The instant the dark-red mist rose from the ground, it immediately became a seven-colored rainbow whipping on Rinloran.
Rinloran’s skin and even his silvery-white hair instantly became a mix of seven colors, looking unspeakably strange.
“Oh no! Rainbow Poison Burn!”
In the stands, Ivan’s face suddenly sank.
“It’s over.”
Many people in the stands shook their heads at the same time.
Rainbow Poison Burn was a poison arcane skill unique to House Tully. Arcane masters struck by it quickly lost their ability to move.
In a fight between arcane masters, the battle could sometime be a very intense back and forth, but sometimes you could fall to the enemy’s schemes with but one moment of carelessness, your defeat then written in stone.
Such a victory was common, but a fight ending before they could even see any of Rinloran’s abilities was regrettable.
A flash of satisfaction glinted in Shukla’s eyes when he saw the rainbow poison land on Rinloran.
“Hm?”
But his eyes immediately flashed with surprise the next second.
Many light-blue sparkles suddenly appeared on Rinloran, like the rambling pixies found in the depths of the demon forests.
A strange energy suddenly floated in the air, like the flutter of a nymph’s song.
The seven-colored luster on Rinloran quickly vanished.
“Gaia’s Blessing!”
“An arcane skill that can dispel some negative conditions, something only some pure-blooded elven clans can learn! Where on earth does this Rinloran come from, how can he master an arcane skill that’s already disappeared from the world at large!”
In team Dragon Breath, the knowledgeable Morgan was also startled.
In team Holy Dawn, Ayrin couldn’t resist shouting at Carter, “What arcane skill is this?”
“An arcane skill only passed down in ancient elven clans. It uses the power of nature to cleanse one’s body and soul. Ordinary poisonous and mind-controlling skills are powerless in front of it,” Carter explained with a faint smile.
“God of Herdsmen—Seeds.”
Just then, Rinloran raised his hands as though he were cupping a basin of water between them. Dazzling arcane particles gushed nonstop from his fingers, and dense green balls of light continuously from the ground.
Having no idea what skill Rinloran was using just, Shukla’s figure flashed repeatedly. A deep black halo of light appeared around him; bubbles even seemed to gush continuously inside, looking extremely strange.
“Poison Dragon’s Evil Halo.”
Knowing Ayrin was sure to ask, Carter forestalled him by saying, “A defensive skill that emits continuous poisonous air and can also resist ordinary targeted attacks.”
Just then, in almost the entire stadium, the balls of green light had already transformed into lush and luxuriant undergrowth half a meter high.
“What arcane skill is that?”
Dragon Breath’s captain Morgan was experienced and knowledgeable; he liked to spend his free time in the library. But even he couldn’t tell.
“What?”
Just when Shukla thought the undergrowth didn’t pose a serious threat, just as he was planning on keeping a certain distance away from each underbrush and continue firing constant attacks at Rinloran, many white dandelion-like flowers bloomed in every underbrush.
Many a mature-looking dandelion petal suddenly scattered in the air. They drifted across the whole sky like graceful snow, even blocking vision.
Shukla immediately lost sight of Rinloran.
“Puff puff puff…”
These petals seemed about to pour inside his lung along with his breathing, but the black Evil Halo around him blocked them.
“Swish!”
All of a sudden, a blue, crystal-like arrow of light suddenly appeared behind Shukla.
“Damn it!”
Shukla’s face suddenly sank. He pointed with his right hand. A beam of purple-black flame carrying an intense dragon aura timely struck the arrow of light just as the arrow crossed past the halo around him.
“Puff!” The blue, crystal-like arrow of light was suddenly burned into countless invisible particles.
Shukla lightly shook after scattering the arrow. His face brimmed with a grave expression.
“Poisonous Overgrowth!”
Along with his chant, a black, blurry ring of black flame spread away in every direction, with himself as the center.
The dandelion-like petals fluttering in the air immediately wilted into muddy drops of water dripping down the instant they came into contact with the black blurry flames.
The spectators in the stands and him finally saw the scene in the arena once again.
Rinloran stood a dozen meters behind him. A light-blue crystal-like longbow had impressively appeared in his hand somewhen.
The green grasses in the arena also swiftly turned back under the black flames’ corrosion.
But just then, Rinloran looked at Shukla and said, “You also fell for it!”
Shukla’s heart went cold for an inexplicable reason.
Black vines covered with sharp thorns sudden grew among the grasses turning black and wilting. Fresh scarlet flowers resembling snake heads quickly bloomed on them!
“That’s the Black Magus Flower!”
Morgan was dumbstruck. “Flowers grown by black wizards specialized in poison research during the Magus Era that came after the Era of the War of the Dragons. It actually feeds itself on poison, and the fruits born from it will shoot steel-needle-like seeds as soon as the air vibrates even a little! Such an arcane skill, plus the materialized Elven Bow, is Rinloran actually a descendant of the elven kingdom’s forest guardians?”
“What a strange arcane skill. Was this guy this strong?”
Moss and Ayrin looked at each other.
The black vines grew very quickly to two meters high. An iron forest suddenly seemed to grow in the arena, like the one Ayrin and Rinloran had trained in back in Holy Dawn Academy. Furthermore, the malevolent, snake-head-like red flowers growing on them quickly matured into brown-skinned hard fruits the size of a fist.
“Swish swish swish swish…”
Shukla had merely moved a tiny bit that the several dozen fruits around him instantly split open. Almost a hundred black needles glinting in the light shot in his direction.
“You’re looking down too much on me if you think you’re going to beat me with that kind of speed!”
Just then, the black halo around Shukla suddenly shrank, while another black flame spread outward from inside his body. His body seemed to inflate, while the black flame shaped itself into black spiky scales covering his skin!
“Bang!”
An astonishing force erupted from him the next instant, instantly bursting through the forest of thorny vines in front of him.
All the “Black Magus Flowers” in the fifty meters between him and Rinloran instantly crumbled. The broken branches and leaves and gusts of wind formed a huge, loud wave behind him.
“What a fearsome force!”
“He actually powered through just like that!”
Such a wild explosiveness instantly reminded everyone in the stands that Shukla possessed genuine dragon blood after all!”
“Boom!”
Rinloran and Shukla crashed fiercely together, producing a sound resembling the pounding of a drum.
With the dragon-like gusts of wind surrounding Shukla, no one had clearly seen the scene the instant the collision happened. Μwhen the waves of wind scattered to all sides, they saw Shukla’s figure stopped at the spot of the collision, while Rinloran had been sent flying among the gusts of wind as though he’d been blown up by an explosion, black shadows seeming to fall away from him.
“Can it be?” Rejoicing a little in Rinloran’s misfortune, Stingham was suddenly a little dumbstruck when he saw these black shadows fall down. “This cleanliness freak was actually beaten up til even his poo poo fell out?”
“What’s your brain made of! How could it be poo!” Even Chris almost blew her top when she heard Stingham.
“Is that?”
In team Silver Trout, rather close to Rinloran as it happened, Nolan’s eyes suddenly narrowed instead.
Arcane weights!
He clearly saw that what was scattering away from Rinloran were arcane weights glinting with silver light.
Silver gravity weights!
It was the highest-level training weight, the heaviest among all the arcane weights. They would even combine together to form a gravity field around the arcane master!
In other words, the speed and agility Rinloran had demonstrated at the beginning had actually been achieved even wearing these weights!
Nolan’s scalp even felt a little numb at this moment.
“What!”
As the gusts of wind loudly scattered away, everyone in the stands finally saw when Rinloran was about to land that the longbow had already vanished from Rinloran’s hands. It was replaced, in both his right and his left hands, by a pair of long and slender flower longswords the color of white moonlight.
A trail of blurry afterimages suddenly appeared behind him the instant he touched the ground.
What made almost everyone in the stands gasp in surprise was, the afterimages trailing after Rinloran was longer than the eye-deceiving trail made by anyone when they moved high speed.
Amidst these people’s shock, even more people realized that Rinloran had retreated more than a dozen steps in succession after touching the ground, then immediately advanced more than a dozen steps and returned back to his original position.
Two trails of afterimages almost completely merged together.
“How can he be so fast!”
“He was actually wearing these silver gravity weights even at the start of the match?”
“Shukla has been wounded?”
When Rinloran came to a still, the vast majority of people finally realized that what had fallen to the ground were silver gravity weighs. They also noticed two shallow sword wounds shaped into a cross on Shukla’s chest.
Only after that did some people realize that the reason why Rinloran fell back then went forward again when he landed was that many steel-like needles had shot at him the instant he’d landed. He’d dodged backward and avoided the stabbings of the fruits the instant he’d landed, then quickly gone forward again in order to dodge the fruit thorns his backward motion had attracted.
His speed was actually even higher than the speed at which those needle-shaped fruits shot at!
“Could he be…”
Seeing the dual swords in Rinloran’s hands and the cross-shaped sword wound on Shukla’s chest, Morgan and Kleis and the others were gobsmacked again. Astonishment shone in their eyes.