Chapter 307: The Serpent and the Shell

Chapter 307: Chapter 307: The Serpent and the Shell

The Mist Walker Sect entered the arena like ghosts.

Seven disciples clad in grey robes that seemed to drink the light around them. Their leader, a thin man with hollow cheeks and eyes like dead coals, raised his hand.

The fog came.

It rolled out from their feet in thick, grey waves. Not ordinary mist. This one carried a faint green tint, and where it touched the arena floor, the stone sizzled and pitted.

Corrosive mist.

The Mist Walkers vanished into their own cloud, their footsteps silent, their positions impossible to track.

Damon watched from the Azure Dragon dugout, his golden eyes fixed on the shifting grey wall.

’Acidic fog. It eats through armor and spiritual defenses. The Mist Walkers rely on stealth and attrition to wear down their opponents before striking.’

He glanced at Ariel, who was still recovering from her earlier battle.

"Watch closely," he said.

"The Black Tortoise Sect is about to show you how real defense works."

The Mist Walker fog reached the center of the arena, a thick, green-tinged wall of corrosive vapor that hissed and crackled as it advanced.

It rolled forward like a living tide, hungry and patient, eating away at the stone beneath it.

The Black Tortoise Sect didn’t move.

They stood like statues carved from mountain stone, their grey-blue robes hanging heavy with the weight of their cultivation.

Their leader, a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and a thick neck, raised his hand.

His palm was calloused, his fingers thick and blunt. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The six disciples behind him moved in perfect synchronization. They formed a circle.

Then they knelt. Their knees hit the stone floor at the same instant, the sound a single, solid thud.

Their palms pressed flat against the stone floor, fingers spread, and their Qi erupted.

Blue-black energy exploded upward from the center of the circle, thick and viscous like mud, swirling around them in a vortex of condensed Water-Earth Qi.

The air grew heavy. The temperature dropped.

The corrosive mist slammed against the forming barrier and sizzled, but the blue-black shell held firm, growing denser by the second.

Blue-black energy surged upward, thick and heavy like mud. It didn’t spread. It condensed. It solidified into a dome that covered the entire Black Tortoise formation.

The corrosive mist hit the dome and sizzled.

Then it stopped.

The green fog couldn’t penetrate the blue-black shell. It slid off the surface like water off oil, pooling at the base but going no further.

The Mist Walkers were blind.

Damon’s Incubus Celestial Eyes pierced through the fog and the dome alike.

He saw the Black Tortoise disciples sitting inside their shell, their expressions calm, their breathing steady.

Then he saw the vipers form.

From within the dome, thin tendrils of concentrated Water-Earth Qi shot out. They moved like snakes, weaving through the mist, tracking the Mist Walkers by their Qi signatures.

The first viper struck.

It coiled around a Mist Walker’s throat, the tendril tightening until the disciple gagged. Then it pulled.

The Mist Walker was dragged across the arena floor, his robes tearing, his body scraping against the pitted stone. He disappeared into the blue-black dome.

A second later, he was thrown back out.

The Mist Walker leader hit the stone floor with a wet thud, his body sprawling limply across the arena tiles.

His robes were torn, his belt empty, his fingers bare. The storage ring that had gleamed on his right hand moments ago was gone.

Unconscious. Disarmed. His storage ring missing.

The crowd gasped—a sharp, collective intake of breath that rippled through the coliseum like a wave.

Spectators leaned forward in their seats, eyes wide, minds racing.

What had just happened inside that dome?

How had the Black Tortoise Sect stripped a Core Disciple of his belongings in mere seconds?

Damon’s eyes narrowed.

His golden irises tracked the vipers as they slithered back into the shell, their work complete. The patterns deep within his gaze shifted, analyzing, calculating.

’They’re stripping them of their equipment. Methodical. Efficient.’

He watched as another viper shot out, snaking through the dissipating fog toward a panicking Mist Walker.

The disciple tried to run, but the tendril caught his leg, yanked him off his feet, and dragged him screaming into the blue-black dome.

The vipers continued their hunt.

Mist Walkers were pulled into the shell, emerging broken and stripped.

The leader fought, but a mist blade was useless; the tendril reformed, wrapping his wrist.

He tried to retreat, but another viper caught his ankle.

Then a third caught his throat.

He was pulled into the shell.

The fog began to dissipate, the remaining Mist Walkers visible and panicking. They threw techniques at the dome, but nothing worked. The blue-black shell absorbed every attack.

Then the vipers came for them too.

One by one, they fell.

The arena fell silent.

The fog cleared completely, revealing the Black Tortoise Sect standing in their formation, their robes untouched, their expressions blank.

The Mist Walkers lay scattered across the arena floor, seven of them unconscious, their equipment gone.

Grand Marshal Vane’s voice thundered through the coliseum, the sound rolling over the stone seats like a wave.

"Black Tortoise Sect advances to the Top 16!"

The crowd erupted.

A deafening roar of cheers and stomping feet shook the arena. Spectators rose from their seats, clapping and shouting.

The betting houses in the upper tiers scrambled to update their boards.

Damon didn’t clap.

He sat motionless in the dugout, his hands resting on his knees, his golden eyes locked onto the Black Tortoise leader.

Around him, the other Azure Dragon disciples exchanged glances, some cheering, others frowning at his stillness.

His Incubus Celestial Eyes burned with quiet intensity, drinking in every detail of the formation that had just devoured the Mist Walkers.

He saw the energetic seams—the places where the blue-black Qi thinned and flickered like a dying candle.

He saw the points where the shell’s density wavered, where a concentrated strike might punch through.

He saw the gaps—tiny, fleeting openings that appeared and vanished in the space between heartbeats.

The gaps where a Chaos Slash could slip through.

He saw it all.

The Black Tortoise leader turned, his gaze sweeping across the dugouts. For a moment, his eyes met Damon’s.

Damon smiled.

The leader looked away.

Damon’s smile widened. He had seen everything he needed. The formation was powerful, but it was not perfect.

And in a battle of perfection, Damon Arcknight held the advantage.

He always did.