close quarter physical combat, but you are good. Really good. I don’t think any of the gods I encountered before would be able to do what you just did. Why not try lifting your restriction here, come at me with greater power? Or, even with power from your godhood?”

Jianmen shook his head with a smile: “Too bad, I can’t just change it whenever I want to - as you can see my abilities are limited here as well.”

“Oh, is that so? I thought you would, like the other gods, make things here more advantageous for you. After all, that’s what gods do, is it not?” The Grand Defiler made another fighting pose and said.

“Hmm, sadly I am not the type.” Jianmen took a deep breath and pointed his guandao at the Grand Defiler: “And - a word of advice, I actually left the humans in that world something to handle your children. So, stall if you’d like, I wouldn’t mind if they manage to close the tear without me.”

“Oh, I don’t think I would mind that.” The Grand Defiler chuckled: “I’ll just open it up again.”

“Yeah, but how do you even do that, if you can’t even get out of here?” Jianmen shook his head: “As you said, I’m very good.”

“I guess that depends on you then - don’t you want to finish this fight earlier?” The Grand Defiler’s voice was nothing but calm, but it was somehow quite hypnotizing and seductive at the same time: “To put yourself in this kind of almost absolute isolation, you must have an anchor if you want to go back at all. What happens if your anchor is destroyed? Killed? Loses its power?”

“Then I’ll be stuck here with you then. ” Jianmen laughed out loud and said: “Doesn’t sound too bad to be stuck here with the greatest evil in the universe, does it? ”

“Evil? What are you, a child?” The Grand Defiler walked slightly to his right, and Jianmen walked slightly right as well to make sure they were still face to face and had the same distance between them: “We’re not evil, we’re so much beyond the mere petty concept of good versus evil. But if you have to look at it through that lens, we might even be the good guys.”

“How’s so? Everywhere you go, there’s destruction, there’s death, there’s corruption.” Jianmen looked at the Grand Defiler with an earnest look on his face.

The Grand Defiler stayed silent for a brief moment, then he laughed out loud, almost losing his composure and compromising his stance.

“You’re good. I must commend you for that.” The Grand Defiler grew a long beard on his jaw and started stroking it, while nodding at Jianmen like a proud elder/mentor: “But no, I won’t tell you a single thing about how we move and how we choose our targets.”

“Too bad. Well, we’ve still got time.” Jianmen shrugged and retrieved his guandao: “And, uh, just to let you know - if my anchor dies, this place will be shut off completely, with or without me. Even I won’t be able to change anything then. So, should that happen, you better hope you turned your stove off before you left.”

“Fond of being a martyr, huh?”

“No one except for my anchor will remember me if I die here, so no.” Jianmen let out a bright smile: “What can I tell you? I’m just a jerk.”

This time it was the Grand Defiler that launched the first attack, a dark, long and slightly curved sword whose edge glowed in dim purple light appeared in his hand. And this forced Jianmen to raise the shaft of his guandao over his head to prevent his head from being sliced up in half.

“Ting!” A sound of metal clashing together exploded when the edge of the long sword made contact with Jianmen’s guandao shaft. Jianmen was pushed down for a bit, but then he roared and pushed his guandao upward. The Grand Defiler was thrown in the air, and before he landed on the air, Jianmen turned his guandao around and jabbed the blade into the Grand Defiler’s abdomen.

Thick, liquid glowing in dim green dripped from the Grand Defiler’s wound and onto the brick ground. The droplets of the liquid quickly turned into light gray smoke shortly after they landed onto the ground.

Jianmen kicked the Grand Defiler’s leg and backed off from his previous position, without a moment of hesitation he got into a fighting pose once again: “What, I thought your blood’s gonna be toxic or poisonous? Turns out it’s just thick and - and green.”

The Grand Defiler did not say anything, and all hints of human-like emotions were wiped from his face. With the long and curved dark sword with purple edge in his hand, he lunged at Jianmen.