With Nora's help, Feng Laixian's wounds healed.
Had Nora not bought him time, his self-healing would never have kept up with the rate at which Yu Xian was dealing damage, given Yu Xian's staggering offensive power.
Fortunately, Yu Xian still had a teammate on the field.
In fact, the moment Nora had shot through his tail, Feng Laixian had realized he was saved.
Zhang Buyao had given Contract Gems to Yu Xian and Niman as an improvised measure to grant them immunity to his Cognitive Distortion. From that, he could infer that the others certainly had not received any Contract Gems.
A moment's thought was all it took: Zhang Buyao and Niman had only just fled, so there was no way they could have had the time to hand Contract Gems to anyone else.
That meant his Cognitive Distortion would work on Nora. He could turn her into his pawn and use her to attack Yu Xian.
At that moment, the countless tails swiftly unfurled. Feng Laixian's head was back to normal, even the eye that had been blown apart fully regrown. Watching Yu Xian dodge frantically, he immediately extended his tails and launched an offensive.
Blazing Fur Arrows!
In an instant, his tails fired a dense swarm of sharp needles of fur.
Right on cue, Nora coordinated with him by firing a bullet, further shutting down any path of evasion for Yu Xian.
"Up!"
Yu Xian glanced at Feng Laixian hundreds of meters away, then punched the ground beneath him.
His whole body plummeted into the crater as massive amounts of earth and paving stones flew up into the air, colliding with the Blazing Fur Arrows overhead. A boulder took a direct hit from Nora's bullet and shattered to pieces in an instant.
"You are indeed worthy of my full attention."
"Now, I will unleash all my power... to kill you!"
Seeing that Yu Xian had survived even that, Feng Laixian looked down at him in the crater and spoke in a deep voice.
Then he looked up at the sun. His golden fur began turning crimson, and his body immediately radiated scorching heat. Standing two meters tall to begin with, his frame swelled once more, transforming into a six-meter-tall behemoth.
"Scorching great sun, blazing proud sun, by dawn Dongjun, by dusk the Crimson Emperor!"
A wisp of golden flame trickled from the corner of Feng Laixian's eyes as he recited an ancient ballad passed down for generations in Mingzhu City in a low, resonant voice.
[Great Sun Crimson Emperor: By resonating with the sun during daylight, enters the Great Sun Crimson Emperor form. All power is enhanced tenfold, while the Crimson Emperor Flames sublimate into Great Sun True Fire, which can be manipulated and unleashed at will.]
Boom!
A golden ring of fire formed behind his back. The ground around his feet blackened rapidly before sending up wisps of white smoke, on the verge of melting into magma in mere seconds.
Yu Xian bore the brunt of it.
He immediately smelled the foul stench of burning hair. Looking down at the hairs on his arms, he saw that almost all of them had curled up from the intense heat.
*I can't let his flames touch me. With my current physical toughness, I'll probably be charred to a crisp in an instant.*
Yu Xian began backing away, keeping an eye on Feng Laixian while remaining on guard against Nora. After all, Nora's bullets were just as lethal.
In the past, he had only appreciated that Nora's marksmanship was superb and the gun World was immensely powerful; only now did he truly understand what it felt like to be her enemy. It was absolute misery.
Not only were her shots deadly accurate, but her timing was impeccable.
If Niman and Zhang Buyao didn't find Nora quickly and dispel Feng Laixian's ability, he was bound to take a bullet sooner or later.
A person's focus was finite. Feng Laixian alone was already exerting immense pressure on him; add Nora into the mix, and he truly couldn't hold out much longer.
"Ape King Form—Ape Steps!"
Feng Laixian stepped forward, his body splitting into dozens of afterimages that attacked from various angles in the blink of an eye.
Yu Xian had no way of telling which one was the real Feng Laixian. All he could do was retreat rapidly, but right then, another bullet came flying at him. He almost wanted to cry—*Nora, darling, please stop causing trouble!*
Yet he could only weep inside. His reflexes against the gunfire were lightning-fast; he immediately leaped backward and curled into a tight ball, evading the bullet by a hair's breadth.
The trouble was that Nora's bullet wasn't the only incoming attack—Feng Laixian was right there too.
"Phoenix Claw Form!"
In an instant, Feng Laixian appeared beside Yu Xian. His colossal body swung down from above, unleashing a dense shower of white flames.
Before the flames even reached him, Yu Xian's clothes had already caught fire. Gritting his teeth, he threw an upward punch, dispersing the flames that were about to fall on him, before landing on his back with a loud sizzle.
The ground had already been heated by Feng Laixian's high temperatures to a scalding degree. With the clothes on his back burned away by the heat of the Phoenix Claw Form, landing on his back was literally like lying on a sizzling iron griddle.
He scrambled up and backed away frantically, but his shoes couldn't take it anymore; the soles burst into flames on the spot.
He was done for.
Feng Laixian in this state was simply too strong to beat.
The punch he had just thrown to disperse the flames of the Phoenix Claw Form had been angled upward, and the gale from the blow should have swept over Feng Laixian himself. Yet Feng Laixian hadn't budged an inch, casually blocking the wind pressure with his palm.
This meant that after entering this state, Feng Laixian not only gained the power to manipulate fire, but his physical attributes had also received an immense boost.
"Giant Crocodile Form!"
Yu Xian tried to open up some distance, but Feng Laixian was not about to let him get away with it.
The next moment, countless white flames surged around Feng Laixian, coalescing on his arm into a massive elemental crocodile. He charged straight at the retreating Yu Xian.
*Stay the hell away from me!*
Seeing this, Yu Xian sped up his retreat even further. At the same time, throwing all caution to the wind, he scrambled with hands and feet to kick and hurl everything he could reach straight at Feng Laixian.
The problem was that it was utterly futile. Bricks, rocks—none of them could breach Feng Laixian's defenses in the slightest.
As for the trees, they burst into flames before they could even make contact, reduced to ash that drifted over Feng Laixian's body and settled on the surrounding ground.
Although Yu Xian ran fast and hurled debris continuously to harass Feng Laixian, Feng Laixian was faster. His frame was gigantic; a single stride of his was equal to more than ten of Yu Xian's, and the distance between them shrank inexorably.
Truth be told, Feng Laixian didn't even need to do anything. Simply staying glued to Yu Xian's heels would roast him alive from the sheer heat.
At that point, Yu Xian felt as though his nose hairs were catching fire, and his eyelashes had long since been burned away.
It was over. This was the end of the line.
Staring at the massive flaming crocodile head on Feng Laixian's arm, Yu Xian felt a wave of despair wash over him.
He couldn't escape, and he couldn't win. He was truly out of options.
His means had been quite limited to begin with, and with his strongest attack proving ineffective, he had exhausted his repertoire.
"Go to hell, brat!"
Towering over him, Feng Laixian spoke coldly as Yu Xian entered his attack range.
He raised his arm, and the fiery crocodile opened its jaws wide. He threw a devastating punch—one that would undoubtedly spell certain death if it landed.
Bang!
A bullet streaked through the air.
This time, it was finally not aimed at Yu Xian.
Feng Laixian's flame-engulfed arm was severed in an instant. Blood sprayed everywhere, and the white crocodile formed of fire dissipated in a flash.
For a split second, both of them froze. Then Yu Xian snapped to his senses, immediately dropping into a horse stance. He wrapped his left hand over his right fist, every muscle in his body bulging.
*Again?!*
In Feng Laixian's eyes, that boundless sea of flowers appeared once more.
Chapter 343