While he hadn’t really felt threatened during the course of the fight, Sage was suddenly caught off guard. With Foresight he knew what the old man was going to do with plenty of time to adapt his strategy in order to put on a good show without actually getting into any danger. Only this time, he was suddenly faced with a situation with no way out. Somehow no matter where he attempted to dodge, he only saw himself getting struck by the giant cricket’s attack. Sage pulled himself up from the ground and realized that he’d been thrown through two tree trunks before he had finally come to a stop, skidding near the edge of the Dueling Arena.

That was a close one. Was that old bastard holding back so I wouldn’t fall out of the ring?

Putting aside that worrying thought, Sage decided it was time to stop messing around. He’d been letting his opponent have the upper hand so the old man would underestimate him, but now it seems he’d underestimate the old man instead. He had almost made a fatal mistake, as it seemed that the Jinxi Patriarch had figured out a way to deal with his Soundshield. Since his defense wasn’t flawless anymore, it was time to use the best defense: offense.

Sage walked over to the closest fallen tree, the trunk of the monster tree had been snapped by the force of his body impacting it. The pain of that injury was all being filtered out by his Pain Demon technique, allowing him to keep a cool head. He placed one hand against the rough stump and used his other to fish out a healing pill. A moment later, hundreds of roots sprung out from the ground all around the Jinxi Patriarch. They started to weave together to form a lattice-like fence. Then the ends of the roots curled back down and extended towards the old man. At the same time, all of the undamaged trees that bordered the still intact portion of the stage suddenly sprouted flower buds.

The thick canopy of vibrant green leaves and soft pink gas began to fill with bright blue spots. With such large leaves, the round leaves were also large and so were the flower buds that formed. These buds rapidly changed colors, taking on a blue tone. At the same time, the temperature on the Dueling Arena dropped rapidly. The crowd suddenly felt a wave of cold sweep over them. The day had already turned to night and what had seemed like a warm summer night rapidly shifted into the icy chill of winter. They could all suddenly see their breath as clouds of mist and realized that the chill was not just emotional but physical.

Strangely enough, the sudden cold wave didn’t seem to have any effect upon the knee high grass that the Jinxi Patriarch was standing in. Frost swirling into the air around the old man, yet the grass still swayed easily back and forth, moving at a different pace than the frost did. Sage used this chance to show the crowd that the Jinxi Patriarch was using illusions by letting them see two completely different wind patterns. It wasn’t definitive, but at least some of them would notice.

To his credit, the Jinxi Patriarch noticed the discrepancy and quickly changed his illusion. Yet, he was too arrogant to show that the grass was getting covered in frost or becoming brittle. Instead, the grass merely started to glow with a soft yellow light. He would rather it look like this grass was completely under his control and impervious to the cold.

It continued to rapidly get colder as those blue flower buds grew larger and started to bloom. Then they finally reached their full size and the temperature in the area stopped dropping. Those flowers changed colors, darkening from a light blue at the start, then to a dark blue, and now they were all a deep purple. Those with knowledge of plants would also notice that the trees were banyans, which were supposed to only have small figs, and not flowers like this. Once those flowers finally bloomed they all recognized them as a Lotus. Isn’t the lotus a water flower, not the flower of a banyan tree? The purple lotuses spread wide and then half of the Sacred Banyans seemed to bend forward. Their large branches curled down and laid over the front of the fence that had been formed by roots.

Just as the branches moved into position, the giant cricket rubbed its wings together again and released another deafening chirp. The explosive sound wave crashed against the wall of tree boughs, blasting off many of the leaves before it hit against the wall of roots. Many of the leaves were blown off the trees, yet those purple lotuses were all intact. In fact the petals of those flowers had a metallic sheen to them.

After the attack struck those inordinately tough purple lotuses and then was filtered through the root fence it had lost much of its power. By the time it reached Sage, his Soundshield easily blocked it. The trees in the center maintained their defensive formation, while Sage used the Crown Cover technique to accelerate the growth of more leaves. Even if they didn’t do much against attacks, the leaves still did a very good job at obscuring the Jinxi Patriarch’s vision. The fence of roots created a semi-circle around the undamaged quarter of the stage to restrict the space that the old man could fight in. The closest trees looked like they’d bent over at the waist to reinforce the wall. The trees in the second row didn’t move so drastically, but their purple lotus blossoms started to change to a lighter color.

The Jinxi Patriarch was a powerful cultivator, so even the sub-zero temperature of the area he was in didn’t cause him much trouble. On the other hand, he was not liking how this challenger had boxed him in and had even started to hide from him. He had injured the branch head with his earlier attack, but it had also knocked him out of the range of his strongest Spirit Sense. After his mental attack failed earlier, he wasn’t foolish enough to weaken his Spirit Sense to expand its radius. The upstart had a defensive mental technique so he was worried he also had an offensive mental technique. That’s why he wasn’t going to let the kid strike his weakened Spirit Sense.

Yet, even with all these layers of preparation, the Jinxi Patriarch was a wily old fox. It would be absurd to think that with someone as old as he was he wouldn’t have a way to deal with somebody trying to hide from him. He formed a few handseals and his lips changed shape, altering the sounds he was releasing. The giant golden cricket suddenly shimmered with bright light and then exploded into thousands of tiny glowing lights. These small motes of light dimmed and their edges resolved, shaping into many small crickets. They looked just like the giant golden cricket, except each was only the size of a finger. Then this swarm of crickets flew into the air on two pairs of wings. They spread into the air, adding a sea of glowing golden lights above the canopy cover of the immense trees.

From a distance they looked much like the glowing lights of fireflies, adding another layer to this strangely otherworldly view. Giant trees rising from a sea of clouds, covered with a soft pink aura and purple lotus flower blossoms. The picturesque night had now gained swirling clouds of frosty mist and tiny glowing lights flying over and through it. It was almost like a sea of faeries had been born from purple lotuses, releasing snowflakes in their wake.