Lei Jiang made the first move, stabbing the end of his halberds into the ground. At the same moment, a golden circle appeared under Shu Zhi before lightning erupted from his feet.
But Shu Zhi was quick, leaping out of the way.
He would not let Shu Zhi go just yet and rushed forth, pointing one of his halberds at him. Shu Zhi met his spears with open fists. However, they were not his, two giant, blue arms floated above him. Compared to Shao Huang's flaming claw, these translucent limbs were much more refined and held a lot of power behind them.
The arms followed his every movement, carrying them out dutifully. Shu Zhi opened his right palm, facing it towards Lei Jiang and the arm on his right flew forth in the same motion.
As the two met, neither could move forward or back. His halberd was stopped!
The hand grabbed the halberd and lifted Lei Jiang off the ground, most likely to slam him down.
"Break for me!" Lei Jiang screamed out, as lightning energy flowed through his arms and into his halberds. With his other one, he smashed it into giant fist. The sound of thunder resounded all over the arena as lightning crashed into the hand.
The giant arm faltered for a second and gave in, turning into wisps of light. But Shu Zhi formed another in seconds, this time he went with them. What followed was a nonstop barrage of lightning and shock waves, the two of them were nearly equal not giving nor gaining an inch.
As the fight continued, the emperor watched very closely, not at his own son but at Shu Zhi.
"Why does he feel so familiar?" he thought, "How strange."
"Tang Guang, what do you know about Shu Zhi?" he asked.
Tang Guang rubbed his chin, thinking about his question, "If I remember correctly, this person was brought up by a small noble family in the city. As for his martial arts, it was through a fortuitous encounter that he obtained an old manual. This was several years ago but I did not think that he would be so strong now. During the fight with Hou Huang, he was at the back-line, providing support. His combat control was pretty good, he sent out blue arrows and managed to route Hou Huang towards the others, maintaining control over the pacing of the battle."
Back in the arena, the both of them were still fighting blow for blow. Neither backed down and attacked even fiercer, Lei Jiang had already begun to utilize his lightning and Shu Zhi manifested a third arm. Lei Jiang was too quick for Shu Zhi to match with only two mystical arms, a third was needed to match his power.
"I have not enjoyed a fight in a very long time. Only those at the Earth Realm could satisfy me. This is wonderful!" Lei Jiang was very excited, he was definitely a battle maniac.
Shu Zhi was still the same, barely showing emotion, only focused on controlling the giant arms. The bystanders as well as Ming Yue watched them with excitement. The numerous explosions and non-stop action was spectacular. She was mesmerized with their skill. Lei Jiang's lightning flowed with his actions, his control was nothing more than incredible. As for Shu Zhi, his quick reflexes and command of the giant arms was almost scary. At every move, he was able to counter Lei Jiang, managing to predict his next moves.
Lei Jian began to grow impatient, backing away from Shi Zhi.
"Come on, show me your real power", he taunted Shu Zhi.
Afterwards, his arms began to absorb lightning, combining them with his gauntlets and turning them into dragon arms. With dark blue scales and sharp claws, they deeply resembled that of a real dragon. Furthermore, two horns sprouted from his forehead, lightning discharged from them.
"Dragonification, he has the blood of a dragon within him!" everyone gasped at the idea.
Dragons have not appeared for hundreds of years. To have obtained some of their blood was life changing. By absorbing it, one could gain many abilities such as transforming their body parts into those of a dragon, great strength, and a higher affinity for the elements. How he managed to have some was a mystery. It could be a gift from his father, the emperor, or something he found during his travels.
But that did not matter, this had cemented his victory. Unless Shu Zhi has something of better, he will lose.
Much to everyone's surprise, Shu Zhi did nothing or rather he was frozen stiff. His floating arms still glowing a bright blue.
"Could he have been so shocked by the dragonification that he fainted?" one person said.
Even Lei Jiang was somewhat dumbfounded by this, fainting in the middle of a fight was rare. In fact, it had never happened in any of his battles. Suddenly, Shu Zhi's eyes glowed like two little stars as a great deal of power radiated from his body. It kept growing and growing, encapsulating the arena. The sheer power was oppressive and Ming Yue, along with many others soon found it hard to breathe.
"Haaaaah, I'm tired of this farce," Shu Zhi spoke, revealing an aged voice, calm and serene, tempered by time.
His body began to inflate before exploding from the abundant energy. In place of his body, was a mysterious being made of blue energy.
"Kneel."
One command, one word was all it needed to force everyone to their knees, except for the few experts, namely the emperor and both the leaders of noble families and sects.
"Who... are you?!" Lei Jiang slowly spoke, unable to stand up.
"Who am I? Well, I am known by a lot of names but the one name I like the most is..."
"The Lord of Azure Souls", many of the experts called out his name, recognizing his energy.
"Ah yes, I did not think that my reputation would be so illustrious to be known by you all. Indeed I am him or I suppose an avatar would be better to describe me", the blue being explained.
"48 Demon Brigades, capture him!" the emperor commanded.
Numerous masked figures appeared, surrounding the avatar.
In front was none other that Sky, the leader of the 7th brigade.
"I swear that you do not come out of here unscathed, bastard", He spoke coldly.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" he questioned, "At any moment, I could detonate this avatar and take this entire arena with it. Everyone here will disintegrate into nothingness. I believe that you should rethink your actions. Don't think that it won't happen."
They stopped approaching him, staying several meters away, but kept their stances, ready to attack in a heartbeat.
"Why act now?" the emperor asked him.
"Well, I've been planning for quite a while. This is just one of many designs, all I did was give this poor boy a copy of my techniques. I tweaked them a little bit so the moment, he started practicing, his soul was connected to mine and well, I just erased it. But I suppose that it was mostly good timing. You have many enemies, oh emperor. In fact, one of them would very much like you dead. Now normally, I wouldn't work with someone else but this person is a little special compared to the others. This person most definitely piqued my interest. He offered me so many things in return for your head and I played with him for a bit. But its boring now, so I killed him. You can have his head back", the avatar threw out a head several feet ahead of him.
Its shocked eyes and scared expression was still on its face.
"Uncle?" the emperor spoke, unsure if it really was his uncle.
"But..but why?"
"Well, its quite obvious isn't it. He was jealous!" the avatar said, "He could've been emperor but was stuck as a prince, all because of your talent too."
"As for me,", he said," I might as well get what I came for...your seal."