Many times, Shark Wu deliberately left openings, trying to lure his opponent into attacking first, but his target never took the bait.

He was a mighty warrior of the sea folk, yet a human far weaker than him had managed to wear away so much of his time.

Shark Wu saw it as a disgrace—a provocation!

If his peers, those of roughly equal standing, found out, they’d laugh at him for ages.

But as a battle-hardened warrior, after dwelling on all those pointless thoughts, he actually managed to calm down.

The fact that his opponent had pushed him this far meant they possessed formidable strength;

A powerful opponent like this was worthy of Shark Wu giving it his all.

Once his mind had settled, he began to wait. As the stronger fighter, he had a tremendous advantage in stamina!

All he had to do was wait patiently...

And then...

The faster the two fought, the more frenzied they became;

Though they fought at close quarters, their battle stayed within a radius of just a few meters, yet the tornadoes spun up by their movements nearly shredded everything around them;

The aftershocks of countless wind blades and slashes plowed through the surrounding space, tens of meters in every direction, again and again;

Deep craters and cracks covered the flagship’s deck, plain to see without even looking for them.

Perhaps because the sea folk had called for them, all the sharkmen had gone to surround the other area. So though the battle here was fierce and thunderously loud, it didn’t attract many lesser troops;

The few sharkmen who did show up couldn’t even withstand the battle’s aftershocks.

After a quarter of an hour of such a brutal fight, Anliexi had lost count of how many times he’d swung his sword;

After that, his stamina finally began to fail him. His speed inevitably slowed, and he could no longer keep up the relentless barrage that had pinned his opponent down like a rainstorm;

Then Shark Wu caught his breath, and his eyes suddenly sharpened like blades;

It stopped caring about Anliexi’s attacks. It pulled back its trident, drew its body in slightly, then swelled up, letting out a furious roar as it did.

The unintelligible language rose and fell in a distinctive rhythm, calling forth a unique power;

Before Anliexi’s very eyes, the sharkman’s body swelled even further;

Special patterns began to appear across its pale gray skin, already streaked with fine lines of blood, while its body took on a bronze-like metallic sheen.

Shark Wu had no forbidden spells, but thanks to its talent for magic, it had mastered a first-rate art of enhancement;

It wasn’t quite absolute defense, but the protection it now possessed was still astonishing.

In the blink of an eye, Shark Wu had become a four-meter-tall figure of green bronze, its shadow falling over Anliexi’s head.

Anliexi’s sword was fast, but that was precisely why he couldn’t stop it.

His instincts sensed the danger, but he still didn’t stop swinging;

The countless afterimages of his sword vanished, revealing the rapier once more as it shot forward at an unparalleled speed.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Amid the long, ringing roar of metal, Anliexi felt his hand go numb. His sword shuddered violently, as if it were about to leap out of his grasp.

But what shocked him even more was this:

Even with his sword’s keen edge, all it managed to leave on his opponent’s bronze body were two thin white marks. It hadn’t even made a wound.

He hadn’t broken through its defense!

How was he supposed to fight this?

Anliexi froze in surprise as Shark Wu’s massive body spread its chest;

The stagnant air rippled outward, and Anliexi was immediately blasted into the air;

But just as he instinctively tried to use the force to retreat, several ropes made of flowing water swiftly bound his arms and legs.

Just like that, he was trapped in midair.

Sea folk combat technique: Water Binding!

The several strands of condensed water weren’t very strong, but they had one advantage: they made no sound and caused little disturbance, making them difficult to detect before they snared their target.

Before this, Anliexi’s attacks had been so fast that Shark Wu hadn’t had a moment to catch its breath;

But after just one brief lull, it unleashed its killing move: using its current body to ignore attacks and create distance, then using Water Binding to hinder its opponent’s movements;

Over the course of its fighting career, it had faced countless speed-focused enemies. More than it could count had died to this combination.

“You coward! You should be proud to die by my trident!”

Shark Wu roared and raised its trident high. It plunged down like a falling star.

The trident cut through the air without a breeze, without a shriek, without an afterimage, without a towering aura, without a flash of brilliant color;

The weapon simply moved forward, as ordinarily as a child swinging a stick. And yet this was Shark Wu’s most powerful strike.

All its strength was gathered in silence; all its destructive power was concentrated on the blade;

The traces it left in the air lingered long after it passed. Even a powerhouse of the quasi-City-Toppling rank wouldn’t willingly take this strike head-on.

This was the true power of the sea folk’s mighty warrior!

Anliexi felt just how terrifying his opponent was. Beneath this sky, it seemed as if dark clouds had shrouded everything.

Shark Wu drew closer and closer. Its trident was about to pierce him;

As death descended, it brought boundless terror—the fear instinctive to all living things;

Yet that instinct made Anliexi’s body tremble, not from fear, but from excitement.

When fear grows too intense, sometimes it transforms into courage.

He desperately drew elemental power from nature.

He didn’t need to concern himself with which element it was;

Once he’d gathered enough elemental power, he’d know what to do next.

The instant a ring of flames began to whirl around him, some of the skin on Anliexi’s body was burned. But at the same time, the elemental attack didn’t let him down;

As the temperature abruptly soared, Water Binding broke apart.

The instant he broke free, Anliexi spun in midair and swept his rapier around, striking the trident;

The weapons collided with a bang, and he felt an explosive force at the point of impact;

Fortunately, when the enemy’s strength struck him, Anliexi’s body swayed slightly under the effect of Instinctive Dodge;

In an instant, the trident swept past so close that it nearly grazed his body;

In the direction its prongs pointed, the ground caved in, leaving a massive trench that stretched a hundred meters away.

Seeing Anliexi evade its killing blow, Shark Wu paused for a moment, admiring his reaction;

It thought:

Its opponent was every bit the terrifying warrior who had held it in a struggle from the very start. His ability to seize a fleeting opening was truly razor-sharp;

If they were evenly matched, Shark Wu knew it would have to think about how to escape.

But there were no what-ifs in this world. It was time to end the fight!

Shark Wu gripped the end of its trident with one hand and swung it sideways;

This strike lacked the restraint and power of the last one. Instead, it roared like a gale sweeping across the land.

There was no way to dodge this strike.

Suspended in midair, Anliexi had nothing to push off from. He couldn’t use speed magic, and had no way to evade.

If he couldn’t dodge, then he wouldn’t dodge!

Anliexi’s gaze was sharp as a blade. He took a deep breath, then slashed his rapier through the air.

With defense abandoned, Anliexi used the style of swordsmanship he knew best;

His sword was wrapped in a wind blade more than ten meters long, and came slashing down like a hurricane from the heavens.

This should have been Anliexi’s strongest strike, and the most terrifying attack he’d ever unleashed;

He’d never before swung a wind blade more than ten meters long. Now he had;

And yet Shark Wu didn’t care about this attack at all.

Its body had been strengthened by magic. It had no reason to fear an attack like this.

And that was exactly what happened. The wind blade struck its shoulder without drawing a spray of blood or making it take even half a step back;

But strangely, the wind blade, which should have vanished, twisted as if it were alive;

Like a whip, the wind blade curled around Shark Wu’s body, then reappeared from beneath its armpit a moment later.

Reflected in Shark Wu’s green pupils was a section of pure white wind blade!

After discovering Shark Wu’s terrifying defensive physique, Anliexi had deliberately kept hidden the magic that could change the direction of his attacks,

His opponent’s defense was far stronger than he’d expected, but he believed that

no matter how powerful its defenses were, it had to have weaknesses—its eyes, nose, and mouth, for example.

But his opponent would surely guard those weaknesses with constant vigilance.

So he’d been waiting for an opening;

Being driven this far was the last thing he wanted, but it also meant his opponent had let its guard down. It meant his chance had come.

And so he unleashed this astonishing, almost supernatural sword strike!

The next second, a sword’s ringing cry filled the air, and dust billowed everywhere.

Beneath the trident, Anliexi flew away like a volleyball struck with tremendous force;

He smashed through a layer of armor plating on the flagship and hurtled more than ten meters before finally coming to a stop;

An ordinary person’s body would have been reduced to a mangled mass of flesh and blood.

As a mid-tier powerhouse, Anliexi was still alive;

Just moments ago, as the trident was about to strike him, his body had curled up instinctively, protecting his vital organs.

Even though he’d completely lost all feeling in his lower body, he immediately pushed himself up with his hands and looked ahead.

A dozen or so meters away, the dust slowly settled.

Shark Wu’s body came into view. Its earlier imposing presence was gone;

It stood where it was, its body back to its normal size, the bronze color completely faded from its skin;

Its left eye was nothing but a dark, bottomless-looking hole, and blood soaked half its face.

Its trident had been tossed to the ground. One hand seemed to be trying to cover the wound in its eye, but it could barely muster any strength.

A gurgling sound spilled from its mouth along with a gush of blood;

The light in its other eye held many emotions that could be read...

Disbelief, regret, fear!

A few seconds later, Shark Wu’s massive body fell. In the regret of a truth it couldn’t accept, it met the end of its life;

It fell far from its homeland, kicking up dust and staining the ground with blood.

Anliexi fell too. After seeing the result he’d wanted, he collapsed onto the deck, content.