Before long, Xiao Fan and Yun Jinyu arrived at an open area.
The two stood facing each other. Yun Jinyu kept looking Xiao Fan up and down, bewildered. He simply couldn't understand what was so charming about this guy.
Not only did his cousin throw herself at him, but even the Lin family's wild eldest young lady did the same!
Most importantly, even the King Star God held him in high regard.
They would settle it with their fists!
"Let's begin!" Yun Jinyu snorted. Raising the Yunlin Immortal Brush in his hand, he swiftly wrote two characters: "Thunder strike!"
The next second.
Boom!
A bolt of thunder crashed down,
but Xiao Fan neither dodged nor flinched. He simply stood there!
Was it too slow? Yun Jinyu frowned deeply, only to find that his opponent looked perfectly calm.
What a strange person. Could his talent increase his strength when he stands there and takes a beating?
Never mind.
"Fire dragon!" He wrote two more characters.
But this time, Xiao Fan's figure suddenly vanished, moving with incredible speed!
Yun Jinyu's pupils trembled, and he hurriedly began to write again.
"Guard!"
But it was too late. Xiao Fan was far faster than he could write!
By now, Xiao Fan's average speed had reached a hundred meters in 1.7 seconds.
What did that mean?
He could cover ten meters in just 0.17 seconds, the time it took to blink!
And in the blink of an eye, Yun Jinyu couldn't write a single character!
Boom!
A palm strike landed, and Xiao Fan knocked the brush from Yun Jinyu's hand onto the ground.
"Come back!" Yun Jinyu's pupils abruptly contracted. Ignoring the pain of his injuries, he hastily summoned the brush.
But by then, Xiao Fan had it clutched tightly in his hand. It trembled slightly, but couldn't break free!
"Had enough?" Xiao Fan said calmly. "You've already lost."
Yun Jinyu's face was full of unwillingness as he shouted, "That's only because I didn't set up my defenses beforehand!"
"Sure," Xiao Fan said with a sneer. "So is that my fault?"
"A loss is a loss. If this were a battlefield, you'd already be dead. No one would listen to you talk about setting up defenses beforehand!"
Yun Jinyu's face turned ashen with anger, and he was filled with unwillingness. He still had dozens, even hundreds of abilities he hadn't used!
Losing like this was unbearable!
But then another thought occurred to him. "You deliberately let me hit you just to find out how I fight, didn't you?" Yun Jinyu frowned deeply.
"Why else?" Xiao Fan shrugged. "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can fight a hundred battles without danger."
"Once I realized you only knew how to use that brush, you had no chance of winning."
"How strange. A great genius like you doesn't cultivate his body at all? You've placed all your abilities in an external object. It's truly baffling."
The mockery shook Yun Jinyu's Dao heart. He clenched his fists and said, "It takes me less than half a second to write 'guard.' You were over twenty meters away from me. Who could have known your explosive speed was so great?"
"If we fought again..."
Xiao Fan finished for him, saying indifferently, "You'd still lose!"
"You!" Yun Jinyu snorted angrily and argued no further.
He was truly unwilling to accept it, because his explosive power was especially strong. He could instantly reduce everything within a hundred-meter radius to ashes!
But he had lost without using any of it!
His cousin was watching from the sidelines, so he could only swallow his anger!
Yun Jinyu snorted and said, "We'll meet again in the class-opening battle. When that happens, I won't give you another chance to get close!"
"All right, you want to know everything now, right?"
"Fine, I'll tell you!"
Xiao Fan focused intently and listened closely.
Yun Jinyu sighed. "To tell this story, I have to start with Shao Yan's birth."
"Her birth was a difficult one."
"Her talent was too strange. It was a sealed black flame called Dead Soul Fire, born with an intense aura of death!"
"Even if Shao Yan had made it through the birth, there was no way she could have withstood the power of that talent. She wouldn't have lived more than three days!"
"Of course, her father couldn't just stand by and watch his own flesh and blood die like that!"
"She also managed to find a way out."
"What?" Xiao Fan frowned deeply.
"The Armor of Alpha!" Yun Jinyu suddenly raised his head. "Back then, her father went to the foreign races and made a deal with them!"
"The active element in the Armor of Alpha was highly compatible with Dead Soul Fire. When the two fused, they no longer caused any harm!"
"So, as the finest artifact refiner, her father forged this terrifying humanoid weapon!"
"That's right. It's... Shao Yan."
Xiao Fan abruptly turned and stared hard at the woman behind him.
He suddenly remembered asking the King Star God what their side's prize was, when the other side's was the Armor of Alpha.
Chen Changsheng had said he didn't need to know.
Now he knew. It was Shao Yan!
"You mean Shao Yan was the prize in that Battle of Dignity?" Xiao Fan clenched his fists tightly.
"Alas..." Yun Jinyu sighed. "That's right."
"There's no way out of this."
"If they hadn't brought the Armor of Alpha back then, Shao Yan would have died three days after her birth."
"The foreign races aren't fools either. They certainly didn't give away the Armor of Alpha for nothing. They had their eyes on the Dead Soul Fire inside Shao Yan."
"Right now, the Armor of Alpha has a restriction placed on it by the foreign races. Once activated, it will explode on the spot! Shao Yan will die immediately!"
"But that would also mean losing the Dead Soul Fire. The foreign races won't do that unless they absolutely have to."
"So she became the stake in the future Battle of Dignity!"
"If the human race loses, Shao Yan's soul will be taken away, leaving her a walking corpse and a weapon in someone else's hands!"
"If the human race wins, then all will be well!"
Suddenly, all the tension vanished from Xiao Fan's face. He chuckled softly. "I see."
He turned to Shao Yan and asked gently, "I was wondering what it could be!"
"Why didn't you tell me about something so minor?"
"Minor!?" Yun Jinyu was stunned. "You think this is minor?"
"Of course," Xiao Fan said calmly. "With me here, there's no way we can lose the Battle of Dignity. I could take on seven of them by myself, no problem."
"What the fuck are you bragging about!?" Yun Jinyu couldn't hold back and cursed outright. This guy's putting on way too much of an act!
At that moment, Xiao Fan stood up and looked at Yun Jinyu. "I've already fought two geniuses at the Super God Class level today," he said calmly.
"Lin Lianshen, and you, Yun Jinyu!"
"Do you know what I think of you two?"
"What!?" Yun Jinyu frowned deeply.
"I don't think you understand combat at all." Xiao Fan's face was full of scorn. "If I had to describe the way you fight in one phrase, it would be playing house!"
"You make a move, I make a move. You defend in a panic and hesitate whenever something happens."
"And you won't even admit it when you lose."
"If everyone in the Super God Class is at your level, then I don't think I should let you take the field!"
"Too weak!"
"You!!" Yun Jinyu's face turned ashen with anger.
Just then, his dear cousin came over to twist the knife.
"All right, Fanfan, don't say any more about my cousin. He may be weaker than you, but he still cares about his face."
"Okay, whatever you say."
Yun Jinyu was so angry he nearly spat blood and fainted.
Under the dim moonlight, Shao Yan sighed. "I really didn't expect you to come looking for me in the middle of the night."
Xiao Fan glanced at her. "If something's wrong in the future, tell me. Don't just disappear at the drop of a hat."