Even a God-Level Powerhouse Had to Become an Ordinary Person for Half a Second (Please Recommend)

"Again."

Dong Qianqiu took a deep breath and pressed forward again.

This time, her tempo was a little faster than before. Her spear tip jabbed three times, each thrust faster than the last, targeting Nana's shoulder, elbow, and wrist.

Nana alternated between her hands to parry. Each block deflected the spear tip's trajectory with perfect precision, never meeting it head-on and never missing.

The two fought like that for over a minute.

Previously, that would already have been enough to drive Dong Qianqiu back, but after her special training, she could now hold out this long.

Ye Zhiqiu stood at the edge of the training ground, watching the rhythm of their exchanges and silently counting.

One and a half minutes. Looks like all that special training really paid off. That's Qianqiu for you—her combat instincts really are impressive.

Just as he was thinking that, the rhythm of the fight suddenly changed.

When Dong Qianqiu thrust her spear, her movement was nearly half a beat faster than before. She used a somewhat different way of channeling her strength, and her center of gravity sank a little lower.

Wrapped in a layer of icy light, the spear tip drove straight toward Nana's chest.

Nana turned slightly to evade it, but halfway through the thrust, Dong Qianqiu abruptly changed direction. The straight thrust became a horizontal sweep, the spear shaft slicing toward Nana's shoulder.

Nana did not meet it head-on. She took a step back.

With that single retreat, Dong Qianqiu's next thrust was already pursuing her.

A straight thrust, then a downward strike, followed by a spinning horizontal sweep—the three attacks linked together in practically one seamless motion.

Ye Zhiqiu's eyebrows rose all the way.

The girl really had improved quite a bit.

Her attacks had always been fast, but their rhythm had been relatively fixed, making them easy to predict. The changes in rhythm across these three attacks were clearly more varied than before, and each used a slightly different way of applying force, making it difficult to judge where the next strike would land.

Finally, Nana stepped back out of Dong Qianqiu's attack range and said, "That's enough."

At that, Dong Qianqiu withdrew her spear. The ice-blue weapon dissolved into tiny ice crystals in her hand. Her chest rose and fell gently, and a small patch of loose hair at her temples was damp with sweat.

She, too, could feel that her last flurry of attacks had been different from before—much smoother.

Ye Zhiqiu walked over from beside the wall and handed each of them a bottle of water. "That was pretty good," he told Dong Qianqiu. "A lot better than before."

Dong Qianqiu took the water, had a sip, then glanced at him and said testily, "Of course. I'm improving every day."

"Yes, yes, you're the best."

"Why do you sound so halfhearted?"

"Do I? I'm being very sincere."

Dong Qianqiu glared at him, then turned to Nana and said obediently, "Teacher, that thrust I just made..."

Nana looked at her and nodded. "Your shifts in balance were smoother than before, and the rhythm of your force application has improved, too. Keep practicing until you've mastered this sequence."

Dong Qianqiu's eyes lit up, and she grinned. "Thank you, Teacher."

Standing beside them, Ye Zhiqiu watched Dong Qianqiu struggle to hide her smile after that rare praise and found it rather amusing.

At school, she usually treated everyone except him with cool indifference, but in front of Nana, she was willing to show a little more of her emotions.

Still, it made sense. Over these past few months, Nana had become someone very close to both of them.

After training ended, the three packed up their things and prepared to leave.

Walking beside Ye Zhiqiu, Dong Qianqiu suddenly tilted her head toward him and asked, "Do you think... we can keep training like this forever?"

"What's wrong?" Ye Zhiqiu asked.

"I mean..." She paused before continuing. "When we grow up and go to Shrek, will Teacher Nana still teach us?"

Ye Zhiqiu fell silent for a moment, then said, "We should still have opportunities."

"So it's not certain?"

"Nothing in this world is absolute."

Several more days passed like that.

That Saturday, Ye Zhiqiu and Dong Qianqiu ate a meal at Nana's villa dormitory as usual, then left together.

Ye Zhiqiu planned to take Dong Qianqiu back to her dormitory before heading home.

While they were walking along the road, a light suddenly appeared around Dong Qianqiu's feet.

It was a ring of silvery-white light, spreading upward from the ground.

The light was not dazzling, but it spread quickly, condensing into an arch-shaped curtain of light in front of her in the blink of an eye.

Tiny silver motes scattered from its edges, landing on the ground and flashing like sparks before vanishing.

Dong Qianqiu had no time to react. She was walking and had already taken her next step, her toes landing right inside the light curtain's range. It felt as though something had given her a gentle tug. Her balance tipped, and she fell straight into the curtain of light.

"Qianqiu!"

Ye Zhiqiu instinctively shouted and reached out to catch her. His fingertips brushed her cuff, missing her by a hair.

Dong Qianqiu disappeared into the light curtain, turning toward Ye Zhiqiu with a stunned expression. Her lips parted, but no sound came through. Behind her, the silvery-white gateway rippled slightly, and the light along its edges began to fade.

A thought flashed through Ye Zhiqiu's mind.

He knew what was happening.

In the original story, Qian Lei and Lan Xuanyu had first summoned Dong Qianqiu because Lan Xuanyu's silver-patterned blue silver grass had accidentally touched Qian Lei's Summoning Gate. The silver dragon king bloodline had created a spatial resonance with Gu Yuena, building a passage between Tianluo Star and Heaven Dou Star and pulling Dong Qianqiu away from Gu Yuena's side.

When he read it back then, he had thought the premise was pretty absurd. Who knew how many light-years separated those two planets, yet a single spatial summoning technique could drag someone across that distance. It was even more outrageous than an Interstellar Teleportation Array.

But absurd or not, it had already happened.

The gateway was shrinking, and the silver motes around its edges were beginning to draw inward. If he did not enter now, he would be too late. Besides, he could not sense even a trace of danger from this teleportation array.

So Ye Zhiqiu did not hesitate for long.

He stepped forward and plunged into the curtain of light. Passing through it felt like diving into a mass of lukewarm water. There was little resistance, but he could feel a pressure sliding across the surface of his skin.

The instant he passed through the light curtain, he felt something inside his body suddenly light up, but he had no idea what it was.

That was replaced by a feeling of weightlessness, like falling from a great height, though not quite the same.

The space around him twisted, stretched, and folded, countless ribbons of colored light streaking past him at tremendous speed.

Perhaps three or four seconds passed, or perhaps even less. His sense of time was muddled in this space. Then, suddenly, something solid appeared beneath his feet.

Ye Zhiqiu landed on the ground.

He blinked, adjusting to the abrupt change in light.

Above him stretched a grayish-white virtual sky. There was no sun, but there was plenty of light.

Around him lay a training ground—or rather, a beast-fighting arena.

The air was dry, carrying a faint smell of sulfur.

About thirty meters ahead, a pack of enormous, scarlet beasts had formed a ring, low growls rumbling in their throats.

Lava Hounds.

There were roughly thirty or forty of them, varying in size. The smaller ones were like ordinary mongrels, while the largest were nearly the size of adult bison. Their scarlet fur resembled flowing lava, and scorching waves of heat constantly escaped their mouths and noses, making the surrounding air shimmer faintly.

At the very center of the Lava Hounds' encirclement stood three people.

Two boys and a girl!