Chapter 48: The arena weapon is still the real deal.
Upon entering, one will briefly lose all five senses, as if submerged in water. The power of chaos envelops the entire body like flowing water, and the mind experiences a moment of ultimate tranquility. Before entering, Feng Mian mentioned that the chaotic barrier not only identifies the participants in this competition but also helps them calm their minds.
To prevent anyone from entering the competition venue due to personal grudges and causing serious injuries or fatalities.
Light gradually appeared in the center of Xia Zhu's vision, and the world behind the door unfolded clearly before her eyes.
This is a pure white space without any furniture or decorations, and it seems to have no concept of boundaries. Looking up, all around is a vast expanse of white.
The competition and struggle will take place here, like a playful game in the early stages of embryonic development.
The door disappeared behind them, merging into the pure white without a trace. Only two silver boxes floated beside the door, with a crack at the top. This was the place where the two teams had suppressed the Divine Strategy.
The rules are that you must have at least three cards, and neither of you knows how many cards your opponent has made. The winner takes all of them.
"It's about voting and elections."
Feng Feng pulled out three Divine Strategies from the cloth bag. They had discussed it before coming in. Besides getting to know each other, their goal this time was also to achieve a big victory with a small investment.
"Vote three times for Feng Feng to become the President!" As he spoke, he stuffed three dark gold divine strategies into the box.
Before the other team even entered the field, the five of them huddled together again to check for any omissions or deficiencies.
The air next to the silver box hummed, then twisted into a visible vortex, spitting out several people one by one.
Because the preparation time before entering was too short, they didn't have time to find out about their opponents, so these few seconds upon entering were crucial for quickly identifying their identities and strengths. Xia Zhu could already identify the family to which the opponent belonged from Fu Yu's location.
For example, the first three girls who entered had the same heterochromatic eyes as Ji Wuchou and wore the same all-black combat uniforms; clearly, they all belonged to the Puyang Ji clan, which possessed the icy, frigid aura. And the girls with the surname Ji immediately noticed Ji Wuchou, who was also a member of the Ji family. Xia Zhu saw the three girls' brows furrow visibly, their arms crossed, coldly facing Ji Wuchou's direction.
There were four members of the Ji family at the same venue, and even the spectators outside began to whisper among themselves. They weren't discussing the home advantage, but rather pointing the finger at the lonely Ji Wuchou.
The last two girls entered together. The girl with short, neat hair, dark skin, and a headband with a sun-shaped pattern on her head had her arm draped over the shoulder of another girl who looked thin and frail with long hair.
The two were acting intimately, suggesting they were already familiar with each other and had a good relationship.
Xia Zhu quickly glanced at the sun-shaped headband on the short-haired girl's forehead, which was a talisman from the Yan Emperor Jiang family. The girl next to her with her eyes lowered had a chain with small jade beads embedded in her wrist, which was a symbol of the Di Jun clan.
Di Jun, from the Jiang family of the Wei River, is the guardian demon god of her clan, as mentioned by Feng Ye.
This was Xia Zhu's first time meeting someone from the Jiang family of Weishui. She couldn't help but be excited, her gaze fixed on the girl, as if she could gain an opportunity simply by making eye contact.
Jiang Yuran noticed Xia Zhu's gaze. She grinned, revealing a set of neat white teeth, her eyes bright as crystal, and silently stood in front of Jiang Xiaqing.
"This girl looks familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before?" she said in a flippant tone, but with a hearty smile.
Familiar? Xia Zhu's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that Jiang Yuran knew him? Did he know his identity?
"Azhu, ignore her! This person is Jiang Yuran from the Yan Emperor's family. She loves to flirt with anyone she sees who is good-looking!" Feng Feng whispered in Xia Zhu's ear, "There is a hierarchy of contempt among the divine blood families, and the descendants of the Yan and Huang Emperors are at the top of the hierarchy, so they are fearless and speak without restraint. Ignore them, Azhu."
Xia Zhu nodded blankly; it turned out to be just a joke.
The other three girls from the Ji family kept glancing at Ji Wuchou. Xia Zhu heard them pull Jiang Yuran and Jiang Xiaqing aside, muttering curses and punishments.
Ji Wuchou, standing beside her, simply stared blankly at a point in the void, seemingly detached from the gossip they were discussing, as if it had nothing to do with her.
Jiang Yuran's expression remained unchanged. She casually brushed aside the girl who was speaking close to her ear and waved casually in this direction.
"A competition is a competition. Talking nonsense won't win you anything." She lowered her hand and pinched Jiang Xiaqing's cheek. "Don't you think so?"
Jiang Xiaqing didn't react to her groping at all, seemingly lost in thought. Only when Jiang Yuran asked her a question did she blink and her mind return to normal, and she nodded gently.
“A competition is a competition,” she agreed.
One of the girls, surnamed Ji, put their team's divine strategy into the silver box, turned back, and had just stood still when a clear, melodious bell suddenly rang out in the space. A line of words appeared out of thin air in the center of the field: "Friendship first, competition first." The slogan turned into smoke and dissipated, leaving only a number counting down from five.
As the numbers slowly ticked down to zero between the two teams, the bell rang again, and the match officially began.
Before the echoes of the bells had faded, ice pillars rose from the ground, winding like a dragon's spine, carrying a sudden, inescapable heat wave within the icy surface.
Jiang Yuran stepped on the ice pillars and arrived in front of Xia Zhu in an instant. She was so fast that before she could see the person's face, she could see a raging fire.
No, Xia Zhu's pupils shrank suddenly. It wasn't just a ball of flame; beneath the flame lay a fist harder than a rock.
Flame Fist, Jiang Yuran's combined power, gathers the flames in her palm and transforms them into a fist. Feng Feng had just told her this when he whispered it in her ear.
With overwhelming force, the punch was bound to hit Xia Zhu's face, but Xia Zhu did not dodge. Instead, she stretched out her palm towards Jiang Yuran, and snake-shaped vines shot out from her palm, aiming at Jiang Yuran's face. However, the latter lightly touched her toes, did a few backflips, and landed steadily back in place, dodging the attack of the vines.
“They’re from the Feng family too.” Jiang Yuran clapped her hands and winked at Xia Zhu.
As they guessed, Feng Feng and the others had all made appearances at previous Nine Heavens Gatherings, so the first thing they did was to test Xia Zhu's background. She had a handful of withered seeds that Feng Feng had given her beforehand, and all she needed to do was revive the vines when facing an attack to confirm her identity as a member of the Feng family.
"You guys don't give people a chance to prepare!" Feng Feng said angrily, hands on his hips. "Then don't blame me for being impolite!"
Countless vines grew from the ground around them, like gushing springs, closing above their heads to form a cage woven from plants that locked them inside.
Five members of the martial arts team disappeared from the field in an instant, but Xia Zhu and her team dared not relax and kept their eyes fixed on the location of the vine cage.
after all.
Flames burned from the inside, and the vine cage turned to ashes in an instant.
After all, fire element overcomes wood element. To some extent, the Jiang family's elemental power is absolutely overwhelming to the Feng family, which is a natural advantage.
But the essence of plants is their continuous cycle of life. As the ashes fall to the ground, new vines sprout again. Even if they cannot cause any real damage, they can still serve as a form of harassment.
They were either entangled around the waists of the Ji family members or holding onto Jiang Xiaqing's ankles. Just dealing with countless annoying vines made the muscles on their faces become disordered.
Not to mention, a flock of Ying Ya's crows were circling overhead, cawing horribly and occasionally pecking at their heads with their sharp beaks.
"No, I feel like I've been tricked!" The girl surnamed Ji, number 1, wildly waved her hands at the crows above her head. She couldn't take it anymore, so she raised her hands and a thick ice wall rose from the ground, slamming the crows in mid-air away.
The ice wall had barely taken shape when it shattered into ice shards with a loud explosion.
"What!?" The girl surnamed Ji stared at her ice wall in disbelief. It was originally incredibly solid; even if it were hit by a several-ton object, it would only have cracks, unless...
"Ji Wuchou!" The girl gritted her teeth and looked at Ji Wuchou, who was standing in the corner. Several ice blades were floating around her, spinning at high speed. The ice wall, which was more than ten centimeters high, was shattered by these thin blades.
"Don't let your guard down!" Girl No. 2 flashed to her side and reminded her, "No matter what, she is still Ji Wuchou."
Number Three turned her gaze to Feng Mian, who had remained motionless on the field. She gave the other two a look, and the ground instantly froze, winding down to Feng Mian's feet, forcing him to retreat step by step.
Ji Wuchou raised her right hand, and an ice blade that had been hovering in mid-air stopped spinning and flew into her palm. She tightened her fingers, traced an arc on the ground with her toes, moved behind her, arched her slender body, and shot out like an arrow released from a bow.
"Watch out!" Number Three shouted, but the cold air on the ice blade was too late to dodge. Although Number One and Number Two had already retreated, several strands of their hair, which had been swung out by inertia, were cut off by the cold air and fell to the ground.
"Your opponent is me." Ji Wuchou stood in front of Feng Mian, a thin layer of frost forming on his cold brows.
"Uh... so why did I come?" Feng Mian scratched his head awkwardly.
"I have a feeling I don't need to lift a finger this time." Jiang Yuran squatted casually on the ground, her right hand burning with flames. All she needed to do was burn away the newly grown vines on the ground. "Qingqing, you haven't participated in the previous matches. Aren't you going to warm up a bit?" She looked at Jiang Xiaqing standing to the side. They had a perfect understanding, cultivated since childhood.
“That’s true.” Jiang Xiaqing raised her head slightly, looked at the red-haired girl with flowing hair standing on a tall pillar made of vines, and gave a slightly embarrassed smile. “Then let’s stretch our legs.”
She gently raised her right hand in an arc, and the wind in the arena seemed to be drawn by something, instantly gathering in her palm. Then the space changed color, and Xia Zhu had the illusion that it was about to rain. She raised her head blankly, only to feel that the endless sky had become low and heavy, pressing down on them.
It wasn't her imagination; she also heard a crackling sound of electricity, and even the air around her seemed to dry out. Her exposed skin felt like it was being stung by static electricity, and it was tingling slightly.
"My hair is standing up." Xia Zhu stared blankly at her hair, which was slowly rising into the air.
“It’s the Purple Lightning Whip,” Feng Mian’s voice came from behind. “It’s truly a battle of gods. This is purely a contest of geniuses between families. Xiao Feng himself might have a hard time dealing with it.”
Xia Zhu followed his gaze and saw Jiang Xiaqing confronting Feng Feng, her hand tightly gripping a long whip crackling with electricity.
The long whip flicked lightly, like a dragon soaring through the air, its purple lightning blades slicing through the air with a deafening sound that made people unconsciously clench their back teeth to prevent that tiny itch from seeping into their soft gums.
Completely different from her reserved personality, the Purple Lightning Whip seems to be Jiang Xiaqing's true form, delicate and agile, yet possessing the power of thunder and lightning.
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The author's note: Many families branched off from the tribes of the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor, which is why these two clans can stand at the top of the hierarchy of contempt, since they themselves are the origin.
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