Chapter 120: Rematch – Mo Fan vs Lu Shen (Part 2)

Inside the cloud of rising smoke and dust, Mo Fan lay on the ground, thrashing violently. 'H-help! Someone! S-system! Pl-please-! Th-that's right, the system!' Already seeing stars from the lack of air, his lungs crushed, he finally managed to remember that the system had once rewarded him with a particular pill for a breakthrough.

Hands shaking, he gave a mental command to his ring and pulled out a red pill, veins running through it, thick, dark blood circulating inside. And every so often, the pill twitched, as if a tiny beating heart lay hidden within.

Barely managing to get it into his mouth, the pill instantly began melting, absorbing into his body.

In an instant, the wounds on his body began closing, the holes in his lungs sealing shut and filling with air, his ribs snapping back into place, bones knitting together right before his eyes.

"Kha! Haaah! Ghak!" Eyes wide, hands still shaking, panic and fear still refusing to let go of him, Mo Fan started gulping down air greedily.

'Y-you damn f-fourth-rate villain! You're finished! J-just-!' Getting to his still-trembling feet, Mo Fan tried to look ahead, and focusing, he suddenly spotted a white speck growing closer and larger. He suddenly screamed. "D-Drughono's Flame! Bl-Black Dragon Step!"

Instantly, black flame wrapped around his entire body. Taking a step forward, using his movement technique, he appeared right in front of Lu Shen, who was wrapped in blazing white flame.

Raising his sword overhead, Mo Fan swung it with everything he had.

"Kha!" Lu Shen caught and stopped the blade with one hand. Only a few drops of blood escaping before boiling away instantly from the heat of the flame.

Seeing this, Mo Fan nearly froze, completely thrown off, unable to understand how or why.

"HA!" Holding the sword steady with one hand, Lu Shen struck with the other, wrapped in makeshift bandages, straight at the same spot on Mo Fan's chest still marked with purple bruises from earlier.

"A-aghA!" Taking a hit to the chest again, Mo Fan stumbled back several steps, dropping his sword to the ground.

Not knowing what to do, Mo Fan had never felt this kind of helplessness before, this total powerlessness. Fully consumed by panic, he tried to figure out how to keep fighting, what to even do next, completely forgetting his one hidden trump card, his system. "S-Step-! Shield-! Dr-Dragon's Roar!!"

In those split seconds, while panic still had a firm hold on Mo Fan, Lu Shen saw it clearly and did everything he could to close the distance and land a more devastating blow.

But realizing his panicking opponent had somehow managed to pull himself together, he immediately redirected most of his Arroyo's Flame to the front of his body.

Bracing to meet the incoming attack, Lu Shen suddenly realized he'd made a mistake. Watching Mo Fan's neck flush red, then turn blue. 'Hm?! What is this?? A sound-based attack?!'

"ROOOOAAAR!"

A deafening roar tore out of Mo Fan's throat.

A massive wave of energy tore through the air at horrific speed, ripping it apart with a metallic screech.

"AH!!" Taking the full force of the wave with his own body, Lu Shen nearly lost his footing. Feeling the flame around his body flicker slightly, he snapped his gaze up at Mo Fan and saw dozens of talismans flying straight at him.

'N-now you're r-really finished! Th-these are every talisman the system's ever given me! Who would've thought I'd waste them all on someone like you! On a fifth-rate v-vil-villain!!' Face pale, body shaking, Mo Fan kept hurling talisman after talisman out of the system's inventory.

Deflecting the incoming talismans, Lu Shen occasionally let a few slip through, and they slammed into him and detonated, tearing away at his already weakened flame. 'Where's he getting this many-? Damn it!! My defense won't hold much longer! I need to change my approach!'

Hurling talismans, Mo Fan tried to keep his distance from his opponent, refusing to let him get too close. 'D-damn it! Come on! Come on!! Fuck! I'm running out of them!'

Circling around him, throwing out even the talismans meant purely as defense against Yinenergy, he tried to figure out what to do next. 'It-it looks like- Wait! Is that true, system!? Then! Then convert my points into energy! All three thousand points!!'

Nearly losing the rhythm of the fight from the sudden news, he gave the command and immediately felt energy flooding into his body from out of nowhere, until he felt like a balloon on the verge of bursting.

Mentally feeling back in control of the situation, Mo Fan quickly tried to focus on exactly what he needed to do and started channeling all that energy into his sword, which he'd pulled back off the ground and gripped tight with both hands.

….

Noticing the talismans had stopped flying at him, Lu Shen tried to rebuild his flame as best he could. But the instant he looked at Mo Fan, he sensed something was off.

"Ugh! Come on!!" Massive pressure began radiating out from Mo Fan, spreading through the area. His hands and sword started glowing, brighter and brighter.

'Hm?! He's still got enough energy for a technique this strong?! After burning through that many talismans? Stop!! I need to act, not get distracted!!' Refusing to lose his composure, trying to stay a controlled force, fully focused on his enemy, Lu Shen shouted.

"Closed Shield!" He activated his shield, forming a first layer of defense, the still-burning white flame beneath it.

'Something's strange, though… through this whole fight, ever since he activated his immortal flame, my Arroyo's Flame's only managed to absorb a pathetic amount of energy from it... That's nothing like our last fight. Something's changed!!' Lu Shen decided not to dwell on it too much, since it wasn't his priority right now, even though it raised questions that were starting to shade into worry.

Because Lu Shen's flame carried the property of absorbing other flames to grow stronger, during their first battle, Mo Fan's flame's energy had been absorbed without any trouble at every point of contact. But now, the amount of energy being absorbed had dropped to almost nothing, and that left Lu Shen genuinely puzzled, if only for a moment.

'You think I'm going to just stand here and watch you finish that technique?!' Channeling his Qi again, Lu Shen charged into the attack. "Hundred and Eight Nodes of Wrath!"

Concentrating energy into both hands, he closed the distance to Mo Fan in one sharp motion and drew both arms back, ready to strike.

….

'Ha! Idiot! Got you!' Mo Fan suddenly smirked and, with a shout, swung his sword.

"Sh-shit!" Seeing and sensing the attack, specifically, the energy tearing loose from the sword. Lu Shen shifted the trajectory of his own attack at the very last moment.

Landing a precise strike, his projected palms of energy slammed straight into the falling blade of Mo Fan's sword.

"N-no!! AH!!" Not expecting Lu Shen to change his attack's trajectory that sharply, that cleanly, Mo Fan panicked all over again, but there was nothing left he could do about it.

Cra-CRACK!

Feeling his sword crack under the pressure, from the raging energies of both his own attack and his opponent's, Mo Fan tried to throw the sword out of his hands and retreat, but it was already too late.

CRACK!!

A deafening crack rang out as deep fractures spread all over the sword’s surface, stunning them both. The two released energies collided, tearing and crushing everything in their path. Particles of Qi began self-destructing, destabilizing everything nearby, snowballing out of control.

The whole chaos formed within a single instant, and both Mo Fan and Lu Shen only felt the horrific pressure building directly between them, about to burst outward.

Both tried to reinforce their defenses, but their reaction speed simply wasn't fast enough.

Finally, the destabilized particles, reaching their breaking point, began detonating. One after another, triggering the next in this accumulated mass of chaos.

The cracked sword shattered into tiny fragments first. Their immortal flames snuffed out instantly, stripping away one whole layer of their defense. Their clothes dissolved from the horrific heat, their skin flushing red and beginning to blacken.

Finally, unable to contain itself in one place any longer, the chaos erupted outward in a horrific shockwave, and standing right at its epicenter, both of them took the full force of the blast.

Whooosh!

Like two burning arrows, they were flung in opposite directions.

….

"G-get down!"

"Everyone! Take cover!"

"Shields! Activate your shields!"

Sensing what was happening at the center, righteous and demonic disciples alike immediately activated their defensive techniques. Feeling the hairs on their skin start to singe and turn to ash.

WHOOSH!

The entire wall of dust and dirt that had shielded the center of the battle from onlookers blew apart in every direction.

A massive shockwave slammed into the crowd's shields. Since the distance from the epicenter to the disciples was considerable, the force of the wave had weakened significantly by the time it reached them, but most of the shields still cracked, and some even shattered outright, injuring the disciples holding them.

Through the spreading dust and grit, sharp enough to cut skin and dig deep, straight down to the bone, purely from its speed, each side watched as a body came flying toward them. Both Lu Shen and Mo Fan, at tremendous speed, slammed into the activated shields on their respective sides.

The instant the shockwave passed, the dust and grit began rising back up again, restoring the thick fog of dust, only now, it stretched across a radius of several hundred meters, swallowing every disciple within into its domain.

….

"Brother Lu Shen!" A thin girl suddenly ran out from the crowd of demonic disciples, black hair, blue eyes. Given her short stature, it was hard to guess her actual age.

Rushing up to Lu Shen, she dropped to her knees and activated her healing technique. "Words of the Dryad!"

Moving her hands over his wounds, they began knitting closed, healing. "Hang in there! You'll be fine soon! Just hang in there, big brother!" Her face had already started going pale, but she kept going, working to close every serious wound as fast as she could.

"Ugh... D-don't worry, it's n-not that s-serious... Thank goodness my defense h-held… We nee-need to-..." Trying to stand and waving off his overly worried younger sister, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg. Looking down, he saw it was broken.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, he got to his feet and turned to the demonic followers surrounding him. "We nee-need to leave... I don't think co-continuing this attack is a good idea..." He turned his head toward where the righteous disciples were supposed to be, but the thick fog of dust let him see only a few meters around himself. 'Besides, I'm too w-weak to keep this up... and there's no telling who might be hiding in their r-ranks. Retreating's the only sensible choice.'

Even though Lu Shen knew the numbers and quality were on their side, in the state he was in now, he genuinely feared for his own life.

Draping his arm over his younger sister's shoulder, he leaned on her slightly, careful not to put weight on his broken leg.

Feeling him lean against her, his massive arm wrapped around her neck, her cheeks flushed slightly red. She immediately lowered her head a little, so no one would see.

….

"Faster! Faster! Bring him here!!" Standing behind the shields, Mi Mili shouted, nearly screaming, at the sight of Mo Fan's mangled body flying toward them.

A few disciples closer to him rushed out, caught him under the arms, and hauled him back into the crowd, laying him right at Mili's feet.

"He's losing too much blood..." One of the disciples dropped to his knees and started using a healing technique on Mo Fan's missing hand.

Mili, standing over the body, froze for a moment at the sight of him. His entire upper body was bare, his stomach, arms, even his chest all covered in charred, blackened skin, and worst of all, one hand was completely gone.

"M-move! NOW!!" Grabbing the healer by the shoulder and shoving him aside, she pulled three pills from her ring and, hands shaking, carefully forced Mo Fan's mouth open and pushed the pills inside.

The healer got up, brushed himself off, spat on the ground, glanced at both of them, and turned to walk back toward the disciples already gathering to retreat.

Many of the disciples who'd been surrounding Mo Fan's body, seeing how forcefully Mili had shoved the healer aside, also turned and started preparing to leave, taking advantage of the dust still hiding their positions while they still had the chance.

Sitting over the body, fists clenched, waiting for the pills to take effect, Mili heard Lin Xue's voice beside her. "We need to leave. You, and you! You're responsible for our core disciple, Mo Fan. Load him onto a flying artifact and keep watch over him!"

"NO!!" Mili cried out. "I'll watch over him myself!"

Lin Xue frowned slightly, thinking this outburst was only clouding clear judgment, but looking at Mo Fan's body, she suddenly watched the pills kick in at full force, and a rare expression crossed her face: surprise. 'What kind of pill is this? Working this fast?'

Mo Fan's body suddenly started shedding its burned skin, the hair on his head, singed away, growing back before their eyes. And most importantly, his severed hand began regrowing, and within just a few seconds, it had fully regrown, the only difference from the original was its color; the new hand, like the fresh skin now covering every burned patch on his body, had come in a faint shade of pink.

Standing and wiping the sweat from her brow, Mili pulled a flying artifact from her ring and, looking at the disciples around her, said in a commanding voice, "Help me load him up!"

Nearby, Nea Emmia, in her skin-tight leather outfit, massive axe strapped to her back, looked at the disciple standing beside her. "Tell the other group to break off and retreat. They need to meet us at the agreed rendezvous point."

The disciple standing nearby nodded and started digging through his robes, searching for a communication artifact.