59 Chapter 59

(Authors Note: Not my best chapter. Even though I like the concept of what happened, I did not accomplish it to the quality I would have liked to have. It is almost 2.7k words long, so I apologise in advance.)

As they walked through the park, Xiaotao told Yuhao to stay where he was on the bench while she went to her favourite store and got them some dessert. Yuhao had offered to get them dessert himself or to go with her, however, she adamantly refused, saying this was her wish. This left Yuhao sitting by himself in an area of the park that was virtually empty. It was still an hour before dinner, so while this area of the park would have many couples and friends hanging out after dinner, people generally didn't spend their time during the day here.

As he sat there, with the wind blowing through the trees, he felt a gaze watching him. The gaze was unsettling and cold, with it holding small traces of killing intent in it.

"Someone is here," Amra spoke up.

Yuhao internally nodded, as he replied to Amra in his mind, "Yeah, I know. I am just waiting for them to show themselves."

Not long after, the person stepped out from the shadow of the trees and into the light. The person was someone who Yuhao instantly recognised and for obvious reasons. Even without including the fact that he had a small cat with tiger-like features on his shoulder, his golden hair and light blue eyes was a known hereditary factor of the Dai family bloodline. He, just as much as his younger brother, was an instigator of trouble for his mother and constantly 'bullied' his younger self. This person was Dai Yaoheng.

As he walked out, Yaoheng's killing intent slowly increased in intensity.

"Well, well, well, what a coincidence to run into you here," Dai Yaoheng said, his voice cold and angry, a far cry from the 'calm and collected' character he was known to be.

Not too sure why Yaoheng was here, but not dumb enough to believe in this 'coincidence', especially considering the atmosphere, he said, "Who are you?"

A creepy smile spread across Yaoheng's face, "Oh, how bad of me to not introduce myself…... Huo Yuhao…."

Yuhao pretended to be shocked as Yaoheng continued his monologue, "My name is Dai Yaoheng. I hear you hurt my brother. Because of you, his level of intelligence has dropped significantly, and he is now somewhat of a stain on my family name."

As he walked closer, almost thirty metres away he stopped. His monologue trailed off-topic as he mumbled, just barely loud enough for Yuhao to hear, "I used to know another stain on my family, however, my mother assured me she took care of them permanently. Unlucky for you, I always hated the name Yuhao. It was just like his name."

Yuhao raised his eyebrows at this as he alerted his spirit beasts about the situation. Better to have several people observing the situation than just himself.

"Why are you here then?" Yuhao replied, having a pretty good idea of his goals already. He wasn't really worried as not only did he have Amra and Daydream to fall back on, but he could simply portal back to the Academy to escape at any time. If he really was here to fight, this was a perfect opportunity for Yuhao to get experience properly fighting a Spirit Emperor.

Yaoheng chuckled, "Haha. Well, I always believed in the philosophy of an eye for an eye. That is fair, don't you think? You hurt my brother, so now I will hurt you."

While he was saying this, in Dai Yaoheng's mind, he couldn't help but also add, 'Hopefully, this will also teach him not to go near Xiaotao again. I don't know why he has been able to spend time with her when she has refused MY invites and offers again and again. I also reached Spirit Emperor at the age of twenty, so it is only right that she be mine.'

Following this, he released his martial spirit as he said, "Just take it, it will be over much more quickly that way…." His martial spirit, just like his brother's and father's, was the White Tiger. His muscles grew bigger, claws appeared from his fingertips and he grew fur in places, fur shouldn't grow on a human. With that done, he began walking towards Yuhao at a slow pace.

At this happening, Yuhao activated his own Steel Space Dragon spirit, while also simultaneously using his Spirit Eyes and the Spiritual Detection skill to secretly analyse the environment. The silver metal wrapped around his whole body and he felt the respective increases to his physical attributes appear. Under the silver armour, he smiled before cornily walking towards Yaoheng in the same way he was. As they walked closer, the atmosphere intensified, before they both lunged at one another.

The first clash sent a solid 'thump' through the trees alongside the horrible sound of scratching claws against metal. They both split apart after a few seconds. In this clash, Yuhao came out with a loss. Despite Yuhao having the equivalent physique of a normal Spirit Emperor, his opponent was an actual Spirit Emperor, not to mention the fact that his opponent is an assault-type spirit master that are known to have stronger physiques than their ranks.

"Haha, even though you are stronger than I expected, you are n-," Yaoheng said, before being interrupted by Yuhao attacking.

Yuhao this time used his physical ability in harmony with the Tang Sect techniques to fight. His eyes quickly turned purple as he closed in, causing Yaoheng to be slightly dizzy. Despite him quickly shaking off the effects, by that time, Yuhao was upon him. He began shooting off punches at his opponent, with Yaoheng only being able to block around sixty percent of them.

With the Ghost Perplexing Track alongside the Controlling Crane, Capturing Dragon skill, Yuhao was able to pull and push Yaoheng's arms just past his own punches. While each punch may not be doing a ton of damage, they do still hurt and accumulate. Eventually, aggravated that he was unable to keep up with Yuhao, Yaoheng used the first spirit ring of the fight, discharging an intense light from his body. This light upon contact with it, due to the close proximity he was to its source, launched Yuhao back ten metres.

He bounced off the dirt and grass a few times before pushing off the ground with hands and feet to stabilise himself. With his opponent using the first spirit ring, despite him being hit with it, they both knew that it was Dai Yaoheng's loss this time.

Acknowledging the fact that without using other means, he wouldn't really be able to hurt his opponent, Yuhao released his FrostFire spirit. Seeing this spirit, the atmosphere grew heavier as more killing intent leaked out from Yaoheng as he laid his eyes on the martial spirit which hurt his brother.

In this state, he moved to attack again. Firstly, he activated his first spirit ring, similar to Huabin's own skill as it manifested a sheen of light across his body, boosting his defence. Secondly, he used his third spirit ring, which had the visual effects of increasing his muscle mass and lengthening the size of his claws and hands. With his preparation done, he charged at Yuhao.

Yuhao himself, used his second spirit ring's skills on his dragon spirit to boost his defences by seventy-five percent each, before activating his only spirit ring and its respective skills on his tool spirit, increasing the sharpness of the blade, his overall strength and having the scythe blade become coated in fine ice crystals.

As they ran in together, Yuhao swung his hammer out towards his opponent, only for him to dodge and palm Yuhao in the chest. The palm sent him back a few steps. The hit had surprisingly actually slightly hurt him despite the increase in defence he now has. This goes to show just how much of a physical increase Yaoheng's own skill has. Taking the advantage, Yaoheng lunged at his opponent once again, swiping his claws left and right to try and injure him more.

Finally, Yuhao through his detection skill notice an opening and took advantage of it. He used his first spirit ring, manifesting a shield in mid-air to block a wild punch before getting a solid slash on Yaoheng, cutting his inner thigh with his blade. The wound instantly froze over and Yuhao could notice the limb moving slightly slower now than the rest. Their battle continued at this pace, with Yuhao receiving some damage, however managing to dodge many attacks due to his Spiritual Detection skill, while Yaoheng on the other hand, slowly built up his killing intent, causing his judgement to become clouded, and preventing him from noticing the effects the ice was having on his body.

As Yuhao managed to get a clean dodge from a much slower attack, he dealt a strong hammer hit on his opponent's chest. This hit inadvertently snapped Yaoheng out of his aggravated state. When he 'awoke', he quickly backed up and was shocked at how cold and sluggish not only his body felt, but also his spirit power. Any longer and he would have been unable to activate and sustain any of his skills.

He quickly pulled out a strange, red pill from his storage ring and popped it unhesitatingly in his mouth. A burst of fiery heat exuded from his body however, contrary to his expectation, the ice energy was only pushed back and suppressed. Yuhao's ultimate ice energy was not completely removed despite Yaoheng using an Infernal Flower Pill. The pill was extremely expensive as it was said to remove all ice-related energies from a spirit master's body, something that any rich 'young master' would have on hand for these situations.

With this energy still a threat, Yaoheng decided to stop playing around with his 'prey'. Seeing no reason to hold back anymore, he simultaneously used his fourth, fifth and sixth spirit rings. A spectre of a white tiger appeared above his head. It arched its back before releasing an intense roar of power, sending visible waves of energy out in all directions.

Yuhao braced himself for this energy wave, rotating his spirit power around his body, and as it hit him, he felt his spiritual sea shake momentarily before Daydream moved her energy and protected it.

"Be careful Yuhao. That skill was not a physical or mental attack, so you are fairly undefended from it. It can't kill you or majorly harm you, but while your spiritual sea is shaking and chaotic, you can't use any of your spirit skills." Daydream said.

"Thanks," Yuhao said quickly, analysing what his opponent's next move was. If it happens again, Yuhao was ready to portal past the wave of energy to avoid its effects.

As the fifth and sixth spirit rings were fully activated, Yaoheng's body once again increased in size. This time he almost grew half a metre taller and equivalently wider as he gained a significant increase in muscle mass. At the same time, his three central claws on each hand almost tripled in size and sharpness, reaching thirty centimetres in length. Even from the distance away Yuhao was, he had the instinctive feeling that he would be able to defend against those attacks as is.

Knowing there was not much he could do in this instance without revealing either his bloodline, his other spirit or one of his three spirit bones, Yuhao was preparing to portal back into the city to search from Xiaotao. However, before he used his third spirit ring, Amra spoke up, "Don't worry Yuhao. This is as good of a time as any to practice using all of your abilities. As long as you knock him out, I can manipulate your spirit power to make him forget the past hour, and thus keeping everyone in the unknown still."

"It seems risky to do so. What if I can't knock him out?" Yuhao quickly replied back as he carefully mimicked Yaoheng's movements as they walked in a circle.

"Pfft, if you are unable to accomplish that with my bloodline, then people deserve to know…" Amra said haughtily.

"Fine, Yuhao said as he roused his blood essence and called upon his bloodline to manifest.

Yaoheng, who was just about to attack, seeing Yuhao not moving to escape, was shocked when he saw golden light exuding from Yuhao. This light slowly faded away, leaving a transformed Yuhao in its place. Yuhao's short hair had changed to radiant gold and extended down to cover his neck, his eyes were glowing pure gold with a third, golden gem on his forehead, and finally, somewhat like Yaoheng's own transformation, Yuhao now had sleek, golden fur covering his arms and hands. Alongside this transformation, was the appearance of two new, deep, dark, yellow spirit rings joining the already existing four spirit rings. They almost looked golden however, Yaoheng shook off this thought as there was no such thing as a golden spirit ring.

Yuhao flexed his muscles quickly at the increased strength he felt before using the first bloodline ring provided by Amra, the Three-Eyed Nemean Lion Body. With this activated, just like Yaoheng, his body also grew in size a little more as his physical attributes increased by a further fifty percent each.

With the new and improved strength, Yuhao launched off the ground at Yaoheng, grinning madly to himself. As he neared, Yuhao once again used a mental attack, only this time, he used his Purple Demon Eye skill alongside Daydream's Spiritual Interference skill. These skills interweaved with one another and produced a mental attack three times stronger than the singular skill could have done. The result of this was Yaoheng physically losing his balance and losing complete focus on Yuhao.

Taking advantage of this opening, Yuhao swung out with his hammer and hit Yaoheng right in the chest. With his strength now being increased by over one hundred percent he managed to blow Yaoheng off his feet and fling him back several metres. Continuing his bodies momentum, he opened up a portal in front of him, transporting Yuhao behind Yaoheng's new position and into the continuing swing of Yuhao's hammer. This hit him in his undefended, weak back, sending him sprawling face first in the dirt.

The now non-dazed Yaoheng quickly sprang up and spat out some blood from his mouth. The previous two hits had caused him internal damage which he definitely never thought was possible for Yuhao to do. With the new information of Yuhao having not two but three martial spirits, Yaoheng was actually somewhat frightened. As seen by what just happened, with this third spirit, which seems to be a feline-type beast spirit on par, if not greater than his own White Tiger spirit, Yuhao was able to badly hurt him at his best while still only being a Spirit Elder.

With this thought, his pride, anger and arrogance quickly fled his mind and his self-preservation instincts came on full force. With one last look towards Yuhao, he turned away from him and began to run towards the edge of the clearing they were in, hoping to make it into the tree line.

Yuhao, seeing this was gobsmacked. He never would have thought that Dai Yaoheng, someone who was a part of the Shrek Seven Devils would not only seek him out to get revenge for his younger brother's beating, but when faced with a stronger opponent, would turn tail and attempt to run away. He quickly created a portal and appeared in front of the running Yaoheng and swinging his hammer once again. Surprisingly or not, the frantic Yaoheng who was looking over his shoulder to see what Yuhao was doing, was hit in the side of the head. With this hit, his entire body flopped like a puppet whose strings have been cut.