Chapter 71 - 70: Nine Seconds

*Swish!* *Swish!*

Up in the sky of the Shrek Academy perimeters, two spirit masters could be seen battling against each other flying around in the air. A young lad with green constructed bird like wings and green-edged sharp sword that was parrying against the golden flames fists of a young lady with white mixed with gold constructed bird like wings. The fight between them was like a battle between angels of war.

Metal met flesh in their countless collisions of battle. Xiao Yan's first spirit ring darkened as his katana sliced apart a giant, truck-sized, golden fireball hurdling towards him while at the same time sending his own wave of attack.

Xun Er's eyes widened as a gigantic fifty meter long and wide tsunami, entirely made out of green flames, that easily dwarfed her body appeared coming straight towards her within mere seconds to engulfed her. In a quick burst of speed, aided with her second spirit ability, Golden Flames of Devastation, and her unknown fourth spirit ability to quickly dodged by appearing high above where she once where. Effectively the tsunami missed her and had came crashing down towards the ground area.

The tsunami, made completely out of heavenly flame, was just about dozens of feet away to burn and melt the ground to magma when it was suddenly stopped by a light of black and gold protective layer of spirit power that immediately surrounded the flame wave into a gigantic ball.

"Woah! Those kids are really going all out." Zhao Wuji humphed, his seven spirit rings out with some lighting up and surrounding his body, as he focused on his control of gravity on the flame wave.

"... This isn't even a fight those monsters should have with their current spirit ranks respectively." Flender muttered as he, with his spirit transformation and seven spirit rings around him, watched the battle between a Spirit Elder and Spirit Ancestor while controlling his spirit power to cover the area around to protect the academy. To which his spirit power is currently compressing the flame wave into a ball and slowly shrink it further until it disappears.

What Flender currently witnessing and his experience in battles, he thought that the 'spar' in front of him and the other teachers is like a battle between Spirit Kings or Spirit Emperors combat prowess wise.

"True." Grandmaster lightly agreed as he petted a small golden plushy like dragon in his arms while spreading his own spirit power to protect Tang San and the other students who wouldn't be able to handle the heat of heavenly flames.

Tang San quickly and efficiently taken the hypnotized teammates down after a couple of minutes. They're currently unconscious, after the former defeated them and grabbed them, and the Ma siblings, to where the teachers where spectating the fight so they would be taken care of by the said teachers. He also wanted to join in the fight but fighting his hypnotized team was more tedious and draining than he thought.

"Shouldn't we stop this? This isn't a spar anymore Xiaogang." Flender asked towards Grandmaster after he extinguished the heavenly flame. While also moving his right hand to pet the small cuddly golden dragon in the latter's arms, to which the dragon cutely lean into.

'Cute.' Everyone thought.

"I still can't believe this is Luo San Pao. I heard the term 'fish becoming a dragon' but a dog becoming a majestic golden dragon? Damn."

Grandmaster smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt and shook his head.

"You aren't the only one wondering about Luo San Pao. I've once read records of my clan's ancestry of their spirit, being descended from two powerful dragons that could easily destroy mountains and turn the sea itself into a sea of lightning. It's been a long time since I've read the records so my memories of those is a bit jaded." Flender nodded in understanding as he continued petting the small dragon before towards the still fighting duo.

"Then, what about them?"

"... Yeah this just went beyond being a spar between students. But let's just leave them be for a while. They probably have some frustrations to let out towards each other. Until they either went overboard and unknowingly go for a killing blow, we won't intervene. Do you all accept?" Every teacher nodded in agreement while Tang San looked as if he wanted to say something but decided not to. Instead, he focused in tending to his friends while revolving the Mysterious Heaven Skill to replenish his spirit power.

Back to the fight, Xiao Yan slid back with his arms crossed between his c.h.e.s.t while holding onto his sword. Letting a breath out, blood dropping from his mouth, exhaustion on his face, he looked down to see his torso armor cracked and losing some pieces.

His external spirit bone, Golden King's Aegis, is a very powerful defense type spirit bone above most other types of defense spirit bones. But even then, it is only as strong as it is, if it had spirit power powering it up.

And right now, Xiao Yan is at a dangerous low of it.

But instead of feeling fear or any form of panic, he instead smirked towards a frowning Xun Er flying up still in the air with the help of her wings with her hands clenched, ready for both offensive and defense against any attacks that would come from Xiao Yan.

Despite her figure disheveled and having numerous cuts around her body, with blood dripping out of, she didn't looked exhausted as Xiao Yan. Which is expected, she was supercharged with the spirit power of a Spirit Elders and a Spirit Ancestor. She had a more substantial amount of spirit power than Xiao Yan, who despite having the combat prowess of a Spirit King or Spirit Emperor, still only has a spirit power repertoire of a Rank 36 Spirit Elder.

"What are you smirking about?" Xun Er asked with furrowed eyebrows.

Xiao Yan floated up high to level with Xun Er. He let down his arms by his sides, along with his sword, seemingly letting down his guard as he continues to smirk and said.

"Your fourth spirit ring ability, I finally figured it out. It's a domain that let's you increases all your attributes by 40%, the ability to distort space and lets you control the light element to amplify your speed and flame damage."

"What?" Xun Er gasped in shock, her once balled fists dissipated the flames, as she covered her mouth with said hands as she continued. "It took you this long to figure it out? Yan, I'm honestly disappointed."

Xiao Yan didn't react to her taunt, except for a miniscule twitched of an eyebrow that even a Spirit Sage wouldn't notice, as he took on a more serious expression and got into a combat stance.

He knew he's getting low in spirit power, Xun Er probably also knew as well, so he either has to used vigor, Dragon Qi, or spiritual power if he's going to fight.

Vigor is mostly reserved when he uses his second spirit, Fire Dragon King Mode, and Dragon Qi is a dangerous energy to use that would certainly kill Xun Er.

'And we have a winner...' Xiao Yan inwardly joked.

Silently and quickly, his eyes glowed green as he used Mind Over Reality to influence Xun Er's senses on how she perceives the next several minutes.

Mind Over Reality is a spiritual attack ability that manipulates a person's five senses to make them perceived what Xiao Yan would have them. Just as what he did to the others before and how he manipulated Tang San into absorbing his friends' energies with his spider lances by changing his perception of reality that he was absorbing Xiao Yan's while revolving his Mysterious Heaven Skill to quickly recover at the same time, but the true reality was that he was absorbing from the others during the times they finished their attacks on Xun Er.

And right now, Xiao Yan would do the same to Xun Er, making her perceived a different reality. A reality where he and she would continue to fight as he explained what her mysterious fourth spirit ability is while the truth is that he would be recovering his lost spirit power reserves as he waits till Xun Er becomes exhausted.

A cowardly move but a flawless victory nonetheless, a easy win for anyone... if the person in front of him wasn't Xun Er.

Letting out a long sigh and shaking his head, he muttered, "I'm such a softie for her..." the glow in Xiao Yan's eyes disappeared as he looked to see Xun Er frowning at him.

"Softie? Yan, you've punched me in the face, harshly kicked my stomach, unhesitatingly put cuts and lacerations on any part of my body with your sword, and blasting me with your fireballs. How in the hell are you a softie?"

"I didn't humiliate you unlike most others." Xiao Yan answered with a raised eyebrow.

"...Okay you got me there." Xun Er sighed. Her second spirit ring lit up, then fourth and lastly first. "So as revenge, I'm going to finish this once and for all."

Second Spirit Ring Ability: Golden Flames of Devastation

Fourth Spirit Ring Ability: Holy Dragon's Domain

First Spirit Ring Ability: Thousand Golden Trigram Palms

A domain is a large-area ability centred on the Spirit Master using it. It provides effects based on what type of domain it is, mainly increasing the strength of the user and decreasing the strength of any opponents within range. Domains are extremely rare amongst Spirit Masters, Even among Titled Douluo. 100,000 Year Spirit Beasts all seem to have innate domains.

Right now and before, Xun Er has been using this rare ability to fight against Xiao Yan's many powerful techniques. The reason why the latter and others who witnessed her using this ability numerous times and still haven't realized what it truly, is because it's as rare as hundred thousand year old spirit beasts/rings. Even in the memories of Flame Emperor, domain type abilities are very rare, so even Xiao Yan wasn't able to realize it until now.

He's been going through dozens of hypotheses in his mind of her once mysterious fourth spirit ability. Before, he had only knew that she would have an increased of 40% of all attributes, but now that he knew about her ability to distort space at the same time? A range AOE type ability that has the ability to increased her attributes and distorting space? Now that sort of info shortened the list.

It wasn't until he felt the strikes he received from her was more powerful than before, and feeling a foreign energy mixed with her flame attacks, that he decided to gamble by trying to have Xun Er actively admit it. And his gamble paid off.

However, Xiao Yan was wrong on the assumption of Xun Er's domain ability.

Holy Dragon's Domain is a domain that only has two capabilities. One, increases all of Xun Er's attributes by 40%, it increases with an additional 10% every time she advances an entire spirit rank realm, and lastly, absolute control of the light elements.

When Xun Er changed the position of Xiao Yan, it wasn't a space attribute ability. Instead, it was her third spirit ring ability that caused such phenomenon.

Her third spirit ring ability, Golden Distortion World, is a pseudo domain of controlling time but also made it so that uses of it is limited by two times a day, as anymore than that would cause her to undergo spirit power exhaustion.

The first was used to trapped Xiao Yan in time, which didn't worked at first that confused Xun Er to no end, the second was used in a double layer of her pseudo time domain to stopped everything once more in a attempt to change the flow of the battle.

Now why didn't she just used that moment to unfreeze everyone, except Xiao Yan, to free them from the latter's control? It's because she didn't have the time.

Using her third spirit ring ability twice at the same time dosen't mean it would stacked the time, no, in fact it significantly shortened it by three seconds. She only had three seconds, in another layer of time, to make a move. And that move was pinning Xiao Yan to where she was about to be crushed into and limit his movement by striking the pressure points in his body so he wouldn't be able to move. That split second of time Xiao Yan had mistakenly thought he was distorted by space with Xun Er and why he couldn't moved was because he was sluggish due to it.

She knew that using that method of restriction wouldn't be enough to stop him. His body's unnatural physiology is so abnormal, that even by striking his pressure points would only inconvenience him for a few moments.

But that was enough for her to used her fourth and second spirit ring abilities to increase her overall attributes, more so with her light and fire elements, to injure Xiao Yan to free her friends. Well, at least one of them. Who would have thought he would have Tang San s.u.c.k.e.d the others, and herself, spirit power so that he would only fight the former after he was free?

As Xun Er's domain covered Xiao Yan's body, the latter felt like the entire world brightened by ten times! As he continuesly stared at her, he thought.

'Should I be scared? Or be aroused–' His line of thought was stopped as he used his Instant Movement Technique to connect at a certain point in the air to dodged three giant sized golden palms that was about to turned him to meat paste.

Xiao Yan didn't have the time to either think or say anything, as he followed his instincts to continuesly moved around in lightning speed to dodged hundreds of giant sized palms coming at him.

He moved like a break dancer, dodging giant palms left and right, h.i.p.s, arms and legs moving rhythmely in the sky with his sword cutting apart the golden palms at the same time.

He was like an angel of war, that was being punished by the heavens for his greatness of being a dancer.

He wasn't the only one as well, Xun Er, who was moving in a strange but enamored set of movements with her palms towards Xiao Yan was like the female version of Buddha with wings, but more beautiful and s.e.xy.

Minutes passed and Xiao Yan has already started to get slower, his breathing hard, and he's starting to get hit by Xun Er's golden palms. His spirit power is at 5% while Xun Er, who was burning through in the use of her spirit abilities, was still at more than 50%.

"Yan, surrender. There's no more hope for you to win, unless you get serious" Xun Er stated as she levitated in the air with her golden wings, as her hands set into a prayer, now counting to nine thousand of giant golden palms appeared behind her back and surrounding a exhausted Xiao Yan in the ground who now couldn't keep his spirit power wings due to his low reserves.

Xiao Yan panted slowly as he set his katana in the ground, his eyes still calm and steady, he remained quiet though. Staring up at Xun Er with his hand on top of his sword's b.u.t.t. Although a bit disheveled, he didn't show any hint of injuries on his body.

"Will Xiao Yan admit defeat?" Zhao Wuji wondered, along with the other teachers, as they watched the two students.

Tang San and Flender however shook their heads in denial.

"I know Xiao Yan, he wouldn't easily admit defeat. Especially to Xun Er." Tang San said.

"Although I have known him for a short amount of time, but I do know he is a young man who is both so stubborn and determined to win upon impossible odds that he couldn't possibly just do the opposite." Flender added.

Grandmaster hummed as he stroked his non-existent beard, muttering loud enough that everyone else near could hear.

"Looks like he's going to get a bit serious."

Tang San nodded as he added.

"Yeah, he's going to use more of his strength now."

Xiao Yan stare down at his right hand, clenching and unclenching it, as he inwardly thought.

'Looks like my body can really handle any attacks below Spirit Sages. I've been pummeled with Xun Er's giant palms for a while, and except for some internal injuries that were quickly healed, not a single wound is on my body.' Turning towards Xun Er, a grin formed on his face. 'I guess I have to get a little bit more serious.'

Xiao Yan's katana disappeared into mots of green light that caused Xun Er's eyes to narrow and body to tensed up, thinking.

'So he's going to use it?' Despite repeatedly using her spirit abilities, Xun Er is still confident that her repertoire of spirit power can help her fight against Xiao Yan in his Fire Dragon King transformation.

Among the abilities that Xiao Yan has, his second spirit, the Fire Dragon King, is something that she and anyone who has a beast type spirit, or blood of a spirit beast, in their bodies is terrified of. His bloodline suppression and debuffs are terrifying as they are things that only true dragon kings could only resist against. Despite having the one of the most closest bloodline of the Holy/Light Dragon King, Xun Er could never hope to resist against the bloodline suppression of Xiao Yan's. How could a descendant go against the real thing?

'But I can't be careless, his Fire Dragon King spirit might be troublesome but he still has more tricks on his sleeve than that.' Xun Er's palms glowed golden once more, 'Though first, I'll make some trouble for him before he could transformed.' she prepared to used her first spirit ring ability once more to try and delay or possibly stopped Xiao Yan's transformation.

Dishonorable and shameless in a battle between spirit masters, but being trained in the art of not giving any shits to opponents that would also do the same to you, from both Grandmaster and Xiao Yan for months, has Xun Er and the others having that given mentality.

"Hah!" Giving a battle cry, Xun Er twisted her body 180 degrees and push both her arms out into a pushing position towards Xiao Yan. Nine thousand of golden palms behind her and surrounding Xiao Yan, followed after her. The domain she had activated increased and amplified the firepower of her attacks once more.

The giant golden palms were like meteors, coming down from the heavens and give damnation to the people of world. Any Spirit Elders, heck, even Spirit Kings would become paste meat at the heavenly damnation.

Any normal person would have escaped or begged mercy. But this is Xiao Yan. A young man who go beyond normalcy and create miracles. He is a person, who make the impossible possible.

Xiao Yan closed his eyes, the outside noise seemed to disappear from his mind and senses, he clenched both of his fists, sliding his right foot back in half circular pattern, he took a deep breathe in and c.o.c.ked his right arm back.

He opened his eyes to reveal that he activated Purple Demon Eyes. He watched as thousands of giant golden palms at the size of trucks flying straight towards him, all moving at the speed of a snail within his line of sight.

His breathing became slow, his heartbeat almost to the point of stopping, his muscles tensed and blood almost froze. It was like he was killing himself.

However the truth is far from that. Xiao Yan's Purple Demon Eyes took a more shade of green, that seemed to give off the feeling of both dread and terror to anyone who dared looked. His figure seemed to be covered in a crimson veil energy cloak, that exuded the aura of fitting for someone of high authority and power.

He channeled the energies of both internal Qi/strength(1) and Vigor by one-tenth of each of his overall reserves throughout his entire body, via pathways, and circulated one of his opened Eight Extraordinary Meridians, the Penetrating Meridian(2), to help compliment both his energies to merged.

As both of his energies merged, he concentrated on using one of his movement techniques to help amplify his thought process and speed. Silver lightning bolts started to appear all around his body as he activated the Three Thousand Lightning Movement Technique. His thought process significantly improved as he calculated and predicted the movements and courses of where the probability giant golden palms would go.

Channeling the merged energies into his right fist, glowing in a crimson and white color, a solemn and somber expression formed on his face. All emotions were drained from his face.

'Imperial Emperor's Decree...'

Then, his right fist made contact to one of the giant golden palms.

'One Punch to rupture the heavens!'

The giant golden palm popped like a balloon! Golden dust fell with only the glowing right fist of Xiao Yan stretching out remained.

It hadn't end there. His fist moved like a flash of lightning, ruthlessly striking fast on all the giant golden palms with a single punch and destroying them all!

Millisecond after millisecond, a punch would be sent out and strike the palms through, destroying them, and golden dusts scattered around.

'One second...' A thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Two seconds...' Two thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Three seconds...' Three thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Four seconds...' Four thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Five seconds...' Five thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Six seconds...' Six thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Seven seconds...' Seven thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Eight seconds...' Eight thousand golden palms turned to dusts.

'Nine seconds...' All nine thousand golden palms turned to dusts and Xiao Yan was covered in a shower of golden spirit power dusts. Letting out a sigh, he took back his right arm and straighten his back.

Everyone, even Xun Er, was silent. Shock and disbelief on their faces as they try to comprehend what just happened.

To the untrained eyes, Xiao Yan had only sent out a single slow punch that destroyed every giant golden palms to a shower of golden dusts!

Tang San, Grandmaster, Flender, Zhao Wuji and Xun Er were the only ones who truly witnessed what happened. Tang San, due to his Purple Demon Eyes. Grandmaster, Flender and Zhao Wuji were able to witnessed it due to their high spirit ranks. Xun Er, due to closely watching his every movements.

They were all awed and terrified at prowess Xiao Yan displayed. To anyone who hadn't really seen what happened, they would feel the same as one punch decimating nine thousand giant palms. But to strike thousands of punches within seconds?

That was something no mere mortal could achieve.

Xiao Yan smiled, looking nonchalant at the display he shown a while ago, he tried to hide his uncontrollable trembling right arm. A slight backlash of punching nine thousand times with the power of a Spirit Sage within nine seconds. But it was all worth it for seeing their reaction.

"So, surrender?" He cheekily asked towards Xun Er, who was slowly flying down towards him.

Xun Er landed in front of Xiao Yan, a cute pout on her face before letting out a sigh.

Wearily smiling, she said.

"Yes, I surrender Yan."

Xiao Yan smiled and turned towards where Grandmaster and the other teachers stood, loudly asking.

"Are you going to announce it, or shall I?"

They immediately snapped out of their senses. Grandmaster sighed but a wide smile could be seen on his face.

"Winner of this spar, Xiao Yan!"

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(1)Should I use internal Qi or internal strength?

(2)From Canon: Explicitly stated in Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record was that if the eight extraordinary meridians connected into one path, Mysterious Heaven Skill would benefit greatly, and one of Mysterious Heaven Skill's great criteria for completion, besides reaching the eighth tier, was to break open all eight extraordinary meridians. Described in Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record was that, a person who had connected the eight extraordinary meridians, whether in heaven or hell, would be omnipotent.

Although these were just simple words, it amply proved just how enormous the effect might be from completely breaking open the eight extraordinary meridians.

Tang San's understanding of the eight extraordinary meridians came from the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record, where it was described extremely detailed.

The four limbs had the eight acupuncture points Broken Sequence, Back Ravine, Inner Pass, Outer Pass, Shining Sea, Extending Vessel, Yellow Emperor and Foot Overlooking Tears separately leading to the eight Conception, Governing, Yin linking, Yang linking, Yin Heel, Yang Heel, Penetrating and Girdle meridians. Meaning these acupuncture points separately could connect the head, face and torso to the eight extraordinary meridians.

Yellow Emperor Penetrating Meridian of stomach, heart and c.h.e.s.t, Inner Pass Yin Link alike below the head;

Overlooking Tears gall passes Girdling Meridian, Yang Link vision meeting Outer Pass;

Back Ravine Governing Meridian of inner eye and neck, Extending Vessel Yang Heel also connects the channels;

Broken Sequence Conception Meridian relates to lungs, Yin Heel Shining Sea of diaphragm and throat.

Each meridian corresponded to some significant place on the human body. Although the eight extraordinary meridians were innately connected, this connection was very minute, unable to channel internal strength. But in Tang San's previous world, practically all internal strength experts broke open the eight extraordinary meridians to increase their capacity.

Among the eight extraordinary meridians, the most important were the Conception meridian, Governing meridian, Penetrating meridian and Girdling meridian channels.

The Penetrating meridian also known the heart meridian, although its effect wasn't as obvious as the Conception and Governing meridians, the benefits it gave to Xiao Yan is difficult to put into words. Like how younger Spirit Masters cultivated more easily, breaking through these eight extraordinary meridians was also easier the younger one was, as one aged, the body would be influenced by the outside world, and the energy channels within the body would also become more and more rigid, and the difficulty of connecting them would naturally grow.