Who to Support?

"Cold-Burning Poison-Reversal Sword."

Lin Xun raised the Ex-Girlfriend Sword high. Vermilion poison mist surged wildly from the blade, gathering above his head into a massive sword phantom.

One half of the sword phantom burned with sinister flames, while the other half was covered in crystallized ice. At the boundary between them, elemental collisions rang out continuously, each impact bursting into a cloud of highly toxic vapor.

Opposite him, the Nether White Tiger threw back its head and let out a silent roar. It had the body of a cat and the bones of a tiger, ghostly green patterns winding across its snowy fur, its mismatched pupils overlooking the battlefield.

Wu Siduo's figure had already merged into the enormous beast, leaving only her icy voice to emerge from the tiger's maw.

"How long can that sword attack of yours last?"

Lin Xun did not answer. Gripping the hilt with both hands, he swung forward fiercely.

The phantom of the Cold-Burning Poison-Reversal Sword collided head-on with the Nether White Tiger's claw in midair.

Flames and ice crystals exploded across the tiger claw, while poison mist surged wildly outward from the point of impact.

A layer of white frost instantly formed over the Nether White Tiger's fur. Then the sinister flames melted it, turning it into scalding steam.

The poison mist seeped through the steam into the white tiger's fur, corroding dark-red scorch marks into the Nether Spirit Cat's ghostly green patterns.

Methods of attack with three attributes were just that troublesome.

Yet the Nether White Tiger did not retreat.

She endured the corrosion of the poison mist and continued pressing down with her claw.

The Nether White Tiger was a self-fusion of twin martial souls, and its strength inherently crushed opponents of the same rank. Wu Siduo had three soul rings; in total soul power, there was ultimately still a gap.

Under the tiger claw's pressure, the sword phantom retreated inch by inch. The vermilion poison mist was compressed thinner and thinner, while both the flames and ice crystals gradually dimmed.

"Is that all you've got?" Wu Siduo's voice came from the white tiger's mouth. There was a trace of panting in it, but even more excitement.

She was struggling too. The Cold-Burning Poison-Reversal Sword's poison mist was continuously corroding the white tiger's body, and her soul power was draining no slower than Lin Xun's.

But the girl's pride would not allow her to retreat first.

The two sides remained locked in a deadlock, as though the Nether White Tiger were clashing against a Phoenix Ice Toad.

But at that critical moment, Lin Xun suddenly released his right hand.

Holding the hilt in one hand, he spread the fingers of his left and slammed his palm against the blade. The sinister flames and ice crystals on the sword exploded at once, blasting open a narrow gap in the Nether White Tiger's claw.

That narrow gap was enough.

Lin Xun's body turned into an afterimage as he darted out from beneath the tiger claw. He actually closed directly on the Nether White Tiger's chest. The sword flipped in his hand, its point facing downward. Grasping the hilt with both hands, he drove the entire blade viciously into the ground.

"Second stage of the combo technique."

The vermilion light on the sword embedded in the ground abruptly contracted to its limit, then exploded outward in every direction with the blade as its center.

A circular domain with a radius of thirty meters instantly spread out. The ground became burning scorched earth, covered by a layer of dark-red frost, while vermilion poison mist filled the air.

Flames burned upon the ice, ice crystals condensed within the flames, and poison mist churned and flowed between the two.

"Icefire Purgatory." Lin Xun raised his head and looked at the Nether White Tiger before him. "A combined domain technique."

The Ex-Girlfriend Sword was buried deep in the ground.

With the blade's center as its origin, a ring of vermilion light burst outward, sweeping rapidly across the ground in every direction.

The ground touched by the halo cracked apart. What surged from the fissures was exceedingly strange: ice intertwined with fire, ice that was constantly burning.

Dark-red flames quietly burned over the ice. Ice crystals repeatedly shifted within the firelight, constantly growing and constantly melting away.

Two completely opposing powers had been forcibly kneaded together within this area. The flames could not burn through the solid ice, nor could the ice extinguish the open fire. The two continuously consumed each other, ultimately forming a bizarre equilibrium.

And from this land of balance, lethal poison mist was born.

Vermilion fog surged from every crack in the ground, constantly steaming along the edges of the ice crystals and slowly drifting from the tops of each cluster of flames. It spread layer upon layer, completely shrouding the entire domain in dark-red haze.

The domain covered a full thirty-meter radius—nearly half the arena—and was utterly swallowed by this power.

The Nether White Tiger bore the brunt of it.

All four paws were frozen by ice crystals surging from the ground. Flames slipped out through the cracks in the ice to scorch its fur, while poison mist seeped into every wound.

She tried to shatter the ice crystals, but the moment they broke, fresh flames burned up. The moment the flames were extinguished by the ice poison, fresh ice crystals condensed again.

The three attributes formed a closed cycle within the domain, circling endlessly without cease.

Wu Siduo let out a muffled groan. More than half her soul power had already been depleted, and under the domain's continual suppression, the Nether White Tiger's phantom began to flicker. She was still gritting her teeth and holding on, but the white tiger was shrinking at a visible rate.

At the same time, the Dark Hawk Dragon, still locked in a stalemate with Gu Yue in midair, was also caught by the domain. Ice crystals crawled up along the hawk dragon's bone spikes, flames scorched patches of its wings black, and poison mist slipped through the gaps in its dragon-bone joints, corroding Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi's soul power.

The Dark Hawk Dragon let out a pained shriek. Its tail smashed limply into the ground, and its bone spikes snapped one after another.

Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi were flung from the hawk dragon's body, crashing heavily at the edge of the arena as their martial soul fusion technique completely collapsed.

The two lay flat on their backs, gasping for breath. The lingering poison of Icefire Purgatory remained in their bodies, and several dark-red corrosive marks on their arms were particularly glaring.

Wei Xiaofeng ran the fastest. He had always excelled in speed, and the instant the domain spread out, he had retreated backward. But Icefire Purgatory's range far exceeded his estimate.

The poison mist at its edge grazed his left arm. He lowered his head to look at the dark-red corrosive marks spreading across it, his face turning pale. He decisively raised his hand. "I concede."

Letting himself be seriously injured for a match was clearly not worth it.

The Nether White Tiger was still holding on.

Wu Siduo's soul power was already nearly exhausted. The Nether White Tiger had shrunk to half its normal size, the dark green patterns in its fur almost entirely corroded away by the poisonous mist. The ice crystals on its left forepaw had just been shattered, only for new ones to freeze into place again.

With every step forward, flames seared a fresh scorch mark across her ankles. Poisonous mist seeped through the wounds, staining the white tiger's fur an unnatural dark red.

But she kept moving forward.

No one spoke in the stands. The students of Class One clenched their fists, while those of Class Five held their breath. Everyone could see that Wu Siduo had reached her limit, yet she simply refused to fall.

Lin Xun pulled the sword from the ground.

As the Ex-Girlfriend Sword was drawn from the earth, it sent shards of ice and sparks flying. A vermilion glow left behind by Icefire Purgatory still covered the blade.

He poured every last bit of soul power into the sword. Three forces erupted from the blade at once.

He stepped forward, gripped the sword with both hands, and swept it sideways.

Three-colored sword light shot out from the longsword, nearly spanning the entire arena.

The sword light swept across, swallowing the Nether White Tiger whole. The girl's slender figure fell from the air in the distance.

In the final second before Wu Siduo lost consciousness, all she saw was Lin Xun standing there with his sword in hand.

The boy was as casual as ever.

At the same time, Gu Yue, who had exhausted her soul power by unleashing an elemental storm to single-handedly withstand Zhang Yangzi and the other's martial soul fusion technique, also drifted down like a small boat tossed by the waves.

So now, a problem arose.

Xie Xie and the others had already withdrawn from the competition platform when Lin Xun unleashed his combined technique. Now, the two girls closest to him on the field had both collapsed.

So which one was he supposed to catch?