The Messenger of Death

"Let the battle start!"

As soon as the players on top of the battle ring heard this, they charged at their opponents, knowing who they wanted to take on.

Just like John predicted as soon as he saw the players from the Seraphim team that they were going to go against. Camron's intention was to hold John and either of the Nirvana realm cultivators down, while Gustavo and Adrian take the remaining Nirvana realm cultivator.

Things went as he thought they would, which made him sure of something. It made him sure they had a trump card that could guarantee them victory, which made him wary. John couldn't tell whom the trump card was going to come out of, which made things scary for him.

Camron arrived in front of Victor and John in a flash, stopping them from going any further. The Nymph team was expecting something like this, so they played along with it. Not because they were sure that they could win the Seraphim team, but because they wanted them to think that everything was going according to their plan, so as to make them lax.

Even if they couldn't tell who the trump card was going to come out of, they weren't going to give the Seraphim team the chance to use it, hence the Nymph team strategy to play along with the Seraphim team strategy.

Camron had a sword in his hand as he flashed in front of Victor and John. Normally, facing a Nirvana realm cultivator still in the Middle Stage of the realm and below, wouldn't be an issue for Camron, but one of his opponents has a high affinity with the water element.

As Camron slashed at John's chest, a water shield appeared in front of his sword before it could hit John, stopping his attack from reaching. Simultaneously, there were four water tentacles that were heading for Camron at a fast pace. These tentacles came out of Victor's back as if they were a part of him.

'If I don't do anything, this attack would be enough to hit me off the stage. As I thought, trying to hold two people down without Emma's assistance will be difficult to achieve.' Camron thought. 'I guess I would have to use some of the skills I hid.'

'Shadow Bind!'

Camron said in his head and the four tentacles stopped in their tracks for 2 seconds before they could move again. By the time they could move, Camron had already put a little distance between him and his opponents.

"Yaahhooo!! He dodged that!!" Some people in the audience cheering for Camron screamed out.

To everyone that paid close attention to what happened, it didn't look like Camron dodged the attack at all, more accurately, to the audience, it looked as if Victor stopped his water tentacles for 2 seconds, giving Camron the chance to put some distance between them.

Victor and John frowned when they saw this. John was certain that Victor wouldn't do something like that when it was clearly a chance to get a good hit on Camron. And to Victor, it was also a wonder to him, his attack paused against his will.

What they couldn't tell is that there were extra threads of shadow that wrapped around the original shadow of the water. The moment the threads wrapped around the tentacles, it prevented them from moving for a short time.

Normally, water has no shadow, or more accurately, calm and still, water holds no shadow as it doesn't bend or refract light in that state. But once waves and ripples are made on a water's surface, the light hits the surface at a different angle, hence the tentacles having shadows. Because the tentacles were moving fast, they created multiple waves on their forms.

A smile crawled up Camron's face as he looked at the confused faces of his opponents.

Refusing to believe what happened, Victor sent the tentacles at Camron again, however, before it could reach Camron again, it paused for 2 seconds. While it stopped in its tracks, Camron took this chance to charge at John.

Reaching his target, Camron's bind on the tentacles had already been broken and they were coming for him again. Much to John's surprise, Camron had been expecting this to happen.

Instead of stopping the tentacles again with His Shadow Bind skill, he used it to stop John from being able to move.

"What!?" John exclaimed as he felt his body being restricted by something unknown. And because his cultivation realm is lower than Camron's own, he found it hard to break out of the bind as easily as the tentacles that came from Victor did.

Nonetheless, he could tell that if he increased the force of his movements, he would be able to break out of the bind. With that in mind, John used his QI to support his muscles and aided himself in breaking out of the bind, albeit slower than the tentacles. He took about 3-4 seconds to escape from the bind.

John dodged to the side, narrowly escaping Camron's sword.

Camron kissed his teeth, bummed out that he couldn't land a strike on John.

The restriction of the Shadow Bind isn't as strong as Camron wanted it to be yet. It could only stop things that had shadows and would break if the force from whatever it was trying to bind is too much. Camron had been hoping to make this self-made skill of his elastic.

With the Shadow Bind threads elastic, instead of only stopping his opponents from moving and them eventually breaking out of the bind, his opponents would be able to move, albeit slowly, and not break out as easily. The threads will still be on them, increasing Camron's chances of victory.

Immediately, Camron dodged to the side, escaping from the tentacles that were coming for him.

'Is this their trump card?' John thought. He didn't think that the Seraphim team trump would be something that had defensive, or better, preventive motives. He was expecting it to be something like a wide-area attack.

'If this is what they have under their sleeves, then it will be easy for us to win this battle… just as soon as Camilla is done with those two. The fact that he dodged to the side instead of using this trump card of his to stop the tentacles means several things. Either it takes a little time to cast or it couldn't be done in time to stop the tentacles before they could reach him… or because he can't use it on multiple targets simultaneously. Or he just wants us to think like that so that he can use this to his advantage.' John thought as he went over Victor's side and quickly told him of his thoughts.

The two of them decided to check if Camron could cast the skill on two targets simultaneously as they battle…

Over at the other side of the ring, Camilla had exchanged a few attacks with Gustavo and Adrian.

All her attacks were blocked by Gustavo who had activated his ability and changed his skin to look like that of metal.

'I have seen similar techniques like this in the Celestial Plain realm, but their bodies weren't this sturdy and repealed attacks as easily as this guy own is doing. Leaving cuts on their skins was easy… but compared to this guy, it is more difficult than I thought.'

Camilla thought as she glanced at Gustavo. She was sure that Gustavo's ability was more special than the ones that she had seen in the Celestial Plain realm because those that could use similar abilities to this all had a higher cultivation base than Gustavo's.

Camilla then tilted her body to the side, dodging the fast attack that came from Adrian.

She found it difficult to chase after Adrian because he was constantly moving fast, changing positions in an instant. Normally this would have drained the QI in an average cultivator's Core, but it was different for Adrian. He was barely using his QI to achieve this speed.

Adrian was solely relying on the waves of sound that were around to move fast, however, Camilla didn't know this. Even if Adrian's attacks were fast, she could still dodge them and was certain that he would stop moving around when his QI is depleted.

Or so she thought…

Whenever she tries to attack Adrian, Gustavo was there to block the attack with his body. She tried again and failed.

-Ting!!

The sound of Camilla's dagger hitting Gustavo's body echoed out. Before she could recover from that, Adrian appeared beside her and was about to attack when Camilla sent a kick at him.

-Thud!

This counterattack came as a surprise to Adrian so he couldn't block it in time. Camilla hit Adrian's stomach squarely.

Adrian flew back and rolled a few times before he could get himself. He had to stab his sword into the floor to stop himself from going any further.

"Adrian," Gustavo called out. He was in a tight spot at the moment. Camilla wasn't trying to hurt Gustavo with her blades anymore, instead, she started aiming to throw him off the stage by using barrages of punches.

"Uhh!" Gustavo cried out in pain. Although she couldn't pierce through his skin with her dagger, her blows shook his insides, causing some pain to him.

"On my way!" Adrian replied and rushed towards Camilla and Gustavo.