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Chapter 232 Crystal Meat – Spiritual Leopard Version (i)
Translated by Gumihou
Edited by Gumihou
One has to admit, when Qing Chen and Lin Fan joined forces, it was a sight to behold.
[1] A short while under their combined assault, Fire Wolf ended up covered in blood.
Fire Wolf knew that he could not let this continue. He must break this stalemate and regroup with his teammates. A group fight is not meant to be fought alone.
Suddenly, the red aura around his body exploded and the hazy image of a fierce wolf solidified into flames. Two black eyes stared out of the flaming aura at Lin Fan and Qing Chen. [1] Flame paws swiped at them and they had to quickly back out of range. [1] However, to their surprise, the giant flaming paws kept coming after them, breaking away from the mass and moving after the young men like homing missiles.
As soon as the young men were forced away, [2a] Fire Wolf made to escape but this time he was blocked by the girls. Since their Cultivation levels were much lower than his, the pretty one was only a Core Condensation 1 for goodness sake, [3] Fire Wolf barely slowed down. However, he allowed his eyes to linger just half a second longer on the pretty one.
[3] That girl is definitely worth looking at if nothing else. Firm mobile mouth, slim supple body and a pair of bewitching eyes that glowed like pools of liquid desire. Suddenly, his heart rate picked up and he began to pant. Charming, that girl was too charming for words. He must possess her and make her his woman-
[1] Qing Chen and Lin Fan had dispelled the flaming paws and were now coming after Fire Wolf. Seeing their target salivating over Xuan Yin, Lin Fan activated Seven Star Steps and the spiritual aura around him took on a fiery red colour that was visible even to the naked mundane eye. Opposite him, Qing Chen switched his grip on his sword and prepared his own attack.
To his credit, Fire Wolf was only stuck under Xuan Yin’s charm for a few breaths. However, once he was back in his right mind, he found that the atmosphere around him has drastically changed. He warily lifted his head and found several fireballs had formed in the air above him. Not only that, several blue-tinted swords were rising from the ground, their deadly tips aiming at him.
A split second before the fireballs and spiritual swords struck him, he forced his spiritual energy to explode. The combined attack scattered. The resulting explosion was so great that the world whited out for a moment. Nevertheless, he continued to lower his head and charge onwards, desperate to break out of this trap. His many years of battle experience telling him that more danger was to come.
How could the College Champions let him leave as he liked?
We’ll win half the battle as soon as we kick him off the stage!
[2b] Shiyu took an aggressive stance in front of Fire Wolf, flames burning in her hand and surrounding her dagger as she swiped at the fiery aura paws that Fire Wolf was bashing at her. Her attacks were not enough to make him retreat, but it was good enough to fight him to a standstill while Lin Fan and Qing Chen came at him from the side.
[1] Lin Fan swept in low and kicked Fire Wolf’s knees.
[1] Flames flared up in Shiyu’s other hand and swarmed up Fire Wolf’s arm.
[1] Qing Chen appeared out of nowhere and double kicked Fire Wolf in the chest.
[1] Fire Wolf roared and staggered to the side.
[1] Qing Chen swiped with his sword, causing Fire Wolf to duck out of instinct and saw how close he was to the edge for the first time.
[1] Lin Fan followed up the attack with his sword aura and Qing Chen finished the attack by kicking Fire Wolf in the chest once more and finally sending him tumbling off stage.
More than a few people on Shiyu’s side breathed a sigh of relief and turned to assist Feng Luo who had been fending off four Core Condensation 8 experts by himself. He was rather tattered and sorry looking. As soon as their backs were turned, however, a gasped from the audience alerted them. Something’s not right!
Shiyu turned and saw Fire Wolf. The opponent they had worked so hard to kick off the stage floating in mid-air!
[1] “That’s fxcking unfair!” Shiyu shouted. Is this guy a cockroach? Why can’t they kill him?!
As if to mock her, Fire Wolf did a mid-air flip before flying back to the stage.
Fire Wolf flew past them straight towards Feng Luo!
[4] “That brat is the source of our trouble!”
[4] Feng Luo was the second weakest person on the stage. Even with his special whip, he could barely stay ahead of these people, mostly playing tag with them, snagging people by the waist and throwing them aside whenever it looked like they were going to interfere with the fight against Fire Wolf before ducking or running away.
[4] However, a 4 vs 1 fight, even with a powerful weapon and the ability to run away quickly was not much help when all four opponents were two levels above him! However, none of the College Champions had expected him to last long anyway. The plan was to quickly take out Fire Wolf and then regrouping to back Feng Luo. [2c] [4] Now, however…
[4] “Die, brat!” Fire Wolf came flying over with his clawed aura hand extended
[4] Feng Luo’s grip tightened on his whip, he was already ragged, injured and dirty from scuffling with four Core Condensation 8 experts, there was no way he could dodge an attack from an angry Core Condensation 9 master hell-bent on getting rid of him.
[4] His best chance was possibly a deflection at most, to try and stay alive and on the stage to make trouble for the Fire Wolves.
Just as Fire Wolf was about to strike Feng Luo down, Lin Fan appeared in front of Feng Luo and blocked Fire Wolf’s attack with his black sword. [2d]
“Feng Luo!” Shiyu and Qing Chen had also arrived. “Are you alright?”
Feng Luo spat out a mouthful of blood, “I can still stand,”
“We cannot go on like this,” said Qing Chen.
“How about…” an idea flashed across Shiyu’s mind [5]. “You change from defensive to offensive? Use your whip on us.”
[5] “What?” Feng Luo shook his head. “What was that?”
[5] “Lash your whip on our waists and use the Meteor Star method. Provided you can control the barbs,” said Shiyu.
[5] Qing Chen and Lin Fan exchanged an odd glance, “I suppose we could try it…”
Neither of them has a better plan at the moment.
Feng Luo called the whip back to his hand, [6] curling it and making the barbs disappeared. Then, two more vines sprouted from the middle and wrapped around three of his teammates’ waists, leaving Shiyu free to move around to defend Feng Luo in case anyone gets any ideas about attacking him.
With the vines wrapped around their waists, Lin Fan and the two others fought at a much stronger position. Each time the Fire Wolves tried to attack, they were thwarted. Finally, the Fire Wolves could no longer stand it anymore and retreated to make new strategies.
“We need a new plan,” said Fire Wolf. “[2e] Go in strong and finish whoever they can first and assist the others. Go after the weakest.”
“Yes!” right now, just about every Fire Wolves member had stopped looking down on the College Champions. If they were truly fighting against a bunch of inexperienced school kids, they would not be in such a fix now.
On the other side, Shiyu’s group could clearly see the Fire Wolves conferring with each other and realised something. [2f] Shiyu said, “Feng Luo, can you still go on?”
Feng Luo’s spiritual power was almost completely used up. His clothes were in tatters and blood stained the front of his [7] moon-white robe.
“Yes!” he exclaimed through gritted teeth.
Just then, their opponent went on the offence.
Feng Luo was unable to resist. Their opponents wanted to drive him off the high platform and he could only rely on his physical abilities to fight back.
Xuan Yin was not doing well either, she was only a Core Condensation 1, seven levels lower than the opponent. Even with her violent Thunder Attribute, she could barely attack the opponent at a critical time. Her charm skill was crucial in getting her opponents to lose themselves in those few critical seconds where she could attack them. Otherwise, she would only be a burden.
For a while, the two sides struggled, neither willing to let up. It was really difficult to tell which sided was winning.
[Gumihou: The fight was fine until the ‘vines around the waist strategy’. Also, team Fire Wolves, you’re fine just the way you are, you’re only on the losing side because the author drastically reduced your IQ, battle experience and power.]
Gumihou is keeping track so that you don’t have to ~
<table>凝氣 Condensation Stage Stage 1 化丹 Core Transformation Stage 2 凝丹(46) Core Condensation Stage 3 化神(52) Divine Transformation Stage 4 成嬰 Nascent Formation Stage 5 合體 Unification Stage 6 返墟 Revert Decay Stage 7 歸真 Original Purity Stage 8 成仙 Become immortal Stage 9</tbody></table>
[1] Adjusted some sentence structure for more immediacy and excitement.
[2] Deleted Unnecessary Stuff:
[a] ‘Fire Wolf thought this was the opportunity for him to get away, but never thought that once the boys left the two girls rushed up at him again.’
Too wordy. Also, ‘again’?
[b] ‘Shiyu took an aggressive stance with her dagger in front of Fire Wolf, with the incredible combination of footwork and dagger, she pushed him back.’
Not that I’m looking down on Shiyu, but this seems kind of unlikely. I’m actually giving credit to Fire Wolf for being an intelligent, experienced and calculative fighter as per USMiC according to the previous chapters. I’m not going to downgrade his fighting skill to a little over n00b just to make Shiyu look good.
If you want to make her look good, she’ll have to at least use her fire, not just ‘footwork and dagger’. You can’t footwork and dagger a powerful attack against a strength-based opponent with the ability to attack with their aura. If I were Fire Wolf, I’d counterattack her ‘footwork and dagger’ with a flaming paw.
[c] Feng Luo knew this too, so he bit his teeth to death and wanted to drag these people as much as possible. At this moment, his current appearance was not better than that of the Fire Wolf, or even worse, but even so, his hand still clung to the whip.’
Refer Note 4.
[d] ‘…temporarily preventing them from hurting Feng Luo’s body’
Yeah, yeah, flexing Lin Fan’s speed and his black sword, you don’t have to do that by telling us how miserable Feng Luo is.
[e] ‘Our biggest advantage is that our cultivation is higher than theirs, if we continue like this, we will be the ones to suffer. Now, everyone, one on one, ignore the others, finish what you’ve got first, then come and help the others.’
…you know, Fire Wolf don’t strike me as a wordy kind of guy.
[f] …Shiyu also noticed their movements, “I’m afraid they are going to attack….”
Yes, I guess everyone has lost their eyes and could not see the obvious anymore.
[3] Added Details for Dramatic Purpose: Expanded on ‘his eyes suddenly fell into a pair of charming eyes’
[4] Moved the paragraphs down, after the exciting thing. Also, adjusted the details to something more understandable since a lot of information were lumped into 2 paragraphs.
‘Feng Luo hadn’t been able to beat four by himself before. With the help of the whip, he could only run while playing. Even so, he still couldn’t be beaten. Now as soon as the fire wolf comes over, once his defence line here collapses, the great situation created before will instantly collapse.
[5] Shiyu’s idea is so… 〈(゜_ ゜)
It would probably be a good idea… if they did not already have Chasing Clouds &amp; Moon… plus, whatever Lin Fan’s technique that made him so fast that he literally disappears from view.
In short, it’s a dumb idea.
In the original text, when QC and FL ‘thought for a moment’, the impression was ‘we’re so dumb that we don’t have another plan so let’s go with yours’. Gumi changed it to a more, ‘gee, I guess we could try this stupid plan…’
[6] …Gumi decides to give up and just give a summary of the below deleted scenes in the chapter content. It’s mostly MTL, but Gumi really has no more heart for it’s idiocy…:
With the vines wrapped around their waists, Lin Fan and his team members were clearly in a much stronger position. After slashing at each other a few times, they tried to make a move, but they were already moving away with the vines.
Knowing that the centre of the fight was Feng Luo, Fire Wolf tried to run over and throw Feng Luo out of the way to resolve the situation. However, though he knew where his opponent’s dead centre was, but he found that he could not get close enough to get rid of him. Having been thwarted each time by Lin Fan’s.
If he tried to get the others, they would be kicked back as well.
After repeating this several times, the Imperial College team gradually gained the upper hand.
X_x
It would probably have worked (maybe) if this was 100 chapters ago? Gumihou is very, very embarrassed for everyone in the arena.
[7] I guess they stopped wearing the signature black College robes with the College logo in gold threads?