Celestial Martial Path

The shout of the adjudicator rang throughout the arena.

Instantly, a burst of energy erupted from the contestants, each casting individual spells.

{ Frost Wall }

{ Divine Protection }

Simultaneously, frost particles froze into a solid wall in front of Li Sui while a bright barrier projected from the skies onto the arena, encasing Song Han. The scholar smiled evilly before calling out to the heavens,

{ Natural Bind }

Thick tree branches spiralled out of the ground and formed a dome around Song Han, abruptly cutting of the projecting light. Although the light attempted to sear through the branches, there were only slight burn marks upon the wooden surface.

The scholar chuckled at the helpless sight of the encased Song Han. Although it seemed as if his barrier had only further protected Song Han, in reality, he had interrupted Song Han's buffing technique. { Divine Protection } was a powerful spell developed by the founder of the Setting Radiance Sect, allowing one to not only shield one's self from danger, but also make use of the summoned light to form a powerful defensive armour that even those with higher cultivation levels would find hard to break through.

This allowed the Setting Radiance Sect to rise to fame, leaving all the other powerhouses behind and becoming one of the strongest families in the region. That was until a sect that specialised in encasement and trapping others contended and challenged the Setting Radiance sect. All the onlookers had thought it would be an annihilation of the challengers, however the challenging sect swept clean the Setting Radiance Sect's trump card, { Divine Protection }, before destroying the demoralised sect members.

Of course, as a top tier sect, even without their main spell, the Setting Radiance Sect was a powerhouse and ended up defending the attack without too many casualties, however the weakness of the { Divine Protection } spell had leaked out, causing them to not only fall in status as a sect, but also as individuals.

{ Natural Bind } was one of the direct counters as it directly nullified the projecting light, denying not only the barrier, but also the buff.

Roars echoed from within the barrier of branches as deep slashes began to form in the encasement. The scholar spewed out a mouthful of blood as a large crevice appeared within the bind. Moments later, the bind exploded into millions of particles, revealing Song Han's bulky figure, now glowing with a weak, however existent armour.

"Hmph, I already told you, Ku Xing, I have developed enough to break your nature bind!"

Ku Xing was not slow to recover from the backlash, already facing Song Han with a prepared fighting stance, "It looks like I have underestimated you. I may have to go all out to defeat you."

Song Han grinned widely, "Now you're being honest. We're not long-time rivals for nothing."

Ku Xing burst out into laughter before answering, "Let's reset and continue."

"Unfortunately, I cannot allow that."

{ Hail of the Frozen God }

The two rivals turned their heads around to see Li Sui raising his hands, summoning a large cloud of condensing frost above his head. Both their faces turned unsightly, Ku Xing pulled out a handful of talismans, Song Han generating a light barrier from his armour.

"Resisting is futile, I've been internally building this spell ever since the battle started. The power has become something even a completed { Divine Protection } user would suffer from!"

Right after he finished talking, a freezing gale swept across the arena, patches of ice began to appear and large amounts of frost energy revolved around Li Sui.

Li Ke's eyes gleamed in surprise as she witnessed her brother perform { Hail of the Frozen God }, "So brother has mastered it to this level! There's no way that they can block this attack!"

Thousands of ice shards formed within the ominous cloud, which was expanding at an alarming rate. As the final shard finished forming, the cloud, which was now almost 4 meters in radius, shrunk in the span of several seconds before creating a large blast, sending the shards flying in a multitude of directions.

The light barrier and the talisman shattered instantly upon impact, sending the two rivals reeling and causing them to be exposed to the next shards. Just as the adjudicator reached out to stop the lethal shards from injuring the duo, a powerful shock wave collided perpendicular to the shards of ice, not only redirecting the damage, but also shattering them into particles.

All eyes turned in the direction of the wave's origin, and there stood Jun Xiang with his fist out-stretched, the glove upon it still glowing a crimson red.

Everyone's eyes bulged in disbelief, 'Are you kidding? A third level Body Refinement was able to emit such a powerful energy wave? Seriously tell us, are you hiding your cultivation?'

Jun Xiang stared down at the glove which had just emitted such power. One of the four jewels had gone dull, leaving only three still glowing. Jun Xiang almost cried tears, 'I was just trying to figure out what the jewels did, did you have to activate on me like that?'

Realising that every eye in the stadium was staring at him, Jun Xiang raised his hand to the back of his head in embarrassment, "Heh, sorry for interrupting your fight. I pressed the wrong button. Please continue!"

Half the audience fainted, 'Press the wrong button? You almost killed the other competitors with that punch alright? What do you mean press the wrong button? Does that mean that if you press the wrong button again you instantly win?'

The original rivals made eye contact before nodding once and rushing together towards Jun Xiang, that was their only choice at this point. Otherwise, even if they neutralised Li Sui, Jun Xiang would still pose an immense threat.

Seeing this, Li Sui harrumphed in disappointment, "Teaming up against another in a free for all? Shameless!"

{ Ice Cage }

Song Han smashed against the solid wall of the ice cage, temporarily stunned and dazed, however Ku Xing continued to dash towards Jun Xiang.

{ Aspect of the Forest }

Ku Xing screamed into the skies as a large treant image formed behind his back. An overflowing aura radiated crazily towards Jun Xiang as Ku Xing prepared an empowered punch straight towards Jun Xiang.

Li Sui cursed deeply. In the end even he couldn't stop two cultivators of equal level.

"Hahaha! Jun Xiang, prepare to lose!"

Ku Xing screamed once more as the power of the treant became stronger and the fist began to glow a frightening green.

Jun Xiang stared oddly at the approaching Ku Xing and the treant image. Wasn't this treant awfully like that tree at home which he had punched thousands, if not tens of thousands of times in the past?

Jun Xiang got into his training horse stance before drawing his fist back, glove glowing a dull crimson.

Ku Xing's eyes lit up in surprise, seeing Jun Xiang not even attempting to dodge his strike, "You fool! Receive my fist!"

Just as his fist was about to make contact with Jun Xiang, an unstoppable force smashed against his stomach, sending him flying tens of meters away, coughing out large amounts of blood as he did so.

Ku Xing cried tears of pain and frustration before fainting, 'What the heck man? I thought you were of the third level of Body Refinement. Why do you have so much power? That really goddamn hurts you know?'

Jun Xiang ran over to Ku Xing's side in a hurry, "Are you alright? I'm so sorry, I'm just so used to punching trees that I instinctively used too much force." Jun Xiang looked down at his glove again before scratching his head in dismay, "And I also pressed the wrong button by accident again."

The other half of the crowd fainted.

"You pressed they wrong button? Again?"