Victor and loser.

Yao Jun and Lucia silently faced each other after Yao Jun made his statement, one standing on the ground while the other stood in the air and looked down. Yao Jun's sword was pointed up at Lucia when a few drops of blood started to leak out from the corners of his mouth, running down his cheeks and dripping onto his robe. One of Yao Jun's eyebrows rose in apparent surprise as he wiped away the blood from his face, giving it a quick glance before turning his gaze back onto Lucia.

"Been that long already, huh? Let's have a little bet then, oh you grand Lucia. Can I beat you in the 30 seconds before my technique ends, or can you beat me within those 30 seconds?"

Yao Jun took a step forward the moment the words left his mouth, both he and Lucia teleporting through space at the same time. Yao Jun appeared just where Lucia had just been, while Lucia appeared right behind him as he appeared and smashed down towards his head with both hands clasped together. Her two fists tore through space and splintered it as they moved for Yao Jun's head, razor-sharp and devastating fragments of shattered space plunging downwards along with her fists.

Yao Jun turned his head slightly, space above him rippling slightly as a translucent layer of distorted space appeared above him. Lucia's brows furrowed slightly when she saw this scene, as it could be considered a desperation defense. Trying to teleport away fragmented pieces of space, or any attack involving the law of space, carried with it the risk of turning space unstable and leading to a violent collapse. The risk got higher the stronger the law of space used, it was almost a 70% chance when it came to the law of space used by Lucia and Yao Jun.

But facing Yao Jun, even the minuscule hairs on her cheeks were screaming at her that she had to kill him right now, every minute he survived was a minute where he was a threat to her entire clan. She pushed down even harder with her attack, the shattered fragments sinking into the wall of distorted space.

The distorted space started twisting even further, creaking and groaning before suddenly cracking just as Lucia's fists were about to reach it. The cracks immediately extended so violently that the entire wall of distorted space collapsed and exploded. Even more fragments of shattered space were launched in all directions, Lucia's eyes staying cold as ice as she caused several more distortions to appear in space all around them.

All the walls were wormholes that would teleport anything entering them over to Yao Jun, and due to their size and spread, almost all the hundreds of shattered space fragments ended up sinking into them. Of the almost 20 wormholes, 5 of them managed to teleport the devastating fragments over to Yao Jun while the other 15 cracked and exploded.

Fragments of ruined space spread out and covered the entire sky above the planet, it was like trying to look at the planet through a window that was completely cracked. Yao Jun raised his right arm, his action causing a shimmer to run through their surroundings as a translucent orb surrounded him and Lucia. The shattered fragments that touched the inside of the orb bounced away at a slightly faster speed, thousands of fragments starting to bounce around within the orb. Lucia quickly dodged several fragments that came at her, her expression somewhat grim as she looked at Yao Jun, who was a bit bloody after getting hit by several fragments.

"So you've surrounded us by a wall made of reflection? So this is your plan for taking me out before your technique ends, how suicidal."

Yao Jun sent her a grin while ignoring her words, a few more walls of distorted space appearing within the orb. The walls sucked up the fragments and then exploded, resulting in even more fragments bouncing around within the orb. Yao Jun then charged at Lucia without paying the shards around him any mind, only dodging those that came for his head or heart, the rest he allowed to tear into his body as they pleased.

His face carried a nearly mad glint as he arrived in front of Lucia, who didn't wish to risk teleporting with so many fragments of shattered space flying all around them. His sword slashed out at her neck while carrying with it blazing flames that even singed some of the spatial fragments that got close to the blade.

Lucia clicked her tongue and took a quick step back while raising her left fist to smash into the blade from beneath. Her right hand on the other hand quickly pulled a pill from her interspatial ring and threw it into her mouth, all the wounds that started to accumulate on her body thanks to the spatial rifts quickly starting to heal.

Her hand smashed into the side of the blade, but instead of pushing it upwards the blade actually shattered into tiny fragments. But her expression didn't relax due to this, she saw all the fragments turn into clear drops of water that splashed her face. The drops released such a searing heat that her skin turned black and started to crack open, any drops of blood evaporating before they had the chance to leave her body.

The searing pain from the drops made it so that the didn't notice one drop running up her face and hiding in her hair while a few of the drops dispersing into a multicolored mist when they hit her face, the mist quickly sinking into her body and vanishing. Lucia was feeling intense pain, but that didn't stop her from launching a counterattack, her left hand quickly changing from an upwards punch into a grab.

Her hand grasped onto Yao Jun's right elbow and gave it a heavy clench that caused the bone in his elbow to nearly disintegrate while even the veins moving through his elbow broke apart into small pieces. She then pulled him close and smashed her right fist into his stomach in an attempt to make some of his inner organs rupture.

But his body turned into hazy mist the moment her fist landed, dissipating to the wind. Yao Jun then appeared directly behind Lucia, some of the spatial shards dissipating and causing her to guess that Yao Jun had most likely been hiding inside an illusion ever since his attack was broken. Her attention was fully focused on Yao Jun when he appeared and punched out with his right arm, his left elbow still completely ruined, so she once again didn't notice parts of the mist entering her body.

She was forced to twist her body awkwardly so that she could block his incoming punch with a sideways swipe of her left hand, a few cracks running through what remained of the surrounding space when their attacks collided. The skin on her left hand started bubbling and sizzling, parts of her hand actually starting to liquidize and melt under the intense heat that his fist brought with it.

But in return, the bones within his right fist shattered and broke through his skin, some of the bones within his fingers actually shooting out so fast that they stabbed into Lucia's hand and arm. The two were pushed away from each other, both glancing at their ruined hands while furrowing their brows. It was at this moment that Yao Jun suddenly spurt out more blood, the energy that his body was radiating suddenly weakening drastically, the promised 30 seconds had passed.

Lucia's lips curved into a grin and her body shot forward and brought with it some of the surrounding spatial fragments, that had not stopped piercing through them throughout the entire intense exchange. She arrived in front of Yao Jun nearly instantly and stretched out her right arm while making a clenching motion.

A heavy constricting force started to press down on Yao Jun's body from all around, his bones creaking and groaning as even the spatial fragments all around him broke apart into fragments so tiny that they could no longer be seen. Lucia then took another step forward and raised her left leg into a diagonally rising kick aimed at Yao Jun's waist. The energy radiating from Yao Jun's body suddenly burst up again just when her kick was about to reach him, his arms breaking free from the constricting force and reaching for the incoming leg. But Lucia's lips simply curved up even further when she saw this.

"Yup, thought as much."

Her foot suddenly hit a wall of hardened space and bounced back before Yao Jun's hand could touch her. She created another wall of hardened space and kicked off of it with her still outstretched leg so that she could use the force to launch herself backward. She put some distance between herself and Yao Jun, who once again lost the energy radiating from his body, looking weaker than ever before.

"Heh, did you really think I'd trust you on your words after you've already misled me once before with them? Besides, you seem like the kind of guy to keep a final trump card up your sleeve during a battle, something just like that attack there. I probably would have lost my entire lower body if your hand had managed to touch me."

Her gaze never left Yao Jun's body as she spoke, only when she saw his eyes turn dim, his face pale, and vast amounts of blood pouring out from his mouth did she start to feel a bit safer, she even felt that the despair appearing on his face was rather exquisite. But she still wanted to be on the safe side, she had to make sure that he was dead, preferably without getting close.

She stretched out her right arm and held her palm towards him, the entire area around them starting to vibrate so fiercely that the jagged fragments of shattered space actually stopped moving. The reflective shield that formed an orb around them started to crack and splinter, a sign of just how weak Yao Jun had gotten. All the fragments of space, as well as the splinters of the reflective shield all, slowly gathered together in front of Lucia, forming a small bow and arrow after about five seconds.

She grasped the bow and drew back the string, the arrow neatly placing itself in the proper position as she took her aim. She gathered all her energy in her arms and unleashed the arrow, which immediately vanished once it left the bow. It didn't even draw a line through space, it simply vanished from sight the moment she unleashed it, heading directly for her weakened target.

But just as the arrow left the bow and vanished, so too did Yao Jun. The thing that imploded into a mess of shattered space and spatial rifts wasn't Yao Jun's body, instead, it was one of the larger asteroids that revolved around the planet. He vanished right in front of Lucia's eyes, he hadn't even unleashed a trace amount of Qi or used any laws, he simply vanished. Her body entered the highest possible alert state, but she had just launched her strongest attack and was thus in her weakest state. So when she felt hands land on the side of her head, she knew that it was already too late.

She was only barely able to turn her head to see Yao Jun standing behind her, all his earlier weakness completely gone, even most of his wounds had healed. Sitting on her shoulder was a tiny spider, she couldn't see the spider's expression but she could tell that it was smirking at her. Yao Jun had planted one of Du Xiao's spiders on Lucia back when he hit her with the droplets that his sword had turned into. It was by opening a gate to Du Xiao with his God Gate that he could move without teleporting with the law of space.

Lucia felt that she had been so smart to figure out that he had been lying to her, but only now did she understand that his weakness and seeming despair after she figured him out had just been another lie. If her guess was correct, then the Devil Vine that vanished earlier was still around somewhere, allowing him to siphon the lifeforce of the enemies that it had trapped.

Her guess wasn't wrong, Yama was currently within Yao Jun's God Gate, it was no problem to draw upon all the lifeforce that Yama had stocked up on. Yao Jun's hands were on Lucia's head, but he knew that he couldn't kill her, there simply wasn't enough time to unleash an attack strong enough to kill her in one shot, even with most of her defenses down. The best he could do was seriously wound her before she managed to pull back, but that would only lead to the battle being drawn out further. But then again, killing her had never been his plan ever since the start of the battle, he still knew his limits.

Energy flowed into Lucia's head from Yao Jun's hands, merging together with the mist that had entered her body earlier as well as the other trace amounts of energy that he had inserted into her body with each attack that landed so far. The energy flooded directly into her soul and started to encroach on every single part of it, Lucia rapidly starting to feel her mind degrade as realization and horror set in.

"No... Not even this! Impossible!"

Peyton Eluard was her little brother so she was incredibly familiar with the fragments belonging to the Supreme Law of Life, she knew exactly what sort of energy was invading her. But since she was familiar with it, she also knew that the fragment shouldn't allow someone to control those with higher cultivation, and yet here Yao Jun was, invading her mind without pause. But how could she know that he didn't have just one fragment of that Supreme Law, he also had its core, the Human God's Gate.

Lucia tried to resist with all her might, but Yao Jun simply invaded her mind with more and more of his mental energy, breaking down any defensive walls that she put up. His soul had also reached the Earthly Deity realm, Lucia didn't cultivate her soul so his wasn't that much weaker than her. Her resistance weakened after five seconds, turning even fainter after 10 and then finally vanishing after 20. Her body lost all energy and descended to the ground, dropping into a kneeling position while reverently speaking to Yao Jun.

"This lowly servant greets you, My Master."