The battle against the opposition leader had finally begun.

At first, Ghu Nadda’s corpse puppets rushed in from the sides, attempting to attack Aque Li whilst he was focussed on Yaan. Somehow though, harpoons shot out from the wave, penetrating two of the corpse puppets and even completely destroying one of them! Yaan only saw Ghu Nadda’s shocked expression as he hastily pulled back, before Yaan was forced to confront this intense attack himself.

Whoosh…

Yaan did not meet force with force. Instead, he actually stopped moving for a moment, closing his eyes as he was seemingly encompassed, totally overcome by the pounding weight of the fast moving water. Many people who saw this swallowed, thinking that he had definitely been crushed to death. Truthfully, this very nearly was the case.

He was nearly crushed to death, yet also, the situation was entirely within Yaan’s control. By using his adapted variation of Flowing River Blade, he seemed to pierce forth with his sword and body as one force of water. By making use of his mastered 3rd stage of this art, he was even able to part a small portion of the oncoming tsunami, allowing Yaan to slip through into the other side.

Using merely this art would not have been enough, as the power of this wave was simply too much. On top of using Flowing River Blade, Yaan fused in his 3rd stage mastery of Synchronised Pierce. With the 3rd stage of this sword art, he was able to overlap nine separate, full power strikes, all into a single strike!

Nobody was able to see Yaan do this, as he was currently surrounded by violent waves crashing down on him from all directions. Flowing River Blade was the perfect counter to swiftly drift through water based spells, but the power was too immense, this art alone was far from enough. With Yaan’s two chained sword arts however, he was able to break open the wave, revealing a small hole through which he could make out Aque Li’s shocked expression.

But it still wasn’t enough! As the wave rapidly began closing itself up and the pressure bore down on Yaan yet again, he did something without even thinking…a third chained sword art!

Cutting Typhoon!

As Yaan began to display one of his most difficult and powerful sword arts as part of a shocking chain, Aque Li’s expression changed, becoming serious…this was because he finally recognised this person! Well, he didn’t recognise Yaan, nor had they ever even met before, but this move was the same move used by the ‘crimson robed child’. This sword art move was used by Yaan to dominate the bloody arena, but also to slay a Qi Temple realm monster when he himself was supposedly at the True Yuan Qi realm!

Though, many people had their doubts about Yaan’s true cultivation level, since it was just too strange.

“Pentagonal formation!” Aque Li suddenly roared out loud as a gust of wind swept around Yaan’s body. The surface of Aque Li’s own spell, the water from his wave was also swept up with the wind, pushed in closer towards Yaan.

Just as he was forced to deal with this, seemingly from nowhere, another 4 characters appeared, now totally surrounding Yaan!

‘Qi Temple realm, and they’re all strong Qi Temple realm Qi masters! And they must all be from the Aque Clan…they sure hid themselves well!’

Yaan gasped internally and swallowed. He had been keeping track of every Qi Temple realm Qi master within his immediate vicinity since the start of the battle. He had indeed seen these four, only, he had overlooked them since they simply looked too ordinary! They all wore plain black masks to hide their faces, but that was only normal. What wasn’t normal was that these masks were like Yaan’s hat, only nowhere near as effective. At most, they could distort a Qi Temple realm Qi master’s aura down by a single sub-realm…

Meaning that all of these assailants were at the 1st Layer Qi Temple realm, whereas he previously believed them to be at the True Yuan Qi realm!

That in itself wasn’t too much for Yaan to handle. The issue was that there were actually four of them, not to mention Aque Li, the 5th layer powerhouse leading the enemy’s side!

“Ghu Lin…we need to assist Yaan…!” Nadda turned to Ghu Lin and spoke with some worry and urgency in his tone.

“Not just yet…” Ghu Lin shook his head calmly and slowly. “Look ahead…even now, he is improving in the midst of battle. That sword art of his is Cutting Typhoon, right?”

“Right…” Nadda nodded slowly, keeping an eye on Yaan. Despite what Ghu Lin said, as the two of them continued to battle and talk quickly, Nadda sent out another 4 corpse puppets towards Yaan, one for each of the additional assailants.

Ghu Lin threw him a glance. In the end, Nadda sighed, deciding not to attack…he did, however, use his corpse puppets to place pressure on the Aque Clan members attacking Yaan, which in turn allowed the pressure felt by Yaan to slightly reduce. His opponents were now warily keeping an eye on the slowly approaching corpses behind them.

Of course, nothing in war was stable and guaranteed. As Ghu Nadda’s corpse puppets were sent out, a group led by another 2nd Layer Qi Temple realm Qi master rushed across, placing pressure on the corpses and thereby increasing the pressure felt by Yaan. Oddly, a small army of surviving True Yuan Qi realm participants followed behind him.

In this shockingly dangerous situation, the only hope for the weak was to latch onto the strong. That was why the two sides had formed in the first place, with not a single person daring to hide and avoid the blood frenzy. Unfortunately for the weak, they quickly realised that the stronger Qi masters had no intention of protecting them…they were simply used as fodder, as pawns and bait!

So, when this 2nd layer young gentleman with an elegant demeanour and a perfectly groomed curled moustache went around gathering every stray and lost True Yuan Qi realm Qi master remaining alive, they all felt like this was a blessing sent down from god. They latched onto this powerhouse, following his every command for fear that they might irritate him and get booted from the group.

However, this man would never abandon them.

In a battle like this, a person’s true nature would always shine through. When your life was on the line, when others around you were also at risk, how would you react? There was a minority of people who were able to carefully think through and consider the situation rationally; they became the leaders. The majority however, were driven by emotion; be it greed, fear, ruthlessness, or on occasion…righteousness.

The man leading the weaker Qi masters was the last of these. It seemed that he was not trying to kill in order to gain rewards…of course, he wouldn’t turn down a reward should it land in his palm.

The moustached man was a true righteous Qi master, one who cared for those weaker than himself, yet was also willing to do whatever it took to help himself and his allies to survive!

Yaan didn’t know any of this, but he would definitely be shocked if he had witnessed this man’s actions from the start of the trial until now. Yaan had met many a ‘righteous’ Qi master, but in his experience, they were just a hypocritical bunch. Rather than being ‘good’, it was more like they were just ‘law abiding’.

Despite all of this, to Yaan right now, this man and his horde of soldiers were enemies. He didn’t know anything about this person, his life, his personality and experiences. He didn’t know that he held kindness and mercy in his heart.

To Yaan, he was just another enemy. It wasn’t just Yaan who saw things this way…in war, there was no right or wrong, good or bad, only victory and defeat. And in this situation, defeat most definitely meant death.

And right now, Yaan was completely surrounded on all sides. There were powerhouses in his immediate range, and hordes of weaker Qi masters just beyond them…

Just as Yaan was considering cancelling Cutting Typhoon, his eyes widened as a swarm of living corpses stormed through the crowd, leaving a trail of dismembered corpses in their wake. They reached the approaching small army lead by the moustached man just after that small unit arrived at the corpses that were still placing pressure on Yaan’s assailants. As soon as the corpse army arrived, they began massacring their way through the horde of weaker Qi masters, causing the moustached gentleman's expression to contort in helplessness as he stared on unwillingly.

Yaan couldn’t help but smile despite himself. He hadn’t expected that Nadda would do something like that, dropping all else to protect him…for Nadda to have acted so quickly, he must have been watching Yaan carefully throughout the battle. No matter his reasons for doing this, Yaan felt a brief sense of warmth encompass his heart.

All of this took a long period of time to describe, but each of these events happened almost simultaneously, lasting just a few seconds in total.

Now that Yaan could relax and allow Nadda to watch his back, he ramped up the power of Cutting Typhoon further and further. The four assailants were taken aback, they had not expected that their target to still be withholding his power…it seemed like he was yet to go all out!

They had assumed this would be an easy kill, and that they were only going all out because this person was clearly a body temperer. Well, this was clear to Aque Li, who silently informed the other Aque Clansmen using an unknown method.

It should be remembered that Yaan was still using his chained sword arts to cut through the water, and to blend himself into the wave, whilst pushing outwards the water to his sides. His blade that had executed multiple sword arts forced a hole to remain open in the wave which had now almost entirely sealed over, until he did something shocking.

This spell of Aque Li’s was powerful, way too powerful! He had merely used this one spell in conjunction with his staff, yet it pushed Yaan into such a pitiful position.

Under the strain of forcing his sword arts to suddenly expand, Yaan’s body burned. He wasn’t thinking about anything, other than tearing apart this wave, turning it into his own typhoon!

And at this crucial moment, just as the typhoon was reaching its peak, Yaan let out a beastial roar that temporarily startled those around him.

His eyes became bloodshot and he madly stabbed forwards, activating Synchronised Pierce again to keep open that small hole. He then stepped further into the wave using the Flowing River Blade Art, creating a giant hole almost two feet in width. Yaan could see Aque Li’s stunned face, whilst the assailants around him finally realised that the situation was dire. They all charged forth, activating their own treasures and spells to attack Yaan, hopefully before his sword penetrated Aque Li’s forehead!

But their worry was for nothing. As if by an illusion, the staff in Aque Li’s hand became a trident; this was not a transformation, he merely switched his weapon that fast!

The wave suddenly spread out into a circle around Yaan, enclosing within Yaan and the five Aque Clansmen.

One clansman threw out a single pearl, which exploded in Yaan’s face. The next rose her hands to the sky and chanted a few words, before dropping down her hands and causing a black cloud to form, which immediately collapsed into a pillar of jet water. The third member was the strangest, his body actually transformed into a giant, standing at 12 feet tall! He wielded no weapon, but his body was soaking wet and dripping to the ground. As his form stabilised, he punched down at Yaan. The fourth of the group pushed both of his hands forwards, showing off 8 rings; one on each finger. Each of the rings shone, creating 8 runes that shot towards Yaan, then fused just before reaching him. The fused rune collapsed, forming a single droplet of sparkling water, which also silently dropped on Yaan’s forehead.

BANG BOOM CLANG SWOOOSH BADANG!

All of the attacks landed simultaneously, some deflected by the Cutting Typhoon, others only partially deflected, and others still passing directly through and landing on Yaan directly. Surprising, that single drop of water was the worst…after it enter his forehead, he felt it storm into his brain, then his blood stream, where it ran rampant and began devouring his blood! Were he a Qi master, this attack would be fatal within seconds. Even for Yaan, it was seriously uncomfortable.

However, two of the attacks he completely blocked, causing their casters to suffer severe backlash. The attack he partially blocked, the pillar of water that descended from the cloud, caused the girl who cast it to stumble back and become pale faced, looking at Yaan fearfully. As for that strange attack formed by the 8 rings…since Yaan failed to block it, the caster suffered no backlash. As the blank faced man was about to attack again, he stopped, staring at Aque Li silently. Without a word, he and the partially injured girl surrounded Aque Li.

Following all of these attacks which were cast simultaneously, Aque Li suddenly raised his trident above his head and shouted:

“Goddess of the seas, please grant this little one a portion of your power!”

As he began the chant, all of the Aque Clan members emerged from the woodworks, surrounding Aque Li seriously with a deep killing intent emanating from their eyes. With this encirclement, stood Aque Li…and Yaan.

The entire Ghu Clan, following a nod from Ghu Lin, rushed across, surrounding the circle of Aque Clansmen. They all felt wary, unsure what exactly was going on.

After Aque Li spoke, a black cloud appeared that any other spell on the battle field by a hundred times, it must have been half a mile in length! From the cloud, a serpent of water and lightning swam in and out ominously. Yaan’s heart skipped a beat, worried that the serpent was going to attack him! In that case, he would without a doubt die!

However, the snake suddenly vanished into the cloud. The giant cloud was rapidly absorbed into the snake, and then, when the snake was revealed…everyone on the battlefield stopped. Even Ghu Lin stared up with wide, shocked eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“Goddess of the Seas spell! Oh my god, Aque Li has actually mastered the Goddess of the Seas spell!”

A woman had taken the snake’s place. She was ethereal in appearance and standing far above the rest in the sky, emitted a bright blue-white light, giving her a serenity that made people want to simply stay nearby to her.

When people realised that they were within a palace trial and that there previously was no sky, they began trembling with fear. Some weaker Qi masters even started losing their minds, wandering forwards towards the woman with a dumb dreamy gaze. When their friends grabbed them and snapped them out of it, they all felt horrified, now not daring to look directly at the woman.

The woman glanced down indifferently at Aque Li, who was now wearing an extremely respectful expression. He was already on his knees and had his hands clasped, lowering his head and awaiting her judgement.

“What is your offering?” She spoke calmly and plainly. Aque Li didn’t look surprised. He silently but quickly took out a blue stone from his spatial ring, holding it up to the woman in both hands whilst lowering his head.

Everyone stared at this scene in utter bewilderment. Firstly, what the hell was going on?! Secondly…why had the entire battle stopped…?

No, they all knew why, as if by instinct. It was because they didn’t dare to risk displeasing the woman, and it felt rude to continue battling in her presence. Even without the Aque Clansmen’s human shield wall, nobody would dare to attack, not until the woman had left.