Battle Frenzy

The ice blade in Vlaidmir’s hands had already shattered apart, while a gigantic piece of ice crystal had encased his entire body, freezing up around him. Looking into the ice crystal, everyone could see Vladimir, face red with exertion and his hands held high, as though he was trying to catch the frightening chop heading his way. As for the fiery Heaven’s Raising Axe, it also appeared to have been frozen together with his hands, deep within the ice crystal.

Absolute silence filled the stadium. Did he block it, or not? However, the current situation didn’t seem too good for Vladimir…

Before everyone could regain their senses.

Clang clang…

BOOM…

Alongside the massive boom and the dust that was kicked up, the ice crystal split into 2 even halves, before shattering apart. Upon being freed, a large amount of blood started shooting out from Vladimir’s mouth, nose and ears!

Plop… his limp body immediately collapsed onto the ground. At the same time, a dull boom rang out, as the ground behind him suddenly caved in to form a large pit.

Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble….

Countless cracks extended out from the pit, extending across half of the stadium!

Complete disintegration!

The fire that made up the fiery Heaven’s Raising Axe continued to dance about within Wang Zhong’s hand. At this moment, the axe appeared to be a size larger than when it was first condensed, while the azure flames along its edge seemed to be more pure than before.

The Heaven’s Raising Axe did not move, nor did Wang Zhong, who wielded it in one hand, pressing it down on Vladimir’s body. Raising his head slightly, his eyes remained closed, as if he was still recollecting what he had just experienced in the last instant.

Indeed, the Sovereign of Fire’s blessing had already dissipated away. However, it had opened a whole other world. This was the true Divinized Fire attribute special ability! When perfectly fused with combat techniques, it was actually able to promote his strength to such a level!

However, it was a pity that he wasn’t able to unleash his 5th chop. Vladimir had made the right decision. If he had unleashed it successfully, he wouldn’t be able to restrain his strength and control the lethality of his attack.

A slight breeze blew by, mixing along with the remnant of the ice-cold air and energies present on the stage, seeping into people’s hearts.

4 chops…

4 chops to destroy 5 soldiers!

Noriba was already completely unable to muster any of his bustling vitality and courage. That was just 4 chops… 4 CHOPS…

A sliver of a smile finally appeared at the corner of Mo Wen’s mouth. He really wanted to experience that 5th chop for himself. Finally, the CHF finals had turned interesting!

Deathly silence still hung over the entire stadium, as the audience, participants, bigshots in the VIP podium, and even the various experts watching for places as far as the empires, saw how Wang Zhong’s strength had risen to such an astonishing level with the addition of his special ability.

“This is the strength of the Federation’s elites?” Solomon’s eyes lit up like torches as he watched Wang Zhong’s display of strength from the Kaiser Empire’s palace. The strength of the Federation’s elites had slightly exceeded his expectations — the Ice Prince, Vladimir, or that Wang Zhong.

Over at the side of the empires, elites were created through the cruelest forms of training, as well as situations closest to the despair felt during close shaves with death. However, it was nigh impossible to nurture a person within the Casted Soul Stage to reach the level Vladimir and Wang Zhong had attained. Even within the Kaiser Empire, the people who were on their level would definitely not exceed a number he could count with two hands!

“They’re really lively, huh.” said Yi Nuo while chewing on food. To him, his stomach was never, ever full. Therefore, his greatest enemy was forever his stomach.

Hearing that, Solomon laughed, not choosing to say anything in response.

In another empire…

At the corner of a street in the Tutankhamun Empire, a little baldy rubbed his gleaming head as he smiled with happiness. So it turned out that feeling happy for a friend would allow one to feel incomparable delight! There were really a lot of people in the Federation; even a fight like this would have so many spectators present.

Returning to the utterly silent stadium, people were already incapable of using any words to describe the shock they felt within the depths of their hearts. In the end, Ruo Zhi was the first person to speak. Shouting with all his might, he roared, “All Mouthy King!” As his shout rang through the speakers, it instantly lit a blaze throughout the countless audience present, as well as the countless people watching via Skylink.

ALL MOUTHY KING!!!

HE OVERLOOKS THE HEAVENS!!!

WANG ZHONG! WANG ZHONG! WANG ZHONG! WANG ZHONG!

Everyone immediately turned batshit crazy. What an utterly inconceivable turn of events! Vladimir was the one that fell! Wang Zhong had created yet another miracle! A god-like miracle! He had won, once again!

Without a doubt, the Tianjing squadron members felt that they were the most blessed and excited people in the world right now! Ma Dong and the others had already hugged each other, choking on their emotions as jumped around chaotically. If they had wings, they would have already taken to the skies! Faced against such a powerful king of the northern regions, as well as his frightening Ice Dominion, All Mouthy King had still shown the reason why he was All Mouthy King!

Unrivalled under the heavens!

The legend continued! Even the Ice Prince, the king of the Northern Regions, the only one who possessed the omnipotent Ice Dominion, was unable to stop Wang Zhong in his tracks!

Carolyn, Gui Xinying, Divian, Bobo Torres… and all of the other participants had undisguised feelings of shock present within their eyes. They were really unable to accept that Wang Zhong, a “commoner”, appeared to be utterly omnipotent! The amount of willpower and resolution that he must have to endure that such intense pressure! Instead of sharing it, he faced all of the pressure with just a faint smile!

In contrast, Mo Wen had already stood up and started clapping. Despite his applause being completely drowned out by the shouts, roars and shrieks that have blotted the skies, no one could cover up the fighting intent he was radiating! Previously, he had only treated this CHF as a holiday experience for his training. Be it Vladimir, Carolyn, or even that All Mouthy King, all of them were just there to be whetting stones for him to carve his future path!

Mo Wen desired to have a fight with Wang Zhong, though it was just for the purpose of sharpening and tempering his will and attitude in preparation for future trials. However, at this moment, a slightly excited feeling of “uncertainty” started to gush out from the depths of his heart.

He had remained undefeated within the younger generation for way too long. Only a person in the same position as him would be able to feel how lonely it was!

He really hoped for a person to be able to ignite the passion of uncertainty, and terror in his heart. This would serve as a motivation for him to get stronger, and to evolve and surpass himself to reach greater heights!

He genuinely yearned for a real, good fight! A no-holds barred, unrestricted, danger-filled fight! The excitement that came from his bones could not be stopped!

Although the match had yet to end, everyone was already feeling that Tianjing was only a sliver away from victory. This was deterrence formed by absolute power, which had just been demonstrated by Wang Zhong’s victory. This was especially prevalent in the participant viewing gallery, where the experts present were all bent over having hushed discussions with one another. Frankly speaking, all of them favoured Vladimir to win, as the soldiers of the northern regions were famed for their strength. However, in reality, it wasn’t that Vladimir wasn’t strong, but Wang Zhong was too powerful! So much so that he left the Vladimir with no path of retreat!

During Mo Wen’s duel against Carolyn, everyone was paying close attention to the use of special abilities and combat techniques to narrow down the stronger power. With that duel serving as a benchmark, the duel between Wang Zhong and Vladimir had served as further authentication to this test. Wang Zhong’s special ability wasn’t on par to Vladimir’s. In fact, it was almost to the point of complete suppression. However, this was where the strength of a combat technique-oriented soldier came into play. As long as one was able to defend against a special ability, and negate all of the moves the opponent threw at them, the advantages of a technique-orientated soldier would gradually show.

This principle was common knowledge within the Casted Soul Stage.

Although Wang Zhong’s Fire-attribute special ability was not at the Ruler-level, it was still at the Divinized level. This would be comparable to Mo Wen’s 5-elements body. This also meant that Vladimir was similarly incapable of defeating Mo Wen, as the latter would have ways to deal with Vladimir’s Ice Dominion. After all, the 5-elements body was the most miraculous constitution out there. Once Mo Wen took control over the fight, Vladimir would meet defeat in the face of the myriad changes a combat technique-oriented soldier would be able to unleash.

Compared to the change in techniques and styles, there was nothing one could change in their special abilities that would come close.

Naturally, the strength of a special ability user would be even greater in the future, when they were in the Heroic Soul and Heavenly Soul stages. The stronger their Soul Power was, the greater the power they would be able to unleash with their special abilities. If Wang Zhong, Mo Wen, Vladimir and Carolyn were to step into the Heroic Soul Stage at the same time, the rise in Wang Zhong and Mo Wen’s strength might be limited. However, in contrast, Vladimir, with his Ice Dominion, would instantly obtain a 3-fold increase in his strength upon stepping into the Heroic Soul Stage! This was a relatively common deficiency faced by combat technique-oriented soldiers.

Furthermore, they also faced an even greater problem in the form of breakthroughs, which, for them, would have a higher difficulty than it would be for special ability-oriented soldiers. Although there might not be any impediments in the Heroic Soul Stage, as for the Heavenly Soul Stage… there were many geniuses throughout the annals of history that had remained trapped at the bottleneck before the Heavenly Soul Stage, perishing without further progress…

Nevertheless, this was a digression; a silent feeling of injustice present in the hearts of special ability-oriented soldiers. This CHF was basically the playground developed for combat technique-oriented soldiers, with all of the special ability-oriented soldiers failing to achieve their goals. However, the future would become their playground!

The future was the future, while the present was the present. It was really hard to ascertain exactly who would be the final victor in the showdown between Wang Zhong and Mo Wen in the finals! What kind of fight would happen?

The 5th duel for the match quietly happened within this chaotic and noise-filled stadium. Truthfully speaking, this duel was completely unimportant. However, to Tianjing, this duel was extremely important, as Wang Zhong needed to rest. Although he had controlled it extremely well throughout his fight, he was utterly spent and running on fumes.

This was a case of pyrrhic victory for the Grozny squadron. Despite being able to maintain a more complete roster for the upcoming group battle, an indescribably massive pressure was now bearing down upon their heads. This was most intensely felt by Noriba. At this moment, this super soldier who did not possess even a shred of cowardice, wore a solemn expression on his face, while his mind was completely occupied by the Heaven’s Raising Axe Wang Zhong had displayed. The moves Wang Zhong had displayed in the caged trial could be reasoned by the apes being brainless freaks. However, the might of the 4 chops the latter had just displayed were way too frightening! Furthermore, he has yet to unleash the 5th chop…

Emily VS Leninski.

Assassin VS Assassin. Frankly speaking, there wasn’t much to see in this duel, be it the media or the experts. Even the laymen in the audience did not acknowledge Emily’s capabilities. At the beginning, people had assumed that this loli was the 3rd trump card for the Tianjing squadron due to her hailing from the Assassin Family. However, Barran and Scarlet’s explosion on to the scene had completely surpassed her not only in strength, but also in terms of contributions towards the squadron. Other than the fancy battle of attrition she had done in a duel against the Bierlia Musical Soul Academy, Emily didn’t seem to have shown any of the results that a first rate aristocratic family member should accomplish.

In reality, these expectations were rather unjust. Even assassins as strong as Eddie had been destroyed in the first round of the CHF. Other than freaks like Wang Zhong or Mo Wen, one’s combat results would always depend on how strong or weak the opponents were. All of the opponents Tianjing had encountered along their journey to this semifinal were so much stronger than the Assassin Family. However, it was a pity that the audience didn’t really care about the process.

On the contrary, her opponent, Leninski, had managed to attract the gazes of some people. Although the ferocity- and power-worshipping northern regions weren’t particularly unreceptive towards assassins, this combat occupation wasn’t too suitable with the ice-attribute special ability, the most common special ability that manifested in that region. Although there weren’t any massively famous assassin aristocratic families in the northern regions, there were exceptions to that. One of them was the legendary assassin, Joseph Cole, who had used his accomplishments as proof that an ice-attribute special ability was a suitable special ability in the way assassins fought. Now, Leninski appeared to be going down the same path as Joseph Cole.

This was the only point that seemed notable in this duel. How would an ice-attribute special ability assassin fuse assassinations with his ice-attribute special ability?

The answer to that was movement reduction. In simple terms, it was just the use of the ice-attribute movement reduction. The existence of this auxiliary aid technique was something akin to a god-like move to assassins. Under its influence, Emily, whose fundamentals were on the same level as him, was basically slower by a beat in every action she made. Furthermore, even her fire-attribute moves were seemingly suppressed completely by Leninski, a clear indication of her opponent being stronger in terms of special ability.

Everyone had expected this. However, Emily did not let her emotions shift due to the perceptions of the outside world. Her objective in this duel was to drag it out as long as possible. Therefore, she basically didn’t engage in any head-on exchanges at all. Furthermore, her opponent’s ice-attribute special ability could suppress her flames. Nevertheless, possessing a fire-element body, Leninski’s Movement Reduction wasn’t able to achieve its full effect. Most importantly, he had also suffered a heavy blow from the earlier duel, causing his heart to feel extremely heavy. This affected his judgement and swiftness of his actions, while causing his attacks to lack the decisiveness to end a life with a single strike, In the end, Emily managed to drag the fight out to 16 minutes before being defeated by Leninski.

Nevertheless, the little lass had already used all of her strength to accomplish her role in the stalling combat tactic. Being able to achieve this much in a top-class stage like this semifinal was already a testament of her progress. In the end, the duelling phase of this semifinal match ended with a 3:2 score with Grozny in the lead.

The match proceeded into the mandatory rest period of half an hour before the commencement of the group battle phase, to allow both squadron some time to recover their strength and to decide on their strategies. Countless people within the stadium and Skylink were now engaging in lively discussions about the upcoming group battle, with their main focus being on the possible formations and the statuses of the members of both squadrons. The most important trump cards of both squadrons had already paid a massive price in the duelling phase of this match. For the Grozny side, Vladimir’s collapse was undoubtedly the most life-rending price they had paid.

However, with their powerful backers, who was to say that he would not be able to recover in time for the group battle? Tianjing also wasn’t in good shape. Their other mainstays, Barran and Grai, had both been stretchered off the stage in their duels due to them sustaining rather serious injuries. Therefore, it was very unlikely for them to be able to participate in the group battle.

In the end, the factors that would change the outcome of this match were still the conditions of Wang Zhong and Vladimir. However, as a whole, Wang Zhong should be able to benefit more than Vladimir with the rest time given. Now, everyone was waiting to see how much of his optimal state would Wang Zhong manage to recover. After all, he was present to watch the 5th duel, while Vladimir did not show his face since his defeat.

Despite noisy hum of voices ringing out across the stadium, the Grozny fans did not get agitated or restless as they waited. The people from the northern regions didn’t give up that easily. Furthermore, they were still more than capable of fighting in the group battle. Despite losing their king, Vladimir was still Vladimir, the genuine undisputed king that the whole of the northern regions were loyal to. Regardless of his strength or his defeat, their loyalty could not be shaken.

A hero couldn’t be judged by victory or defeat. Perhaps, this was the greatest difference between the northern regions and the rest of the Federation.