Any reinforcements from the embassy would take at least ten to twenty minutes, and Xiao Lin’s Ruin state had a few minutes left at most. Once it was finished, Xiao Lin would be like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
Xiao Lin saw through the woman’s plan, and he started to slash his blade even faster, increasing his speed to the maximum. He tried to use his afterimages to avoid the dark treants and attack the summoner directly. His sudden burst of speed caught his opponents off guard, and the dark treants were not able to reach him in time, allowing Xiao Lin to appear behind the woman in a flash.
His falling blade was once again stopped by the light green energy shield. Xiao Lin could feel a very obvious feeling of his sword being rebounded backward. Even with his full might under Ruin state, his sword had been reflected and crashed into the ground.
Xiao Lin was shocked. He was not very familiar with shield spells, but he had learnt that all shields had its limits. After taking his dragon breath sword and numerous flame sword auras, the green shield did not seem to have been affected.
‘No, that’s wrong!’
Xiao Lin quickly pulled back after his attack failed. It was obvious that the woman’s shield was different from the usual shields he had learnt about in class.
Xiao Lin noticed that the woman’s expression had a look of obvious exertion each time she used the shield, and the shield would disappear immediately after usage. He tried to send out a few more flame sword auras, but the woman did not block it, instead getting her dark treants to shield her.
That energy shield might have seemed very powerful, even able to hold back the dragon breath sword, but each use seemed to have a longer delay between the other.
Xiao Lin once again increased his speed, but it was preempted this time. The dark treants had blocked his path ahead of time. Xiao Lin no longer cared about wasting his sword aura and charged forward. With a silver flash, Xiao Lin sword aura spread out like a fan and cut down all the treants in front of him. It was the Total Annihilation technique that he had learnt before, but the sword technique used up a lot of his energy.
Bang!
This time Xiao Lin’s sword hit the woman. Even if it was just a light wound, Xiao Lin smiled and mocked. “I was wondering how skilled you were; it seems that your shield isn’t that great after all.”
“It seems like you’ve found out!” The elf woman touched the wound on her arm. Her blood was very strange; there were traces of black in between the red and green. She licked her blood-stained fingers clean, placing her saliva on the wounds; the wounds started to slowly recover.
“My Absolute Defense does have a large limitation; it’s a pity I’m still not in my complete form. I can only wait for Asabanor’s research on the perfect form after getting you… It’s no matter. I’ve already blocked your strongest skill. You’re nowhere near as strong as Asabanor said.”
“You do know a lot. It seems like we’ll need to capture you alive.”
“Can you? I can feel you reaching the end of your strength. You only have a few dozen seconds left. You wouldn’t even be able to defeat my treants.”
“Really? I’m more interested in your Absolute Defense!”
Xiao Lin narrowed his eyes, falling silent for a moment before suddenly beginning his attack again. His powerful flame sword aura was unsurprisingly blocked by the green shield once again. After his own mental count, he managed to get a number–thirty seconds; that was the time in between each use of the green shield.
At the same time, Xiao Lin activated his Replicate skill. The target was the woman who had just used her Absolute Defense. He was not sure if he could properly replicate the skill since there was no way he could determine the rank of it, but the information that appeared in his head caused him to make a strange expression.
[Absolute Defense; can block any attack on oneself, only usable by holders of the Original Bloodline]
[Incomplete Absolute Defense; can defend against any attack not higher than one’s own rank, usable by those with the Incomplete Bloodline. 30 seconds between each use; each use cannot be maintained for longer than 3 seconds, each use uses up 10% of total body strength]
[Incomplete Absolute Defense replication complete!]
Xiao Lin paused, he was a little confused. He did not know if the replication was successful or not, especially because of the strange conditions.
What was the Original Bloodline? What was the Incomplete Bloodline?
Compared to Absolute Defense, Incomplete Absolute Defense had many more restrictions, such as the 30 seconds between each use, lasting for three seconds and the fact that each use used up 10% of physical strength!
Xiao Lin did not immediately see if he had successfully replicated the skill, and instead recounted his thoughts. From earlier till this moment, the elf had used Absolute Defense six times, which meant that she had used up at least 60% of her strength.
That price seemed like a large one to pay, but Xiao Lin also understood that he only had, at most, one minute left in his Ruin state, which meant that he could only try to use up her Absolute Defense two more times.
The reason why the woman was so apprehensive was probably because she was afraid of his dragon breath sword because she was not sure how many times Xiao Lin could use the skill. There was no way she could defend against it unless she had Absolute Defense.
It was obvious that the woman had loyally listened to Asabanor before coming. She might have thought that Xiao Lin was a very strong person, or maybe she was just a very passive and careful person. That was why she was willing to use up so much of her strength to waste Xiao Lin’s Ruin state.
Xiao Lin was definitely not her equal after losing Ruin state, he understood that. His opponent did knew that too
It was a pity that Xiao Lin’s dragon breath aura could only be used once in his Ruin state. He currently did not have the power to unleash a second one. Thankfully, the opponent did not seem to know that.
First of all, he needed to get past Absolute Defense, but the elf was clever. She never directly engaged with Xiao Lin when it was down, and would only return after thirty seconds.
He could not get to her, and could not afford any delay.
It was the first time Xiao Lin encountered such a cowardly fighting style, and he did not know how to deal with it. However, since he had replicated Absolute Defense and understood the mechanisms behind it, he quickly formed his own plan.
“It looks like you’re actually very strong. Since that’s the case, I don’t want to play with you anymore. Bye bye!”
After saying that, Xiao Lin immediately turned around and ran.
