Bai Qiu could actually just stay in the air and keep attacking—that way, he could completely avoid all risks.
But…
He was worried that Gilshak might shift its target to the safe zone, so he deliberately stayed within a certain distance, giving it the illusion that it still had a chance to reach him.
At the same time, he subtly pulled the battlefield farther away.
Only after moving about 800 meters from the safe zone did he begin going all out.
After that, however, he fought more loosely.
After all, if you make something too obvious, the enemy will catch on.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Bai Qiu unleashed full firepower.
The arrows he shot almost formed a straight line, forcing Gilshak to raise its blade and defend passively, unable to swing back.
Fortunately, he had stockpiled a large number of darksteel arrows.
In just this short time, he had already used nearly 500…
And unlike when fighting mobs—where arrows could be recovered—every arrow used against Gilshak was gone for good!
At the same time, he occasionally controlled the Purgatory Darkflame Spear to strike from behind, but it was always casually knocked away by Gilshak.
The spear’s single-target damage might surpass the arrows from Fallen Dragon’s Bow, but its attack speed was only effective when wielded directly.
When controlled by magic and mental force, it felt somewhat sluggish and weak.
Ever since Gilshak was nearly one-shot by Bai Qiu’s Spear of-Converging Thrust, it had remained on guard.
Otherwise, with its current stats, it wouldn’t even need to care about the spear’s attacks—after all, although its passive was fully stacked, its release skill was still on cooldown.
As for the energy loss from being hit by darksteel arrows—it was practically negligible.
Its dark power had reached a true pseudo-transcendent level: B-.
But as time passed, building after building—tall and short alike—collapsed under the aftermath of their battle.
Seeing that more than twenty minutes had passed, Gilshak began to grow anxious.
Setting aside Bai Qiu’s accuracy, his magic reserves were absurd, and his stamina showed no signs of decline—not even a hint of fatigue after fighting for so long!
Was this really something a human could possess?
What worried it more was that if the fight dragged on, once Bai Qiu regained the ability to use his Noble Phantasm, he would once again pose a lethal threat.
After all, causality-type Noble Phantasms were extremely troublesome.
Bai Qiu himself was also feeling a headache.
This thing was just too tanky—after fighting for so long, its presence hadn’t weakened at all.
Truly worthy of being a manifestation formed from B- level dark energy.
His magic reserves were still sufficient, and with the Flame Orb supplementing his energy, half the magic cost of his double-powered arrows was actually covered by the orb.
The real problem was his stock of darksteel arrows.
If this kept up, in another half hour, he would completely run out—and he had stockpiled thousands over many days.
All that effort would go down the drain in one fight.
After some thought, Bai Qiu decided to conserve resources.
He began using buildings and ruins as cover, switching to guerrilla tactics instead of pure suppression.
With the storm occasionally throwing objects at Gilshak, maintaining distance and kiting it was still manageable.
As time passed, the objects carried by the storm were no longer just small debris—cars, streetlights, electric scooters, and more were now being hurled toward Gilshak.
Sometimes, Bai Qiu would even add a kick to accelerate them.
While they couldn’t deal real damage, they could at least delay it for a moment…
Whoooosh…
A small truck was blown past Bai Qiu.
His eyes lit up.
Raising a hand, he infused it with magic to reinforce it briefly—then shoved the truck bed forward with force!
Bang!
Even with magical reinforcement, the truck bed caved in instantly under the push.
Without the enhancement, the metal would have been punched straight through by Bai Qiu’s strength!
Because of the way Bai Qiu applied force—slightly upward—the small truck surged forward while its rear lifted entirely into the air…
Only in this way could it block Gilshak’s line of sight, after all, his external avatar stood nearly five meters tall.
With a “slash!”, the truck was split cleanly in two from top to bottom, the halves flying off to either side.
But in that very instant, Bai Qiu seized the opportunity—carried by the storm, he shot forward like a cannonball, thrusting his spear straight at Gilshak.
Taking advantage of the moment right after that strike—when Gilshak needed time to recover—he launched a full-force attack!
Clearly startled, Gilshak instinctively raised his blade horizontally to block.
With a sharp clang, their energies collided!
Bai Qiu immediately retreated, catching the Fallen Dragon’s Bow to fire arrows and stall his opponent’s advance.
As for the Purgatory Darkflame Spear, he released it the moment it struck, and during his retreat, controlled it to fly back into his hand.
This brief exchange left Bai Qiu’s expression grim.
At the instant their energies clashed, he could clearly feel the gap in performance between his spear and that long blade.
Even when merely blocking, the recoil was something he didn’t dare endure head-on.
He could hardly imagine how miserable things would be in a direct confrontation.
Fortunately, Gilshak seemed highly wary of the spear and chose not to clash head-on, instead opting for passive defense—only then was Bai Qiu able to disengage safely.
Through this clash, Gilshak also realized that for Bai Qiu’s spear to unleash the devastating power it had before activating his Noble Phantasm, it wasn’t something easily achieved.
With that realization, Gilshak’s offensive grew increasingly aggressive.
As long as it wasn’t an attack on the level of Noble Phantasm, he was confident his avatar could withstand it—there was no longer any need to fight so cautiously.
Thus, his fighting style shifted from conservative to fully aggressive.
And this was exactly what Bai Qiu had anticipated.
The current Gilshak finally lived up to his near full C++ stats and B- level endurance.
At this point, Bai Qiu’s goal had been achieved.
Now that Gilshak had regained confidence and focused entirely on him, it was only natural that Bai Qiu—who had just feigned weakness—would appear “afraid.”
So once again, Bai Qiu rode the storm into the sky, widening the distance between them, firing arrows intermittently.
During this time, he even “barely” dodged several of Gilshak’s blade strikes, further convincing him that Bai Qiu had run out of tricks.
And so, another twenty minutes passed.
Bai Qiu remained in the sky, taking no damage while steadily wearing Gilshak down.
Finally… Gilshak began to realize that something was wrong.
After such a long time, every single time it was “just a little short” of hitting Bai Qiu—but every time it was “just a little short.”
Eventually, it finally realized— Bai Qiu had been stalling for time all along!
“So… you’re stalling?!” it looked up, its voice once again echoing from within Bai Qiu’s mind.
Bai Qiu grinned, answering with a fully drawn, double-powered arrow.
The answer needed no words.
After dragging things out this long, Bai Qiu no longer had to worry about its attention shifting—the sanctuary barrier in Zone 2225 was surely fully repaired by now.
And in another dozen minutes or so, the cooldown on his Noble Phantasm would be over.
At that point… it would be this thing’s death.
From the very beginning, it had been led around by Bai Qiu, and only now did it realize—but it was already far too late.
Realizing it had been toyed with, Gilshak was furious.
It bent its knees and leapt violently into the air toward Bai Qiu, slashing out several waves of dark blade energy along the way.
A height of over a hundred meters was something it could normally reach in a single jump at its current strength—but the storm granted by the fruit miracle was no joke.
Not only did it fully hinder him, it also filled his path with countless obstacles—and with Bai Qiu interfering as well…
What should have been a 100-meter leap was reduced to less than 30 meters before he was forced back down.
Even when he condensed dark energy beneath his feet to leap again, Bai Qiu had already ascended to over 300 meters in the air…
Gilshak, though seething with anger, had nowhere to vent it.
He hadn’t expected that even after activating his dark avatar and reaching pseudo-transcendent levels, his skills would be sealed by the Trial Grounds—and then, on top of that, be suppressed at every turn by this inexplicable storm…
And now, even if Bai Qiu stopped pretending altogether, laid his cards on the table, and simply kept a safe distance while kiting him—so what?
What could he even do about it?
I’m waiting on my cooldown… what are you waiting for?
— The end of the Chapter–
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