Heaven, Earth, Me

"[Astral Shift]!"

The undead was surprised this time when the woman he impaled with his sword managed to escape. 'Was I too slow? No, I could clearly feel the sword slicing through skin and bones. Her reaction speed exceeded my expectations, making it possible for her to escape.'

Suddenly, a massive wave of energy descended on him from his right. He looked over and saw several silver meteors falling like rain. He quickly drew his sword and sliced everything coming his way in half.

The undead chuckled. 'She is more slippery than I thought. Where is she?'

Cecile had used her spatial energy to isolate her aura, making it highly complicated to notice her presence. If the Undead wanted to spot Cecile, he would need to do so by sight.

The undead became thoughtful as the cloud of ash surrounding everything impaired his sight. The damaging Moon energy in the cloud didn't reach him because his own aura created a protective shield. However, this didn't help with the visibility. 'What to do'

Previously, he was able to fool Cecile and use her own domain against her because he hid his aura by releasing a faint death energy shield. When he combined it with his undead nature, which allowed him to feel like a dead body, and then when he used that to deceive the Spiritual sense, he was able to create an almost perfect cover for himself.

What he did was practically deceive the Spiritual Sense of the cultivators by "pretending" to be dead and making them ignore him. After all, the spiritual sense was used to distinguish enemies, not corpses on the ground, so people often overlooked this.

However, it was quite a risky move that wouldn't work twice because it was easy to get used to. After all, discovering the trickery was not that complicated.

Cecile would probably lure him into a trap if he tried to do the same. Hence, he needed to find other methods to close the gap.

While he wasn't worried about falling into Cecile's traps, receiving more damage than planned was something almost bound to happen if he was too greedy. His sword moved as the undead sliced the attacks coming from Cecile.

Although the attacks revealed the direction where Cecile was, that was not wholly true, as [Astral Shift]'s powerful mobile nature habilitated Cecile's way of fighting to be foolproof.

Even then, steady and slowly, the undead retaliated against Cecile's barrage and slowly closed the distance. 'The attacks are heavy, constant, and precise. Every time I cross enough distance, she teleports away and continues delivering her attacks. I have two well, three paths to victory.'

'The first'

The undead felt the usual fluctuation and quickly shifted, using a movement technique he mastered to rush forward like a ghost while evading all attacks.

His speed was fast enough to be seen as a blur.

As a result, his barrier couldn't wholly block Cecile's Moonlight Ash Domain, causing frost to build on his robe and skin. However, he managed to close enough distance to see her.

His sword was as quick as he was, slicing through the barrage of arrows targeted at him when he was close enough.

Even then, quicker than his footwork, Cecile looked at him indifferently, a patch of red blood staining the center of her dress, and she used Astral Shift to blink away.

The undead's stiff lips arched as he sent several black crescents in one direction, destroying a giant white fire tornado that was going his way. 'The first method doesn't work. The second is stalling out the battle until she runs out of energy. However, doing that feels a bit boring.'

The undead cackled, his eyes glowing with an eerie light. Then, he spoke aloud. "For the third method Brute force! [Corpse King Sword Barrage]!"

His sword started dancing in a spherical path around him, creating a black sphere out of the trails left by his sword.

Naturally, the slashes he did weren't just melee.

The Undead became a dark sphere of death as countless sword lights imbued with the Level 5 Intent sliced through everything.

Cecile quickly blinked away when one of them was about to hit her. Unfortunately, where she appeared, another one was waiting for her.

Her face became solemn as she quickly used [Hollow Moon Steps] and dodged sideways, only for a third and a four crescent to heed her way. 'Huh? He is attacking at random?'

The Moon Phoenix Woman's face became ugly as she quickly dodged and tried to counterattack, only for her attacks to lose in the strength contest and be sliced by the terrifying hurricane of sword lights.

'I want to transform, but my bigger body will be quickly spotted and slashed up by him Do I need to use that skill?'

Cecile's mind stopped on the name of that skill as she barely dodged another crescent. She pondered for a few seconds, only for her spiritual sense to pick up something coming from her left. 'Dodge!'

She stomped the air and flapped her wings, jumping backward as a sword made its way through the place where her neck stood. 'That trick again?!'

The undead cackled. "It seems that you didn't lower your guard. I shall praise you for that. However, now that I'm this close, it is the end."

BOOM!

A massive aura spread from him, causing everything to be enveloped in an aura of undeath. Cecile was only confused for a moment until her senses perceived the space around her, solidifying a large chunk. 'I can't blink away easily now.'

The undead looked at Cecile and spoke. "Surrender. It is your loss."

Cecile opened her mouth a few times, struggling with whether to use her final trump card or not. The Undead shook his head. "I can smell that you are a very young creature. Your life aura feels fresh. If you are considering whether to use a trump card at the cost of damaging yourself, and that trump card doesn't give you a 100 percent chance of winning, don't use it."

Cecile's eyes opened slightly. "How?"

The undead looked at Cecile with profound eyes. "I felt the resolution to die coming from you."

Cecile paused and looked at him for a few seconds. Then, she sighed and looked upward for a few seconds as the ashes flying around settled down.

"I lose."

The judge appeared and shouted. "Winner, Wu Cang Ba!"

The undead saw the complicated expression on Cecile and chuckled. "Don't be harsh on yourself. If I would tell you my age, you would be surprised. Honestly, the fact that you could match up to me in this limited space is impressive. If we were in an open field, capturing you like I just did would be almost impossible."

Cecile nodded and turned around.

Once she returned, Yasenia smiled at her. "How was it? Fighting a true mid-level Fifth realm cultivator?"

Cecile pondered. "If it is a battle to the death, I don't know who the final winner could be. After all, I have a quite powerful trump card. However, unless I'm forced to use it, I don't want to use that skill."

Yasenia agreed. "That skill should not be used unless necessary. With it, you are strong enough to even face me in my Celestial State for a long time. However, it's quite" Yasenia paused, not knowing how to say it.

Andrea blinked as she stood up for her match. "Which skill?"

Cecile looked over and smirked. "If you don't remember, that's your fault."

Andrea burst into laughter. "I think I know which one you are talking about. I just wanted confirmation."

Cecile nodded.

Andrea jumped into the arena and looked toward the other side. "Oh? It's you?"

On the other side, Wu Rongyao nodded. "Wu Rongyao, you should be called Andrea?"

Andrea hadn't put on her helmet yet, so she smiled and nodded. "That's my name. It is a pleasure fighting you, senior Wu."

Wu Rongyao smiled stiffly. "Well, junior. Don't resent me too much for this win."

Andrea smiled, showing her teeth. "It won't be that easy, senior."

Wu Rongyao cackled. The laugh sounded mocking, but Andrea knew it wasn't. "That's a good spirit; show me what you have, junior."

Andrea nodded solemnly and put on her helmet. "I'll do my best."

Then, her body burst into an inferno as her every aura and domain expanded from her position. Wu Rongyao looked on with praise. "Good skills. While they lack in firepower, they are really good against group or even single enemies."

Then, Wu Rongyao took his staff and tapped the butt of it on the ground. "[Corpse King Grand Summoning]."

From a spatial rift behind Wu Rongyao, undead began flooding the place. Andrea looked at that and asked, confused. "Senior, um, can I kill those?"

Wu Rongyao didn't understand for a second and then cackled. "They are different from me, a natural undead. They have no real soul. Similar to puppets. If you can, of course, kill as many as you want."

Andrea nodded firmly and lifted her halberd high with both her hands. "[Warring Sun Art: Molten Landscape]."

As the halberd descended, a gigantic wave of magma spread around, further increasing the already hellish temperatures.

Wu Rongyao nodded. 'She has a good tactic. Simple, yet effective. If we weren't so far apart realm-wise and age-wise, she would be a really tough opponent.'

With a wave of his hand, he released his Intent. "[Soul Intent Level 5]."

Andrea's lips twitched inside her helmet. 'Another level 5 intent? Do they all have them?'

After the intent was released, Andrea realized that all the undead suddenly looked more alive, and their movements became smoother and more stable. 'Soul Intent Is he using it to strengthen the souls of his undead summons? Interesting application. However, I need to be careful with his attacks. It seems that physical defense will not be that useful.'

Andrea charged forward, using [Searing Solar Prominence] and [Star Born Searing Mantle].

Instantly, wide arcs of magma reaching hundreds of meters tall spawned around Andrea in waves while a cape made entirely of molten magma spread from her back.

Then, she used [Sun Explosion] with the large Phantom Sun she had previously summoned during her preparations.

BOOM!

From the sky, a massive fireball of pure Sun energy expanded, hitting the undead that had charged forward.

Wu Rongyao looked at all of this with interest in his dead eyes. 'Powerful. However, the heat is not enough to heavily damage my summons. How about this, [Corpse Enhanced Arms].'

One of the taller undead, a bulky skeletal one reaching almost 5 meters tall, had extra bones appear around his naked arms, making it seem as if he had gained a set of muscles made out of bones.

Naturally, these bones weren't rigid, so the summon could punch perfectly fine. Well, more than perfectly fine.

BANG!

The fireball created by exploding the phantom sun was blasted into pieces as it rushed first in the lines of the more than 800 undead.

Andrea looked at it with a severe expression. 'My objective for this battle Reach Wu Rongyao and manage to land a blow on him.'

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