Violent Girl

The moment he finished speaking, Xu Xiaoshou saw the little girl fling out her tightly clenched hands. A black cloud of tiny particles instantly blanketed his face.

What was that? Spiritual energy erupted within Xu Xiaoshou, instantly blasting the black particles away. Only then did he realize what they were.

Seeds?

Using seeds to fight? What kind of oddball was this? He looked down and saw the seeds scattered all over the ground...

No!

Innate... wood attribute? He looked toward Mu Zixi, and the towering ancient tree that had launched a giant watermelon into the waiting area seemed to surface in his mind once more.

Seeds, ancient trees...

Xu Xiaoshou's pupils contracted. Could it be...

"Yep!"

Mu Zixi seemed to know what he was thinking. She narrowed her eyes and smiled faintly, clapping her hands together.

"Little trees, rise!"

Charge, charge, charge! In the blink of an eye, dozens of ancient trees shot skyward, smashing Xu Xiaoshou straight through the arena barrier.

Splat!

Blood sprayed through the air.

Xu Xiaoshou felt a chill between his legs. The terrifying impact of the ancient trees nearly shattered his spine, and he had almost died on the spot.

I knew it...

Xu Xiaoshou groaned in agony midair. Who the hell could have expected this from the very start?

Other people fought with flashing blades and flying swords. This little girl used seeds! "Ancient trees at the Innate level... their ramming force was this terrifying?!"

Forcibly regaining control of his body in midair, Xu Xiaoshou hurriedly summoned the black sword, intending to let it carry him away.

But a thick vine shot upward, wrapped around his body, and yanked him down hard.

What the hell?! Xu Xiaoshou was about to go mad. This was the weakness of close combat—getting caught in a combo the moment the fight began?

Before he could react, his vision went black, and he could no longer see anything.

What had happened? Xu Xiaoshou was dumbfounded.

Those in the thick of it were lost; onlookers saw clearly.

The audience's attention was entirely different from his. They were completely drawn to the ancient trees.

The instant Xu Xiaoshou was sent flying, the formation of ancient trees below immediately shifted, leaving the center completely empty.

Then, one of the ancient trees extended a thick vine and dragged Xu Xiaoshou directly into the tree formation.

Everything proceeded according to plan.

Mu Zixi clenched her little hand and swung it down viciously.

With an earth-shattering boom, the trunks of every ancient tree slammed together, kneading into one massive whole, leaving only their canopies swaying gracefully.

Even the air fell silent...

Everyone's eyelids twitched. They seemed to hear, with perfect clarity, the sound of Xu Xiaoshou's bones being crushed.

"This little girl is way too vicious, isn't she?!"

"My heavens, she looks like an angel when she smiles, but when she fights, she shows absolutely no mercy..."

"Tsk, tsk, who would've thought? So this is what Junior Sister Mu is really like... No, you're the Wood Demon!"

After the ancient trees had been forcibly kneaded together, they formed a super-sized ancient tree so thick that more than ten people would have needed to link arms to encircle it. No one could see Xu Xiaoshou anymore. It felt as though he had become fertilizer.

"Hehe."

Mu Zixi seemed even happier. Such a thick tree looked adorable.

She suddenly turned and ran to the edge of the barrier.

What was she going to do? The question arose in everyone's minds. Even Xiao Qixiu's pupils shrank as he sensed that something was wrong.

"Hey!"

The little girl looked like a smiling angel. She clapped her little hands and cried sweetly, "Explode!"

The air fell silent for another second.

Boom! A massive mushroom cloud soared into the sky.

The ancient tree exploded, blasting an enormous crater into the arena. Even Xiao Qixiu, caught off guard, was hurled out of the barrier by the shockwave.

He hastily covered himself with spiritual essence, steadied his body, and hovered in the air.

"Hiss—"

When he looked back at the arena, this middle-aged man gasped sharply along with the audience.

The ancient tree that had surrounded Xu Xiaoshou had turned to dust in the instant of the explosion, scattering outward.

Yet the moment the fragments hit the ground, they immediately took root and turned into sprouts from a vast number of seeds.

"Th-this-this... this damn well leaves people no way to survive!"

"My heavens, was she really this violent? Even if Xu Xiaoshou survives, can he withstand the next attack?"

On the arena, Mu Zixi, having completed her explosive art, frowned slightly.

She knew that a single strike might not be enough to defeat an Innate body, so she had already increased the force.

Even she herself had been afraid of being caught in that final explosion.

Yet through the tree seed she had secretly planted on Xu Xiaoshou, she could still sense his life force.

He was not dead! "Is Xu Xiaoshou a cockroach or something..."

Mu Zixi fretted inwardly. Through that parasitic tree seed, she could clearly sense the surging, inexhaustible vitality within Xu Xiaoshou's body.

"Mm, perhaps I can try that move?"

The mushroom cloud finally dispersed. Fortunately, Mu Zixi truly did not dare approach him, allowing Xu Xiaoshou to use "Endless Vitality" to recover considerably in a short time.

Even so, his entire body was covered in blood, and many of his bones had been shattered.

That explosion had been far more brutal than Liu Zhen's strike back then. Thankfully, it had not erupted from within his body; otherwise, Xu Xiaoshou probably would not have been able to get back up.

"Too strong... Innate..."

First there had been Chao Qingteng's ice sword, then Mu Zixi's ancient trees. Xu Xiaoshou truly envied this kind of Innate attribute power. It was simply too powerful! If he possessed such strength too, how could he possibly be limited to close combat alone?

He did not have many long-range techniques, but even so, Xu Xiaoshou did not charge forward immediately. Instead, he stood where he was.

The two sides seemed to have reached a stalemate, and the audience grew anxious.

"Is Xu Xiaoshou stupid? Why isn't he attacking? Is he waiting for the ancient trees to sprout?"

Indeed, the two appeared motionless on the surface, but the seeds blasted apart by the explosion had fallen to the ground and, in the blink of an eye, carpeted the entire arena.

It could be said that Mu Zixi now held every advantage of the terrain.

Wood Barrier!

"Xu Xiaoshou, take this!"

Mu Zixi did not want to wait any longer. She clapped her hands again, and the tree seeds burst open as ancient trees sprang up.

Charge, charge, charge! Ancient trees shot from the ground in every direction. This time, there were not merely a few dozen trees. At a rough glance, there were at least a hundred.

And their numbers were still growing!

The audience no longer dared watch. If this wave exploded, even with an Innate body, Xu Xiaoshou would definitely lose an arm or a leg.

If things went badly, even his head could be blown off.

"Mm..."

"What is that?"

"Xu Xiaoshou took out a sword sheath?"

Everyone looked over curiously.

As ancient trees surged upward, Xu Xiaoshou seemed to have grown several extra pairs of eyes. He flickered and shifted among them, as nimble as a monkey.

After finding a narrow gap and making sure there were no ancient tree seeds on the ground, he actually pulled out a sword sheath.

"Watch out."

Since his opponent gave a warning before every attack, Xu Xiaoshou naturally returned the favor.

As his words fell, the seeds on the ground and the fully formed ancient trees all began to tremble, as though they had slipped beyond control.

Xu Xiaoshou closed his eyes. At that moment, he seemed to return to the previous night.

How deep, how deep, how deep the courtyard; where, where, where did the sword intent linger? Mu Zixi's eyes widened. She could not see where this sword intent filling the sky had come from.

Was it Xu Xiaoshou's sword?

Was it the seeds on the ground?

Or was it...

Me? Mu Zixi felt that the thought was absurd, yet she could clearly sense sword intent rising from above her own head.

Could it be that I am actually Xu Xiaoshou's sword? The little girl shook her head, using her twin ponytails to whip the ridiculous thought from her mind.