So You're the Silver Dragon King? She Fought with Everything She Had, Yet Could Not Win!

Bai Yuan caught the faintest curve at the corner of Gu Yuena's lips.

His heart skipped a beat.

Had this girl gone mad?

What delusion was she having?

Or was she plotting something?

A thought flashed through Bai Yuan's mind.

Was she figuring out how to crush him underfoot?

With the Silver Dragon King's pride, and the complete Gu Yuena's "world-shaking wisdom"...

She was absolutely capable of something like that.

Forget it. Whatever.

He would make the first move.

Bai Yuan shifted his feet, shooting forward like an arrow. Dawnmaker swept upward from his waist at an angle, its edge aimed straight at Gu Yuena's shoulder.

He had not used his full strength. It was merely a probe.

Gu Yuena raised her eyes, and the silver-white sword light reflected in her violet pupils.

She did not even move her feet.

She merely raised her right hand slightly, spreading her five fingers.

The air solidified before her. A translucent Elemental Barrier condensed from nothingness, ice and earth intertwined, wind and light coiling around them, steadily blocking Dawnmaker's path.

The sword tip struck the barrier with a crisp clang, as though it had hit an indestructible crystal.

Bai Yuan felt the recoil running through his sword, and his heart stirred with slight surprise.

This barrier's defensive power was far greater than he had expected.

It was not simply brute-forcing a defense with Soul Power, but a layered combination of the traits of multiple elements.

Ice's hardness, earth's solidity, wind's force-dispersing nature, and light's resilience—the four elements worked together flawlessly.

Leng Yaozhu stood to one side with her arms folded, her gaze moving back and forth between the two children.

Looking at the barrier of ice, earth, wind, and light woven before Gu Yuena, a trace of satisfaction flashed through her eyes.

"She has far greater control over elemental power than when I first met her."

Leng Yaozhu silently assessed,

"The flow between the elements is almost entirely without stagnation, and the coordination of the four attributes is steadily improving.

This child's understanding of the elements far surpasses that of her peers.

Mm, she is worth focusing on."

Her gaze fell upon Bai Yuan again.

Although that sword strike had been blocked.

Bai Yuan's reaction speed, the angle of his strike, and the calmness with which he withdrew his sword all showed that he had not come close to using his true strength.

"Bai Yuan,"

Leng Yaozhu thought.

"Let me see how you defeat her."

In the arena.

Bai Yuan took two steps back.

He reassessed the Elemental Barrier before him, shimmering with faint rainbow light.

He had only intended to test her, yet Gu Yuena had immediately brought out a defense of this level.

"Fine." Bai Yuan took a deep breath, tightening his grip on Dawnmaker with his right hand while slightly opening his left.

The Worldbearing Coreflame glimmered faintly in the depths of his palm.

"Please enlighten me."

This time, his voice was several degrees deeper than before, and his eyes had changed as well.

He was no longer probing. He was truly serious now.

Gu Yuena's violet eyes narrowed slightly. She felt it.

The aura around Bai Yuan had changed.

It was not a surge of Soul Power, nor was it an eruption of his Martial Soul, but a more restrained and more dangerous transformation.

Like a sword freshly drawn from its sheath, its edge not yet fully revealed, yet already enough to send a chill down one's spine.

She said nothing. She merely adjusted the thickness of her Elemental Barrier slightly, devoting more attention to predicting Bai Yuan's movements.

The air in the arena suddenly tightened.

The corner of Leng Yaozhu's lips curled into the faintest smile.

Here it came.

Bai Yuan hesitated no longer.

He raised his left hand slightly, and the Worldbearing Coreflame lit up in the depths of his palm.

Golden light spread through his meridians and across his entire body.

Fire and light, embodiments of good and evil—Thus Burns the Dawn ignited fully within him.

A glimmer of gold flashed deep in his pupils.

The speed beneath his feet, the power of his sword, the sensitivity of his reactions.

Everything rose to a new level at that instant.

The pale golden patterns on Dawnmaker suddenly flared.

A dazzling purple Soul Ring rose beneath his feet, slowly rotating around his body.

First Soul Skill: Stride to Deliverance, Action Shall Arrive.

Bai Yuan moved, and his figure vanished from where he stood.

Only a streak of silver-white sword light remained in the air, like a bolt of lightning pulled taut.

It cleaved straight toward the four-element barrier before Gu Yuena.

Gu Yuena's violet pupils contracted sharply.

She did not even have time to think.

Bai Yuan's sword had already arrived.

The instant the sword edge collided with the Elemental Barrier, there was no thunderous boom, no blinding flash—only an extremely soft, crisp crack, like ice shattering beneath a heavy hammer.

That seemingly perfect defensive barrier, layered with ice, earth, wind, and light.

Before this strike, it split down the middle like paper, opening into a straight fissure.

It shattered.

Gu Yuena's pupils narrowed, but her response was much faster than Bai Yuan had expected.

The moment the barrier broke, she neither retreated nor panicked.

Her hands crossed before her chest, silver hair dancing in the rushing air as her first Soul Ring lit up.

First Soul Skill: Elemental Tide.

Centered on her, elemental particles within several meters surged madly, as though some force had forcibly extracted them from the air and condensed them into a six-colored torrent.

The violence of fire, the chill of ice, the sharpness of wind, the heaviness of earth, the scorching heat of light, the corrosion of darkness.

At that moment, every element intertwined without distinction.

They transformed into a devastating wave and crashed toward the spot Bai Yuan had occupied moments ago!

The Elemental Tide swept through, blasting a charred crater into the ground.

The air was filled with the chaotic remnants of various elements.

But Bai Yuan was not there.

Gu Yuena's pupils shrank abruptly.

She saw him.

Bai Yuan's figure skimmed past the side of the Elemental Tide, moving as fast as a streak of silver-white light.

From gathering to eruption, her Elemental Tide had taken no more than the blink of an eye.

Yet Bai Yuan had already left his original position before then, as if he had predicted her counterattack in advance.

So fast.

How could he be that fast?

That last strike had already been fast enough, but his current speed had increased by another huge margin.

She had no time to think further.

Because Bai Yuan had already appeared behind her.

One second he had been three meters away; the next, he was pressed close behind her.

Dawnmaker stabbed in from her blind spot, its tip aimed directly at the center of her back.

Gu Yuena instinctively summoned the elements.

Wind sought to accelerate her evasion, earth sought to form a barrier behind her, and ice sought to freeze the sword's trajectory.

All the elements answered her call at once, weaving a new line of defense behind her.

But before that defense could even take shape, it collapsed.

Because she felt it.

Bai Yuan's sword carried a power she had never encountered before.

It was not Soul Power, nor sword qi, but a more fundamental, more primordial force of destruction.

That power surged from the depths of the Core Flame, spreading along the blade. The instant it touched her elements.

Like blazing fire devouring dry kindling, it silently dismantled, consumed, and erased her elemental defense.

A flash of astonishment passed through Gu Yuena's violet eyes.

Her elemental power was being suppressed?

It was not an elemental counter, nor was it overwhelming Soul Power.

Rather, some power she could not comprehend was directly erasing her elemental power from a higher level.

What... was this?

Gu Yuena clenched her teeth.

Elemental power surged wildly before her—fire, ice, wind, earth, light, darkness.

The six elements wove one defensive barrier after another before her, layer upon layer, as though she intended to block out the entire world.

She was unwilling, and she could not lose.

She could not reveal too much of her strength before Leng Yaozhu. With Leng Yaozhu's nature, she would certainly grow suspicious.

This was her first battle in the Spirit Pagoda, her first battle to prove her value to Leng Yaozhu.

She could not lose.

But Bai Yuan's sword had already reached the back of her neck.

The icy sword edge, carrying a trace of destructive aura, stopped steadily against the skin at the nape of her neck.

"You lost."

Bai Yuan's voice came from behind her, calm and casual, even carrying a hint of laziness.

Gu Yuena's body stiffened.

The elements before her lost control and receded like a tide, dispersing into the air.

She slowly lowered her hands, her violet eyes slightly unfocused.

Lost?

She, Gu Yuena—the Silver Dragon King, the Element Controller, the future Dragon God!

Had actually lost to a child her own age?

Looking at the silver hair before him, Bai Yuan had only one thought.

So you're the Silver Dragon King?

What element control, what seven elements, what Dragon God's power?

Did she even understand the might of Lord Phainon's [Destruction]?