Chapter 368 Underneath The Hood

A drone swooped in on the middle of the grand stage, getting a clear shot of both Luke Skyrunner and White Mist as they charged at each other without thinking twice. On one hand, Luke wielded a weapon that looked like a piece of a cloud while on the other hand, Yun Zhe wielded a huge sword.

Obviously, the sheer size of the Primordial Excalibur was massive compared to the cloud-like weapon. But then again, Yun Zhe didn't let his guard down as he planted his feet to aim for the first strike. After all, he had no idea what the cloud-looking weapon could do.

Then there was White Mist who had been trailing behind Yun Zhe. He figured that he was going to assist Yun Zhe for now with his Death Metronome. But just to make sure, he decided to integrate with his tamed beasts White Wolf and Jurah. If worse comes to worst, he was going to engage the other hooded man in a fight since he was lingering in the background as well.

In any case, the buffs and debuffs went unnoticed by the audience but both the Death Metronome and Cheru were fighting their own battles in their own respective field. To be fair, a tamed beast is nothing compared to a Representative, but because Cheru was pretty formidable, even the Death Metronome was having a hard time nullifying its buffs and debuffs while it tried to assist Yun Zhe and its master on the battlefield. The audience kind of assumed that the two of them just floated in mid-air, unperturbed by their masters... but they were doing far more than that.

A cheer erupted from the crowd when the action finally ensued. Due to the Primordial Excalibur's sheer weight, Yun Zhe had to lean forwards and backward before he swung his tamed beast with all his might. His tamed beast wasn't supposed to be this heavy, but thanks to Cheru's debuffs, he was having a hard time wielding it.

Streaks of red lightning coursed out of the Primordial Excalibur and a thunderclap was heard. The power that shot from the Primordial Excalibur was certainly stronger than what Luke had anticipated, but he continued charging anyways.

Luke leaned to one side, crouching down low so he would force his body to accelerate forward. He was able to dodge the red lightning by a hair's breadth. He heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment back there, he thought that he wouldn't be able to dodge it. Then again, he was confident that he wouldn't suffer that much damage if he were hit by the red lightning.

With a grunt, Yun Zhe lifted the Primordial Excalibur up before striking it on the grand stage. His action caused an absurd amount of energy to leak out of the Representative, causing an area-of-effect red lightning to shoot from where he stood while simultaneously producing an earthquake.

Since the Primordial Excalibur was heavy, Yun Zhe's attacks were slow yet powerful. He had no choice but to resort to such an attack since Luke Skyrunner was getting uncomfortably close.

The red lightning crept right above the ground like vines coming out of the Primordial Excalibur. Even White Mist had to step back since he was in the range of such a powerful attack. This didn't dissuade Luke from charging at Yun Zhe however, and he continued pressing forward as if his life depended on it.

Before the red lightning hit him, He jumped forward, somersaulting in mid-air while keeping his gaze locked on Yun Zhe. Seizing his chance, Yun Zhe integrated with his tamed beast tigers and quickly transformed his hands into claws. He aimed for Luke's throat while he was still in mid-air.

There was no chance Luke could dodge his attack as he was suspended in mid-air.

However, Luke had his own fair share of experience when it comes to fighting beast tamers. Even when he jumped, there was no way he'd leave himself open like that.

As Yun Zhe reached his claws to grab Luke, Luke swung his cloud-like weapon at Yun Zhe.

The cloud-like weapon immediately stuck to Yun Zhe's claws, and Luke used it as leverage to jump a second time in the air and close in to attack Yun Zhe.

Luke Skyrunner and Yun Zhe came this close, face to face, as Luke finally reached him within arm's length. In an instant, Yun Zhe summoned his dark staff and recalled his cloud-like tamed beast. The reason why he recalled it was that he was going to integrate with it.

A second passed, and Luke Skyrunner's aura changed as the familiar dark staff appeared on his hand. Before he landed on the ground, he pointed the dark stuff on the ground, completely canceling out the red lightning that coursed through it. And then he created a portal as Yun Zhe swung his claws at him.

BAM!

Yun Zhe didn't even realize what hit him. One moment, he was swinging his giant claws at Luke, the next moment he was hit by something hard squarely on the stomach, and he fell on the ground wheezing as the air was sucked out of his lungs.

Apparently, Luke created the portal not because he wanted to teleport himself somewhere, but because he wanted to teleport Yun Zhe's attack right back at him. It worked well, and Luke had a good laugh at his ingenuity as he dusted himself off.

While he was laughing though, a psybeam hit him directly on his back, causing him to let out a grunt as he fell to the ground. Right at that moment when he let his guard down, White Mist found the opening he needed. Since he was already integrated with his Jurah, he didn't need time to prepare for such a powerful attack.

"And Luke goes down! I guess that's an instant payback for him. What a close match!" The commentator called out as he bolted upright, almost throwing his chair due to his excitement. It should be mentioned that he already knew Luke's identity before he revealed it. That's why he was excited despite the fact that he was currently alone in his box, commentating.

"Wait... Luke? Luke Skyrunner? What are you doing here?" Yun Zhe asked in bewilderment as he finally realized who was behind the hood. It was none other than Luke Skyrunner, who would have thought!

"Got you, didn't I?" Luke laughed as he got up and dusted himself. "And that's impeccable timing as always, White Mist. I wasn't expecting the attack. I could've easily dodged it if it weren't for Luke over here who punched himself like an idiot."

"Thanks, I wasn't expecting to hit you though. Maybe you're the stupid one here." White Mist teased as he braced himself. He figured that Luke might attack him at any moment, that's why he didn't let his guard down even though they were just conversing at the moment.

"It all went according to keikaku." Yun Zhe rubbed his nose as he told White Mist that everything went according to plan. Quite frankly though, there was no plan, and Yun Zhe just said that to save face.

"And you, what are you doing over there? You're plenty strong, right, and I've already given you all the buffs you needed. Don't you think you should be helping me instead of standing around like that?" Luke Skyrunner pointed at his teammate, telling him off since he wasn't doing anything.

In his defense though, everything was happening so fast that he couldn't find the right timing to join the fray. It wasn't just Luke Skyrunner who was moving like a water strider on still water, even Yun Zhe and White Mist were fast enough.

"Just help me out here. Help me, help you. We have a match to win, you know." Luke muttered. "Anyways, I'm not holding back anymore. Let's fight this out until one of us is left standing." A grin appeared on his face as he extended his hands in the air.

"White Mist old man, you go deal with that bag of nerves over there while I go stall for time. Once you defeat him, let's team up and defeat Luke together." Yun Zhe barely had enough time to tell White Mist the plan. As soon as he was done speaking, Luke was already right in front of him, swinging the dark staff on his hand and attacking him with dark energy.

At that point, Yun Zhe was left with no choice but to integrate with his Representative. He didn't think twice about activating his Trinity Beast Integration (he had already integrated with his two Bengal tigers, and now he integrated with his Representative) since he couldn't dare underestimate Luke. As far as he knows, he's one of the strongest beast tamers on the planet, even stronger than him and quite possibly Satoshi.

"Old man?" White Mist asked but he decided not to think too much about it. Without further ado, he shot another psybeam towards Luke Skyrunner's teammate before using psychic on himself and floating towards him. If they had any hope of winning this match, White Mist knew he had to defeat the second opponent as soon as possible.