Liang Chen frowned somewhat when the air grew heavy, his feet quietly sinking into the earth. He really had no need to fight this girl, Li Zhao Xu, and he certainly wasn't interested in fighting her just because she wanted to understand why her father was what seemed to be a battle junkie.
"Yeah, no. I don't have the patien...!"
Liang Chen's words were cut off before he could finish them, his feet suddenly losing contact with the ground. He was pulled directly towards Zhao Xu so it seemed like she had altered the flow of gravity in a way that would make her the centre of it all. But Tian Shenju wasn't pulled in along with him so it seemed like she had a decent level of control over her law.
"I said that it's irrelevant whether you want to or not. You will fight, you will hunt!"
Li Zhao Xu's left hand shot forward as she practically roared the words, the light in her eyes blazing with that strange mixture of hope and desperation. To not understand your parents and their joys, Liang Chen had lost his parents before he could ever think about feeling something like that so he had no idea how great this girl's drive was, perhaps he never would.
Liang Chen brought his arm down and his spear appeared in his grasp, smashing down on Zhao Xu's incoming hand. She twisted her arm slightly in response, making it move in an almost serpentine manner so that the spearhead wouldn't hit her elbow. The shaft still hit her hand, but she flipped her hand at the same moment, reversing gravity to lessen the impact and allowing her to grasp the weapon.
Liang Chen's brows sank slightly as she neutralized his response, but it wasn't because she grabbed his weapon, it was because of the rebounding force he sensed. She was tough, extremely tough. It felt like he had hit a boulder out of steel, the vibrations returning to him through the spear making his hand tingle.
"A bit painful, isn't it? Father always put great emphasis on body cultivation, having a weak body that breaks down due to love isn't a good thing he said. Now then, let's check yours!"
Zhao Xu pulled on the spear with all her might as she spoke, the gravity centred around her still tugging on Liang Chen to draw him in. But Liang Chen just let go of the spear, a burst of lightning erupting from his body as he broke through the gravity shackles and darted to the side. The head of a large glaive passed through the air just as he dodged to the side, a barely noticeable gleam of energy sliding off of the glaive's edge and passing through the air to slice a small gash into Liang Chen's waist.
Tian Shenju's feet carved a small ditch into the ground as he halted his momentum, his expression somewhat dim after his ambush had failed. The head of the glaive melted and sank into the pole, returning it to the staff form that Liang Chen had seen when he first arrived here. But he didn't let the failure stop him, slamming the bottom of the staff into the ground the moment the glaive's head melted away.
The earth erupted the moment the staff made contact with it, hundreds of metal glaives rising around Liang Chen and Zhao Xu. Each one glinted with the same barely noticeable gleam, a faint whistling sound breezing through the area as the buildings and land that remained were cut to ribbons.
Zhao Xu snorted once, the air around her turning so cold that mist arose as a myriad of rectangular glacial shields appeared around her to block the glaives and sharp energy. She kicked off the ground and launched herself at Tian Shenju, using brute force to break through the glaives between the two of them so that she could reach him.
Her arm swung out, her fist smashing into the pole that Tian Shenju hurriedly used to block. His expression didn't show any surprise as his feet left the ground so he was probably already very familiar with the sheer physical prowess of this girl. He was launched away, or perhaps he allowed himself to fly away so that he could put some distance between him and her.
But he hadn't forgotten his other opponent, the scourge that now haunted these lands. His back prickled and his hair stood on end, he didn't even need to look back to know what was coming. The air behind his back thickened and changed, morphing into a gnarled mess of wood and bark. The lightning that bombarded him was mostly halted by the wooden shield, his eyes sliding to the side just in time to see Liang Chen passing by him, wreathed in destructive lightning.
Tian Shenju's arm shot to the side, his skin turning dark and hard, cracking open until it resembled bark as his fist headed for the side of Liang Chen's skull. Liang Chen's gaze shifted sideways for a second, a powerful gust of wind rising from beneath him and pushing Tian Shenju's arm upwards.
He took this chance to lash out with his own arm, smashing his fist into Tian Shenju's waist. But the change that appeared on his arm seemed to have covered the rest of his body as well, he felt like he was trying to punch a tree. His lightning also had a hard time moving through the layer of bark so it showed minimal effect. Tian Shenju was still pushed aside, but it would be a lie to say that he suffered any damage.
It was only a minor intermission in his charge, a stop so small that it was barely worth mentioning. But that was enough time for Zhao Xu, her feet had kicked off the earth and she had arrived in front of Liang Chen, rather than he in front of her. She used this initiative to smash down the spear that she had taken from Liang Chen, the weapon heading for Liang Chen while the glacial shields turned into spears that shot for Tian Shenju.
Liang Chen frowned and raised his arms to block, crossing them in front of the spear. The weapon smashed into his arms, immediately melting and returning to him, it was partly formed from his blood after all. But the power behind the attack still remained, smashing Liang Chen downwards until he crashed into the ground. He broke several of the earlier glaives in his fall, a few of the fragments that still held the sharp gleam from earlier piercing into him.
A cloud of dust obscured his vision, but his control over the wind still allowed him to see that Zhao Xu was descending towards him like a falling star, her outstretched foot aiming for his head. He took a step back, his spear once again appearing in his grasp as he slashed upwards, the wind gathering around his weapon.
Zhao Xu's gravity seemed to pull her towards him, but the whirling wind around Liang Chen's weapon now also drew her towards it, countering most of the pull offered by the gravity. She broke through the dust and hurriedly twisted her body so that her foot wouldn't smash into the spearhead. She also leaned back so that the sharp wind that gathered around the weapon didn't slash open her torso as the weapon passed by her.
She did half a backflip so she landed somewhat awkwardly, she was practically horizontal as she descended towards the ground face first. But it didn't seem to bother her in the slightest, she just pushed out her hands and caught herself, transferring the momentum of the fall into a spin by twisting her arms. She looked as if she was trying to breakdance as she spun there, but it was a motion that allowed her legs to sweep towards Liang Chen's feet so it clearly wasn't just for show.
Liang Chen had felt just how tough her body was so he decided that trying to block her attack with his body would be far from optimal. He put a bit of strength into his legs and jumped into the air to dodge the attack, but Li Zhao Xu acted at the same time. A glacial shield appeared between her and the earth as she pushed off with her arms, giving them a slight twist at the same time.
She ended up hopping into the air while reversing the direction of her spin, the legs he had just jumped over coming back and colliding with Liang Chen's shins. There was no sound, but he could sense his bones cracking, the splinters digging through his flesh like maggots.
His legs were swept out underneath him, pushing him into a horizontal position while still hanging in the air. But he didn't let an awkward position or the pain of his broken legs stop him, the wind around him pushing him so that his horizontal position became a vertical one, his head pointing directly downwards.
The glacial shield beneath Zhao Xu shattered as a handful of metallic poles shot up from the earth, one of them breaking through her defence and smashing into her back. Liang Chen did not let go of this opportunity, gathering some wind to both heal his broken bones as well as form a foothold beneath his feet.
He placed strength into his legs, the air-based foothold creaking as he bent his knees. He unleashed the gathered strength, shooting downwards like a bolt of lightning as he pointed his spear at Zhao Xu's abdomen. She clicked her tongue and waved her hand, a thunderous explosion booming into existence between her and Liang Chen.
He was pushed back and aside and she was sent smashing down towards the ground. But she quickly corrected her position, catching herself with her hands and spinning around again as if she was trying to breakdance. The reason for it was quite simple, Tian Shenju had arrived by her landing point and was assaulting her with a furious barrage of attacks with his staff, a barrage she was forced to hastily block with her legs as she spun about.
But both of them quickly put force into their supporting limbs and jumped away, putting distance between each other just as a thick bolt of dim violet lightning crashed down where they had just been. Errant bolts crackled through the air as they stretched away from the main bolt, racing towards the two fleeing targets.
Li Zhao Xu clicked her tongue quietly, a barrier of ice rising in front of her. The top part instantly melted, seemingly under her control, the water catching the lightning and conducting it down the rest of the barrier and into the ground. Tian Shenju responded with a barrier of his own, another mass of gnarled branches rising from the ground as a tree was born in front of him.
The tree was bursting with lifeforce, more than any plant Liang Chen had ever seen, so it was probably not formed by a standard version of the law of wood. But even so, it couldn't protect Tian Shenju.
The lightning hit the tree and broke up, crackling through the air in an almost indignant manner. But a strange scene followed shortly after, the bark turned wrinkly and soft, the leaves quickly losing colour. The tree withered at a pace so rapid it was almost instant, the wood turning rotten and weak. It could no longer stop the crackling lightning, which gathered together again and shot towards Tian Shenju once more.
His expression darkened, his grasp on the metal rod tightening. He placed the rod in front of him to block the lightning, gritting his teeth and grunting in pain as a bit of the lightning raced through the metal and entered his body. But he stabbed the staff into the ground and let go of it before the rest of the lightning could reach him, using his weapon as a lightning rod.
"...I see. It doesn't matter that it holds enough lifeforce to counter even the law of death, all organic matter must eventually rot and fade. That's a good lesson."
Tian Shenju's expression was dim as he shook his hands, his bark-like skin a bit blackened thanks to the lightning. He didn't know what sort of laws Liang Chen used, but he had fought people using the law of death in the past, and none of them had managed to counter his law of wood like that, the lifeforce in it countered the law too much. As such, that left the law of rot, and that may certainly be able to circumvent the great lifeforce contained in the wood. After all, rot was different from death so the lifeforce had no need to fight against it.
"Yumao, Sheng Lian, you two can do as you please, just don't get killed. Shen Fei...Just don't get in the way."
Liang Chen didn't bother responding to Tian Shenju's guess, directing his attention towards his companions. There had barely been any time to squeeze out any words in the previous exchanges, it also happened so fast that it was a bit hard for the others to intervene when they were unprepared.
"Yeah, things really are different when you add one more predator to the mix. I at least can say that no one versus one has ever felt that close before. It seems like we're on the right track, so how about we kick things up a notch?"
The corners of Li Zhao Xu's lips had turned up slightly, but to Liang Chen, it looked more like something she did to convince herself than something that happened naturally. But whatever the truth was, the more important fact was that she hadn't been bluffing with her final question.
The aura radiating from her body quickly rose, her eyes turning sharp and tiger-like as a few tufts of golden fur became visible within the sleeves of her robe. Tian Shenju seemingly felt that he wouldn't be able to keep up if he didn't do the same, the aura radiating from him growing stronger in tune with Zhao Xu's.
But Zhao Xu's power grew stronger thanks to something within her, probably a bloodline. As for Tian Shenju, the increase in power came from an outside force, Liang Chen could feel energy descend from the sky and enter his body. If his guess was correct then Tian Shenju had probably just activated his Nine Wraths Lamentation. Both the opponents had unleashed one of their hidden cards to greatly magnify their strength, now things would become far more dangerous and difficult.
TFTC!