The crowd watched in pure shock as Shirley’s magnificent crimson figure, covered in scarlet flames, shot through the dangerous area. The time it took for her to act as the explosion went off between their attacks wasn’t even two seconds.
Zamok seemed to stay on the other side rather than attack like Shirley did. He didn’t even know that he had begun to make a move. However, as he had his eyes on the explosion, he quickly noticed something strange appearing at the center before, seemingly like a scarlet spiral of flames tinged with some other color.
He couldn’t see nor sense properly as the explosive storm of their attacks was interfering with his perception. But quickly, his eyes went wide, stunned as he saw a spiral of scarlet flames emerge from the storm, hurling at him.
‘What the… she didn’t even come around but rushed straight ahead!?’
Zamok hurriedly cast a technique while thinking of the audacity of this woman. Even though he could create an attack at this level, his defense wasn’t so much. That was the sole weakness of the Dark Phoenix, and as a half-human and half-magical beast, he had naturally inherited its weakness.
Therefore, he could never pass through as Shirley did without injuring himself significantly.
Shirley passed through the dark crimson storm, and the spiral of flames created from her spinning flight movement created through her conjured wings. However, they were almost erased from the storm, but if one could also see the tip of her fingers that were hidden beneath her folded arms, ready to strike, they would see a layer of frost chipping away that defended her, reabsorbed back into her body.
“Imperial Phoenix Descent!”
Her crimson hair flailed in the air when she suddenly waved her hands, causing a flaming phoenix bird to manifest in front of her as it soared into the sky in an arc before diving down on Zamok.
His scalp turned numb as he knew the power of this technique, as it was used by his rivals in the Fire Phoenix Clan. He didn’t know how under the heavens, she had the time to cast this technique under the onslaught of the storm, but he quickly performed a technique and unleashed it.
“Dark Phoenix Cry!”
His mouth elongated like a beak as he screamed. A voracious darkness wave surged out of his mouth as it scrambled to encase the blazing fire phoenix that shook its wings and seared the air with its sharp beak. It left a trail of scarlet flames as it crashed into the dark roar.
The strange thing was that scarlet flames quickly lit up in dark flames, even causing its internal to burn. The dark roar seemed to be able to penetrate the insides as well as cause the outside to burn.
However, Shirley was confident as she watched her Imperial Phoenix Descent Technique continue diving down as it smashed toward Zamok.
<strong>*Bang!~*</strong>
His figure blasted into a fog of dark smoke upon contact, causing Shirley to harrumph as she shot forwards, wanting to capture him in one fell swoop. However, as she arrived before him, his silhouette suddenly took a sharp turn and threw a heap of dark flames at her.
The gaseous frizzing sound it made caused Shirley to feel some chill. However, although she wasn’t used to it, it was nothing when compared to Davis’s death energy, causing her eyes to snap as soul force erupted from her. At the same time, immortal martial energy and essence energy superimposed over it, creating a blazing wall of flames.
<strong>*Fhssh!~*</strong>
The dark flames tried to sear through the wall. The resulting clash caused Shirley’s flames to shrink while the dark flames gave off a dark gaseous air that surrounded the space with smoke.
Shirley blocked her nose with her sleeves as her other hand was slightly frosted over, but she retreated, causing the other party to become slightly taken aback.
She intended to corner him, so why did she leave?
Thinking that she must be up to something, his dark phoenix wings flapped as he hurriedly caught up to her.
Scarlet flames and dark flames clashed every time their figures crossed in the skies.
Shirley’s offense was greater than Zamok’s, causing him to be unable to get an edge over her. However, he had another plan in mind.
As for Shirley, she didn’t want to reveal the slightest bit of her unique nature to control flames and ice, so not only did she disguise her hair to how it looked previously, but she also used it sparingly only when she was sure that others would not be able to find it. Besides, Davis had also told her to keep it a secret unless required, so she didn’t want to use it if it was possible.
This led to her beginning a prolonged battle with Zamok, both trying to chip away at each other’s energy.
However, little did Zamok know that her energy reserves were humongous because her body was tempered by flames and ice making her dantian and meridian capacity a lot bigger. After all, to use ice and fire together needed so much energy that Shirley would exhaust herself just after four or five self-created icefire techniques!
She had so much to work on but was at least able to have better diversity in using her techniques rather than burst them all out in one attack that harms her own self. After all, her control had become immensely good from the year of training she went through in the Nine-Treasured Immortal Ordeal Palace.
While they were battling, although many were shocked and intently watched the battle and its profundity, not wanting to miss anything to enhance their own comprehension, there was a specific person whose pupils had once dilated a while ago and still hadn’t gone back to being normal yet.
‘Why… why do I sense my blood from her…?
Mistress Zahara’s heart shook.
It wasn’t apparent before when they were looking face to face, although she could feel some intrinsical connection which she couldn’t wrap her finger upon. However, once Shirley released her aura and used the fire phoenix flames, it was all the more recognizable to her that the other party almost possessed the same blood as her.
Her brows couldn’t help but tremble, suddenly remembering Feng Chu and how intensely he looked at her in the beginning. It was almost as though he knew of her, causing her to feel dumbfounded when she thought back to it.
She shook her head, unable to believe it. Nonetheless, as she watched the battle, that strange feeling in her heart became all the more suspicious to her. With each strike Shirley launched, her blood was boiling in resonation, causing her to take in a breath of cold air.
“Do you feel it too?”
Abruptly, Mistress Zahara flinched as she turned to look towards the side and saw Mistress Yeyin of the Ice Phoenix Clan standing a bit away from her.
Wearing an icy-blue robe, she stood there like a magnificent ice statue. Her white veil and hair lightly shook along with the flaming wind that blew outward. However, her eyes were so frosty that one would mistake her for having killing intent toward Shirley.
However, Mistress Zahara knew what was up. She was stunned to hear this woman also felt the same as she did from Shirley.
What’s going on?
There’s nothing that connected them with her, right? After all, they just learned that Shirley was from a lower plane which they had nothing to do with.
As they watched the show leading down to a tumble and rumble as their techniques exploded on each other, creating a storm of scarlet flames and dark flames, it was Zamok who was the first to raise his hands.
“Wait! I surrender!”
Blood was churning out from Zamok’s mouth as he declared his loss, his chest heaving for heavy breaths as his wings flapped and took him back.
Shirley stopped as she breathed heavily. The scarlet spear she had in her grasp abruptly shrunk and disappeared into thin air, causing her to cup her hands towards her opponent and bow.
“Senior brother, I learned a lot.”
Hearing Shirley’s words, Zamok’s expression became even more unsightly. Although he was unable to use stronger techniques due to having engaged in close-quarters combat, he hadn’t expected a slight difference to emerge between them at the last moment.
In these ten minutes, they had rapidly lost all their energy in exchanging a volley of attacks, and consequently, he was near to fainting.
He felt the other party should also be the same, yet it also felt like she had endless stamina. After all, the other party started heaving for breath way earlier than him, and seemed like she was almost going to fall. However, it took him a while to realize it was a trap and that she had a bit more energy than he had predicted.
However, what he didn’t know was that Shirley was just acting from the beginning of their exchanges with immense enthusiasm. Even with occasionally using ice energy to defend against his voracious black flames that sometimes got plastered onto her fine beautiful skin, she still had more than her reserves at this moment, about thirty-five percent.
She couldn’t help but grin at the difference even though they were the same cultivation base. Besides, the other party was also a fey, which meant that he should’ve also inherited its vast capacity to hold energy.
Yet, she still beat him in a battle of energy capacity. With neither being able to gain the upper hand in battle, she won in the end through endurance.
Having addressed Zamok, who turned speechless and awkward upon facing defeat, Shirley turned around to look at Egon Zenflame, whose expression was also unsightly. However, as soon as she turned to look at her, his face quickly reacted, and put on a wide smile.
“As expected of our immortal inheritor. Stunning and fiery like the Matriarch herself. There’s no need to receive the alliance funds, as I said, and stay here. After all, if you so wish, our clan’s countless resources would be concentrated on you, my liege.”
Shirley frowned.
“You don’t owe me, nor do I owe your people anything until your Patriarch has done what I said. You are not the people of the Fire Phoenix Clan in the immortal world. You cannot represent them into forcing me to hand over anything, much less myself.”
Shirley’s voice was utterly cold, causing Egon Zenflame’s pupils to shrink as anger swelled in his heart.
How can she say that they don’t represent the Fire Phoenix Clan in the immortal world when what they all did was for the dream and glory of the clan?
“Miss Shirley… I give you face every time I see, but you-“
“Stop.”
Abruptly, a woman’s voice echoed, causing veins to sprout on his forehead as he turned to look at who it was. However, seeing that it was Mistress Zahara, he forcefully kept his mouth shut and lowered his head.
With the clan having given her permission to convince Shirley if he had failed, he had no choice but to hand over the matter to Mistress Zahara. However, he was reluctant. The matter wasn’t over yet.
“Let me deal with this…”
He raised his head and glared at Mistress Zahara, causing the latter to smile at him coldly.
“Aiya~ A beautiful fiery phoenix flower blossoming on a moonlit night; what do you require of me?”
But suddenly, a cheerful voice resounded in the background. When they turned to look, they saw it was Shirley descending with a peal of melodious laughter as though she was truly welcoming Mistress Zahara.
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