Chapter 317

On the arena’s black stone stage, Fang Yuan and Ju Kai Bei trade punches and kicks, and any stone pillar or tree their blows land on collapses outright. Ju Kai Bei, rank four and wrapped in ivory armor Gu, wields a habitual strength Gu that only grows stronger the longer it stays active. He has already killed three dragon-elephants for their huge strength Gu, a rank four Gu that outranks the rank three strength Gu, like galloping horse and green bull labor, that Fang Yuan carries. When a dragon-elephant phantom rises behind Ju Kai Bei and he punches with its strength, the blow shatters Fang Yuan’s stone turtle phantom and sends him flying almost thirty steps through two stone pillars. Fang Yuan gets up unharmed. His combined iron bone, steel tendon and bronze skin defense holds. ^{ch. 317}

Fang Yuan answers by cycling one beast phantom at a time through all-out effort Gu: boar, brown bear, crocodile, green bull, horse, stone turtle, white elephant and black python, the eight strength Gu his body can hold. Whenever Ju Kai Bei’s habitual strength has not yet rebuilt, Fang Yuan seizes the opening, but each fresh dragon-elephant phantom sends him flying again, and his bronze skin begins to tear. An hour into the fight, two dragon-elephant phantoms strike him at once and throw him through five stone pillars. He gets up with three fractured ribs and what appears to be internal bleeding. Instead of favoring the pain, he laughs without restraint. ^{ch. 317}

The laugh unsettles Ju Kai Bei, who reads in it the demonic path’s aura: a killing intent as sharp as a knife, a crazed will to destroy the world, an arrogance that looks down on the world, a ruthlessness that tramples on all living things, the very life he abandoned when he took shelter with the Shang clan as a hidden elder. It evokes in him a trace of fear, drags him back toward a past he insists he has left behind, and hardens into extreme hatred toward Fang Yuan. He charges with dragon travel tiger steps Gu, and Fang Yuan meets a lone dragon-elephant phantom head-on with stone turtle phantom rather than dodging it. This time the outcome flips: Ju Kai Bei staggers back five steps while Fang Yuan does not move at all, and the crowd cannot explain why the same match-up just produced a different result. Ju Kai Bei grits his teeth and pounces again, and this time Fang Yuan sends him flying like a sandbag into the ground. As he struggles up and stares at the air above Fang Yuan, a brown bear phantom and a boar phantom are seen fading together, and the crowd realizes with alarm that he has just used two beast phantoms at once, something they had thought impossible. ^{ch. 317}