Battle

Inside the Combat Arena, eighty thousand spectators were still whispering in shock about the stunning scene of An defeating Kenyon in a single move.

"Who on earth is that young man? Even the War God's personal disciple isn't a match for him in a single exchange!"

"Didn't you hear? His name is An Baruch, he's Earl Wharton's biological older brother!"

"The Baruch Clan... the Dragonblood Warrior Clan! The legendary descendants of the Ultimate Warrior!"

Inside the Combat Arena, eighty thousand spectators were still whispering in shock about the stunning scene of An defeating Kenyon in a single move.

In the southern sky, a streak of light flew toward the Combat Arena at an astonishing speed.

"Another Saint-level powerhouse is here!" someone exclaimed.

The streak of light arrived in an instant, hovering above the Combat Arena. The newcomer wore a simple burlap robe. He had long hair mottled with black and white, yet his face showed not a trace of old age, looking just like a youth. Crossing his back were two longswords: the hilt of one was semi-transparent, while the other was pitch-black.

"Olivier! It's the genius Sword Saint Olivier!"

The Combat Arena boiled over. The genius Sword Saint Olivier had stepped into the Saint-level at age forty, had once defeated the Starry Sky Sword Saint Tilon, and had traveled through various nations fighting eighteen Saint-level powerhouses with a record of complete victory. In the O'Brien Empire, his name was a legend.

Olivier's gaze swept across the crowd, finally landing on Blumer at the edge of the combat stage. Blumer was currently in a wretched state, covered in blood, his right arm hanging limply. Seeing his older brother arrive, a flash of pleasant surprise and grievance crossed Blumer's eyes.

"Big brother!" Blumer called out, his voice trembling.

Olivier flew down to Blumer's side, his brow deeply furrowed. He reached out to check the injury on his younger brother's chest, a flash of fury crossing his eyes. Blumer was his own blood brother; their parents had both passed away when they were young, and Olivier had raised his younger brother single-handedly. The two brothers shared an extremely deep bond, and seeing his younger brother injured to this extent, the killing intent in Olivier's heart surged like dark flames.

"Second brother, who did this to you?" His voice was terrifyingly calm.

Blumer gritted his teeth and pointed at Wharton on the other side of the combat stage: "It's Wharton. But... his brother An beat Senior Brother Kenyon and humiliated me!"

Olivier's gaze followed Blumer's finger, seeing An standing beside Wharton.

Olivier sized An up.

Too young.

"You are An?" Olivier asked.

"That's right, I am An Baruch."

Olivier sneered: "The Baruch Clan? Dragonblood Warrior? My younger brother Blumer was injured by you people, and my senior brother Kenyon was publicly humiliated by you. An Baruch, do you think my Achisoren Family is easy to bully?"

An looked at Olivier: "Blumer challenged Wharton and lost. Kenyon sided with Blumer and wanted to declare a draw. I merely stepped out to speak a word of fairness. Kenyon's own skill was inferior, who can he blame?"

"A word of fairness?" Olivier's voice turned cold. "You defeated Kenyon in a single move and made him lose all face, is that also a word of fairness?"

"Did you expect him to side with Blumer to the end before it wouldn't count as bullying?" An retorted.

Olivier's expression became very ugly. He was naturally arrogant and never regarded anyone with respect. Today, his younger brother had been defeated in public and his senior brother humiliated; if he couldn't salvage his pride, how could he establish himself in the imperial capital in the future?

"An Baruch." Olivier leapt onto the combat stage, standing opposite An, his gaze like a knife. "Today, I, Olivier, formally issue a challenge to you. Do you dare accept?"

The entire Combat Arena instantly quieted down.

Eighty thousand pairs of eyes looked squarely at An. A challenge from the genius Sword Saint Olivier!

In the judges' box, the Rock Sword Saint Hederson slightly frowned, and Emperor Joanne opened his mouth, ultimately failing to speak. Challenges between Saint-level powerhouses were not something he could interfere with.

"Fine," An said. "I accept."

Wharton grabbed An's arm: "Second Brother, you must be careful."

An patted Wharton's hand: "Don't worry."

He walked onto the combat stage, standing fifty meters apart from Olivier in a standoff. Eighty thousand spectators held their breath, not even daring to breathe heavily. Today's battle was more than a level higher than the decisive battle between Wharton and Blumer; this was a duel of the Saint-level!

On the combat stage, neither of them made a move immediately.

Olivier stood quietly, his right hand resting on the hilt of the Ice Dream Sword behind his back. His aura was calm as water, but those eyes grew increasingly bright, as if two flames were burning within his pupils.

"An Baruch," Olivier suddenly spoke. "Did you know? I traveled across various nations and defeated eighteen Saint-level powerhouses. Among those people, some had cultivated for over a hundred years, and some claimed invincibility within their nation. Yet none of them possessed the qualification to make me draw my second sword."

An opened his eyes: "And so?"

"And so I want to see whether you truly have the qualification to make me go all out." After speaking, the stone slabs of the combat stage beneath Olivier's feet suddenly cracked, and his figure vanished from where he stood.

Fast! So fast it exceeded the visual tracking limit of the eighty thousand spectators.

Almost at the same instant, golden scales emerged from beneath An's skin, rapidly covering his entire body. His wings unfurled, dragon horns grew out, and sharp spikes stood densely along his spine. An looked like a war god forged from gold, radiating a suffocating Saint-level peak pressure.

"Clang!"

The deafening roar of metal colliding exploded across the combat stage.

The Azure Divine Sword in An's right hand blocked the Ice Dream Sword that Olivier thrust from the left side. The instant the two swords intersected, white battle qi and golden Dragonblood Battle Qi violently collided, churning up visible shockwaves that spread in all directions. The spectators closest to the combat stage were blown swaying to and fro by these shockwaves, screams rising one after another.

Olivier's attack missed, and his figure vanished once again.

So fast! An was secretly startled inside. He had completely relied on the Dragonblood Warrior's super-strong intuition to block that sword just now. Olivier's speed was even more terrifying than he had anticipated.

White light lit up above the combat stage.

Olivier's figure split into two, two into four, four into eight... In the blink of an eye, one hundred and eight phantoms filled every corner of the space above the combat stage. Every single phantom was lifelike, the Ice Dream Swords in their hands flashing with dazzling white light, as if one hundred and eight Oliviers were simultaneously standing holding swords.

"Light and Shadow Sword!" Hederson in the judges' box brightened his eyes. "One hundred and eight phantoms. This Olivier is truly terrifying."

An outburst of exclamations sounded from the spectator stands. One hundred and eight Oliviers floated in mid-air, densely packed and blocking out the sky. The eighty thousand spectators widened their eyes, wanting to distinguish which one was the true body, but every phantom was completely identical, even their auras without the slightest difference.

"An, can you withstand this sword of mine?" One hundred and eight Oliviers spoke simultaneously, their voices converging from all directions like thunder rolling across the sky above the combat stage.

An slightly narrowed his dark golden eyes. He knew that among these one hundred and eight phantoms, one hundred and seven were false, and only one sword was real. But Olivier's speed was too fast, so fast that even his eyes could not lock onto the position of the true body.

"Wind Detection!"

This was the investigative technique he had modified through his comprehension of the Wind Elemental Profound Mysteries.

The one hundred and eight phantoms moved simultaneously.

One hundred and eight white sword beams pierced toward An from all directions. The eighty thousand spectators held their breaths, some even subconsciously closing their eyes, not daring to watch the scene that followed.

An stood quietly in place, perceiving the information fed back by Wind Detection. The one hundred and seven sword beams had no physical form, being merely pure light and shadow. Only one... was right there!

"Left!"

An abruptly swiped sideways, the soft Azure Divine Sword thrusting out like a venomous snake baring its fangs, precisely landing on the tip of the Ice Dream Sword thrusting from the left.

"Ding--"

A crisp impact sounded, and sparks flew in all directions.

Olivier's true body paused slightly, evidently not expecting An to find his position with such precision. But his reaction was extremely fast, borrowing the force to retreat immediately upon missing, his figure once again merging into the phantoms.

"Not bad, you can see through my Light and Shadow Sword." Olivier's voice came from all directions, carrying a trace of praise. "But this is only the first form. The second form won't be so easy."

The moment his voice fell, the one hundred and eight phantoms began moving at high speed. No longer passively surrounding An, the one hundred and seven phantoms took Olivier's true body as their core, spinning rapidly around the combat stage to form a white wheel of light. The light wheel spun faster and faster, until in the end, even An's Wind Detection found it difficult to distinguish which one was the main body.

"Light and Shadow Sword: Phantom Wheel Slash!"

The white light wheel abruptly contracted, and one hundred and eight sword beams pierced toward An from every angle simultaneously. Every single sword beam carried genuine killing intent; Olivier's true body continuously shifted positions amidst the high-speed rotation, thrusting out from a different phantom with every strike, and immediately transferring to the next phantom upon completing the thrust.

This was the terrifying aspect of the Light and Shadow Sword's second form. The switching speed between the true body and the phantoms reached the ultimate extreme, leaving opponents with no time to react at all.

An knew that pure defense was no longer enough. Since he couldn't tell the real body apart, he would just make all the swords unable to pierce through!

"Wind's Guard!"

The wind elements between heaven and earth instantly turned turbulent. Taking An as the center, a cyan wind barrier emerged out of thin air, countless tiny wind blades flowing across the surface of the wind barrier, every single wind blade spinning at high speed and emitting a "chi-chi" cutting sound.

Olivier's first sword struck the wind barrier.

The white battle qi on the surface of the Ice Dream Sword violently collided with the wind blades, emitting a piercing friction sound. The wind blades frantically shredded the battle qi on the sword body, and Olivier felt as though the sword in his hand had pierced into a meat grinder composed of countless sharp blades, encountering incomparably massive resistance.

He gritted his teeth, withdrew his sword, transferred to the next phantom, and thrust out once more.

The second sword, the third sword, the fourth sword...

Sword after sword, Olivier thrust eighteen swords within a mere three breaths. Every single sword struck a different position on the wind barrier, but the result in every instance was being shredded inch by inch by the wind blades.

Such strong defense, Olivier was secretly startled inside.

An stood at the center of the wind barrier, his dark golden eyes calmly observing his surroundings. Although Olivier's attack was fierce, Wind's Guard was sufficient to withstand it. Yet An also understood that Wind's Guard consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy, and continuing to stalemate like this was not a solution.

He had to counterattack.

"Wind-Cutting Formation!"

Wind's Guard abruptly contracted, and the wind blades that had originally been merely for passive defense suddenly turned berserk. Countless hair-thin cyan wind blades shot out in all directions with An as the center, forming an airtight net of wind blades. Every single wind blade contained the profound mysteries of the Wind Dimension and could cut through all matter.

Olivier's expression changed drastically.

He sensed the terror of those wind blades. In front of the wind blades, his phantoms were like paper-mâché, shattering and dissolving one after another.

"Retreat!"

Olivier's figure blasted backward, simultaneously wielding the Ice Dream Sword into an airtight blur, a white battle qi protective barrier enveloping his entire body. Three wind blades slashed against the barrier, causing it to vibrate violently and develop fine cracks. Another five wind blades slashed from different angles, and the barrier shattered like glass.

"Pfft--"

A wind blade grazed Olivier's right arm, slicing open his burlap sleeve as blood spurted out. He let out a muffled groan, abruptly drawing the second sword from his back, the Black Stone Sword.

Olivier grasped the Black Stone Sword with both hands, black sword light forming an airtight curtain of swords before him. The wind blades slashed against the sword curtain, emitting dense "ding-ding-clang-clang" sounds and sending sparks flying.

An's gaze sharpened, and the range of the Wind-Cutting Formation abruptly contracted, compressing from a radius of one hundred meters down to fifty meters, thirty meters, twenty meters... The density of the wind blades multiplied as the range shrank, and the cutting power became increasingly terrifying.

Veins bulged on Olivier's forehead.

Powerful though his Black Stone Sword was, facing such dense wind blade attacks, it began to grow difficult to sustain. A wind blade drilled through a gap in the sword curtain, grazing across his chest. His burlap clothing was sliced open, revealing a bone-deep wound on his chest as blood instantly stained his lapels red.

A second wind blade grazed his left leg.

A third wind blade shaved off a few strands of his grayish-white hair.

A fourth...

Over a dozen wounds instantly appeared across Olivier's body, dripping with blood. His face turned pale white, but the fighting intent in his eyes grew even more exuberant. Ever since stepping into the Saint-level, no one had ever driven him to such a wretched state.

"Good! What a Wind-Cutting Formation!" Olivier gritted his teeth, his voice carrying excitement and madness. "However, do you think you can defeat me just like this?"

He gripped the Black Stone Sword tightly with both hands, raising the sword above his head. Black radiance erupted from the sword body, forming a black sphere of light nearly a meter in diameter. The dark elements between heaven and earth frantically surged toward the Black Stone Sword, and even the sky over the Combat Arena darkened.

Feeling that terrifying pressure, many among the eighty thousand spectators turned pale, their heartbeats accelerating.

"Black Stone Sword: Dark Night Slash!"

Olivier fiercely swung his sword, and a pitch-black sword Qi flew out from the Black Stone Sword. Wherever it passed, the air was torn apart, emitting piercing sonic booms. The stone slabs of the combat stage, grazed by the aftermath of the sword Qi, instantly turned to dust.

An's dark golden pupils abruptly constricted.

He sensed the terror of that black sword Qi.

An formed his five fingers into a claw and thrust forward.

"He's crazy!" someone on the spectator stands exclaimed.

"Such a terrifying attack, how can anyone catch it with their bare hands?"

Blumer widened his eyes, an incredulous expression appearing on his face.

Olivier also frowned slightly. He didn't understand why An would do this.

The black vortex slashed right before An.

An took a deep breath, his right claw thrusting out fiercely and plunging directly into the center of the black vortex.

"Chi-chi-chi--"

A piercing corrosive sound rang out. The black vortex spun violently, attempting to shred and devour An's arm.

"Break for me!"

An abruptly exerted force and gripped.

Golden battle qi erupted from between his five fingers, violently colliding with the black vortex.

"Boom--"

With a loud explosion, the black vortex shattered abruptly. Berserk energy swept in all directions, and the already pockmarked stone slabs on the combat stage were mostly blown away, shattered rocks shooting toward the spectator stands like shrapnel. Spectators screamed as they ducked; a few nobles who didn't manage to dodge in time were struck by the rock fragments-while not severely injured, they were still left in a wretched state.

An stood in place, several cracks appearing on the dragon scales of his right hand as a few drops of golden blood seeped out from the fissures and dripped onto the ground.

Olivier widened his eyes.

His ultimate trump card, the Dark Night Slash, had actually been crushed bare-handed by his opponent?

The Combat Arena fell into dead silence.

"This... how is this possible?" Blumer muttered to himself, his face pale white.

In the judges' box, the Rock Sword Saint Hederson slowly stood up, a solemn expression revealed in his eyes.

This young man, has his comprehension of the elemental laws reached this stage already? Hederson muttered inwardly.

An withdrew his right hand and shook it lightly, the golden blood halting its flow. He looked at Olivier and said calmly: "Olivier, you lost."

Olivier stood in place, covered in blood and breathing heavily. His Ice Dream Sword had shattered, leaving only the hilt still grasped in his hand. Though the Black Stone Sword remained, the black radiance on the sword body had dimmed considerably.

Olivier looked at An, remaining silent for a long time.

"What was that move you used just now?" he asked.

"Wind-Cutting Formation," An said. "It's a sword technique I created by comprehending the Wind Element forbidden magic 'Dimension Storm'."

"Dimension Storm..." Olivier repeated it mutely, then gave a bitter smile. "I thought that by comprehending the Light and Shadow Sword and the Black Stone Sword, I stood at the peak of the Saint-level. Little did I know, there are people beyond people, and heavens beyond heavens."

He sheathed the Black Stone Sword back behind his back and bowed slightly toward An: "An Baruch, I admit defeat."

The entire audience was dead silent.

Then, deafening cheers erupted.

The genius Sword Saint Olivier had conceded defeat! Defeated by a young man under thirty years of age!

"An! An! An!"

Eighty thousand spectators shouted An's name in unison, the sound sweeping across the entire Combat Arena like a tsunami.

In the judges' box, the Rock Sword Saint Hederson stood up and looked at An. He had once thought Olivier was the younger generation's person with the greatest hope of challenging him. But looking at it now, this newly rising Dragonblood Warrior before him was even stronger than Olivier.

Emperor Joanne's face flushed red with excitement. He walked to the front of the judges' box and announced loudly: "Today's battle, Earl Wharton wins against Marquis Blumer! Mr. An Baruch wins against the genius Sword Saint Olivier! This Emperor hereby announces the bestowal of a marriage engagement between Earl Wharton and the Seventh Princess Nina!"

An walked over to Olivier and extended a hand.

"Olivier, your sword is very fast," An said. "If the Wind-Cutting Formation hadn't countered your speed, I might not have won against you."

Olivier was slightly stunned, then grasped An's hand and smiled.

"A loss is a loss, you don't need to comfort me," Olivier said.

Olivier turned around and walked over to Blumer. Blumer's expression was extremely ugly; his older brother had actually lost, and lost so thoroughly.

"Big brother..." Blumer said softly.

"Say no more." Olivier shook his head. "Skill is inferior, I have nothing to say. Let's go, go back to tend to your injuries."

The two brothers left the Combat Arena.

An reverted to his human form and walked over to Wharton. Wharton hugged him excitedly: "Second Brother, you're too amazing! Even Olivier isn't your match!"

An smiled: "The Wind-Cutting Formation is something I only recently comprehended, and today was the first time using it in actual combat. The effect was better than I imagined."

Reynolds also crowded over: "Third Brother, with this move of yours, the entire O'Brien Empire is going to shake. Defeating the genius Sword Saint, what kind of concept is that?"

An shook his head and didn't say much more.

"Let's go, let's head home," An said.

The group left the Combat Arena. Behind them, the cheers of the eighty thousand spectators continued, lingering for a long time without fading.