Chapter 141: Phoenix
As soon as the announcements ended, a gong sounded for the second time. Almost simultaneously, hundreds of cultivators rushed to the eighteen battle platforms.
The four of Yu Nianzhen, Jiang Yue, Li Futian, and Xuan Ke were no different.
Xuan Ke rushed to the first platform and was about to jump on when a red blaze flew past him.
He momentarily stopped, but the short pause was enough for another shadow to rush past him.
However, he was soon grateful that he never made it to the platform. This was because the red blaze that initially rushed past him was Lin Huang.
Although he was not afraid of her, he did not like fighting against women. He would do it if he had no choice, but he particularly didn’t want to fight against Lin Huang.
’What if she likes me and wants to drag me into her harem?’ He shuddered lightly and decided to give up on the first battle platform.
With Lin Huang in the arena, he didn’t believe any of the challengers could oust her.
In that case, it was better to choose another platform rather than fight a life-or-death battle against the woman.
After making this decision, Xuan Ke didn’t leave right away.
Now that he hadn’t managed to grab a battle platform in the first wave, he felt under less pressure.
For now, he planned to watch a few battles before moving on to challenge another platform.
"If it isn’t the fifth young princess." Lin Huang said, interrupting the monk’s thoughts.
She then swung her whip and hit the ground. A moment later, a flaming rut appeared on the ground, but the fifth young princess wasn’t intimidated.
"Are you here to test my fire? Isn’t the young emperor of your Great Zhu empire confident about defeating me?" She asked with a smirk.
The fifth young princess sneered and gripped her staff tighter, "what’s the use of so much talk? Let’s fight."
"As you wish."
Lin Huang did not wait for the fifth princess to respond.
Instead, she swung her arm, and her whip flew toward the fifth princess.
At first sight, the whip was only five metres long, but as it rushed forth, it seemed to grow. The original five metres grew to twenty metres, and its entire length was covered by a thin fire.
When she saw this, the fifth princess named Zhu Ya did not panic.
She twirled her staff, and two blades appeared on each end.
Each blade was covered by a thin layer of ice, and when the ice met fire, a sizzling sound spread around.
Hot, humid air rose from the staff as the fire consumed the ice, but the fire only lasted a breath longer than the ice.
"How do you like my phoenix fire?" Lin Huang asked with a smile on her face.
"It’s weaker than I expected." Zhu Ya wasn’t to be outdone.
She flew across the platform and twirled her staff in mid-air.
By the time she arrived in front of Lin Huang, thick ice had formed on her weapon, and she thrust it like a spear toward her opponent.
Although Lin Huang recalled her whip to wrap around her in defence, the thrust was too fast, and she couldn’t completely block the attack.
When the staff’s blade hit the whip, a portion of the whip froze, and Lin Huang flew backwards.
However, Zhu Ya did not give her a moment to recover.
She followed up with another attack, and Lin Huang blocked again before flying backwards.
This time, a line of blood appeared at the edge of her mouth, and her face finally changed. Her complacent expression turned solemn, and a red flame flashed in her eyes.
A moment later, the air in the battle platform began to heat up, and Zhu Ya’s skin felt a little dry.
"You can’t defeat me." Lin Huang said.
"Is that so?" Zhu Ya did not take her seriously.
Although Lin Huang’s fire was hotter than expected, it wasn’t hot enough to threaten her.
However, her confidence was too premature.
With no end in sight, the air continued to heat up, and her ice melted as soon as it formed at the tip of her weapon.
Worst of all, tongues of fire appeared at Lin Huang’s feet and began to spread in circles towards the edges of the battle platform.
"How is this possible?" Zhu Ya asked as she retreated backwards.
Although they could release a bit of origin qi to coat their weapons, they were still in the origin forging realm.
It shouldn’t be possible to release so much origin qi!
"I have a phoenix origin, and the phoenix is one of the four divine beasts. How can the phoenix be constrained by ordinary rules?" Lin Huang answered generously. Her lips were curled in a smile, and her eyes showed a deep contempt.
This contempt wasn’t because she was more powerful than her opponent. Instead, she seemed to look down on the very existence of Zhu Ya.
Zhu Ya was very perceptive, and she naturally understood the look in the other’s eyes.
As a princess, she had always been held up and never looked down upon. This was the first time she had been looked down upon, and her blood boiled in her veins.
However, she could do nothing against Lin Huang except grit her teeth and continue to escape from the raging flames.
"How long can you keep this up? Your qi will soon run out." She said angrily.
"You are right, but can you hold on for that long?"
As she said that, a red light flashed in her eyes, and the flames began to morph. They gathered together and a fire phoenix formed in front of her.
When the last of the flame tongues combined into the phoenix, the bird flew toward Zhu Ya.
The fifth princess quickly threw out three shields and then used her staff to block in front of her.
However, she still underestimated the phoenix fire.
The shields collapsed quickly but only depleted half of the phoenix fire.
Without delay, the remaining half continued to rush toward her, and she used all her qi to block the fire.
When the phoenix fire was finally depleted, Zhu Ya was in a miserable state. Her defensive clothes were full of holes, and a part of her hair was burned to ashes.
"What do you say? Will you give up?" Lin Huang giggled.
Zhu Ya wanted to say no, but as soon as she began to speak, iron-flavoured liquid rose up her throat and filled her mouth.
She spat the liquid, and a small pool of blood appeared at her feet.
"Don’t think this is the end." She finally said.
After glaring at Lin Huang, Zhu Ya jumped out of the battle platform, and the boundary formation reset.
As soon as the boundary reset, Lin Huang sat cross-legged in the middle of the platform.
’It still takes too much qi to form the fire phoenix.’ She thought as she used her consciousness to check her body.
Fortunately, she wasn’t severely injured by Zhu Ya, and a low-grade silver rank rejuvenation pill was enough to heal in the time of an incense stick.
However, replenishing her qi was another matter.
Since she had the divine body of a phoenix, all her qi had long transformed into phoenix fire qi.
This qi was domineering and not easily cultivated when in the origin forging realm. Even if she used a qi replenishing pill, it was impossible to recover all her qi before the next challenge.
’Forget it.’ She thought.
’I shouldn’t need too much effort to deal with the next few challengers.’
After thinking that, she opened her eyes and looked around.
Initially, no less than three dozen people surrounded her battle platform. However, those people had moved a little further after her fight with Zhu Ya, and only a few were still standing close.
She examined each of the people, but her eyes didn’t stay on any of them for more than a breath until she saw Xuan Ke.
Her eyes narrowed and rested on the monk, but Xuan Ke did nothing. He neither planned to fight nor leave for the time being.
After watching the previous fight, he still wanted to watch a little more before he moved on.
’She is as fierce as expected.’ He thought as the phoenix looked at him.
An incense stick later, another challenger entered the battle platform.
This one wore a black robe and mask, which immediately revealed his identity as a member of the Death Flower Ascension Front.
"Your qi has yet to recover, how about giving up?" The person said.
His voice was part hesitant and part confident.
In fact, he didn’t think he could deal with Lin Huang when she was at her best. However, she had just fought a hard fight and had yet to recover her qi.
When he thought of that, he became a little ambitious and greedy.
Lin Huang was one of the special targets designated by his organisation, and the reward for her was particularly generous.
As he was indulging in a dream of collecting a fat reward, he heard a seductive chuckle, and a flaming whip appeared in front of him.
