Liang Chen looked at the two opponents that had stepped onto the stage, the blonde-haired and gray-eyed woman from the Undead race and the four-armed and crimson-eyed man from the Fiendgod race. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, their fingers already tracing their interspatial rings as they waited for the battle to start.
Both of them were only a single step away from the late stage of the Heaven's Gate realm so even if Liang Chen or Yan Ling were alone, they would still be able to deal with them. Of course, as they had managed to reach the second floor of this tower, it was highly unlikely that they didn't have a trick or two up their sleeves. This wasn't the first floor, the combatants here weren't like the ones on the first floor, mostly rabble that had gathered together to feel strong.
Their breathing was perfectly in synch, the energy within their bodies moving like well-organized waves. This was clearly not the first time they had fought together, causing Liang Chen to guess that tag team battles might not be as rare as he first thought. He cast another sideways glance at Yan Ling and then swiped his interspatial ring, his golden spear appearing in his grasp.
"Alright, tag team battles it is. Leave that woman to me, you just deal with the man."
In truth, doing their future battles in a tag team style put Liang Chen at ease. Not only did it make it far easier for him to protect her should there be a need for it, but she could also protect him if it became necessary, it was a perfect solution for the two of them. The judge moved her gaze between the two duo's, and after making sure that they were both ready, she gave the signal to start the fight.
The moment the judge gave the signal, the two opponents sprung into action. The woman crouched down and cupped her hands, allowing the man to step onto her hands and letting her launch him into the air. The moment she launched him into the air, his back split open and two leathery wings sprouted from his back, allowing him to fly. His jaws also elongated drastically, taking on the shape of a pair of pincers. Clearly, he had used parts from insect and bat type Demonic beasts to cultivate.
Both the man and the woman traced their interspatial rings, each of them taking out bows. The woman only took out a single white bow but the man took out two white bows, taking advantage of the fact that he had four arms he could use. Seeing the actions of their opponents, Yan Ling turned to Liang Chen.
"Throw me after him."
Her expression contained a mixture of excitement and seriousness, this was the first time she would fight someone else who could move around in the air so she was looking forward to seeing what she could learn from him. Liang Chen couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, his lips curling up slightly.
"Oh, it's my time to finally throw you around a bit?"
Yan Ling had thrown Liang Chen around quite a bit since they first met, both physically and mentally. Now that it was his time to toss her around for a bit, how could he not be a bit excited? Yan Ling could easily read his thoughts, rolling her eyes in slight exasperation.
"Yeah yeah, you can gloat all you want later on. But for now, chop chop, toss me! And it'll only be this once! I'll still have tossed you more than you have tossed me!"
Liang Chen only responded with a light chuckle before suddenly sweeping out with his spear, a fine white mist gathering around the entire spear. His spear collided with three arrows that were headed directly for them, the white mist causing the arrows to dissolve and become part of the mist. He slightly raised one of his eyebrows after blocking the three arrows, casting a sideways glance at their two opponents.
One of the arrows had been created using only Anima Essence, so it would have gone directly through his spear if his poison hadn't been mixed with his own Anima Essence. The other two arrows were made using normal Demonic beast bones and fangs, but they were infused with a rather strong lightning element that even somewhat burned away his poison. After blocking the arrows, Liang Chen turned to Yan Ling again.
"So what if you'll still have tossed me more than I have tossed you? I take my victories where I can get them."
After he finished his sentence, he stabbed his spear into the stone stage and grabbed onto Yan Ling's shoulder and waist. He then gathered up power into his arms and threw Yan Ling into the air with all his might, almost as if he was throwing a sack of potatoes. He could hear Yan Ling grumble about the difference in treatment she received compared to what the man from the Fiendgod race received, but Liang Chen elected to ignore her for now. If she was adamant about grumbling, he could just appease her in the future.
Liang Chen then grabbed his spear and turned his head to face his opponent, his gaze growing colder as he prepared his mind for battle. The blonde woman was already preparing another arrow, shooting it the moment he turned to face her. Liang Chen took half a step to the side, the arrow whizzing past his shoulder. He was just about to step forward when his instincts warned him of danger, his body instinctively crouching down.
The arrow he had just sidestepped flew over his head, turning around shortly after missing him and coming for him again. He cast a slight glance at the woman, who was already preparing another arrow using her Anima Essence. Liang Chen flicked his spear upwards to block the arrow, but it changed direction just before the two touched, resulting in the tip of his spear just barely brushing past the arrow.
The woman drew the string on her bow and prepared to shoot the next arrow, not even waiting to see if her one arrow would be enough to deal with Liang Chen. But just as she was preparing to fire the arrow, her vision turned blurry and her heartbeat became erratic. The arrow was still unleashed, but she had lost all control over which direction it flew.
A drumming headache was starting to assault her, all other sound vanishing as the incessant drumming became the only thing she was able to hear. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew that she couldn't stay in one spot. She tried to dodge backward but found that her legs had grown soft, to the point that just taking one step caused her to fall over. Her vision had already become completely black, her body growing softer and softer as the horrible drumming sound that blocked out everything else grew louder and louder. She couldn't even gather her Anima Essence any longer, her very soul growing weaker and weaker.
Just as she was wondering what sort of hell she had entered, she felt a sharp spear stab into her chest, piercing through her soul. The spear was given a light twist, tearing her soul apart and silencing the horrible drumming sound.
Liang Chen pulled his spear out of the woman's chest, returning it to his interspatial ring before taking the woman's interspatial ring for himself. She used quite a clever trick with her arrows, making them out of her own Anima Essence allowed her to control them as she pleased. As long as she used one arrow to occupy her enemy, she could prepare more and more arrows, filling the entire stage with her arrows.
It was a rather clever thing to do, but it backfired when she used it against Liang Chen. As long as she was controlling the arrows there would always be a small connection between her and the arrows. There was nothing she could do about it, this connection had to be there to control the arrows. But Liang Chen could use this connection, flooding it with his poisonous Anima Essence and then having it enter the woman's soul.
All it took was that his spear grazed her arrow, that was all he needed to flood her soul with his poison. After infecting her soul he could then spread his poison to her body, melting her muscles so that she couldn't launch more arrows while his poison was eating away at her soul. It was a rather gruesome way to kill someone, but it was exactly actions like these that had earned him the title of Scourge King.
After killing the woman, Liang Chen turned his eyes onto the battle taking place in the sky. Yan Ling was trying to fight the man from the Fiendgod race in close quarters, but every time she got close he would fly away from her. She could only move in the air by using the wind to lighten her body and solidifying the air beneath her, she wasn't as quick or as flexible as her opponent, who actually using wings to fly. The man also used lightning, meaning that his speed was naturally fast, making it even harder for Yan Ling to catch up to him.
But she wasn't completely helpless, she still had her ways of attacking him. She had to make her attacks rather light to make them fast enough to hit him, meaning that they didn't have enough power to leave any lasting wounds on his tough and resilient body. So she focused her attacks on his softer spots, his wings and his eyes.
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It was a bit harder to hit his eyes, but each attack aimed at his eyes forced the man to fly away, interrupting his barrage of attacks. With his lightning aiding the speed of his arrows, it was a bit hard for Yan Ling to actually dodge the attacks, but by using her wind and mixing in a bit of water for mass, she was able to form a shield to both weaken and deflect the arrows.
She had a hard time properly wounding him and he had a hard time wounding her, the battle between the two had entered a stalemate. There was no helping it, Yan Ling simply wasn't fast enough to deal with the man's speed. Once she increased her body cultivation and got enough physical power to move faster she would be able to more easily deal with opponents with speed like this.
Liang Chen looked down at the corpse of the woman beneath him, his eyes landing on the bow she was still holding. He bent over and picked up the bow, giving it a quick inspection. The bow itself seemed to be made from a strange bow that was as white as milk, strangely soft but still very resilient. The string itself was made using a mixture of tendons and silk-like hair that were twinned around each other, forming a somewhat thick string that was rather heavy to pull back.
Liang Chen had used a bow before, but as his strength increased it became harder to find a bow that could keep up with him. This left him with no choice but to temporarily give up on bows, at least until he found one that was tough enough for him to use. He had mostly used a bow back in the Mystic's Hidden Realm so he couldn't help but be feel a bit nostalgic when he picked up the bow. He gave the bow a few tests, putting in some of his various energies and elements while drawing the string.
To his surprise, he noticed that while the bow didn't have any extraordinary special effects added to it using arrays, it had one natural effect that was perfectly suited to him. The more Qi he put into the bow and the string, the harder and tougher they became. This didn't only mean that he could gather more force inside each arrow, it also meant that the bow could temporarily keep up with him.
There was definitely a limit to how strong and tough the bow could become by being infused with Qi, it would break eventually if he continued to infuse it with his lightning or poison, but it was good enough for the time being. Liang Chen turned his eyes back onto the sky, calling out to Yan Ling.
"Oy, Ling'er, could you lend me some of your wind? Just enough to form a hollow arrow would be good."
Liang Chen's control over wind was not yet good enough to form a hollow arrow that would be stable, thus he decided to leave it up to Yan Ling. Yan Ling looked away from her opponent for a second, glancing at Liang Chen. Seeing the bow in his grasp, she could somewhat guess at what he wanted her to do.
She descended down to the ground, causing her opponent to fly higher up into the air, a vigilant look in his eyes. He could see that his partner was already dead, so it was up to him to deal with these two now, he just had to figure out how. Yan Ling landed next to Liang Chen, her cheeks puffed out slightly as she pouted.
"I may be slower than you in dealing with my opponent, but that's only because he is faster than me. Not everyone can be like you, freakish in all aspects. So don't you even think about gloating!"
Liang Chen felt like laughing, he was also tempted to pinch her cheeks to see what she would do. But he decided that now wasn't the optimal time to do this, so he simply raised his arms in surrender.
"Don't worry, I'll only gloat about the fact that I got to throw you around like a sack of potatoes. I'll leave controlling the arrow to you, I'll focus on stuffing it with enough force to blow him to kingdom come."
Yan Ling wasn't fast enough to catch the man, and Liang Chen was unable to fly after him. Since that was the case, they might as well just take him down from a distance, finishing him with a single arrow. Yan Ling clicked her tongue at being reminded how she was thrown, but she still did her part, creating a hollow arrow using her wind.
Liang Chen grabbed the arrow and placed it on the bow, filling it with his emerald lightning and his white poison, using his law of time to create a clear divide between the two so that they wouldn't start eating away at each other. He then filled the bow and string with his Qi, slowly drawing the string back and gathering as much force as possible within the arrow.
Their opponent shot several arrows to prevent Liang Chen from fully preparing his, but each of those arrows was deflected by Yan Ling, giving Liang Chen as much time as he needed. It didn't take Liang Chen long to fully prepare his arrow, the bowstring letting out a slight humming sound as he unleashed the arrow.
The arrow turned into a faint blur as it cut through the air, letting out a slight howling sound as it cut through the wind and flew towards the man. The man shot several arrows in an attempt to block the arrow, but thanks to Yan Ling controlling the arrow, he was unable to block the arrow before it reached him.
Realizing that he couldn't block it with one of his own arrows and that dodging was impossible with Yan Ling controlling it, the man stored away his two bows and took out two thick shields, raising them to block the incoming arrow. But just as he was moving to raise the shields, Liang Chen activated one of the laws he had put into the arrow.
The law of time that was used to divide his lightning and poison seeped out of the arrow, drastically increasing the flow of time around it. The arrow became even faster, vanishing from the man's sight and flying past his halfway raised arms. The arrow stabbed into his chest, the lightning and poison within the arrow running rampant.
A thunderous explosion rang out as a white cloud of poison surrounded the man, an emerald green bolt of lightning leaving the cloud and shooting into the sky, vanishing from sight. With the sound of the thunderous explosion still ringing in the ears of the audience, the smoking body of the man fell down from the sky and crashed into the stage. The right part of his chest had been torn out by the lightning, the white poison slowly dissolving his body.
Liang Chen quickly waved his hand and took back the poison, preventing it from fully dissolving the man's body. His strong body was perfect for Yan Ling and his lightning element was perfect for Liang Chen, they couldn't let it go to waste. He stored both the body of the man and the woman into his interspatial ring, saving them for later cultivation. After putting away the bodies and their items, Liang Chen put away the bow he was holding and clapped his hands, turning to Yan Ling.
"Alright, shall we go and do some shopping before we start cultivating and I get to do my gloating?"
They had a bit of funds on their hands now so it wasn't a bad idea for them to check the markets here for some resources. They might even be lucky enough to find a bloodline that was strong enough to be useful to Yan Ling. Yan Ling once again clicked her tongue when she heard Liang Chen's words, the two of them stepping down from the stone stage while the judge announced their victory.
"Tch, you sure are adamant about that."
She could already picture his self-satisfied face as he recounted the tale of how he threw her like a sack of potatoes. Just imagining it made her want to chop him on the head, but she knew that wouldn't be enough to stop him. Liang Chen chuckled lightly, shrugging his shoulders as the two of them left the arena and headed for the closest market.
"As I said, I take my victories where I can get them."