35 Final Tournament: The Fan and The Chain!

The 4th day began early. Today would host sixteen battles and the third would be Yun's battle for the third round!

The first two battles, being mostly opponents she'd never have to face, held no interest for Yun. She continued to spend her time analyzing the first image of the Solar Thunder Sutra.

Finally, after waiting through the first two battles, it was time for Yun to face her opponent. Yesterday she had watched Xue Guo demolish the whip wielding Xu Tian in what seemed like a completely effortless battle. Every strike of the whip was perfectly countered, and she repeatedly dissipated the momentum of the whip strikes by winding it up before dropping it in a pile and continuing to advance forward.

"Huli Yunlong, and Xue Guo, enter the stage." An Elder called out methodically.

Yun mounted the stage easily with a simple leap from the shore to the first platform, then another leap to the central platform. Xue Guo, on the other hand, took a single flying leap from the shore to the main platform, landing on the edge of it with her toes before she stepped forward and walked casually to her starting position. Standing casually, the opposing Felis retrieved her two iron fans.

As the match began Yun brought out her personal spear and attacked. Her goal was definitely to keep Xue Guo at a distance, preventing her from using her incredible speed and dexterity to dominate the battle. Clanging sounds rang out over and over as Yun repeatedly used her spear to cut off the direction that Xue Guo was trying to move. Swings, slices, stabs, chops, she used every tool at her disposal to attack repeatedly with the blade or the butt of her spear.

Constantly attacking, Yun's endurance was being tested as she wielded her spear at maximum length while maintaining enough control to prevent her opponent from being able to trap it. Thankfully the blade of her spear was large enough that the gaps in the iron fans could not be used to trap it and twist it out of her hands.

Slowly, as Yun began to feel the fatigue setting in, she began to feel the energy circulation in her body be disrupted by lack of focus. As she did, she noticed in some places there were little eddies of energy swirling at the junctions. These eddies of remnant energy puzzled her, but also triggered something in her mind, illuminating a mystery she had yet to solve. Suddenly she understood the circulation of energy contained within the Solar Thunder Sutra that she had yet to complete.

Hiding beneath the concept of 'heat' was a circulatory pattern, and within that pattern was a skill that could be used to assault an opponent. Dragon Aura. This skill would allow you to project intense heat from the body, creating an aura of high temperature air that would billow around you, creating heat distortion as well as heavy updrafts.

As soon as she comprehended the skill she began to use it. Slowly the air around her began to heat up. First it was the air trapped against her body by her fur. Then it was the air within an inch of her whole body. Then, finally, the aura seemed to explode outwards and radiate intense heat waves within five meters of her, the heat would fall off outside this range in drifts and slight winds, rapidly depleting until there was little more than a warm feeling no your bare skin.

Using the newfound aura to frighten her opponent, Yun began to drive Xue Guo off the stage. Soon enough, she was driven into the water and the match ended.

As usual, Yun stepped off the stage and sat down to watch the match after her own. The next match would again determine her opponent, and she always wanted to know what she would have to deal with next.

Next on stage was Bai Xieren and Fan Zhenkang. Bai Xieren fought using a pair of chain weapons with spikes at the end, while Fan Zhenkang used a heavy war hammer. The match began with Fan Zhenkang charging into close range with his hammer, but the feminine looking Felis, Bai Xieren, seemed to drift off to one side and strike out with the chain and spike. Fan Zhenkang repeated this over and over, but every strike seemed weaker and weaker, while Bai Xieren had a lazy smile like this was all a game.

Rapidly it was obvious that Bai Xieren was doing very little physical harm to the opponent, but Fan Zhenkang was weakening rapidly. Obviously this was an unnaturally rapid decay in his strength, as he had won the previous rounds with no issue. Soon enough he stopped, panting, and then collapsed on the ground after giving a venomous glance at Bai Xieren.

Yun was baffled by this. Her understanding of laws wasn't great, but it was still enough that she knew this must be some kind of law-based attack that sapped strength from the enemy. The entire arena had seen how, in the previous match, Fan Zhenkang had used earth laws to fortify himself against harm while bringing down a massive hammer blow.

Once more, lost in thought, Yun sat down and spent the rest of the day pondering this issue, as well as cultivating. Unfortunately she was unable to focus due to the strangeness of that fight.