Fortunately, Yu Xian had kept Forward Light Shield active the entire time, so every attack from the eight hundred deathsworn slammed harmlessly against the barrier.
However, after that first wave of attacks, the deathsworn immediately swarmed in to surround him. Yu Xian had no choice but to fall back, creating distance before casting the skill once again—Eight Hundred Deathsworn!
The newly summoned warriors surged forward to attack the mind-controlled deathsworn, but after killing only a dozen or so, they too fell under Shenshang Chai's control.
Yu Xian refused to give up and continued summoning more.
"Normally, hypnotic and mind-control skills consume mental energy," Yu Xian said, eyeing Shenshang Chai as he brought forth another fresh battalion. "Whereas summoning my Eight Hundred Deathsworn costs practically nothing. How much mental energy do you really have to keep taking control of them?"
Thanks to his passive, Hard to Kill, Yu Xian would begin regenerating health whenever his HP dropped to a certain threshold. The cost of summoning Eight Hundred Deathsworn was negligible.
Yu Xian simply did not believe Shenshang Chai possessed an infinite reservoir of mental energy.
"You're welcome to test that theory!" Shenshang Chai sneered, promptly placing the newly summoned eight hundred deathsworn under hypnosis once more.
Yu Xian sneered right back. "Don't mind if I do."
He had spoken intentionally to provoke his opponent, goading Shenshang Chai into endlessly expending mental energy on the deathsworn.
Virtually all of Shenshang Chai's class skills required mental energy to activate. If he could deplete that pool, the abilities Yu Xian dreaded most—Time Amber and Spear of Slowness—would become unusable.
What followed was utter pandemonium across the arena as massive waves of deathsworn continued to pour forth, tearing into one another.
Yet Shenshang Chai's mental energy seemed bottomless. No matter how many deathsworn Yu Xian summoned, Shenshang Chai hypnotized and seized control of them without fail. Instead of draining him, Yu Xian found himself chased all over the arena, a horde of deathsworn snapping at his heels.
*Something's wrong!*
*Shenshang Chai couldn't possibly have that much mental energy.*
*Hallucinatory Hypnosis works on both single targets and groups, but the wider the area of effect, the more mental energy it consumes. Seizing eight hundred deathsworn should take at least eight percent of his pool each time. By now, his reserves should be completely drained.*
Soaring through the air to dodge bullets, Yu Xian looked down at Shenshang Chai, his thoughts racing.
*Wait!*
Suddenly, he recalled another of Shenshang Chai's skills.
Shenshang Chai couldn't just freeze time—he could reverse it.
As a core class skill, reversing time on himself carried a remarkably low cost. What if, each time Shenshang Chai cast Hallucinatory Hypnosis, he immediately expended a tiny amount of mental energy to rewind himself to the state before the expenditure?
In that case, his cost would drop from eight percent each cast to a mere 0.1 percent, or perhaps even lower.
*A miscalculation.*
*Time-based abilities—especially when used on oneself—leave virtually no trace.*
*Hoping to burn through his skills using Eight Hundred Deathsworn isn't realistic. If anything, this skill has been rendered totally useless.*
Yu Xian sighed in midair and stopped toying with the deathsworn chasing him.
He plummeted rapidly toward the ground. The moment his feet touched down, the earth erupted into violent frenzy. Countless earthen spikes thrust upward, instantly skewering the deathsworn pursuing him.
Naturally, the attack included Shenshang Chai as well.
However, Shenshang Chai could assume his Origin Flame Form to grant himself total immunity to physical damage. Yu Xian's attack merely caused roaring flames to ignite across his abdomen.
"What, giving up already?" Shenshang Chai asked, looking at Yu Xian with a smirk.
Yu Xian offered a smirk of his own. "It seems I overlooked something. You're using Time Reversal to recover your expenditure, aren't you?"
"We only agreed not to freeze time, didn't we?" Shenshang Chai added.
There were countless fools scattered across the myriad worlds. If he didn't clarify things, it could easily spawn misunderstandings. Should those idiots believe he had breached their agreement, they might genuinely try to intervene.
One or two held no terror for him, but tens of thousands of fools was a rather daunting prospect.
Yu Xian produced a bottle and poured out the water within. Smiling, he said, "Let's begin round two. Watch out—this isn't ordinary water, but..."
Leaving the sentence hanging, he activated Water Control, shaping the liquid stream into a long, whirring chainsaw.
"Frozen World!"
The moment Shenshang Chai saw the chainsaw, he triggered his skill without hesitation.
He scented danger from Yu Xian's water chainsaw.
A terrifying blast of frigid chill erupted from his hands, sweeping across the arena. A layer of ice coated the ground in an instant, and the air grew so cold it bordered on solidifying.
Yet to Shenshang Chai's surprise, the chainsaw Yu Xian controlled showed no signs of freezing; it continued spinning and shifting relentlessly.
With a gentle flick of Yu Xian's wrist, the water chainsaw whipped toward Shenshang Chai. Shenshang Chai dared not underestimate it, instantly dissolving into flames to dart away.
Although his Origin Flame Form rendered him immune to the vast majority of damage, water-attribute attacks fell squarely outside that protection. Regular water was manageable, but special waters could severely wound him.
Clearly, Yu Xian had come prepared, having devised a countermeasure specifically against his Origin Flame Form well in advance.
In truth, the water Yu Xian wielded was nothing particularly exotic; it was known as "Slime Water," a fluid found inside water slimes.
Nonconductive to electricity, impossible to freeze, and impervious to dust, it was a staple material used by many apothecaries and alchemists.
Yu Xian had purchased several bottles precisely to counter Shenshang Chai.
*Lightning Spell!*
Having dodged Yu Xian's water attack, Shenshang Chai locked onto him and decisively cast the skill.
Yet the moment Lightning Spell discharged, a shield of flowing water materialized above Yu Xian's head. The lightning struck the water, failing to inflict the slightest bit of damage.
Seeing this, a flash of insight struck Shenshang Chai.
*It's Slime Water.*
The method to break it was straightforward: fire.
Any fire could easily vaporize Slime Water.
Shenshang Chai immediately whipped around to lock onto the pursuing water chainsaw. Thrusting his hands forward, he unleashed blast after blast of fire against it. True enough, as the flames struck the chainsaw, the water rapidly vaporized.
Just as he thought he had cracked the puzzle, however, a stream of water abruptly surged from the ground. His pupils shrank. It was already too late to dodge.
*Squelch.*
The stream instantly pierced his abdomen, then swiftly sheared upward.
Even in that split second, Shenshang Chai reacted. Gritting his teeth through the agonizing pain, he altered his body's form. Sacrificing an arm, he tumbled across the ground before taking to the air once more to open distance.
*Time Reversal.*
Shenshang Chai activated the skill without hesitation, and the wounds across his body rapidly mended.
The catch was that Time Reversal harbored a fatal flaw: while the body was rewinding through time, the brain briefly entered a state incapable of thought.
After all, when the entire body was reversing, keeping the thoughts in one's mind intact required them to be temporarily frozen in place.
Chapter 613