Chapter 255 255: Shadow Swamp



"Fantastic! We have ourselves a battle of the century."

"Coming from the Immortal Palace Sect, we have Yoze, who has reached the peak of the Nerve Accumulation realm, and from the Immortal Shadow Sect, we have Lebra, who has reached the Crystal Brain realm." The stage announcer said without a single pause.

Yoze glanced at the announcer, curious how he knew his name even though he hadn't introduced himself. Still, he didn't pay too much attention to how they already knew about him since he was now facing a strong opponent.

"Nerve Accumulation realm? Is that right?" The young man with a mustache looked at the announcer with confusion, but seeing that Yoze didn't correct him, he looked somewhat puzzled.

He couldn't understand why someone who had just started his immortal cultivation journey dared to enter the tournament. Not to mention the fact he had just witnessed his fellow student just lose miserably.

"Did he think the matches would be forcefully equalized according to the personal realm? Forget this just means that I can collect more Sect Points this way." Unable to understand the thoughts running through Yoze's head, Lebra shook his head and prepared to end this fight quickly.

"The battle will begin once I say go. Okay, three... Two... One... Go!"

As soon as the announcer's voice shouted out, Go, the announcer's body that he kept halfway inside the platform, completely submerged himself. At the same, Lebra clapped his hands together and instantly cast his favorite spell.

"Shadow Swamp!" 

Behind Lebra's back was his shadow that quickly began to expand in all directions causing the black circle with a radius of 10 feet to appear all around him. In a blink of an eye, the black circle quickly doubled in size and continued to double in size rapidly.

Normally Lebra would have taken this chance to cast another important spell that would have made him untouchable, which was the Shadow Dive, which was one of his Sect's most difficult spells to master. It would have allowed him to turn himself into a shadow and enter his Shadow Swamp without any difficulties.

Once he entered, he would be like a fish who had returned to the ocean and had total freedom to move freely while the land dwellers struggled to swim and breathe. Similarly, while he would be able to enter and exit his Shadow Swamp world, his enemies would find themself having trouble moving and breathing.

If they didn't manage to escape in time, there were only two results that would occur. The first was that they slowly suffocate to death in complete darkness. The second option was as if he took pity on them and killed them beforehand so they didn't have to suffer any pain.

However, casting both spells and maintaining both of them was extremely consuming of his energy, so he would prefer if he didn't have to use a third of his crystal energy on an easy opponent like Yoze. 

Shortly after Lebra cast his Shadow Swamp, Yoze felt a faint tingling sensation at the back of his head, screaming at him not to let that black circle get close. Looking at the black circle that was darker than the night, he could imagine how dangerous it was if his instinct was sending such a strong message to him as soon as it appeared.

Even without Yoze taking action himself, Mindless Legs took over and used a bit of his strength to launch him into the sky. Now that he had escaped the dangerous situation of constantly running closer and closer to the edge of the stage and potentially being forced to jump off, which would result in him losing the battle, Yoze activated his Blood Armor.

In less than a blink of an eye, blood poured out of Yoze's pores and quickly gathered to form a large suit of armor. At the same time, a thick blood mist exploded from his body, shrouding his entire body.

"He truly is a martial artist." Lebra stared at the blood fog that had consumed Yoze and felt strange.

He didn't expect his opponent to rely on his martial art prowess to escape from his Shadow Swamp. However, he still didn't think he would lose this battle since he still had the upper hand.

Not only was the platform completely consumed by his Shadow Swamp, turning it into his personal world where he was the single ruler, but eventually, he knew that Yoze would have to come down. Even if he assumed that his opponent could temporarily fly using a spell, given that his immortal cultivation realm hadn't even reached the Nerve Crystallization realm, he knew Yoze couldn't maintain it for long.

"Let's end this," 

While Yoze was in the middle of the air and still ascending, he felt his interest in observing Lebra's spell quickly fade as he noticed that Lebra didn't bother to cast any more spells. Since he figured he wasn't going to get any more information from his opponent, Yoze simply gathered his blood to form a long whip.

As soon as the whip was formed, Yoze gently whipped it at Lebra, intending to knock him off stage. Even though he could easily cut off his head with a single slash, he didn't want to rock the boat, given he didn't know whether this was a life-and-death battle or simply a competition to see who was stronger.

"Whoosh!" 

Even though Yoze had held back most of his strength, the amount of power he did use sent the whip flying at such speeds that even someone who had created a partially complete crystal brain couldn't react in time. Yoze's blood whipped tightly around Lebra in an instant and nearly crushed his bones.

Once he had gotten a good grip on him, Yoze flicked his wrist, which resulted in him accidentally sending Lebra flying off the platform like a rocket.

"The winner of the battle is Yoze!" Without skipping a beat, the announcer resurfaced from the platform that had been consumed by Lebra and announced his defeat.

Before everyone could understand what had happened, the announcer seemed to have noticed that Yoze was beginning to fall toward the platform and was going to enter Lebra's Shadow Swamp, which was still active. After adjusting his thick green glasses, he gently slapped the platform, causing the terrifying Shadow Swamp to shatter like glass.

Once shattered, the black space easily faded into nothingness, while the creator of the Shadow Swamp felt as if he had been gut punched. With the battlefield having now been reset from the battle between Yoze and Lebra, the announcer turned his focus back to the main part of his job.

"What a blood-boiling battle! Each of the opponents had given it their all, and the result was the upset of the century!"

"Let's not wait any longer for another intense battle of wit and strength and get another opponent up here before Immortal Palace Sect's contestant leaves!" 

Unfortunately for the announcer, even though Yoze had touched the platform's ground, it took several minutes before the audience could regain their composure and analyze what had happened. After some deep thought, everyone realized that Yoze had fantastically played his cards right.

Even though it was obvious to everyone that Yoze had been left with limited choice as to how he could deal with the Shadow Swamp, they didn't think that he would use his martial art abilities in such a fashion to quickly end the battle. However, in hindsight, they all realized that most of them had never fought against a martial artist before.

Since none of them had any fighting experience against another martial artist, there wasn't anything they could use as a foundation to make the correct choices to win the battle. This was especially the case with the abilities that Blood Masters and Martial Grandmasters possessed.

None of them knew how Blood Masters or Martial Grandmasters fought and thus could easily be caught off guard. A comparable situation could happen to them if they ever faced a martial artist, but instead, it would be their heads sent flying.

Secretly rubbing their necks, the crowd of immortal cultivators subconsciously raised their opinions on martial artists as a whole, even though it was undeserved. Since most of the immortal cultivators had never fought against Blood Masters, they didn't know that Yoze's physical prowess didn't fit that category.

Even a Martial Grandmaster would have difficulty performing the same feat that Yoze had just done simply because sending an attack faster than a Crystal Brain realm Immortal Cultivator could react to was extremely difficult.

Only Martial Grandmasters who were considered to be powerful even when compared to their peers would be able to fit into that category of people. So unless any of the Immortal Cultivators here decided not to kill their adversary in one move, most of them would never face such a situation.

Until they realized that Yoze was abnormally powerful for a martial artist, the majority of the immortal cultivators adjusted their thoughts on martial artists and their plan of attack against Yoze. After the readjustment, someone from the Immortal Shadow Sect decided to test out their new strategy.