At this moment, purely in terms of raw stats, Ni Lin was already on par with the Swarm. And that was still under the condition that, mindful of Ji Jue, he had been sticking entirely to basic attacks without unleashing any absurd burst techniques.
If he had layered the White Stag's specialized offensive arts on top of that, he probably could have torn Ji Jue to shreds in their very first clash!
Even now, it wasn't far off.
Without the Circle Domain, it would have been purely a matter of time.
Fortunately, Ji Jue had one.
And he had it active.
*Bang!*
Ni Lin, manifesting abruptly behind him amid the howling wind, hadn't even had time to swing his claws before he felt a hand clamp onto his wrist.
His startup frames—so brief as to be virtually negligible—had been caught!
*What—*
Ni Lin's pupils contracted. He felt terrifying force erupt from those five fingers, forcibly ripping through his outer scales and fracturing his wrist.
Ji Jue had nearly snapped it clean off!
Just as he moved to deflect and counter, that hand abruptly released its grip.
With a fluid motion, Ji Jue's fingers naturally spread wide and pressed toward Ni Lin's heart—Jingzhen!
And when Ni Lin instinctively flickered away and reappeared on the other side, he saw Ji Jue's eyes already tracking toward him.
His throat tightened.
A finger entwined with electrical sparks had already silently jabbed toward his throat, cutting off the furious roar welling up in his chest and snuffing out the brewing Razor Howl into nothingness.
Ji Jue was actually advancing.
Counterattacking him!
Shifting his mindset: blindly dodging and enduring hits was unsustainable in the end.
Rather than letting the opponent unleash his full strength to his heart's content, why not... treat offense as defense, interrupting the cast during the opponent's windup!
Granted, reality wasn't like a hardcore video game where breaking an enemy's posture and depleting their poise guaranteed an execution window, but the disruption it caused was undeniable.
The only difficulty was that the windup windows were far too fleeting, gone in a flash, making them exceedingly hard to time and catch.
Yet now, none of this was a problem for Ji Jue!
The timing was entirely within his grasp!
And so, Ni Lin's sentence in misery began—interrupted while charging, intercepted mid-dash, slipping up on lock-on, miscalculating distances...
Hedged in at every turn, awkward all over!
Even though Ji Jue wasn't inflicting any real damage, Ni Lin grew increasingly frantic and irritable. Hamstrung at every step, he couldn't even execute a single decent combo!
There was no longer any tempestuous onslaught—only probing back-and-forth spacing.
Throw projectiles without advancing, and swat down every jump with a heavy fist—taking blatant advantage of Ni Lin's honest nature, Ji Jue had begun playing like a complete cheese artist!
Confronted with the Wolf Lord's shameless tactics, Ni Lin... dutifully followed Ji Jue's wishes, suppressing the anxiety and frustration in his heart as he accompanied him through round after round of sparring.
Though he didn't understand what the Wolf Lord was after, if the Wolf Lord was doing this, there had to be good reason.
Since the Wolf Lord hadn't called a stop, then keep going!
If it was just this level of intensity, he could fight all night without an issue!
Unfortunately, after a dozen minutes, Ji Jue was the first to call it quits.
Once he grew accustomed to the response patterns, the experiential gains suffered diminishing returns; a restrained, hand-tied Ni Lin could no longer apply the intense pressure from earlier.
Having roughly grasped the techniques for applying the Circle Domain, he also had a glimmer of inspiration regarding how to step into and utilize Mohist Defense.
Continuing like this would not only be bullying an honest soul, but would also breed bad habits and sloppy muscle memory.
"Inayat."
Ji Jue paused in his movement and suddenly asked, "Can you go harder?"
"..."
Ni Lin hesitated, the ferocious beast caught in indecision.
Bone Flay, Mutilation, Extinction, Sever Life...
Too many.
Some arts were guaranteed to cause devastation once unleashed. But without real malice and mortal resolve poured into them, they were mere empty husks of form.
After a brief hesitation, Ni Lin sighed. "If you insist, my Lord."
"What if I said your Circle Domain?" Ji Jue asked.
"...Understood."
Ni Lin bowed his head and offered a final warning: "I know objecting would be futile, so... please be extremely careful."
At that instant, the final lingering glow of dusk faded away, plunging heaven and earth into darkness.
Beneath the pitch-black night, the stars vanished. In their place came an endless scarlet, blood-colored light meandering and surging, flooding the firmament and swallowing everything!
Blood sharp as blades poured down like a torrential rain, covering all. Endless blades pierced upward like fangs from the scorched earth, rising and falling in jagged, infinite rows.
The howling wind blasted forward laden with ash like a blizzard, while the scalding air felt like a torrent surging from a crucible.
It was as though in an instant, one had plunged into hell, standing against the entire world.
Yet even struggling with all one's might was utterly useless...
He had already fallen into the Wolf's Maw!
Now, the bloody firmament and the scorched earth were the wolf's colossal jaws; the torrential rain and piercing blades were its razor fangs; and the scorching wind blasting in his face was the wolf's breath.
The instant the Circle Domain manifested, every remnant of spiritus vanished without a trace, and even Ji Jue's own spiritus began to plummet at staggering speed—in mere seconds, it would be drained dry.
There was simply no resisting it.
Having fallen deep into the Wolf's Maw, the essence of this legacy would penetrate every pore of the 'prey'!
Every bite and rend that followed would be nothing more than an inescapable bloodletting and brutalization.
Ni Lin needed do nothing. Merely circling at his leisure would allow him to bleed the prey entirely dry, before bringing down the fatal blow!
No escape, helpless to slaughter.
"...Am I locked on?"
Ji Jue attempted to shift his body, shaking off that bone-deep chill, but no matter how he moved or feinted, the chill clung to him like a shadow.
"Such a passive sensation... truly a novel experience."
He turned his head and looked behind him.
Right behind him, amidst the rain of blood and forest of blades, a burning metal wolf slowly took shape, four crimson eyes staring fixatedly at Ji Jue.
Under the overlapping might of his Circle Domain and Regeneration form, Inayat had fully metamorphosed into a wolf!
Breathing out vast torrents of flame and souls, yet still gaunt and skeletal. Having consumed untold lives and deaths, yet still ravenously hungry!
Eternal hunger, eternal frenzy.
Even if the dense forest had been ignited into a crucible, before it burned to cinders, this aberrantly warped essence still remained—growing all the more fierce and pronounced!
The wolf in the flames parted its jaws and snapped down decisively.
And so, heaven and earth slammed shut.
The entire world closed together. The blood-red sky and scorched earth collided, grinding like colossal jaws chewing, blood and blades grating to crush all into powder!
Amid the endless rain of blood and crossing blades, the figure was thoroughly engulfed, vanishing from sight.
*Boom!!!*
The demonstration concluded; the victor was decided.
Amid the sound of the Circle Domain fracturing, a final sigh sounded.
It left Inayat frozen in place.
"...In the end, still a bit short."
Whether for himself, or for Ni Lin.
When the Circle Domain crumbled away and reality returned, the final outcome appeared before their eyes.
Inayat, transformed into a beast, held Ji Jue firmly in his jaws. A mere fraction more force, and he could tear the prey in his mouth to shreds.
Ji Jue had lost.
Unfortunately, Ni Lin hadn't won either.
Just a fraction short...
Completely contrary to expectations, what the giant wolf had clamped down on was neither Ji Jue's head nor his torso, but a single arm—Ji Jue's left hand!
This was the most bizarre part: it wasn't because Ni Lin had intentionally held back, but because the guaranteed lock-on of the Circle Domain had suffered a fatal deviation!
Had it been a mortal struggle, the result might well have differed. Perhaps Ni Lin would have used various suicidal and vicious arts; perhaps Ji Jue would no longer have confined himself to his Circle Domain and would have stopped at nothing.
Yet if restricted strictly to a clash of Circle Domains, the outcome would inevitably have been mutual destruction. Ji Jue would have lost an arm, while Inayat would have suffered devastating trauma under the counterattack of Ji Jue's other hand!
"A pity, not enough time."
Ji Jue let out an appreciative sigh and pulled his arm back from Inayat's loosening jaws. Tooth marks were clearly visible, and beneath the hairline fractures, a bead of machine oil soundlessly welled up.
Just as the two had agreed beforehand, first blood would mark the end.
It ended here.
His own mastery over his Circle Domain was still lacking, unable to directly contend with Ni Lin's Wolf's Maw, which had undergone the enhancement and metamorphosis of the Crucible Wolf and had been meticulously refined.
He had been thoroughly outclassed in sheer proficiency.
It seemed he still lacked experience, and his build's completion was far behind; there was just too much grinding and investing left to do.
Ji Jue pondered, conducting his post-combat review.
Beside him, Inayat, who had reverted to human form, twitched slightly. Several times, he started to speak and stopped, before finally unable to resist asking for guidance: "How did you manage that? Is there still some flaw in my technique...?"
"Ah, it's not your problem. The Wolf's Maw Circle Domain doesn't have the kind of flaw you're thinking of."
Ji Jue waved his hand and explained, "I should be thanking you for going easy on me."
Nothing in this world was flawless.
The perfect all-rounder existed only in theory. When stat points were limited, any strength came with an unavoidable shortcoming—and besides, shortcomings could always be covered by tactics and skill.
Up until now, Inayat had been dutifully serving as a sparring partner, going so easy on him for the Wolf Lord's sake that he had practically thrown the match. Under the constraint of not being allowed to kill, his hands were tied far too tightly.
It wasn't his fault.
Given the mechanics of Ni Lin's Circle Domain, he should have used his health pool and defense to kite and whittle down any opponent caught within.
All battle damage within the Circle Domain served to replenish Ni Lin—for every measure the opponent was weakened, he grew stronger by that same measure, while the ultimate finisher should have been a complete and utter harvest.
After the final chew came the swallow.
The Circle Domain would collapse, heaven and earth would close, and everything left would be completely digested!
Yet the premise was that the opponent had already been weakened to the point of complete helplessness...
Yet Ji Jue's condition remained fully intact. Furthermore, out of reverence, Inayat had deliberately restrained the Wolf's Maw from siphoning and gnawing away at Ji Jue.
That was why Ji Jue had room left to maneuver.
Ji Jue raised his hand, bringing his index finger and thumb together to pinch out a tiny sliver of space.
"I merely carved out a tiny little gap."
Chapter 834