Wu Zhan

"Learn who you offend before you commit to it. You seem to really enjoy teaching, allow me to hand you some pointers." Wu Zhan spoke out in a monotone voice as he stood atop a pillar in the corner of the arena. 

"Does your father also enjoy fighting martial artists under his level?" Zhou Xinqiu scoffed before turning around again.

"Xinqiu this guy is more than 3 levels higher than you, use caution" Qin Gong watched the situation unfold.

"Mmm" Zhou Xinqiu readied herself.

Wu Zhan slightly raised his palm causing a heap of energy to surge upward before he slammed his palm downward. The surge of energy converged into an invisible pillar on top of Zhou Xinqiu.

Zhou Xinqiu quickly congregated a fusion of two ten bronze imprints and pushed upwards directly attempting to shield herself from the pillar. The makeshift shield lasted for a mere few seconds before it began to crack. Panic began to settle in every extremity of her body as she begun to blank. The cracks turned to big spiderwebs and were on the edge of shattering as her qi wasn't able to supply the imprint enough to hold the shield. 

The shield completely turned to dust within the next second but contrary to regular belief, all the panic in her body suddenly dispersed and she was filled with a great calm. A small pattern appeared on her forehead and one edge of it began to glow white. Her eyes shone a blinding white light as her legs seemingly shifted through the air in a slow motion but were actually moving through the space in a confusingly fast fashion. With this, she moved out of the pillar's area of attack right before it would have slammed onto her. 

"Hm" Wu Zhan held up two fingers and made a quick gesture. The loose energy in the air converged to form a massive wave of water that swept toward Zhou Xinqiu. The wave was a brilliant azure that matched the color of Wu Zhan's robe, but it clashed with the young woman's surroundings. The wave looked like water, but it had a sharp aura that suggested it could slice through anything as if it were a thousand blades. Zhou Xinqiu understood that if she was hit by the wave, the fight would be over.

She could feel the extreme threat surfacing from the wave gushing in front of her. She assumed a traditional fighting stance with her left foot in front of her right as she closed her eyes and shockwaves full of flaming heat repeatedly boomed outwards from her core. 

Time suddenly completely stopped as her body supposedly appeared inside a world of lava, upon opening her eyes she found that she was suspended over an ocean of lava with one chain on each of her limbs while the burning heat began melting her skin. 

Within all the chaos, she saw a small hint of movement in the ocean of lava. A tiny carp swam in that ocean of magma and as its journey continued, it was being bound by iron chains from all directions, but even within all this peril, it learned its true self and broke free from its cage.

Zhou Xinqiu's body was badly mangled, her bones protruding from her skin in several places. The pain was unimaginable, and tears streamed down what remained of her face. The image of the carp flashed through her mind, and she closed her eyes in realization. 

"Burning aura of flame, understanding the dire straits!"

Zhou Xinqiu opened her eyes and reappeared before the giant wave, a gleam of understanding in her eyes. She crossed her arms on her chest, took a step back, and opened her mouth.

"Annihilation strength chain, pinned by the chains of demise!"

She swung her arms apart, revealing red-hot iron chains extending several meters from her fists. The move unleashed a scorching X-shaped slash that tore through the wave, opening a path for her to pass through unscathed. She looked ahead and saw that the wave had been cut in two.

The wave had barely passed when Zhou Xinqiu realized she was in a very bad situation. A swarm of short metal swords was hurtling towards her. A single hit from one of those swords would cause severe injury at those speeds. 

She used her movement technique to jump up into the air and grab one of the daggers in the air with her chain and pulled it towards her propelling herself forward in the process. One after another, she dodged the daggers and swung towards Wu Zhan until she was a meter in front of him. She winded up her arm and thrusted the chain straight at him. The chain managed to cut a single one of his hairs before he grabbed it directly with his hand and slammed it downwards along with her body causing dust to fly up in the arena.

Amidst the debris she managed to sit on one knee. "Xinqiu its over don't push it" Qin Gong warned. 

Almost as if she hadn't heard his voice, she struggled to stand up and extended her right arm outwards summoning the great sword originating from her mother's inheritance. The great sword began lagging behind her as she dragged the hefty blade behind her with both arms. Her eyes glowed white once more as she used her movement technique to dash upwards. As she poured qi into what felt like an unending abyss within the weapon, it began vibrating and getting exponentially heaver and heavier. 

Wu Zhan looking in confusion furrowed his brow as he manifested a simple sword made of qi in his hand. 

Breathing very heavily, blood rushed down her forehead as she finally brought the blade's hilt above her head angling it downwards and at the same moment pounced forward. Realizing what was happening, Wu Zhan made a simple slash outwards. Zhou Xinqiu's body trembled as she rushed toward Wu Zhan in the air. His sword arc gleamed in the light as she began losing control of her body due to exhaustion. 

When the sword arc reached her blade she used the last of her reserves to force her right hand forward slashing the blade up to meet the attack. 

Within the next second the entire arena went silent as her body slammed straight into the ground and the shockwave of the two blades broke the boundary of the arena. 

However, the most surprising thing was that Wu Zhan had actually fallen 8 steps behind meaning he had almost fallen out of bounds.

Zhou Xinqiu felt her body giving in to the pain and she could barely feel anything when an old but comforting voice rang out from near the door of the battle arena.

"That's enough"