Sui Lin's paintbrush danced elegantly in the air, a circular character appearing from nowhere.

The golden painting sunk into the ground, encompassing Rai Linxi in its middle. The rocky surface rumbled. It had only taken a split second since Sui Lin's arrival but her technique has already drawn a large hole, part of the arena collapsing onto Rai Linxi.

"W-What?! How can it be happening?" Rai Linxi was using all of her energy to protect herself from the rocks falling into the hole around her.

Sui Lin's technique had trapped her underground, all the while remaining outside of her range of effect.

"There must have been a reason why you waited approximately one hundred steps away from Daoju Kai before using your Lost Guardian Vines. It seems I was right. Your range is large but only to this extent. As long as I remain further than a hundred steps your vines won't matter."

Sui Lin's cold voice shook Rai Linxi to the core, "She was able to deduce this much by only seeing it once?!"

But most of all, Rai Linxi was shaken by the fact that her divine sense had suddenly lost contact with Shinsoo Sinkers, the technique that was currently restraining Daoju Kai.

An almost inhuman roar resounded from above the hole in the arena.

"My Character Formation has cut your Shinsoo link with your technique. I advise you to forfeit, Rai Linxi, because Daoju Kai seems pissed, quite frankly."

Rai Linxi's heart was beating faster and faster with every second.

"You wench, these thorns really hurt... Wait until I-"

"I forfeit!!" Rai Linxi shouted so loudly that every spectator could hear her even without relying on their divine sense.

Sui Lin let out the mildest smile on her usually expressionless face. Her plan had worked.

"Now that it's only the two of us, I really want to know how strong the Beast really is. Too bad you're already injured but there's nothing to be done about that. Come at me, Daoju Kai."

On the sideline, the recovering Xiao Yue was red with anger. The veins on her temples seemed to be about to burst, to the point that Mei Yunei asked her if she needed treatment.

"That paintbrush-wielding wench... She could have used Rai Linxi's restraints on Daoju Kai to put an end to him but instead she just wants to fight him at full power. What if she loses?! That would mean an unnecessary loss for us."

"Heh," Mua Lin stepped into the conversation, "You don't have to worry, Devil Maiden. Sui Lin knows what she is doing. Daoju Kai is already too injured to beat her, what is wrong with wanting to have fun?"

Everybody knew that Daoju Kai was already on the verge of collapsing. There was virtually no chance of him beating Sui Lin but they were still in the middle of a team fight.

What bothered Xiao Yue wasn't only the slightest possibility of Sui Lin losing. Besides Daoju Kai, maybe only Shin Sumi as Bai Fulong had enough Shinsoo resources to take on multiple strong fighters. As strong as Sui Lin was, now that Rai Linxi had surrendered, the Cloud-Formation Pavilion was free to send another fighter.

"If my calculations are correct, their next fighter is Fu Xue... Sui Lin will need all the energy she has against her."

Next to Xiao Yue, Bai Fulong slowly nodded. Shin Sumi's eyes were fixated on the middle of the arena, but her mind only thought of Fu Xue.

Daoju Kai would soon be unable to continue. With him gone, all three Pavilions would have already used their strongest cards, their number one disciples. Xiao Yue, Jun Qian and the Beast.

Now only their trump cards remained. Depending on the situation and who they were up against, the Star-Sword Pavilion counted on Mua Lin or Bai Fulong. For the Cloud-Formation team, Fu Xue or Chu Erlong could both step up to the plate.

As for the Light-Breaker Pavilion, Shin Sumi didn't know enough about them yet to formulate a guess.

In the middle of the arena, Daoju Kai groaned. An ice spike has just barely missed his chest. Probing his own dantian with his divine sense, he knew he was about to launch his last attack.

His eyes were burning with all of his will to fight and yet, his fangs were peeking out of curled lips. Despite the situation and his clear disadvantage, Daoju Kai was smiling.

Unlike Tai Bu, Sui Lin didn't have the speed to match Daoju Kai, instead relying on her Character Formation immobilization techniques and her Ice Scythe for offense.

"My form is unbreachable. The Beast can't even approach me, this will be over soon" she thought.

Facing her, Daoju Kai was very calm. "Sui Lin... What a beautiful and perfectly fitting name."

A quick glance to the side informed him that the playtime was going to end soon. His companion from the Light-Breaker Pavilion was already warming up and the new fighter for the Cloud-Formation Pavilion was on their way to replace Rai Linxi.

"Iron Claw of the Beast!" Daoju Kai leaped forward. His hands glowed with a dark light in front of his body. Like a sheath around his fingers, his last drops of Shinsoo extended, pushing his claws to their limits as he propelled himself towards Sui Lin.

Raising an eyebrow, Sui Lin held her ice-coated paintbrush horizontally and let out a wave of ice spikes.

The Iron Claws tore through the ice like cloth, sending a myriad of multicolored shards flying in the air.

Instantly raising her level of seriousness, Sui Lin took a defensive stance and spat a drop of blood onto her weapon.

"My ice spikes did nothing?!" she was starting to wonder if she had badly underestimated Daoju Kai. "Cold Star Ice Wh-"

She was about to launch one of her strongest techniques, the one that had triumphed over Mua Lin, when Daoju Kai smiled and instantly sped up in mid-air.

"Wh-What?" the crowd was speechless, "Impossible?!"

Only the Light-Breaker Pavilion disciples had mixed feelings, "Daoju Kai has already reached this level...? He can use the Immobile Movement Dilatation?!"

By sending Shinsoo impulses through their muscles, Light-Breaker cultivators reached a level where their body surpassed the limits of what was normally possible. Even while in the third step of the Liquid Realm, his body was temporarily comparable to that of a fifth step Liquid Realm cultivator.

Daoju Kai was accelerating, ignoring the blood gushing out of his mouth. His resources were depleted, the glow on his fingers fading. Even his beastial appearence was slowly disappearing, claws and fangs revealing his normal features once more.

By using his Immobile Movement Dilatation, Daoju Kai had managed to get close to Sui Lin, to the point where her technique was forcibly interrupted before she had the chance to complete her incantation.

Even though it all happened in the blink of an eye, time seemed to slow down for Daoju Kai as he landed in front of Sui Lin. The latter's paintbrush separated the two.

Daoju Kai's limbs were shaking, drained as he was. Shocked by the fact that he managed to approach her while being in such a sorry state, Sui Lin didn't even react offensively. Instead she just stood there, firmly holding her weapon between them.

THUD

Daoju Kai smiled as his knees gave out. He fell to the ground but his eyes never left Sui Lin's.

"I wanted to see you from up close. Your eyes are... so clear."

Daoju Kai had spoken in a voice so low that only she could hear. She inhaled sharply, completely unable to react in any way.

The Beast lapsed into unconsciousness, his body finally at its limits.

Sui Lin remained silent, her expression completely closed off. She was thinking over and over, "what is that strange technique? I couldn't react at all, I'm lucky he didn't use it earlier in the fight..."

Had Xiao Yue been there listening to her thoughts, she would surely have laughed to the point of crying and rolling on the ground. A technique?! What technique? Wasn't that just passion?

Master Furnace's two disciples, Lei Shon and Kang Yumei quickly and discretely took care of Daoju Kai, escorting him out of the Underground Arena for treatment. His life wasn't in danger anymore but he needed to receive medical care as soon as possible. Any extended period of time could drastically impact his cultivation and talent, as well as impede his recovery.

Forcibly shaking her thoughts and heart flutters away, Sui Lin concentrated back to the arena in the middle of which she stood.

Fortunately, Daoju Kai had stopped her from using Cold Star Ice Whistle before she even started gathering the required energy. Had she used her sure-kill technique, she would have been almost as drained as he was at the end.

"It's not time to be idle yet. Without looking at her I can already tell from the Shinsoo fluctuations who is coming to greet me."

Sui Lin of course referred to the disciple sent by the Cloud-Formation Pavilion. Her strange little confrontation with Daoju Kai after she had made Rai Linxi forfeit seemed to have lasted a couple minutes in her heart but in reality it had been short enough so that Fu Xue was almost upon her.

"How are you doing, Ice Queen?" taunted a pretty girly voice.

"Stone Demoness, fancy meeting you here" answered Sui Lin, looking Fu Xue up and down.

From a single glance it was clear that Fu Xue was not in her element. Despite putting up the most confident face she could muster, Fu Xue was definitely stressed by the crowd of thousands gathered around and looking at her.

Even the most terrifying fighter could be shy out of the battlefield, and Fu Xue was definitely one of them. But as someone who had known her for a long time, Sui Lin knew that as soon as her Fu Clan Sword was out of its sheath, Fu Xue became a completely different person.

"Don't you think it's funny to confront each other like that?" Fu Xue pulled a strand of her hair to the side as a force of habit.

Sui Lin was glad to be able to chat for a bit. As long as she could recover even the slightest bit of Shinsoo, the conversation could continue.

"What do you mean?" Sui Lin raised an eyebrow.

Fu Xue slowly unwrapped the piece of cloth that held the large wooden sheath on her back, "Well for the many years I've known you, you were always better at sensing and controlling Shinsoo than I was. And you know I was always better with a weapon. And yet here we are, you from the weapon branch and me from the magical technique branch."

"Maybe we have both made up for what we lacked at the time..." Sui Lin replied.

"Yes..."

For an entire second, both girls were looking straight at each other, neither moving nor speaking. Had the large crowd not been there, surely one could have heard an insect fly during this one second.

BANG!

Both girls had attacked at the same time, the Breaking Fu Sword annihilating Sui Lin's ice shards. The ice covered paintbrush finally stopped the stone sword's momentum in a clash that sent strong vibrations in her arms.

Fu Xue's arms were covered in grey light pattern, making her muscles stronger than they were normally. Tightening her grip even further, Fu Xue suddenly let go of one hand.

The massive sword that looked like it belonged to a stone statue swiped at Sui Lin horizontally while Fu Xue's other hand condensed Shinsoo for her next attack.

"Cloud Arts: Cold Smoke!"

Fu Xue sent dozens of cloud snakes towards Sui Lin. Using all of her strength to parry the massive sword, even the most basic technique from the Cloud Arts tome could potentially change the outcome of their fight.

But Sui Lin was far from being on her last leg. Drawing a 'Cage' around Cold Smoke, she managed to restrain the attack before the cloud snakes even had the chance to approach her.

"Isn't your sword a bit heavy when you wield it in one hand?" she asked between two breaths, "Pillar!"

Sui Lin's second Character Formation instantly pressed down from above onto the massive sword. Suddenly the weapon seemed to Fu Xue like its weight had more than tripled, forcing her to let it drop to the ground in fear of having her arm broken under its weight.

The stone sword slammed the surface of the arena with a loud 'BANG', picking up a large cloud of dust.

"Canvas Domain: Ink Dimension!"

Completely unannounced, Sui Lin used the dust as a cover to unleash a pseudo-domain. The tip of her paintbrush had shed its ice and was moving frantically in her hand.

"Time is of the essence, I need to complete this quickly" she thought. Her Canvas Domain was far from being perfect and she knew that if Fu Xue managed to stop her before she could complete it, the backlash would be enough to take her out instantly.

Luckily for Sui Lin, Fu Xue was temporarily stuck, her weapon taken away and her last spiritual technique having been broken. Despite her talent she couldn't produce another attack in such a short time.

Before she even realized, Sui Lin's pseudo-domain was complete. When the dust finally dissipated, ethereal pictures had been drawn all around her.

From the inside, Sui Lin's domain looked like a large spherical painting. Golden Shinsoo symbols covered the scene, moving in a hypnotizing manner. The air was the canvas, and on it could be seen a tree next to a river where fish occasionally leaped. Clouds in the sky overlooked a small mortal village in the distance.

Without taking into consideration the fact that this was a very dangerous technique, Fu Xue still found the picture so beautiful that she was almost moved to tears.

Detaching her eyes from the sphere inside of which she found herself, Fu Xue had to use all of her power to gather Shinsoo as her instinct told her she had no choice but to block what was coming next.

"Canvas Domain, Star Sword Canon second form: Piercing Heavens!"

Fu Xue felt the change in the Shinsoo from Sui Lin's technique before she heard the incantation she uttered out loud. Her eyes suddenly opened wide and her hands pressed the ground, both palms infusing the rocks with her own Shinsoo.

Piercing Heavens was a technique that was both precise and fast. Using a blast of concentrated Shinsoo, one could use it to accelerate a weapon in a straight line, forcing a piercing motion from almost any position and speed.

As hard as it was to use, once a disciple from the Star-Sword Pavilion knew how to perform the technique, its form almost never changed. But by combining the deadly finisher from the Star-Sword Canon to her own Canvas Domain, Sui Lin had found the inspiration for an even deadlier combo.

Watching the fight intensely, Master Sword found himself gripping the arms of his seat with clenched hands. A ravenous smile tore his lips open as he praised his Pavilion's number two disciple internally.

"Master Sword, did you teach your disciples to combine techniques this way yourself?" enquired Master Breaker who had rarely seen his fellow Pavilion master this excited before.

"No I certainly did not. This girl is a rarely seen genius. Really it is a shame for her that this generation has produced so many outstanding disciples. Had Xiao Yue not been from the same generation, surely I would have picked her as my direct disciple. Or maybe..."

Master Sword stopped his last sentence before he said too much.

"Really what a surprising generation."

Master Breaker nodded, completely in agreement with his point of view. He wondered what his fellow master had meant, maybe meaning that there was another peerless genius amongst the ranks of his disciples. Everything would become clear during the last issue of the fight anyway.

The Star-Sword Pavilion was currently in the lead, still having three disciples on the sideline. Then the Cloud-Formation Pavilion was second and finally came the Light-Breaker Pavilion by a very short margin. Both had only two disciples left but the Light-Breaker's fifth contestant had almost joined the fight.

While the Pavilion Masters were calmly chatting among themselves, in the center of the Arena, Fu Xue was trapped inside Sui Lin's painting.

She had reacted as soon as she understood the danger of her position. Sending her Shinsoo into the ground, Fu Xue quickly set up a small but powerful formation. The ground glowed faintly in a pattern that was heavily distorted when pieces of the arena itself detached from one another.

In the briefest of time, the various rock chunks seemed attracted to Fu Xue like nails to a magnet.

Sui Lin's multiple Piercing Heavens were tearing her painting appart, turning an ethereal ink fish, part of a tree, even pieces of ink clouds, into lethal weapons as the painting itself accelerated in dangerous spikes.

The many ink weapons formed this way slammed into Fu Xue in the middle, incapable of evading from inside the pseudo domain.

Her only option was to parry.

Piercing Heavens was so fast that for a moment the inside of the sphere wasn't visible from the outside at all. Dust rose around as pieces of rock flew in all directions.

"Your painting skills have become beautiful and deadly at the same time," Fu Xue slowly said. The upper part of her body was covered by rocks, from her head to the middle of her dress. In the parts where Piercing Heavens had hit, some armor had fallen off or had been destroyed, leaving large bruises apparent on the girl's skin.

Sui Lin's eyes opened wide. Fu Xue really had surprised her too. In the time it takes to activate her modified Piercing Heavens, she had managed to completely protect herself by turning into a stone golem.

Fu Xue was about to retaliate and start attacking Sui Lin again when a strange sensation entered the divine sense she had poured into her stone armor.

"Heavy punch! Break!!"

The next instant, Fu Xue was pushed a few meters forward, her back suddenly feeling like she was hit by a hammer. On the other hand of the first that had struck her, a girl taller than her by at least two heads was standing in a fighting stance.

"Xing Jing always delivers!!! And the crowd goes wiiiild!"