36 Final Tournament: The Corroding Spike!

After being frustrated for the rest of the day Yun got up and did some mild exercises before sleeping in preparation for the next round. This fourth round would be 12 total battles. The first four battles would be the continuation of the winner's bracket, and the winner of the first battle would be Yun's next match if she won against Bai Xieren. With the rising of the sun the tournament once more began. All those present ate a light breakfast before the competitors began to do some light warmups to help digest before battle.

First up was the match of her potential next opponent, so of course Yun watched it carefully. The fighters were Fang Niu and Long Wuying.

As the two fighters mounted the stage, they both prepared their weapons. In the hands of Fang Niu was a glimmering soft sword standing straight, while the opponent, Long Wuying, merely had on a pair of dark gauntlets with sinister looking claws on the fingers. As the match was begun the two closed the distance and began a fight in close quarters.

Fang Niu slashed and swiped at Long Wuying repeatedly, driving him back from her, but each strike with her soft sword was deflected with a punch or a backhand from his gauntlets. Before long her soft sword was losing its shine and began to look old and weathered. As she noticed this Fang Niu let out a 'humph' and began to circulate her laws. Swiftly, a cold aura began to swell forth from her sword, eliminating the dark energies that were blunting its shine, and bringing with it a hint of ice crystals in the air around it. The sword glittered and glimmered much more now than it had at the beginning, with glints of reflected light shimmering around it like an illusion.

After the dark energy was driven out of her sword and everyone could see the small cloud being dispersed they all began to look more carefully at Long Wuying's gauntlets. His gloves also had a light coating of this dark energy, but the dark material of them made it almost impossible to see the extremely thin layer around them, almost making it look like a slight blur in ones vision.

Soon after the energy was dispersed they began to frantically battle again, but as the battle went on it became more and more obvious that Long Wuying had no way to deal with the cold energy from the soft sword that was seeping into his arms with every collision. Within twenty minutes he had nearly lost the use of both arms and was forced to surrender the match.

Soon enough it was time for the second battle.

"Huli Yunlong, Bai Xieren, mount the stage."

They both got on the stage fairly quickly and took up positions on either end, facing eachother. Yun immediately drew out her spear while Bai Xieren drew out the chain spikes. Judging from the previous battles, Yun knew this would not be easy at all. His weapon was fairly strong at long range and she would have to be very careful not to touch it, since everyone who had touched it had begun to lose strength. The only way she could think to deal with him was to charge in close.

Dashing forwards at the start, she slashed at him a few times, forcing Bai Xieren to use his chains to deflect her strikes. Twice he tried to wrap the shaft of the spear and trap it, but she pulled back too fast for him. As she pulled her spear back for the third time after he tried to trap it he took advantage of the lag time to strike. Both chain spikes swung at her from either direction at clever angles, and the only thing she could do was deflect. Raising her spear up on one side at an angle, she withdrew another spear to deflect on the other side with a downward slash.

Clang!

The chain wrapped around the spear as she smashed down, and before she hit the ground she once more put the spear back in her storage artifact. Looking at her opponent as she withdrew the spear, she saw his face turn black with rage. She had not only blocked his strike, she'd forced him to have to spend time to retrieve the chain weapon and prepare it for another strike! Striding forward again, Yun began to strike out at him viciously, taking advantage of his current situation by stepping on the downed chain to limit his mobility or force him to abandon the weapon.

Smash!

Clang!

Bang!

Swish!

Strikes rained down, but the chain wielding Bai Xieren kept his chain spike spinning in preparation for the next opening even as he used the body of the chain to block her strikes. Suddenly his eyes lit up, he had found his opening! He lashed out with a short length of chain as she smashed down vertically on him. He raised the center of the chain while keeping the momentum up on the spike, hitting Yun directly in the rib cage as she smashed down on his blocking chain!

Smack! The sound of the chain impacting on her light armor was very light, like there was no force behind it, but as it impacted her a strange energy began to penetrate her body, consuming her strength as she had to focus on the fight while also forcing this vicious energy out at the same time. Now she knew why his opponents were so quickly depleted of their strength.

Swiftly retreating from him, she decided to use her Dragon Aura again. She could already feel the corrosive qualities of the energy that had entered her body taking effect, so she quickly eliminated that as well before charging back in.

Nearing Bai Xieren, she began another round of aggressive attacks, focusing on driving the chain-wielding opponent back towards the edges. The oppressive heat helped drive him back, while at the same time the energy of the heat aura broke his own corrosive energy aura around his weapon. This was exactly what was needed to combat him.

Smash! Yun brought her spear down hard against the chain, driving Bai Xieren back another few meters, but what she failed to notice was that she had stopped suppressing the second chain. The second chain spike smashed into her lower back, nearly driving her to her knees, before Bai Xieren moved around to the other side of her, hitting her twice more with those strangely gentle chain spikes and driving even more corrosive energies into her body.