Chapter 1736. Blood Ray Aurora.

Chapter 1736: Chapter 1736. Blood Ray Aurora.

Both sides stood at the edge of the arena, with tall pagodas on either side, while many individuals flew into the air for a better vantage point. Many elegant men, women, and older men and women arrived as well, looking at the arena.

The ones who were spectating for fun were shocked.

"I-Isn’t that Formation Lord Shuo? He is from the First Division!"

"T-That woman over there! She is a Formation Lord in the Second Division!"

Stunningly, a total of 19 Formation Lords gathered. It was the few Lianyu had informed to come, so they were standing in the crowd with curious looks.

Mei Lingxue looked around as well, and she swiftly noticed all the super powerhouses that had gathered. Her heart immediately sank. She was cunning herself, so she knew that there was something wrong instantly.

Her slit pupils thinned as she glared at Angel. "Who are you...? Don’t you know that hiding your identity is prohibited? If you continue with this challenge, the formation will attack you."

That was the truth. The formation prevented people from cheating the system. If you created a rank card and tried to make a new one without transferring your achievements, the formation either booted you out or attacked you outright, intent on killing you.

Angel smiled faintly. "There is no need to worry. It is my first time here. It’s just that Senior Lianyu wanted to show his friend something interesting."

Mei Lingxue couldn’t help but grit her teeth. "I don’t know what your deal is, but are you sure you want to deceive me? My [Thousand Desire Pavilion] is not a force you want to mess with."

It wasn’t Angel who answered, but Zhuo Lianyu. "If something happens to her because of today’s battle, our Zhuo Family and your Sect will become irreconcilable enemies. Keep that in mind."

Zhuo Lianyu would not let a talent as precious as Angel, who could advance the formation world to an unimaginable degree, fall just because he was placing his family at risk. It was well known that the Zhuo family, a family of scholars and highly intelligent individuals, fiercely protected talent as long as that talent didn’t provoke others without cause.

Mei Lingxue frowned for a moment, but then she snorted. "Whatever. I just need to not lose. I don’t know who you are, but I am not such a slouch that I would easily lose to anyone. Since you are so talented, I don’t feel like explaining anything. Ten-five cycle, that’s my call."

The call was the hours to construct the first defensive formation and the time to attack it later. Ten hours to build a defensive formation that would be attacked for five looked like a lot, and it was. Breaching through such a formation was usually almost impossible.

The problem was that the win wasn’t decided when the formation collapsed completely, but when it was breached. Moreover, normal attacks were prohibited. In essence, only the attack formation could breach the ten-hour defensive formation.

Unless there was a big difference in skill, that could lead to a stalemate where the battle would go on for days, months, and at the highest levels, it could last years.

So, the general tactic was to focus fire on a weak point, break through large chunks of a defensive formation, and, at other times, switch to other weak points you’d discovered and saved to attack later.

Finally, if your weak point was discovered, it wasn’t easy to rebuild it or fortify it within the allocated defensive time.

Remember, both the attack and defensive formations were continuously built between cycles. You built upon what you previously had. If you restarted from the beginning because of a weak point, you would fall behind between the cycles.

Since it was a competition, people naturally used standardized formations. The materials didn’t change, so what you could build was usually limited, changed only by personal powers and equipment.

"Ten-five cycle? That’s too long. Four-two cycle. Do you call?"

Honestly, Angel would love to have a five-second defensive and one-second offensive battle, but what Angel had just chosen was the formation’s minimum cycle.

Mei Lingxue looked at Angel like she was crazy. With so little time, building anything beyond a crumbling formation would be a miracle. Still, she snorted and smiled coldly. "I wanted to give you time to show off, but since you want to lose that badly... I call."

If both sides disagreed with a call, the final cycle time would be the average between their choice. That’s why there were maximums and minimums when choosing. Since Mei Lingxue called, the time would be what Angel said.

Angel saw a mini formation appear before her, and a second later, a table with materials to craft formation ink, formation flags, and other similar core structures manifested. The Zhuo family paid for this table, so you could see the emblem on it.

Angel didn’t mind. She wasn’t here to overtake these ancient families, but to make herself known. If she were below a Noble Family, she would attract less animosity.

After scanning the materials and finding nothing interesting, she looked toward Mei Lingxue. She wanted to see what she was doing first, to roughly gauge the level of top formation masters.

The Formation Lords flew toward Lianyu, and one of them asked, confused. "Isn’t that too little time? Even we would have trouble creating anything decent in that timeframe."

Zhuo Lianyu glanced at his old friends and chuckled. "If she were a standard formation master, would I have called you here to waste time? What type of geniuses haven’t we seen raise and fall? Do you recall that rogue cultivator?"

Some Formation Lords showed a trace of melancholy.

"How could we not? That boy was just a little over 1,000 and able to compete with most Division One Supreme Formation Masters. If he hadn’t been so arrogant and provoked some Divines... Sigh."

"There was also that blind girl, wasn’t there? She could feel the very essence of the formations and draw complex structures swiftly. Sadly, blindness is a curse, and she eventually disappeared mysteriously. Probably killed by someone who was jealous."

One Formation Lord from the first division tilted his head as he glanced at Angel. "Why isn’t she starting? She is just looking at Mei Lingxue."

The group glanced over and noticed Angel leaning sideways, curious, watching Mei Lingxue work. Their eyebrows twitched. "...Is she underestimating her?"

Lianyu was not worried at all, though. He chuckled and spoke. "She is probably observing her out of curiosity. A child with her skill and still looking at those below her to learn. We should learn a little from her."

It wasn’t just them. Some people felt that Angel was too arrogant. Instead of trying her best, she was just looking at Lingxue work on her formations.

"Isn’t she being too audacious?"

"Right, even if she is a strong formation master, Lady Mei has not reached her rank through luck."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some youngsters are far too arrogant."

The snakewoman noticed as well and glanced sideways with a frown. "It’s not too polite to look at others’ work, is it?"

Some people in the spectator stands nodded too, trying to look good in front of the Formation Lords by spouting nonsense. If one Formation Lord took a fancy to them, it would be like the fortuitous encounter of their lifetime.

The Formation Lords were more interested in Angel’s response, though.

Angel glanced around and blinked innocently. "Why isn’t it polite? Isn’t there a tactic to try and see what your enemy is doing to build around it later?"

The Formation Lords hummed, understanding her reasoning, but they were confused. ’Is it even possible to tell what the other party is building? Every mix of materials can be used for dozens to thousands of different formations.’

Mei Lingxue snorted, thinking the same. "As if you can tell anything from the ink-crafting and formation accessory building processes. Stop looking if you just want to act like a smartass."

Angel paused and glanced straight into her eyes. "Smartass? Aren’t you going to create a triple-layered formation that uses fire/water energy induction to create mini-shockwaves to repel attacks? I can tell you will also add glass-attributed regenerating flags to help the top layers recover while the ones below resist the attacks. I must say, it is a clever main mechanism."

"..."

Mei Lingxue and the rest of the formation masters were left speechless. Gazes converged on Lingxue, wanting to know if she just spouted nonsense or if she guessed correctly.

One look was all it took to know that Angel had hit the nail on the head. Lingxue was currently looking at Angel as if she had seen a ghost. "Y-You... How?"

Angel answered nonchalantly, humming as she pointed her dainty finger at different materials. "You are using [Inferno Hoping Lotus] and [Crystalline Edge Of Night]. Then the [Repelling Water Beads] and auxiliary [Silver Fall Of Dusk] tell me you want to create the mix-mashing I mentioned before. It’s quite telling, to be honest."

Angel pointed at one bluish-white transparent flower she was not using. "I recommend using [Moonlight Pouring Glass Root] instead the next time. That material can be used for so many more things that it makes guessing harder. The results of the formation would be about four to five percent weaker, but in our situation, I believe it is worth it."

Lingxue waved her hand and cast some illusion techniques around her table. Angel, though, almost laughed. ’Illusions? Against me? Cute.’

If Yasenia’s soul was the strongest among the girls, Angel’s ability to see through all things was a step above even that of Yasenia’s. Her Truth-related abilities, together with the techniques passed down by Mirrory, made Angel effectively impossible to deceive.

Angel looked away and walked toward the Formation Lords. "Hello, seniors. I didn’t know you were all here. If I knew, I would’ve come to visit sooner."

One of the elegant women smiled, amused. "Girl, aren’t you too relaxed?"

Angel tilted her head. "Hm... Didn’t Senior Lianyu tell you?"

"Tell us what?"

"Oh~." Angel blinked and smiled. "Hehe. In that case, I’ll keep it a surprise too. I’ll build a simple defensive formation. Let’s talk later!"

Turning around, Angel waved her hand and put all the tools to use without touching either of them. The formation ink formed within a few minutes, and the few accessories were completed in 10 minutes total.

Using her pen, Angel drew a few simple defensive formations, then sat cross-legged before them, waiting for the four hours to pass.

Meanwhile, the Formation Lords were frozen on the spot. What Angel had just built was a simple [Wall Formation]. However, the speed, technique, fluidity, and crafting speed were so out of the ordinary that it left them speechless.

Lingxue glanced over and noticed that a formation had appeared at some point. Her brain struggled to catch up. ’H-Huh? When did she build that? There was nothing there a few minutes ago...’

Angel smiled at her, and Lingxue decided to focus on herself. Finishing the skeleton of her defensive formation in around three hours and fifty minutes. ’Comparing what Angel built and mine... mine is much more solid.’

She was right about that. After all, Angel had just built something that would prevent her from being disqualified instantly. Something that could last a few minutes tops.

The fourth hour mark arrived.

Angel stood up slowly and spoke up before Lingxue rushed to build an attack formation. "Lady Lingxue. Please step aside so that you are not hurt. Those behind Lady Mei Lingxue’s formation as well, please dodge."

Before anyone could react, Angel’s energy exploded outwardly, her dress fluttering gorgeously as Glass and Blood transformed and mixed around her at her will. With a forceful stomp, the light spectacle began.

Lingxue could only watch as over ten complex glass-formation prisms manifested around Angel while concentric blood-and-glass-formation lines were drawn on the floor around her. Then, she pointed forward. "[Blood Ray Aurora]."

Her Light element burst and struck one of the formation prisms. The light refracted and amplified, bouncing around nine of the ten prisms until it formed a simple pattern.

With another gesture, all the light converged into one prism. Angel pointed forward.

"Go."

BOOM!!!!

Angel’s dress fluttered as the beam of light pierced Lingxue’s defensive formation and shot into the sky. A decisive strike that, a second later, marked Angel’s victory.