novelno Chapter 1286, Rank 4
Chapter 1286, Rank 4
The snow and mist deep in the valley had not yet dissipated, but the wound that ran across his chest had already told Quan Yu a fact—Su Xiao's knife was more unreasonable than he had expected.
He glanced down at the slanted tear in his clothes. The fabric at the edge of the tear was charred and curled, revealing a thin, long bloodstain on the exposed skin. The bloodstain wasn't deep, but a faint blue-green light flickered slowly around the wound.
Those were remnants of the power of the Blue Steel Shadow, which were continuously eroding the energy at the edge of the wound and preventing it from healing.
Quan Yu held a silver-white slender sword in his right hand, the tip of the sword pointing diagonally at the ground, with a trace of blood on the blade.
He just stabbed Su Xiao in the left arm with that sword.
Su Xiao didn't completely dodge his counterattack the moment he drew his sword. The tip of the sword grazed Su Xiao's left upper arm, leaving a thin gash on his black trench coat, with dark red blood seeping from the edges of the gash.
Neither side gained a significant advantage.
However, compared to the others, Quanyu definitely suffered a greater loss.
Su Xiao stood on a protruding rock a dozen meters away, holding the Dragon Slayer horizontally in front of him. The blue-green arcs of electricity on the blade were dimmer than before, but they still jumped on the blade and made a faint crackling sound.
His breathing was a little more rapid than usual, and the beads of sweat on his forehead quickly condensed into tiny ice crystals in the extreme cold, sticking to his hair.
A dozen meters away, Hugh leaned against a protruding rock on the mountainside.
His complexion was worse than before; it wasn't pale, but rather a near-transparent grayish-white, with the bluish-purple veins under his skin clearly visible, like a fine net covering his face.
His left hand, from the elbow down, was completely enveloped in icy blue light, which surged wildly beneath his skin like countless snakes trapped in a cage, struggling desperately to find a way out.
His fingers had completely lost sensation. The icy blue light seeped from his fingertips, condensed into tiny ice crystals in the air, and drifted down to his feet, accumulating into a small, thin layer of icy blue on the snow.
Hugh glanced at his left hand, his lips twitching as if he wanted to laugh but didn't.
"My time is running out."
All three of them knew what Hugh meant by that sentence.
His elemental outburst had already spread to his elbows, and at this rate, in less than an hour, the icy blue light would spread to his shoulders, and then to his heart.
By then, he won't be himself anymore.
If Hugh were willing, he could quit now, but unfortunately, although Hugh appears lazy on the surface, he is an extremely stubborn person at heart, so he would rather die here.
Every faction in the Void has detailed records of what happens to spellcasters who lose their self-awareness.
Those files were sealed away in the highest-level confidential room, accessible only to a select few. However, the contents of those files circulated through various channels, becoming even more terrifying after being embellished and exaggerated.
Some say that a spellcaster who loses consciousness will become the center of an elemental storm, and everything within a hundred miles will be torn to shreds by the uncontrolled elemental power within his body.
Some say they will become unconscious aggregates of elements, instinctively devouring all the energy around them, transforming themselves from a finite being into an infinitely expanding monster.
Most of those rumors are not true, but no force in the void has ever been willing to verify their truth or falsehood.
Because the cost of verification is too high.
No one is willing to gamble their territory on the veracity of a rumor.
Therefore, when a spellcaster's elements spiral out of control to an irreversible degree, the usual practice is to kill him before he completely loses control.
Hugh was well aware of this rule. The spellcasters of Arcane Eternity were told every detail of this rule from childhood, not because anyone expected them to use this knowledge, but because they needed to know that if one day they were on the verge of losing control, they should expect a swift death.
Hugh straightened up from the rock, and the black flames on his body brightened again. The dim flames seemed to have been refueled, and he recovered from a near-death state to a point where he could barely fight.
"Come on, while I can still control myself."
The light of the Dragon Slayer Blade drew a blue-green arc under the gray sky, starting from where Su Xiao was standing and ending at Hugh's neck.
Hugh did not dodge; black flames condensed into a thick shield in front of him, thicker than ever before.
The Dragon Slayer slash struck the flaming shield, splitting it open in the middle. The azure blade of light pierced through the gap and headed straight for Hugh's chest.
Hugh vanished the instant the blade touched his chest.
The spatial magic was successfully activated, and his body was forcibly dragged into the dimensional rift, escaping from Su Xiao's blade.
Su Xiao was already familiar with this move. At the same moment Hugh disappeared, he activated Dragon Shadow Flash. His body vanished from its original spot and reappeared behind a rock a dozen meters away.
The next second, Hugh appeared from his side, black flames condensing into a short spear in his palm, the tip pointing at the spot where Su Xiao had just stood, which was now empty.
Misjudgment.
His spatial magic became significantly less accurate due to the loss of elemental control, and the teleported location was far from what he expected.
Su Xiao rushed out from behind the rocks, unleashing a horizontal slash with his Dragon Slayer Blade aimed straight for Hugh's waist and abdomen.
Hugh had no time to dodge; black flames condensed into an irregular shield beside him.
This time, the shield did not block the Dragon Slayer. It only slightly deflected the direction of the blade, turning what would have been a slash that would have cut him in half at the waist into a deep, bone-revealing cut on his side.
Unexpectedly, what flowed out of Hugh's body was not blood, but a pale blue liquid.
This stuff is elemental essence, a very precious material for a normal spellcaster, but unfortunately it's a death sentence for Hugh now.
Hugh's body fell to one side, and black flames surged from his body as he fell.
Su Xiao leaped back several steps, holding the Dragon Slayer Flash horizontally in front of him.
Black flames exploded where Su Xiao had just been standing.
If Su Xiao hadn't retreated in time, he would now be surrounded by those flames.
Hugh got up from the snow, supporting himself with his left hand. The icy blue light in his palm left a frost mark on the ground, forming a radial icy blue pattern on the snow.
Quan Yu made his move at that moment.
The silver-white blade stabbed from Su Xiao's side and rear, not aiming for his vital points, but for his right shoulder.
The angle of this sword strike was very tricky. When Su Xiao turned his head to look to the right, the tip of the sword was still far away from him. So when Su Xiao gave up dodging and prepared to use the Dragon Slayer to block, the trajectory of the sword suddenly changed.
The rapier's blade bent at an impossible angle in the air.
When Su Xiao realized this, his body had already reacted.
He abandoned his attempt to block the curved rapier with the Dragon Slayer and instead punched Izumi in the chest.
Quan Yu was sent flying backward by the impact, the silver-white blade grazing over Su Xiao's head, severing several strands of black hair that drifted away in the air.
He took a few steps back, steadied himself, and pointed the silver-white blade at Su Xiao again.
The reason Su Xiao encountered this situation was because Quan Yu's soul-type skill interfered, causing Su Xiao to make an error in his judgment.
Quan Yu's soul-based attacks are somewhat similar to those of the perception-based attacks, but Su Xiao's soul strength is also quite high, so Quan Yu's soul interference only affected Su Xiao for a moment.
Su Xiao withdrew her gaze and looked at Hugh again.
The two were less than twenty meters apart. At this distance, Su Xiao could reach Hugh in a single breath, while Hugh could activate a spatial spell in a fraction of a second.
Neither of them blinked.
The next second, the Dragon Slayer was drawn.
Black flames exploded.
The silver-white blade stabbed from the side, not at Lin Yi or Su Xiao, but at the gap between Hugh and Quan Yu.
The angle and speed at which the rapier bent forced Bahama, who was trying to launch a sneak attack, to retreat.
After realizing Baha's ambush, Hugh was secretly alarmed. He had been in an unstable state and hadn't even noticed the bird's sneak attack. If the target hadn't been Quanyu, he might have already had his throat torn open by Baha's claws.
A bluish-green blade of light flew out from the blade of the Dragon Slayer Sword, heading straight for Izumi's position.
Quan Yu's dodging space was mostly blocked by the threads of black flames, leaving him no choice but to take the blow head-on.
The moment the silver-white blade collided with the blue-green light of the sword, Quan Yu felt a tremendous force emanating from the blade. The force made his entire right arm go numb, and a tearing pain shot through his hand. A thin, long bloodstain appeared on his palm, which was gripping the sword.
The silver-white light on the blade flickered violently a few times at that moment, and then dimmed. It didn't disappear; it was just temporarily lost its luster after being eroded by the power of the Azure Steel Shadow.
Su Xiao's second strike has already come.
Quan Yu didn't have time to retract her sword to parry, so she could only dodge to the side.
The knife tip sliced across his chest, leaving a new wound below the previous one.
Two wounds, one above the other, ran parallel across his chest, like two parallel railway tracks dividing his chest into three equal sections.
He charged out from the edge of the mountain wall, his silver-white sword flashing as he charged, weaving a dense net of swords in front of him and blocking Su Xiao's pursuit.
Su Xiao was forced back half a step, and during that half step, Hugh immediately changed his target.
Black flames surged from the ground and exploded beneath Su Xiao's feet.
At this moment, Hugh changed the attack mode of the black flames, no longer condensing them into weapons or shields, but spreading them into a wide-ranging sea of fire.
Su Xiao was forced to retreat to Quan Yu's side.
The three people returned to their initial standoff, but this time their positions were reversed.
After a few seconds of standoff, all three of them moved at the same time.
In a battle of that level, it's difficult for an observer to see every detail. They can only see three different colored lights colliding rapidly on the snow, each collision creating a visible shockwave in the air.
Hugh's energy fluctuations are the most unstable.
His attack intensity fluctuates wildly, sometimes with several violent swings within a single second.
This is a typical manifestation of elemental chaos. His body is no longer able to stably output elemental power. The intensity of those black flames is no longer determined by his will, but by the random fluctuations of the rampaging elemental power within his body.
He might be very weak in the next second, so weak that he couldn't even burn a rat to death, but in the next instant, he might suddenly unleash a power far exceeding his usual strength, engulfing himself in it.
If the battle drags on any longer, Hugh will be the first to give out, followed by Quan Yu, and Su Xiao will be the last to stand.
The three seemed to realize this as well. Hugh was the first to break the stalemate. He began to retreat, not in the way of running away, but in the habitual way of a spellcaster retreating to create space for himself to cast spells.
Su Xiao noticed Hugh's retreat and rushed forward, not intending to let Hugh create distance.
At the same moment Su Xiao charged out, Quan Yu thrust out a sword from the side, not to hit Su Xiao, but to force him to be distracted during the pursuit.
Su Xiao's body slightly turned in mid-air, and the Dragon Slayer Flash changed from a horizontal slash to a vertical slash. The blade collided with the silver-white sword blade, and sparks flew everywhere.
Su Xiao changed his move at the moment of impact, striking Quan Yu's sword with his left hand, causing the silver-white blade to deflect.
Quan Yu's body tilted to one side a few degrees under the force of this palm strike, and Su Xiao passed through the gap and rushed towards Hugh.
Hugh didn't have enough time.
Su Xiao's Dragon Slayer Flash came straight at him, and Hugh, who had no time to move, could only use black flames to condense a shield in front of him.
Unfortunately, the elemental power within Hugh's body erupted once again.
The shield was much thinner than before, and the brightness of the black flames was also dimming as they fluctuated.
The Dragon Slayer slashed at the shield, but the shield did not provide any resistance whatsoever.
Su Xiao emerged from the shattered elemental fragments, the tip of his Dragon Slayer Blade aimed straight for Hugh's chest.
Hugh activated a spatial spell at the last minute.
His body vanished from the spot.
Su Xiao's knife tip pierced the afterimage left by Hugh after he disappeared, and the afterimage shattered into countless tiny specks of light that dissipated into the air.
The next second, Hugh appeared behind Su Xiao.
His position was off-center, and the accuracy of spatial spells decreased significantly after the elements went out of control.
Hugh appeared on the snow a few meters behind Su Xiao.
Su Xiao turned around and struck Hugh with a diagonal slash.
Hugh was instantly split in two by Su Xiao, and his upper body slowly slid down.
Hugh looked at his lower body and smiled.
"Looks like it's over."
He spoke calmly, not at all like a dying man.
Hugh closed his eyes and forced out all the remaining elemental power from his body.
His body became almost transparent in that instant, like a container whose contents had been emptied, leaving only a blurry outline that appeared and disappeared in the air.
Black flames surged from his body, not towards Su Xiao, nor towards Quan Yu, but towards the sky.
A black pillar of fire shot into the sky from where Hugh was standing. The pillar was over ten meters in diameter and estimated to be over a hundred meters high, illuminating the gray sky in complete darkness.
The pillar of fire lasted for about three seconds before it began to disintegrate from the top.
The collapse was rapid, like a tower whose supports had been removed from the top, collapsing layer by layer, with countless black sparks flying in all directions with each collapse.
The black sparks fell onto the snow, burning tiny pits into the snow.
As Hugh's body disintegrated in the black flames, it slowly collapsed, like a large tree being sawed off. It first tilted slowly, then accelerated, and finally crashed onto the snow with a thud.
His body began to dissipate the moment it hit the ground, starting from the edges, like a painting being soaked in water, its outlines blurring and its colors fading.
He remained conscious until the very last moment before his consciousness faded. He saw the gray sky and the black sparks falling and swirling in the air.
"Too bad, I wanted to go back and relax a bit more."
In the tournament of the strongest, Hugh, ranked fourth, is dead. (End of Chapter)