Fierce Battle Against the Hunting Phoenix
Yao Xuan's 'retreat' was a masterful performance of controlled exhaustion. His shoulders slumped slightly, the radiant glow of his scales dimming to a dull bronze. His breathing, previously silent and controlled, became audibly labored. He landed in a crouch, one hand braced against the cool stone of the arena floor, head bowed as if gathering his last dregs of strength.
The effect on the Hunting Phoenix Butterfly was immediate. The intelligent, predatory soul beast had been harried and suppressed, its pride wounded. Seeing its tormentor seemingly falter, the instinct to turn from prey to hunter ignited. The caution bred from Yao Xuan's earlier dominance warred with the opportunity to eliminate a weakened threat.
It circled overhead, its magnificent, damaged wings beating a slow, wary rhythm. Its compound eyes, thousands of faceted lenses, scrutinized every tremor in Yao Xuan's frame, every hitch in his breath.
In the observation room, Leng Yaozhu leaned forward, her nails pressing into the console. "No… he's too drained. The spatial steps consumed too much. A tactical error to pursue so aggressively…" Yet, a part of her, the part that had seen this boy shatter expectations again and again, whispered otherwise.
Beside her, Gu Yue was utterly still. Her violet eyes were narrowed, not in worry, but in intense focus. She was not seeing the surface performance; she was analyzing the deeper currents. 'Heart rate is elevated, but the rhythm is wrong for true fatigue. It's controlled. Soul power depletion is at 20%, but the Ancestral Dragon's core resonance remains steady, not flickering. This is… a lure.' A spark of fierce approval lit within her. The boy from Aolai City had learned not just to fight with power, but with guile. The Silver Dragon King within her noted the efficient, predatory intelligence of the move. Both halves of her being were aligned in their assessment: he was playing the hunter even as he pretended to be the hunted.
The Butterfly hesitated for three more circling passes. Then, driven by instinct and the receding tide of draconic suppression, it struck.
It didn't dive headlong. It unleashed another barrage of condensed wind blades, but this time they were aimed at the ground around Yao Xuan, churning up dust and stone shrapnel, creating a screen of chaos. Behind this screen, it folded its wings and dropped like a feathered meteor, its remaining good foreleg aimed like a lance at Yao Xuan's exposed back.
It was a textbook finishing move against a grounded, exhausted opponent.
Yao Xuan didn't move until the last possible microsecond.
The moment the wind blades hit the ground, he was already in motion—not away, but into the chaos. He didn't stand up; he used his crouched position to explode forward, parallel to the ground, a golden streak beneath the hail of debris. The Hunting Phoenix Butterfly's lethal dive met empty stone.
Yao Xuan's 'exhaustion' vanished. The dull scales on his body blazed anew with incandescent gold. As he passed beneath the diving beast, his right arm shot upward. He hadn't reactivated the full Ancestral Dragon Transformation; that took a crucial half-second he didn't have. Instead, he focused every ounce of dragonforce, every spark of remaining soul power, into a single, brutal point: the tips of the claws on his already-dragonized right hand.
"Pierce!"
It was less a skill and more a command—to himself, to his bloodline, to the very concept of penetration.
The golden claw, a focused beam of primordial intent, punched through the relatively soft underside of the butterfly's abdomen, where the wind shield had been thinnest and where its own dive had exposed it.
There was a wet, tearing sound.
The Hunting Phoenix Butterfly's dive became an uncontrolled crash. It skidded across the arena, a trail of iridescent, life-essence fluid marking its path. It tried to beat its wings once, twice, but the light in its compound eyes was fading rapidly.
Yao Xuan stood, panting for real now, his right arm trembling slightly from the focused output. He walked slowly to where the great beast lay dying. He placed a hand on its shuddering form, not in a final blow, but in a strange, respectful acknowledgment. A top-tier predator, defeated not by sheer overwhelming force, but by superior strategy.
It dissolved into light under his touch.
The restorative light that bathed him was profound, washing away the true fatigue that followed his feint and strike. It carried a new quality—a sharp, clarifying energy that seemed to hone his senses.
The void-black, star-strewn gate of the Ninth Level pulsed silently before him, its challenge now absolute.
In the observation room, Leng Yaozhu sank back into her chair, a long, shuddering breath escaping her. "He… he baited it. A Soul Master, baiting a three-thousand-year Hunting Phoenix Butterfly into a close-range mistake." She looked at Gu Yue with something akin to reverence. "Your 'extraordinary'… is an understatement."
Gu Yue finally allowed her small, knowing smile to fully form. It was a smile of shared secrets and immense pride. "He learns quickly," she said simply. Her eyes, however, were fixed on the ominous ninth gate. The playful cunning was over. What lay beyond was pure, unadulterated power. The final test awaited.