Chapter 87: Surprise Attack

While John was starting to run out of Qi reserves, Dylan was faring much worse. He was breathing heavily as he did his best to maintain his Crimson Hell Domain. Its Qi expenditure was just as frightening as John's Supreme Battle Art, and unlike John, he could only passively absorb Qi from the air to replenish his Qi reserves.

While absorbing Qi from the air was much easier and guaranteed to always be available, its replenishment rate was much slower than what John was able to do by directly absorbing blood essence. Dylan's Qi expenditure was greater than his rate of absorption, and so he was continually running lower and lower on Qi, unlike John, who kept his dantian topped off and brimming with energy.

However, once John ran out of blood essence, he would be even worse off than Dylan, as he would have no way of replenishing his body Qi reserves until he obtained more blood essence. While he could absorb Qi from the air into his essence dantian like Dylan, his essence dantian was still in the middle Mist Creation Realm, and was unable to help him much in this fight.

The aura exploding off of John right now frightened even the Core Formation elders. Not because of its strength, but because of its profundity and battle will. To them, it truly appeared like John was an undefeatable demon god, or at least his will was saying that. They could tell from this battle aura alone, that John never had the thought of defeat cross his mind. It was as if John was confident that no matter who fought him, as long as they were in the same realm, he would remain undefeated.

When John had first utilized the Supreme Battle Aura against Dylan, he did that and that alone. However, as the fight progressed, John was shocked to find out that he could improve slightly on the battle art. By using the Supreme Battle Art, and infusing his indomitable asura battle will into it, it strengthened him even further into his strongest battle state. Although he figured his asura battle will was something intangible, John could now tell that it truly had some practical uses.

He could feel his emotions be thrown slightly into turmoil as the sinister murmurs assaulted his mind, but it was far from enough to overwhelm him. However, the constant assault did make his battle lust increase massively, as well as blood lust.

"Crimson Blood Sword!"

While John was powering up his Supreme Battle Art even further, Dylan decided to take the initiative and struck out with his sword, sending a blood red sword light straight towards John. Nobody had seen Dylan use this move yet, but they could tell it was by far his most powerful Qi attack he had unleashed thus far.

Boom!

John struck out with his scythe at the incoming attack. The arena shook violently from the collision, and Dylan smiled once more as he saw John be knocked backwards from the force of the attack, but his smile soon vanished as he saw that it had only knocked John back, but not severely injure him. Although there were some cuts and wounds on Johns body, they were far from hindering his combat ability.

Bang!

The stone arena below John exploded behind him as he pressed off of it with his most powerful Five Step Movement technique. He appeared in front of Dylan in a flash, and swung down powerfully with his scythe. Sword and scythe collided, and Dylan was knocked backwards dozens of yards from the collision.

Five Step Movement Technique: Second Step

After landing on his feet, Dylan looked towards John to strike out with his Crimson Blood Sword once more, but was horrified to find John directly in front of him once more.

Peng!

Weapons collided once more, and Dylan was sent flying backwards like a broken kite while his arms felt like they were about to shatter. He looked behind him and noticed the edge of the arena was fast approaching, and did everything he could to slow his momentum before he could be knocked off the stage.

"You're not getting out of this fight that easily!"

Bang!

The sounds of bones cracking echoed out as John's full powered punch connected with Dylan's back. John had used the Third Step of the Five Step Movement Technique to appear behind Dylan and stop him before he fell off the arena.

Dylan was sent violently flying back towards the center of the fighting arena, and eventually came to a stop after much effort. Dylan struggled to stand up after taking John's full powered punch directly, but eventually stood up and turned to face where John had been before.

Boom!

John's punch once again landed on the back of Dylan, and he was sent flying like a broken kite once more.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The crowd watched in silence as Dylan was sent flying back and forth by John's punches. Every time Dylan would be about to fly out of the arena, John would use his movement technique to cut him off and punch him back the other way. Dylan's Crimson Hell Domain had vanished by this time, showing that he was already at his end, while John was still brimming with energy.

The sound of bones breaking continually echoed out, and the speechless crowd was horrified to see Dylan continually broken by John, who appeared in this moment to look like a blood hungry demon. Even Cade and Barden looked on in shock as they watched an almost unrecognizable John continually beat Dylan into a bloody mess.

Waylon Varis was continually using his divine sense to inspect the battlefield, and noticed that Dylan was about to collapse into unconsciousness. He watched as John dashed directly towards Dylan with the intention of once more punching out, and was about to stop the fight when an incredibly loud shout boomed out.

"STAY YOUR HAND!"

John ignored the loud shout and sent a fist once more crashing towards Dylan. Dylan had been incredibly vicious in all his fights with the Fenix Clan members, and so John was avenging them by bathing the arena red with Dylan's blood.

All of a sudden, an incredibly powerful Qi attack flew directly towards John. John looked towards the Qi attack and knew he had absolutely no chance of blocking it. In fact, he didn't know if he would be able to survive such an attack even if he went all out to defend against it.

Boom!

The stone arena completely exploded, and all the elders in the stands used their full power to protect their juniors from any flying debris. The explosion eventually settled down, and the awestruck crowd looked towards the now destroyed arena as the dust started to settle.