Chapter 1136, Dominance

Translator: Silavin

 

This much was evident from the immediate reactions of Xiao Ye and Lin Dong.

 

Both Dragons had gone into a state of total vigilance the moment the Bronze Qilin emerged. This was a level of wariness that Lu Fan had never once seen from either of them against any opponent other than an Ancient God or the Devouring Dragon King.

 

That alone was testament enough: the Bronze Qilin had evolved into something that even Lu Fan could not afford to treat lightly.

 

The realisation settled into his thoughts, and he addressed the group in a measured, low voice. “The Bronze Qilin is not what it once was. We cannot afford to be careless. We need to attack together. Take it down quickly. Harvest the Experience Points. Afterwards, we will quickly move on to the Sacred Jiang Family.”

 

“Right!”

 

The group answered as one and began deploying their Skills.

 

The Bronze Qilin immediately read their intent. Its entire body shimmered with a seven-coloured radiance, the golden flames still burning across its surface, neither extinguished nor diminished.

 

*ROAR!*

 

With a single thunderous bellow, the Bronze Qilin planted its feet and exploded forward, straight toward Lu Fan and the others.

 

Its Speed Attribute was far higher than before.

 

Fortunately, Jian Ying’s group responded with swift precision. The Golden Asura King stepped forward, the greatsword in its hand shifting into a shield, interposing itself before the group.

 

*Crash!*

 

Despite the Golden Asura King committing entirely to Defence, the Bronze Qilin’s charging pounce sent it skidding backward through the air, its momentum impossible to contain.

 

Ye Wuxian moved without hesitation. She transformed into a swirling fire tornado and appeared directly behind the Golden Asura King, barely bringing it to a stop before it reached the others.

 

With the Golden Asura King stabilised, Ye Wuxian surged outward herself. In her Elemental Form, she swept toward the Bronze Qilin in a spiral of flame.

 

Within the fire tornado, over a dozen afterimages of Ye Wuxian materialised simultaneously.

 

All of them gripped Refined Ashless. All of them descended upon the Bronze Qilin in a coordinated barrage. Over a dozen attacks landing across its frame in a single instant.

 

Ye Wuxian’s raw Damage Output was not her strength. But the moment she channelled her Ancient God Power to her Attacks, she could brand her opponents with fire that would never get extinguished. Once that flame took hold, the target would enter a perpetual state of disadvantage, tormented and Weakened without respite.

 

She succeeded.

 

A dozen spear strikes landed in rapid succession across the Bronze Qilin’s body. The physical impact barely staggered the creature. Its frame swayed slightly before settling, seemingly unmoved.

 

But after those dozen strikes, a dozen separate fires ignited across its surface, each one reaching to burn and scorch its body.

 

The Bronze Qilin snarled in fury. Both claws swept outward in wide, horizontal arcs, releasing surges of violent pressure that scattered Ye Wuxian’s fire tornado into fragments, pushing her back before she could press closer.

 

Ye Wuxian was forced to withdraw. She gathered her form together in the air a hundred metres distant, maintaining her vigil for the right opening.

 

Yet when she looked toward the Bronze Qilin, her brows drew together in a slight frown.

 

In every battle, the flames she embedded with Ancient God Power, once kindled upon an opponent, would spread steadily, consuming the target piece by piece. This was a fire that used anything and everything as fuel. It could not be extinguished.

 

Even a body tempered by Ancient God Power should not be capable of resisting her flames.

 

Yet what she saw instead: after driving her back, the Bronze Qilin’s own golden flames had begun to pulse and ripple across its surface like a rolling wave. Within those waves, her fires were being smothered. Compressed. Suppressed toward extinction.

 

They had not been truly extinguished. But they had been pressed down to something barely larger than a candle flame.

 

For flames of that magnitude, what Damage could it possibly deal to the Bronze Qilin?

 

Ye Wuxian was startled that her fire could be suppressed at all. But when she reached out to sense it more carefully, she realised the truth was more nuanced.

 

Her flames were still at their full potency. They were, in fact, growing stronger with every passing moment, clearly using the Bronze Qilin’s own body as fuel, spreading their reach further and further.

 

The apparent shrinking was not suppression. The Bronze Qilin had been stacking its own power atop her flames, burying them beneath layer after layer of additional fuel.

 

The principle was straightforward: a fire will certainly burn paper or wood as fuel. But if one piles more paper and more wood directly over the flames all at once, the fire would be pressed down, suppressed, struggling beneath the weight.

 

It would never go out. But burning through that massive pile above it would require time.

 

The Bronze Qilin had simply weaponised this logic. It used its own Ancient God Power as a vast, smothering weight directly atop Ye Wuxian’s flames, crushing them into submission.

 

And so, from the outside, everyone watching saw Ye Wuxian’s fire reduced to near-nothing. Its Damage close to negligible.

 

Ye Wuxian had not expected her Ancient God Power to be countered in this fashion.

 

She knew her flames still dealt Damage. However, she also knew that the Damage so thoroughly suppressed, it was functionally useless in this battle.

 

[Fine. If you want to suppress it, then suppress it!] The thought steeled her resolve. She reformed her body into a fire tornado and drove forward again toward the Bronze Qilin.

 

This time, however, the Bronze Qilin was prepared. As the fire tornado surged toward it, it lashed out in a relentless volley of claw strikes, each one generating a compressed air cannon that detonated against the oncoming flames.

 

Its Attack rhythm was so dense that Ye Wuxian could find no gap to approach, let alone deliver more strikes of Ancient God Power to its skin.

 

It was at precisely this moment.

 

*Kkkkrrrk!*

 

A razor-keen sound of something cleaving the air tore through the battlefield.

 

Two Void Insects, each stretching over ten metres in length, emerged from nowhere and closed on the Bronze Qilin from left and right.

 

The pair resembled colossal horned beetles. They were massive and their power was self-evident in every line of their bodies.

 

They moved like lightning, flanking in tandem. This was a pincer strike that should have delivered substantial Damage Output.

 

But the Bronze Qilin was already alert. With a sharp cry it jumped up to the sky, evading both Void Insects in a single motion. Then, in the moment of passing, brought both claws down simultaneously, smashing each of them apart mid-air.

 

The two Void Insects detonated in the sky, true potential shown.

 

But Ouyang Bai Ge’s Void Insects were not so easily killed.

 

As the pair shattered, from within their bodies erupted hundreds of identical specimens, scaled to mere fractions of the original size. However, each one bore the same form.

 

They tore free through the burst flesh of their host bodies and swarmed toward the Bronze Qilin in a flood, launching a unified assault.

 

The Bronze Qilin had clearly not anticipated a contingency hidden within these two creatures. Caught off-guard for the briefest instant, the smaller Void Insects closed the distance and landed directly upon its body.

 

They gnawed.

 

The sound that followed was immediately unpleasant and stomach churning. It was a grating grinding cacophony of countless mandibles working against metal.

 

The Bronze Qilin bellowed in pain. Its golden flames erupted in a violent pulse, blasting every Void Insect from its frame and detonating them one by one through the air.

 

But the Void Insects, even when destroyed, were not finished.

 

From every shattered carcass, yet more emerged. Like before, these were even smaller, crawling free from the wreckage of their predecessors in an unbroken chain.