No matter how tough a turtle shell was, it was still just a layer of armor. But with the other side's defenses layered one upon another, even Master Dao, with his razor-sharp blade, found it a major headache.
The Hexagram Slash had once countered his opponent's wall of energy, giving Master Dao hope of victory. He had planned to press his advantage and kill He Jin with one decisive attack. But he had never imagined that the wall of energy was only his first line of defense—and the most ordinary one at that.
The cloud-patterned defense, along with the bizarre robe He Jin wore and the mysterious aura it gave off, surrounded him with an inscrutable veil. Great fear often came from the unknown and the mysterious.
Master Dao was powerful, but his strength had never been tempered in high-level duels. He had never fought anyone around his own level.
That meant he always fell just a little short of the top tier in actual combat. At that moment, when he saw the bizarre aura surrounding He Jin, his brief shock and distraction caused him to hesitate. The pause may have lasted no more than a breath, but in a duel between experts, it was an absolutely fatal mistake.
Master Dao realized he had made a mistake. Fortunately, his opponent seemed not to take advantage of it. Instead, he had fallen into some kind of strange ritual.
The robe kept billowing. The characters and patterns on it leaped about like dancing musical notes, darting across its surface with extraordinary liveliness. The robe seemed to possess other wondrous effects, too. Beneath a solemn halo of black and gray light, He Jin's body was constantly being reshaped, as if he were undergoing a bizarre transformation ritual.
Master Dao was horrified. A fearful