Two distinct groups stood opposite each other, blocking off a remote street of the city from both sides, while two figures moved around in the center.
They were in the middle of a fight with allies from both sides watching and cheering them on.
However, one of the two was clearly showing an irregular behavior.
He was controlling six balls of tal suspended in the air around him, which occasionally grew connections to each other to form shields. But he often seemingly lost control over one or two of them at the ti, causing them to montarily fall to the ground. The connection rods that grew between them also were sotis unstable, or missed each other, thus failing to form a structure for the shield.
In addition to that, his own body’s movents were sotis becoming erratic in short bursts, making his arms, legs or shoulders make an unnatural twitch. The veins on his entire body were bulged, his eyes completely bloodshot, while his Qi was exploding in all directions from ti to ti. He was visibly experiencing pain and struggled to breathe steadily.
Despite such severe inhibitions, he still managed to sohow fend off all attacks of his opponent, but that was the limit of what he could do. He was forced to be passive without making a single attack of his own.
Those behind him were in turmoil, many of them raising concerns.
"T-there’s clearly sothing wrong with Senior Apprentice-Brother Lunhai! We have to stop this fight!"
"It’s definitely not sothing natural! Just look at him!"
"S-Senior Apprentice-Brother Tingzhuo! Please!"
However, aside from the few who were panicking, the majority of those on that side continued to silently watch, ignoring the pleas of their own colleagues.
The one called ’Senior Apprentice-Brother Tingzhuo’ by the concerned people had a frown, while continuing to look at the fight with his hands behind his back.
Eventually, as if fed up, he shot a sharp gaze at those who called out to him, "Shut up! Do you hear Junior Apprentice-Brother Lunhai ask to stop the fight? It’s not a fight to the death anyway, they’ll stop when the winner’s clearly decided. If he wanted to stop the fight he would’ve said it himself!"
These words caused ugly expressions to appear on the faces of those who were concerned for the one fighting. Clearly, there was a difference between soone outside the fight raising concerns about the fairness of the fight and stopping it, and the one fighting speaking up that the fight should be stopped. One is a neutral interference, while the latter could be interpreted as weakness.
They all knew, that the the one nad Tianzhuo should understand that. The fact he was making that argunt while blatantly feigning ignorance to it made this quite awkward for those who expected him to step in.
Another man standing beside ’Senior Apprentice-Brother Tianzhuo’ with hands crossed over his chest coldly snorted, "If we try to stop the fight now, wouldn’t that make our Northern Ridge Sect cowards who don’t even dare to fight with the bastards from the Pale River Hall? How would we explain it to Seniors when we go back to the Sect?"
However, at this point, the one called ’Senior Apprentice-Brother Lunhai’ from the Northern Ridge Sect suddenly made a series of attacks, as the six tal spheres he controlled all ford connections at the sa ti, which created a complex geotric structure that allowed him to grow out a sharp spike from any part of the structure.
He could also control the length of the spike by redirecting parts of the structure’s material, which ant that while there was an upper limit, in the limited area they were fighting in it could reach anywhere.
His opponent whose fighting style was shooting water blades was quickly overwheld, since his defensive techniques were effortlessly torn apart, and the tal spike was too fast and unpredictable.
"I-... I lose!", he finally admitted defeat.
The next mont, the one surnad Lunhai, having barely clawed out a victory, fell onto one knee, as waves of Spiritual Qi began pulsing out of him, his body’s condition getting much worse.
Despite his victory, however, his fellow Disciple surnad Tianzhuo showed a displeased expression. Those who were concerned for ’Senior Apprentice-Brother Lunhai’ wanted to rush closer, but had to stop a bit away, wary of the exploding Spiritual Qi waves coming from him. Plus, the six tallic spheres that fell to the ground around him were also showing signs of becoming more unstable, growing several small spikes on the surfaces and retracting them.
The Pale River Hall’s Disciples on the other side were also simultaneously berating their own fighter for losing, and throwing insults at the Northern Ridge Sect. At the sa ti, so of them were stepping forward with threatening expressions, making it seem like they could strike at, or at least capture the struggling Northern Ridge Sect Disciple who brought them humiliation.
The tensions rose as the individual fight suddenly threatened to grow into a larger inter-group fight.
At that mont, ’Senior Apprentice-Brother Tianzhuo’ of the Northern Ridge Sect, who was mostly silent, even though quite a few Disciples around him were fueling the tensions, suddenly saw a man appear out of nowhere right next to his struggling Junior Apprentice-Brother, seemingly completely unaffected by the violent waves of Spiritual Qi. His eyes widened in shock, doubting his vision, since the man’s appearance was so abrupt and unnatural, and yet gave off a feeling as if he was already there before, just now becoming visible to the eyes, which made his arrival slip through the attention of almost everyone around.
That inexplicable effect was gradually wearing off though, as more and more people started noticing the man who wore a rather simple wooden mask painted white with three vertical blue stripes on one side.
His attention, however, was on the struggling Disciple, completely ignoring the crowd from both Sects around.
"Extraordinary... to persist so long while lapsing in and out of Qi Deviation in the middle of a fight...", Wu Long spoke in a genuinely impressed tone.
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