Qi Wu stepped out of the membrane of light.
He walked slowly, unhurried, as though strolling through his own backyard.
Yet with every step, the space beneath his feet trembled faintly, sending out ripples as though it feared his power.
Grillman's expression changed sharply. He drove his domain into a frenzy. Blood-colored arms, dark red fire serpents, corrosive mist-all his attacks surged toward Qi Wu again.
Qi Wu did not even look.
He raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and gave a gentle wave.
World-Cutting Slash: Cleave!
Dozens of invisible slashes erupted at once, sweeping outward like razors.
The blood-colored arms were shredded, the dark red fire serpents severed, the corrosive mist torn apart. Before Qi Wu, Grillman's carefully constructed domain might as well have been paper.
Grillman gritted his teeth and pressed his palms together, drawing back all his domain's power and condensing it into an enormous dark red shield before him.
The blood law and flame law intertwined. Three feet thick, the shield radiated suffocating pressure.
"Your attacks can't break through my defense!" he growled.
Qi Wu stopped. He regarded the enormous shield calmly, utterly dismissive.
"Can't break through?"
He raised his right hand, holding his index and middle fingers together. A faint purple light gathered at his fingertips, dim and slender as a firefly in the night.
Then he tapped forward gently.
World-Cutting Slash: Thunderclap!
Purple light flashed.
The three-foot-thick dark red shield split cleanly down the middle.
The cut was smooth as a mirror, as though the sharpest blade in the world had sliced it apart in a single stroke.
Grillman's pupils contracted violently, and he shot backward. But Qi Wu did not pursue him. He simply stood there, watching the two halves of the shield slowly crumble.
"Not a bad shield," he said with