Climax of the Battle, Martial Spirit Fusion! (2)

"You..." Li Hao Ran gritted his teeth.

Everything had been planned out by his grandfather and second grandfather. He gave a hateful glance towards a certain tomboy in the crowd, who ruined it all for them.

Not only that, but Li Yu Tian was somehow miraculously able to use [Martial Spirit Fusion].

Noticing Li Hao Ran looking at her, Shan Qian Xue raised her head and gave a disdainful sniff, turning her nose upwards. He felt more enraged when the young miss of the Shan clan turn her head away, not even bothering to look at him.

"Beat him up, Yu Tian." Shan Qian Xue cheered for her newfound friend, who returned a small, grateful nod back from the stage.

"Pay attention." Yu Tian's voice was emotionless as he reminded Li Hao Ran. "I'm coming."

Stretching his arm out, Yu Tian's Qi began to condense into white lightning, hissing in his right hand. Li Hao Ran's serpentine eyes widened when the younger boy suddenly dashed forward with astounding speed, attacking with a knife hand strike.

Surrounding his own hands with Qi, Li Hao Ran retaliated with an attack of his own that was empowered by fire. However, he was shocked when Yu Tian was still able to push him back when they made contact, causing him to slide backwards on the stage with his feet.

"How is this possible?" Li Hao Ran roared.

Rushing forward, Yu Tian started unleashing a flurry of blows towards his opponent. Forced on the defensive, Li Hao Ran was helpless as Yu Tian managed to break past his guard and land a couple of direct hits.

"Blergh!" The older boy spat out a mouthful of blood when Yu Tian spun around and kicked him in the gut.

Fighting with a cold, controlled fury, Yu Tian continued to gain the upper hand as they exchanged blows. Li Hao Ran was unable to land a single strike while his opponent broke past his guard time and time again, humiliating him.

"You're so weak." Yu Tian commented as he landed another kick and shoved Li Hao Ran away, whose body was still on his foot.

"Sh-Shut up!" Picking himself off the ground, Li Hao Ran was enraged. Forming a hand sign, his Qi began to converge to his feet in the familiar technique. "Go, [Inferno Chains]!"

Empowered thanks to his fused form with his martial spirit, the tendrils increased in number and became darker as they erupted from the tiled floor. Yu Tian watched casually as the flames darted towards him, his face still expressionless.

[Eyes of Eternity]

Coating his hand with his lightning Qi again, Yu Tian moved backwards while slashing at the burning ropes with swift, controlled chops. Li Hao Ran's heart sank when the last tendril was also split into pieces, with Yu Tian stepping on the last bits of flame to put it out.

"Heh." The former god was slightly amused.

In his fused form, Yu Tian felt much more powerful thanks to [Martial Spirit Fusion]. He couldn't feel any pain from his injuries, and his body was also much lighter than before.

However, his wounds, mainly the big cut on the top of his head, started to bleed again from the exertion. Yu Tian assumed that even though the pain wasn't there, all of the damage he had received was still present on his body.

If he stalled this battle any longer, it could become dangerous for him.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Li Hao Ran tried to take the offensive by striking first this time. "[Fireball]!"

Charging up his Qi, the older boy fired another upgraded [Fireball] at Yu Tian. However, before it was even released from his hand, the former god was already moving.

[Eyes of Eternity]

"Boom!" The explosion of flames covered the stage again, sending smaller embers flying in all directions.

Li Hao Ran smiled unnaturally as he thought his technique hit its target. However, his face froze when a silhouette dashed out from the side, throwing a punch at him.

Raising his hands, Li Hao Ran barely blocked Yu Tian's accelerated punch that was aimed for his face. Moving backwards to defend himself, he was faced with another onslaught of blows from the younger boy.

"Break." Winding up, Yu Tian swung his elbow downwards with lightning Qi empowering his body.

Crossing his arms, Li Hao Ran tried to stop the swing as Yu Tian's strike was like a hammer. The older boy hissed in pain and heard a small crack from the contact.

Lifting his leg, Yu Tian followed up with an axe kick that was also powered up by his natural element. Li Hao Ran screamed in pain as he was forced to block again, causing a much bigger crack now.

"AHH!" Stumbling backwards, the older boy looked down slowly and was in disbelief from seeing his left arm hang loosely from the elbow down.

"What have you done?" Li Hao Ran completely lost it as an explosion of fire Qi erupted from him, causing Yu Tian to temporarily stop his assault.

"You!" With his good hand, Li Hao Ran pulled something out of his robe and ate it. "You've forced me to do this!"

With a primal roar, the flames around Li Hao Ran began to turn black. Yu Tian cautiously stared as his opponent began pulsating with Qi that was increasing in strength.

...

"What is happening?" Li Mei Ling was startled by the situation on the stage.

She was proud that her son was so strong, able to completely oppress Li Hao Ran who was nearly half a full rank above him in cultivation. The sudden change in Yu Tian's opponent made Li Mei Ling feel rather uneasy though.

Shan Dong Hai frowned. That Li Hao Ran's cultivation suddenly increased from level 1 to a level 5 Qi Warrior, and a dark aura also began expanding from the boy's body. Having dabbled a bit in the knowledge of medicine, his wrinkly eyes widened when he placed the pill that the boy ate.

"That's the Qi deviance pill!" The Shan patriarch glared at Li Chang angrily. "You gave the boy a Qi deviance pill?"

"Qi deviance pill?" Li You Zi also realized the gravity of the situation.

In the Tian Qi continent, there were followers of the righteous dao and the demonic dao. Like their names suggests, the righteous path aligned with the good, while the demonic dao took inspiration from evil.

The demonic dao also contains aspects from the demonic beasts. The royal Wu family had already decreed the outlawing of demonic cultivators in the Holy Qilin Empire. Anyone found to be practicing the demonic dao or be involved with it in any way are to be directly executed.

The Qi deviance pill was a product of demonic alchemists, capable of increasing a user's cultivation temporarily with demonic Qi. The drawbacks would be that the user would go into a beserk state, bloodthirsty until the effect wore off.

Another issue were the side effects associated with it. Not only could it cause deviance in a cultivator's Qi, meaning that they'd be straying to the demonic path, but also stunt a martial spirit's growth in the future.

"Qi deviance pill?" Li Chang was also confused and horrified. "I would never give my grandson one of those! Where did he get that?"

"Quick, stop the fight now!" Li You Zi jumped from his seat towards the two fighters.

Suddenly, a strong force suddenly slammed him down onto the grass, causing the Li patriarch to spit out blood. "What is this?"

"Father!" Li Mei Ling cried out from seeing Li You Zi being injured.

"F-Father?" Li Chang became stunned when a familiar figure to him stepped out into everyone's vision.

"Uncle?" Li You Zi looked up and was also shocked to see the former patriarch's appearance.

Li Changpu casually observed the situation on the stage, his hands behind his back. Shan Dong Hai immediately stepped in front of Shan Qian Xue instinctively, assuming the worst.

This old monster was actually still alive. Everyone believed that all of the previous patriarchs of the 4 families have long since perished, yet Li Changpu was still present in the flesh.

"If he was in secluded cultivation for so long and still alive..." Shan Dong Hai's fists were clenched white. "Don't tell me Li Changpu was a true Battle Ancestor now?"

It was very possible that the previous patriarch of the Li clan had defected to the demonic path.

"Patriarch, we brought Li Cheung ba- Ah!" The War Masters that returned with Li Cheung in tow were suddenly sent flying into the air, all spitting blood.

"Thank you, father." Li Cheung bowed respectfully towards Li Changpu once he helped free himself.

Nodding, Li Changpu continued to observe the match on stage. He looked younger than both his sons, with even some black specks in his white hair and beard.

"Let's just keep watching peacefully." Li Changpu commented with a slightly raspy voice. "I don't want to raise my hand against juniors."

...

The colour of Li Hao Ran's hair had shifted to a darker red. Yu Tian noticed that his eyes have also turned blank, filled with only madness and anger.

The former god didn't care though. Relying on pills that acted as a temporary steroid was rather pathetic.

With an arm behind his back, Yu Tian casually lifted an arm and casually beckoned Li Hao Ran to approach him. "Come."

Snarling, Li Hao Ran pounced at him like a demonic beast. His flames had turned black and were now surrounding his body, throbbing violently. This was demonic Qi!

Yu Tian struck out with both legs that contained his lightning. His eyes narrowed when it only served to push Li Hao Ran slightly back, unable to penetrate the dark Qi surrounding his opponent.

It felt like he was kicking a thick iron plate that wouldn't budge.

Li Hao Ran lunged again, this time in a serpentine motion with his right hand outstretched like a snake's fang. Clasping his hands together, Yu Tian stopped the strike a mere inch from his face.

He followed up with a twisting motion to narrowly dodge Li Hao Ran's bite that was aimed for his neck. In his berserk state, the older boy has long stopped fighting like a human and was more like a beast.

"He's gotten much faster." Yu Tian jumped backwards to stay out of his opponent's attack range as he tried thinking of a plan.

After eating the pill, now Li Hao Ran seemed to be an entire rank of cultivation above his own. Yu Tian felt lucky that their ranks were still low right now, otherwise he might be in much more peril than the current situation.

"[Eyes of Eternity]." Yu Tian's eye flashed red as he tried to analyze weak spots in his opponent. Unfortunately, the former god couldn't see any openings for him to land an effective strike.

Gnashing his teeth, even though a few were already broken by Yu Tian earlier, Li Hao Ran continued to relentlessly pursue the younger boy. Yu Tian decided to try something new and began to charge up small shocks of lightning, throwing it at his opponent's face while kiting in reverse.

He frowned when his opponent's dark Qi still swallowed up the majority of the attacks, although some lightning projectiles managed to tilt Li Hao Ran's head back slightly. His natural element was still too weak in penetrating the pseudo armour, similar to the style that Li Yaoyao used against him.

Seeing an opportunity when Li Hao Ran's head tilted back, Yu Tian tried to swing downwards with a chop at his neck.

Li Hao Ran wobbled a bit sideways from the strike, but still appeared to take no damage. Trying to push his opponent away with a kick, Li Hao Ran managed to grab onto Yu Tian's leg and smashed him hard onto the tiled floor. He repeated this process, throwing and slamming him around like a ragdoll.

Yu Tian grunted in pain as his dried wounds reopened, coating his snow-white hair with deep blotches of crimson. Using his other leg, he spun to finally twist out of Li Hao Ran's grasp and retaliated with a lightning infused kick at his head.

In a grotesque smile, Li Hao Ran seemed to be laughing as he was unfazed by the blow. The older boy had long lost the capability to produce human speech due to the pill he consumed.

Yu Tian pulled away to keep distance, his head still ringing and dizzy from being slammed into the stone.

Taking a deep breath, Yu Tian narrowedly dodged a hammer fist while he closed his eyes briefly and considered all of his options. Refocusing on the battle, he began absorbing the surrounding Qi to deal an all out blow.

[Eyes of Eternity]

"It still wouldn't be enough." Yu Tian lips curled into a small grimace, calculating that his natural element lacked enough firepower to pierce the demonic fire Qi. Li Hao Ran wouldn't take any damage from just his lightning alone.

Was there now no hope for victory?

Sniffing, his eyes brightened when he sensed a sudden change in the atmosphere. A drop of wetness fell down from the sky and tickled his neck slightly.

"Rain?" Yu Tian looked up and felt soft drizzles brushing his cheeks.

This was what his very namesake was based on. The slow trickles of rain soon began to increase in speed and intensity as they fell from the sky, causing the clouds to darken.

The cooling rain soothed his burns and injuries. Yu Tian couldn't help but sigh in relaxation as a strange sense of tranquil calmness entered his heart.

Growling, Li Hao Ran's flames also began to weaken under the downpour. The natural enemy of fire was water, and under the increasing amount of rain, his dark fire Qi was losing all of its strength.

This was his chance!

Raising an arm, Yu Tian's right hand began to glow as he converged all of his lighting Qi into a condensed form.

Acting like a conducting rod, even lightning from the sky was being pulled towards him like a magnet. Yu Tian's snow-white hair began to shoot up slightly from how much electricity he was greedily absorbing.

"Roar!" The berserk Li Hao Ran tried to lunge at him, sensing something was wrong instinctively. However, he suddenly felt his own body being weighed down by an invisible force.

Struggling with all his strength, Li Hao Ran appeared to move in slow motion as he approached Yu Tian with a snail-like speed. The older boy howled in frustration from being unable to understand what was restricting his movement.

"Electron manipulation." Yu Tian's eyes seemed to glow under the darkened skies.

He could see them. The electric currents in the surroundings danced as if they were alive. Yu Tian immediately felt a connection to the countless electrons flowing around him.

Bolts of electricity naked to the human eye continued to leak out from the former god's body, controlling the polarity of the water.

Using the conductivity of the rain, Yu Tian had sent his lightning Qi into the water droplets to give them a negative charge. By creating a huge magnetic field with his body, the former god used the rain to his advantage and was repelling his opponent with magnetic force.

This was all to stall time so he could charge up for a final blow. Feeling that he finally reached his max capacity, Yu Tian bolted forward towards Li Hao Ran while still holding onto the massive amount of energy.

This time, by removing the electrons from the rain that soaked his opponent, Yu Tian began to pull Li Hao Ran towards him. The older boy violently thrashed as he struggled to resist the unknown force, but to no avail.

"You're finished." Yu Tian then launched towards Li Hao Ran like a slingshot, aided by the magnetic force.

Winding back, the former god delivered a devastating strike amplified by his own lightning Qi and lightning from the skies. Slamming it directly into Li Hao Ran, the whole stage was engulfed by an explosive flash of light.