Chapter 47: Confrontation in the Field of Talent
"Slaughter God Domain?"
A heavy, invasive chill, sharp as a needle, directly invaded her skin. In Bibi Dong's eyes, the man opposite her, Qin Xuan, seemed to transform. His image blurred, replaced by that of a bloodthirsty devil, a being born from a sea of corpses, his white-red aura a vortex of pure, condensed malice.
But her mind was not shaken.
She did not feel the slightest trace of fear. There was only excitement.
A raw, predatory thrill ignited in her heart. This was the desire to fight, to crush, a true genius of the same generation.
In the past, due to her unparalleled, divine-tier twin spirit talent, she had almost given up on finding a rival. She felt that only Tang Hao of the Clear Sky Sect, who was nine years older than her, could possibly become her future opponent.
Now, this man... this boy she had known since childhood... he seemed to be no worse, and perhaps even more interesting, than that so-called number-one genius of the Clear Sky Sect in a century.
A slow, beautiful, and dangerous smile spread across her face.
"Let me tell you something, Qin Xuan," she said, her voice echoing in the silent hall, cutting through the oppressive, blood-filled aura of his Domain. "A Spirit Master's innate Domain can only unleash its true power when they reach the Spirit Saint realm."
She took a step forward, and the ground at her feet began to decay.
"Moreover," she continued, her beautiful eyes narrowing, "you're not the only one with an innate Domain."
"My Domain is called—Death!"
An intense, horrifying purple light surged from her body. Wherever it passed, the very air seemed to hiss and corrode. The highly corrosive, neurotoxic venom of the Death Spider Emperor rapidly spread and diffused, turning the air into a tangible, suffocating poison.
The golden, reinforced floor of the Elder Palace groaned, its surface blackening and pitting wherever the purple mist touched it.
Almost instantly, the purple Death Domain exploded outward, violently suppressing the white-red light of Qin Xuan's Slaughter God Domain, pushing it back as if it were a fragile bubble.
Seeing the Death Domain about to completely corrode its rival and cover Qin Xuan, Bibi Dong spoke a reminder, her voice laced with the arrogance of absolute power.
"Qin Xuan, surrender. As fellow innate Domain holders, you should understand. The gap between a Spirit Emperor and a Spirit Saint is insurmountable."
High on his throne, Qian Xunji's lips curled slightly into a smug, satisfied smile. "To be able to force out my good disciple's Death Domain, the Slaughter God Domain is indeed extraordinary. He was truly tempered by that place."
He leaned back, his voice a low mutter only his Titled Douluo guards could hear. "What a pity. The battle is already over."
Like Qian Xunji, almost all the Titled Douluo present did not believe that Qin Xuan had any chance of winning. Qian Jun, his master, gripped his Coiling Dragon Rod, his knuckles white with tension.
Because the Death Domain was simply too terrifying.
It was a perfect, multifaceted weapon. It increased all of the user's attributes by 10% and, more terrifyingly, decreased all of the enemy's attributes by 20%.
Within the Domain's range, enemies could not use any stealth skills or instant movement skills, locking them in place.
At the same time, it generated a powerful mental deterrence, increasing the user's mental force strength by 20% and weakening the opponent's by 20%.
And, most lethally, the entire Domain was completely filled with the Death Spider Emperor's highly corrosive and diffusive venom. This venom could also reduce the opponent's speed by 10%. Once poisoned, the body would continuously weaken until death.
The outside world often said that Bibi Dong became the Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall because of her innate full spirit power and her top-tier Beast Spirit, the Death Spider Emperor.
High-ranking Spirit Hall officials who knew a little inside information would think that Bibi Dong relied on her legendary Twin Spirits.
Only a very few individuals—Qian Daoliu, Qian Xunji, and the Priests—knew that Bibi Dong's true, terrifying aspect lay in her Death Domain.
With this Domain, at the Spirit Saint stage, she almost already possessed strength comparable to a Titled Douluo like Dugu Bo in the original story, a master of poison and domains.
From the moment Bibi Dong released her Death Domain, the outcome was already determined.
It wasn't that Qin Xuan was weak. It was that Bibi Dong was too strong.
She was strong enough to suppress the entire younger generation of Spirit Hall, almost suffocating them with her talent. Perhaps only Tang Hao, the genius from the Clear Sky Sect, rumored to be a once-in-a-century talent, could temporarily lead with his age advantage.
"You're right," Qin Xuan's voice, calm and unbothered, cut through the purple mist. The corrosive venom lapped at his robes but seemed unable to penetrate the faint, fiery aura of his [Phoenix Fire] robe.
"An innate Domain can indeed only unleash its true power when it reaches the Spirit Saint realm..."
He looked up, his eyes, which had been cold with killing intent, now blazing with a golden-red, divine light.
"...but I never said I only have one Domain."
Just as everyone thought Qin Xuan's defeat was certain, a clear, piercing phoenix cry soared through the heavens. It was a sound of such purity and divinity that it seemed to burn the Death Domain's corrupting influence on a spiritual level.
It was accompanied by an intense, overwhelming red-gold light that erupted from Qin Xuan's body.
Qin Xuan's Suzaku Domain finally, truly, erupted.
[Inorin's Note: Suzaku, or the Vermillion Bird, is the true, divine form of his Spirit that was unsealed by the 10-headed Fierce Yang Serpent's inner core.]
A single Suzaku Domain or Slaughter God Domain might not be comparable to Bibi Dong's Death Domain, which had already evolved upon her promotion to Spirit Saint.
But the superposition of the two... that was different.
It was definitely not as simple as 1+1 = 2. It was a fusion of the divine and the profane, the holy and the damned.
The Suzaku Domain and the Slaughter God Domain transformed into two long rainbows of light, one brilliant gold-red and one bloody, pale white.
Like two divine snakes entwined, they interwove, forming a rapidly rotating, two-toned light spear. It pulsed with the divine, purifying fire of the Suzaku and the ultimate, rule-breaking killing intent of the Slaughter God.
The spear of fused domain power attacked the onrushing wall of purple, corrosive death.
The pressure from the two great Domains, now combined, also made Bibi Dong immediately serious. Her playful smile vanished, and she poured her full spirit power into her own Domain, not daring to be careless in the slightest.
The two opposite forces—life and death, holy and corrupt—collided.
BOOM!
A shockwave of pure energy erupted, forcing the Titled Douluo to raise their hands.
The collision was not a simple explosion, but a continuous, grinding consumption. The purple mist corroded the light, and the holy fire burned the mist.
After a long moment, with a sound like shattering glass, the red and white light spear finally broke.
But with an answering BANG!, the purple light shield representing the Death Domain, having exhausted its power, shattered like a mirror at that exact same instant.
"The Death Domain... was actually broken through?!"
The Titled Douluo present were in an uproar. A Spirit Emperor had just gone head-to-head with a Spirit Saint's evolved Domain and shattered it.
Qin Xuan had always been someone who would act rather than talk.
Almost the instant the Death Domain was broken, he had already moved. He was inside Bibi Dong's guard, his right hand's longsword, wreathed in red lightning, stabbing out at an extremely tricky, undefendable angle.
Buzz—!
A high-pitched sword hum sounded, and the Changming Sword struck nothing but empty air.
Bibi Dong was, after all, one of the top geniuses in the entire history of the Douluo Continent. She was the woman who, in the original story, took the final step and achieved the Rakshasa God position without guidance from predecessors.
How could such a person be so easy to deal with?
The moment Qin Xuan's sword stabbed out, she had already dodged sideways. Her eight, razor-sharp spider legs, which had erupted from her back, moved rapidly, allowing her to ignore gravity and walk straight up one of the massive golden pillars, instantly disappearing from Qin Xuan's sight.
Although the Death Domain was broken, the shattered Domain energy transformed into a light purple poisonous mist, filling the entire space. While not instantly fatal, it could greatly obscure vision. Over time, any Spirit Master in the purple mist would contract a chronic, debilitating poison, their bodies gradually weakening until death.
Unfortunately for her, Qin Xuan was not "any Spirit Master."
His [Phoenix Fire] robe inherently possessed a passive anti-miasma effect. The Ghost Valley Breathing Technique he cultivated also had a powerful protective effect against gas poisoning. He had no fear of her poison whatsoever.
Bibi Dong, however, didn't know this. She relied on the advantageous terrain of the pillar-filled hall, moving back and forth, concealed in her own poisonous mist, waiting for an opportunity like the patient spider she was.
She launched sudden, probing attacks from time to time—blasts of corrosive spiderwebs, sharp thrusts of her spider lances—but Qin Xuan, his senses sharp, always narrowly dodged them.
"Qin Xuan, I underestimated you," her voice echoed from all directions, her spider legs carrying her silently across the ceiling. "I didn't expect you to grow so much in just one year. Perhaps in the future, you really can become my opponent... but not now."
There was no hint of sarcasm or disdain in her words. There was only excitement, a genuine thrill at encountering a strong Spirit Master of the same generation, and... a subtle, almost imperceptible yandere quality.
[Inorin's Note: Yandere is a term for a character archetype, (usually female), who is sweet and affectionate on the outside, but becomes dangerously obsessive and violent in their "love."]
Yes, that's right. It was yandere.
Even before being violated by Qian Xunji, before her heart was tainted, Bibi Dong was still innocent and kind, but this obsessive, predatory trait seemed to be ingrained in her very bones.
"Likewise," Qin Xuan's voice replied, calm and steady.
A brilliant blue light shimmered on his forehead as he secretly activated his Mind Condensing Wisdom Skull. A powerful, invisible wave of mental force radiated out from him, cutting through the purple mist like a sonar pulse.
He quickly locked onto Bibi Dong's high-speed movement trajectory.
There!
"Here," he whispered.
His first spirit ring, the 100-year yellow ring, lit up. Qin Xuan, channeling his internal energy, swung the longsword in his right hand.
A crescent-shaped, golden-red slash about three meters long—his Sword Breaking the Sky ability, now amplified by his Ghost Valley techniques—suddenly flew out. It pierced through the poisonous mist and shot straight for a dark figure clinging to a golden giant pillar high behind him.
Unfortunately, it was still a step too late. The slash missed.
Bibi Dong was already gone.
The attack struck the spirit power protective shield that the Titled Douluo had jointly propped up, creating watery ripples in the air.
"Although she's a control system, her speed, relying on her spider legs' ability to ignore terrain, is even superior to an agility-attack system," Qin Xuan analyzed calmly. "I just don't know about her strength."
This was his first true encounter with Bibi Dong at her full power. He did not get discouraged and once again tentatively swung out a few more slashes, all of which missed without exception.
"Your mental force is good, and your combat awareness is impeccable," Bibi Dong's voice rang out again, this time much closer. "But unfortunately, you're still too slow."
She seemed to have lost patience with this game of cat-and-mouse. She took the initiative to attack.
Suddenly appearing directly behind Qin Xuan, her right arm, which had already transformed into a terrifying, jet-black spider claw, was enveloped in a black-purple, light-devouring energy. It clawed straight towards Qin Xuan's unprotected back.
Clang—!
Sparks flew.
Qin Xuan didn't turn. He used his sword technique, blocking the attack from behind. The Changming Sword and Bibi Dong's sharp claw met. He didn't meet her overwhelming Spirit Saint-level force head-on.
Instead, he used a clever, circular technique from the Ghost Valley swordsmanship, deflecting her power, unbalancing her, and neutralizing the attack.
[Inorin Note:
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