Chapter 2725 - 2726: Power That Ignores Rules

In the end Feng Yuan still gave up on that suicidal idea. His power could definitely pull off a time-stop, but since it wouldn’t be him directly casting it and it was "out-of-spec" power, once released he really had no idea whether it would spill over or not.

With this many Beastmasters crowded into such a small Challenge Point, if his power spilled over that’d be one hell of a mess. Thinking of that, anything that might affect the outside world basically had to be taken off the table.

The long line gave Feng Yuan plenty of time to think, and during that time he figured out how to handle it. Of course, even so there was no guarantee the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound would definitely pass the test. But... worst case, they’d just do it again. Either way, Feng Yuan had zero interest in making trouble here.

Right as Feng Yuan finished laying down his preparations, the line was about to reach the end. After giving the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound a round of instructions, he followed the queue and stepped into the light pillar once more.

This time there were no choices to make. The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound went straight out to the field, and that familiar Meteorite Creature appeared again.

As expected, the opponent had the ability to erase flames. Feng Yuan figured this wasn’t a normal Ultimate Move, but a specialized counter, which meant the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound couldn’t rely on special means like Qi Realm Stance’s incineration to break the lock.

But close combat was also extremely dangerous. Feng Yuan was sure that thing would absolutely have some sort of melee countermeasure.

"So, Fire Prohibition. What did you prep for it? Incineration rules, or something else?"

Veronia looked at Feng Yuan, a bit curious. He hadn’t explained anything when he was setting things up, so Veronia had no idea what he’d actually done. All she knew was that Feng Yuan still intended for the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound to use fire.

"No need for incineration rules. It’s actually simple: just Attribute Transformation. The other side will apply targeted sealing, so as long as we don’t let it know what Attribute got switched in, that’s that, right? It can’t possibly seal All Attributes."

Arms folded across his chest, Feng Yuan said casually. If it really could seal All Attributes, that’d be a bit tricky... but this is a test, not a life-or-death boss fight. All-Attribute Sealing? What, are they kidding? Any normal Spirit Beast would get wrecked by that, okay?

The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound swung a paw, the Blazing Earth Domain unfurled, hot and oppressive. It held a Fierce Flame in its mouth, ready to slam the opponent with something nasty at any moment. However, right then the Meteorite Creature started releasing cold air.

"As expected—using an Ultimate Move to erase Attributes. The standard play would be repeatedly switching between two Attributes, or going in for close combat, right?"

Feng Yuan rubbed his chin and muttered. The opponent’s Forbidden Attribute attack wasn’t a Domain or aura-type move; it was more like a Forbidden Zone attached to an Ultimate Move. If the move wasn’t being used, the sealing effect wouldn’t appear.

Of course, dual-Attribute switching wasn’t easy either. The moment you swap Attributes, the other side will definitely respond. You can’t change Attributes and attack at the same time—at least not under normal circumstances—so your timing has to be insanely precise. Miss by a second and you probably fail.

And this kind of tactic would only get you one attack in. From Xiao Ji’s previous fights, that kind of scratchy, "scraping massage" attack would take ages to grind down the enemy, and the margin for error was tiny. Playing that style was not easy.

As for close combat, leaving aside the unknown countermeasures, just thinking of the Meteorite Creature Xiao Ji ran into last time—the force of its counterattack wasn’t small at all. Go in for melee and the outcome would be hard to call. The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound was good at brawling, but not exactly a master of it.

Switching into another stance was even worse. Same difficulty, and the moment you change stance the other side would also adjust, so it wouldn’t mean much.

However...

Flame Storm went off, and the other side simultaneously unleashed a freezing gale that extinguished all flames. But right in the middle of it, that Flame Storm suddenly turned into a Water Tornado, and even the Blazing Earth became a boundless Deep Sea.

The environment flipped in an instant. The boost from the Crystal Domain was still being applied to the Water Tornado, but the cold wind that extinguished all flames hit nothing. That thing had a special conceptual interference ability: as long as the manifestation was "flames," then even if the Attribute was Water it would still get snuffed out.

However, a Water Tornado obviously couldn’t be linked to the concept of "fire" in any way.

Veronia looked at Feng Yuan in surprise and said,

"You guessed in advance that the restriction was conceptual power?"

"Nope. But better safe than sorry. Even if the odds of it working weren’t high, prepping a little extra isn’t a bad thing, right?"

Feng Yuan chuckled. The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound itself had no Attribute Transformation ability, let alone the brute-force capacity to change an Ultimate Move’s form. This was all done by power Feng Yuan had left on the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound. Only Feng Yuan’s power could forcibly alter an Ultimate Move to that extent.

Normal Attribute Transformation moves could only change the Attribute of the Ultimate Move; the form wouldn’t change much. But facing this conceptual extinguishing effect, simple Attribute switching would hardly do anything.

The Water Tornado was just a probing attack from the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound, so the Meteorite Creature, which took the hit head-on without dodging, didn’t show any obvious signs of injury.

The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound flicked its tail and stopped hesitating, launching another attack immediately. This time it used the big Ultimate Move Burning Eight Desolates, and just the charge-up alone was enough to make the opponent trigger its freezing wind.

Yet the Meteorite Creature seemed to glitch out and had no idea what to do. It had combat intelligence, so it could tell that the cold wind targeting flames wouldn’t work. But it had no clue what Attribute the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound’s next attack would be.

In the end it chose the Water Prohibition Attribute. A gentle warm breeze blew, and the waves of the Deep Sea started fading. But just then, the boundless Deep Sea turned into vast grasslands, and the opponent seemed to grab an opening, immediately casting a tearing gale to stop the emergence of Wood Attribute Power.

"That’s kind of bullying, isn’t it."

Veronia shot Feng Yuan a sideways glance and said grumpily. Feng Yuan just chuckled and didn’t care. This was his trick, so of course he’d make it as simple as possible. If it was all fancy and complicated, the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound might not even be able to pull it off.

Burning Eight Desolates was originally an Ultimate Move with massive side effects. After casting it, the user would fall into an elemental exhaustion state—in simple terms, unable to draw on Fire Attribute Energy, basically temporarily locking all Fire Attribute Moves.

But...

The Fierce Flame unsurprisingly transformed again. This time it became a half-transparent surging wave, crashing ceaselessly against all surrounding space and barriers.

"Spatial Attribute? Wait, the elemental exhaustion is spatial too?"

Veronia blinked. Changing Burning Eight Desolates into a spatial attribute wasn’t too hard to understand. Normal Attribute Transformation couldn’t switch to Superior Attributes, but Feng Yuan was obviously beyond normal rules.

What she couldn’t figure out was... why the post-cast side effect turned into a spatial Attribute elemental exhaustion too?

"The Attribute’s already been changed to spatial, so the elemental exhaustion turning spatial is weird?"

Feng Yuan glanced at Veronia with a look that said "you’re overreacting" and spoke. Rolling her eyes, Veronia said irritably,

"The root cause of negative effects is overconsuming your own Energy to drive the Ultimate Move. Where’s the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound supposed to get spatial Energy from?"

"Does that really matter?"

"Hmph!"

Veronia didn’t argue with Feng Yuan; she knew she couldn’t win a verbal fight with him. As for this bizarre negative effect—clearly his handiwork. Otherwise, those Attribute Transformation Spirit Beasts wouldn’t have been almost completely ignored before the Crystal Domain came out.

You have to know, there are quite a few Ultimate Moves like Burning Eight Desolates. All of them have negative effects tied to their primary Attribute. If you could just switch Attributes beforehand and effortlessly dodge the side effects, wouldn’t that be way too easy?

Those side effects are the price you pay for a powerful Ultimate Move. How could they be avoided that simply!

The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound’s eyes lit up. It hadn’t expected Burning Eight Desolates’ side effects to actually be avoided. Taking advantage of the spatial waves still rampaging, it began charging Burning Eight Desolates again.

On the Meteorite Creature’s side, things were looking pretty bad. Burning Eight Desolates, being an Ultimate Move with huge side effects, was extremely punishing if the opponent failed to clear it immediately.

Even with a timely counter-barrier, it still suffered considerable damage. Just as the Meteorite Creature prepared to erase the spatial Attribute, the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound’s charge finished.

A new round of waves crashed down, only this time they were giant ocean swells from the sea. The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound didn’t like water, but it knew it had to steady its mind and cast Burning Eight Desolates again.

"This really is overkill."

Veronia looked at Feng Yuan, then at the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound. What they were doing now was genuinely excessive, because Feng Yuan’s power ignored rules so thoroughly that the opponent had no way to guess the Attribute after transformation.

And thanks to some unknown tweak Feng Yuan had done, the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound could now cast Burning Eight Desolates continuously.

This was like Xiao Ji firing Crimson Judgement over and over while the opponent had no way to defend against it—a total stomp on opponents of the same tier.

"As long as we pass, it’s fine. Besides, I didn’t expect it to turn out like this. My original plan wasn’t like this at all."

Feng Yuan chuckled as he spoke.