Long Tianyu reached into his storage token and began materializing jades.
The Heavenfall Guild’s collection erged in a steady stream, the organized output of seventeen guild mbers running coordinated sweeps across the expanse’s mid-tier zones for weeks. It was substantial. Every jade his guild had gathered, half of his total, placed in the space between them.
Lin Yi looked at the jade count.
He looked at it and the process of looking was not the process of evaluating an offer. It was the process of soone integrating new information into an existing calculation and seeing what the integration produced.
Lin Yi kept Cang Yutian’s status in mind. At level 246, only four levels remained to reach his goal, with two weeks left before the event ended. The volcanic basin cycle and clearing the cluster zones were steadily accumulating experience, but the tiline was tight. Missing just one cycle or facing a delay from an unexpected encounter could easily throw off the entire schedule and cause him to fall short.
He considered his options. If he transford Long Tianyu into an immortal guardian, that guardian would generate experience which would, in turn, go directly to him. Thanks to the slave mark’s rules, any experience he received also went to Cang Yutian simultaneously. This ant two sources of experience were coming in at once—his own clearing efforts and the guardian’s combat. Essentially, the rate of experience gain could double.
Long Tianyu was already at level 192. Converting him into a guardian of this level wasn’t like the first guardian, which operated at a level that mid-tier cluster zone creatures could eventually overpower through sheer numbers and ti. A guardian of level 192 would be much more resilient, able to withstand attacks in those zones for a significantly longer period before running out of vitality. This translated to more kills during the guardian’s lifespan, resulting in more experience transferred back to Cang Yutian, helping to keep the pace on track for the deadline.
Plus, once the slave mark was removed, having a level 192 immortal guardian occupying a slot in the halo would prove to be a valuable asset for whatever challenges lay ahead after the event.
He turned his gaze toward Long Tianyu.
The Dragon Knight watched him calmly, like soone who had already fulfilled their part of a deal and was now just waiting for the other side to follow through.
Lin Yi took the jades without hesitation.
Then he let out a burst of spiritual pressure.
It wasn’t the overwhelming force of Cang Yutian’s Deity-class presence, but his own—level 230, with Strength hovering around 5,924. Adding to that was the Sovereign’s Presence passive, which created a steady field that pushed down on all living things nearby. He directed this pressure straight at Long Tianyu.
Slowly, the Dragon Knight’s feet lifted off the ground beneath him. His body instinctively reacted like a level 192 warrior facing sothing far beyond his own power. Without falling completely, he sank to one knee. His golden armor’s defenses absorbed much of the suppressive force around him, but it didn’t really change the underlying imbalance in strength between them.
"What are you doing?" Long Tianyu’s voice had the specific quality of genuine confusion, the honest surprise of soone who has been in a transaction and finds it turning into sothing else without warning. "Junior!"
He released his own aura. The dragon-shaped construct expanded outward from its close configuration, the full expression of a level 192 Dragon God Tar’s capability pushing back against the external pressure. He rose from the one knee and his forward montum was already committed, the Dragon Knight’s combat reflexes having identified the situation and produced the response before the conscious decision to produce it was fully ford.
He flew at Lin Yi.
Lin Yi read the approach through Predatory Instinct’s continuous identification, the weak points in the golden armor configuration available before Long Tianyu had covered half the distance between them.
He then activated Null Field, the skill activation suppression cutting off the Dragon God Tar’s summoning capacity for ten seconds. He deployed Spatial Lock, the movent restriction applying to Long Tianyu’s position and slowing his closing speed to a fraction of its natural rate. He activated Phantom Void Step and repositioned to Long Tianyu’s flank as the Spatial Lock’s movent restriction held him briefly, then released Void Severance through the gap between the shoulder armor’s side joint and the upper arm attachnt, the spatial energy penetrating without surface contact.
Long Tianyu countered with a physical strike using the dragon aura’s projection capability rather than a skill activation, which bypassed the Null Field’s suppression. The projection strike was fast and forceful and Lin Yi activated Void Walk, the phasing reducing the physical component to nothing.
He ca out of Void Walk directly above Long Tianyu’s repositioning arc and drove the Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade through Resonant Strike against the crown of the armor’s chest plate.
The secondary burst detonated from within.
Long Tianyu staggered.
Lin Yi activated Dragon Sovereign and followed with Absolute Slash, the defense-ignoring attack carrying the full Strength-scaled output through the brief recovery window the Resonant Strike’s stagger had created.
Two exchanges at that output against a level 192 opponent was not a contest of attrition. It was a demonstration of the margin.
Long Tianyu was on the island surface.
He was not incapacitated. Level 192 Dragon God Tar was not sothing that two exchanges ended, the vitality base at that level requiring sustained effort to deplete. But he was down, one hand against the stone, the golden armor’s defense having managed the damage at considerable cost, the dragon aura suppressed and recovering rather than deployed and active.
He then looked up.
Lin Yi was standing over him with the Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade at his side and the expression that had been present through the entire engagent, the sa expression that had been present through the entire encounter. Calm. Unhurried. Present.
Long Tianyu looked at him from the surface.
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