Chapter 51: Semifinals of the gold test

The semifinals began soon after. By random choice, Zhang Zi and Gong Ming were up first.

Zhang Zi used his spear while Gong Ming used his sword. Unlike the previous fights, the two of them fought by testing each other out at first. They did not immediately start to use their most powerful attacks but used techniques to read each other.

When he saw them fight Bai Yun finally saw a good fight. But after a while, he started to frown. Gong Ming's sword skills were very beautiful to watch, but they were a little lacking compared to Zhang Zi's spear skills. Everyone else who saw the fight started to favor Gong Ming. But Bai Yun did not think so.

The fight proceeded as he predicted. Zhang Zi waited out until Gong Ming made a mistake, and then pounced on him without delay. After this, he easily dispatched of Gong Ming with an attack which combined both his shockwave ability as well as a battle skill.

But the moment he saw that he was going to lose, Gong Ming conceded very gracefully without fighting anymore. This won him the cheers of the crowd. When Zhang Zi returned to the waiting room, he had an irritated look on his face.

With this one of the finalists was decided.

Once their fight was over, SongHui and Bai Yun went up for their battle.

"Begin" The judge declared once they took their positions.

Song Hui swung her whip instantly. Bai Yun realized with a start that her whip was even faster than before. Without having to watch out for the shadow leopard, she had nothing holding her back.

Bai Yun did not change his tactics from before. There was no need to. Once again he perfectly hit the whip's tip to completely deflect all the power in it. Bai Yun stood there watching her fight for a short while before he confirmed that he had indeed read her technique properly.

After that Bai Yun started to take one step after other towards Song Hui. With each step, he only advanced a short distance, but it was stable, calm and unhurried. As he got closer to Song Hui, the pace of the whip increased, but Bai Yun was still smiling. He kept watch of the whip using his soul tendrils and used that to accurately handle the attacks. He kept one hand behind his back and only used his right hand to defend. The image of Bai Yun walking towards Song Hui like a mountain in the middle of a storm was imprinted on the hearts of everyone watching.

When she saw Bai Yun being so calm, Song Hui was enraged. "Hmph." She said. "Let's see you block this." With that, the number of attacks increased. Thankfully she had to reduce the strength of her attacks to go beyond her optimum attack speed. For everyone watching it seemed as if there were many whips dancing between them.

But Bai Yun was still unfazed. Even if it seemed as if there were many attacks coming at the same time, it was still coming one after the other. But with the increase in speed, he could no longer hit the tip to stop the attack. So Bai Yun chose to gently push the whip out of the way. Many people were startled at his perfect control. They would have been stupefied at the sheer speed of the attacks. But he could still see all of them coming. He was not watching the whip which was moving too fast to follow. His concentration was placed completely on Song Hui's body. He was watching her posture, her arms, her eyes, and every muscle responsible for her movement. Every twitch and tremor in her wrists were caught by Bai Yun. He would then use his huge experience to figure out the path the whip was taking. Even if others were able to figure out what he was doing, they would not be able to copy his method.

Bai Yun walked forward amidst Song Hui's frantic attacks. She suddenly switched to a defensive whip technique when he got too close. Bai Yun was right. She did know one.

The technique was good. Bai Yun was not able to break through her defense easily. He decided to take a step back to observe better.

But once he did so, Song Hui suddenly switched back to her attacking method. When he saw this a strange thought appeared in Bai Yun's mind. He took a few steps forward, only to see Song Hui return to the defensive technique.

'Impossible.' Bai Yun thought. He once again moved in and out of the five-meter radius from her, and she would change her technique.

'Someone must have told her that you need to defend when the opponent came close to you. And that five meters is considered close.' Bai Yun concluded.

Bai Yun had learned the stupid girl's pattern by now. He decided to act. He was down to only half of his qi. If this continued, he would be defeated easily once his qi ran out.

Bai Yun once again approached Song Hui. Just as he reached close enough to her, Song Hui once again predictably changed her attack to defense. At the moment that she withdraw her whip to make this change, Bai Yun was left alone for an instant. That was enough for him.

Bai Yun had already charged up his legs with his qi. His soul tendrils were already wrapped around his legs. Every single strand of strength in his body was perfectly focused on the tip of his feet. Without a second's hesitation, Bai Yun exploded with all his strength. He charged forward at a horrifying speed. The only thing he had held back was wind motion, which he was keeping for Zhang Zi.

The sudden change in Bai Yun's momentum caught Song Hui by surprise. Her rhythm was completely ruined. With a scream she closed her eyes and swung her whip wildly without any technique.

'Shit!' Bai Yun exclaimed. The sudden loss of her tempo completely destroyed Bai Yun's ability to predict her attacks. Bai Yun's eyes went to Song Hui's arms. 'Five attacks'. In an instance, Bai Yun calculated the attacks that he would have to dodge before he could make it to Song Hui. But in her panic, Song Hui was making far too many motions that could affect the direction of the whip. Bai Yun could no longer keep up with all the calculations necessary.

In a second Bai Yun dodged the first four attacks. But a mistake happened when he reached the fifth and final attack. Due to the mistake, he made in calculating the previous attacks, his sword did not end up hitting the tip of the whip, but rather a slight distance inside. The whip twisted from the point of impact and twisted and continued its attack, falling sharply towards his face.

Bai Yun got scared when he saw the new path of the whip. If he continued in the path he was currently taking, the whip was going to take his right eye. But if he stopped his advance, not only would his legs be hurt by the backlash, but Song Hui would win as he had nearly no qi left.

A determined look flashed through Bai Yun's eyes. He closed his eyes while his sool tendrils combined into one to increase his computation power. When Bai Yun opened his eyes, no emotion, fear, determination or happiness, could be seen in his eyes. They had turned into an endless void that would devour everyone who came close.

His eyes were focussed on the whip alone. Everything else evaporated from his vision. He watched as the whip got closer and closer to him. Bai Yun straightened his body that was leaning forward. At the same time, he twisted his head, moving it to the left side as well as up. He pulled his sword back to deprive the whip of the fulcrum it was using to turn.

The whip finally touched the middle of his forehead, above his right eye. Bai Yun saw the whip trace a deep cut on his forehead, but he could not feel anything, neither the pain, nor the blood that was flowing out. He closed his right eye as the whip fell further. The whip slightly touched the edge of his eyelid, adding a small cut there. Thankfully there was no lasting damage. Then in front of his eyes, it traced a cut on his cheek.

By then Bai Yun had pulled his sword out. The whip lost its fulcrum and fell to the ground powerlessly. Bai moved faster anyone could react. Then Song Hui's scream ended when Bai Yun's sword tip came to rest right on top of her heart.

Song Hui opened her eyes when Bai Yun did not say anything. She was stunned by the sight in front of her eyes. The emotionless and bloody face in front of her eyes was completely foreign to her. She could not reconcile that face with the smiling big brother Long she knew.

When her eyes met his, Song Hui shuddered. She was unable to pull away from the eyes in front of her. As she watched one by one the rest of the world seemed to fall into an inescapable darkness. Soon the only thing she could see was a pair of eyes that seemed to be floating in the endless void, like a god passing judgment on her. Then she felt the darkness reach out and try to swallow her too. Terror filled her little heart. Her whip fell to the floor as her body lost all strength.

Bai Yun realized what happened and closed his eyes. He did not expect Song Hui to see the god sleeping deep inside him. Even an immortal step cultivator would not be able to do so. It was due to the pure heart of Song Hui that she was able to do so. Bai Yun sighed when he realized this. How could anyone keep a pure heart in this world? Even her heart would be tainted soon enough. Bai Yun was sure. It had happened to him.

"I admit defeat." Song Hui said in a small voice. It seemed as if she was on the verge of tears.

Once the fight came to an end it took both Bai Yun and Zhang ZI a while to calm down Song Hui. Bai Yun smiled when he saw the little girl calm down. It seemed the experience of his strength did not leave a lasting impact on her. She might even have forgotten about it.

"Big brother Long, sorry." Son Hui suddenly said. "Due to me, you have a big scar on your face."

Bai Yun smiled when he heard her. "It's okay. I have a technique that can help me heal the scar and recover my looks." All he had to do was apply the Assassin God's techniques and it would be gone. Anyway at worst he could recover his looks once he gained the God of Alchemies techniques.

"Huh, you have a technique to maintain your skin." Song Hui was surprised.

"Its not really a technique to maintain your looks but more like-"

BANG

Bai Yun was disoriented. It took him a moment to get his bearings and understand what happened. He was now nearly embedded in the wall of the room, and his sword was in his hand. His entire body was covered in cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably.

A second later terror covered Bai Yun. In an instant Bai Yun felt that he had gone back to his past life. He had felt this kind of terror only twice in his life. The first was when he met the Dragon Emperor when he was a young man and he intimidated Bai Yun with his presence. The second was when he saw the devil emperor.

At first, he thought that an enemy had attacked him. But no. His body had reacted to the threat before he even noticed it and flung him away as a response.

Bai Yun looked around hoping to find the enemy his body had identified to be as dangerous to him as the devil emperor. But he could not find any such existence.

Huh.

Why were all the women staring at him?