【……Three…Two…One…Fight!】

As the system's announcement rang out, the preparation time ended, and the barrier vanished accordingly.

The central battle between [Warring States] and [Loser Alliance] officially began.

"Pegasus Meteor Fist!"

The first to attack was… undoubtedly Tianma Xingkong.

Little Ma's strengths and weaknesses can be summed up in the same sentence—he never thinks too much.

Regardless of the opponent's thoughts and tactics, he always throws out a Meteor Fist first.

In an instant, fighting energy surged, fist shadows burst forth, and countless white and blue fist lights attacked the two members of [Warring States] like a meteor shower.

"Tch… not only Bi Laoshi, this guy is also tricky…" Facing the unavoidable dense attack, Imagawa Yoshimoto condensed a light green shield in front of him to defend; he originally thought that this kind of move only pursued speed and range, and its power wouldn't be too strong… but after actually receiving the attack, he was surprised to find that each fist shadow had considerable destructive power, far exceeding his expectations.

However, Oda Ai, who was standing beside him, didn't make any special response to the attack; she simply maintained her stance, relying on the fighting energy field around her to burn away all the attacks.

"Damn it…" At this moment, Oda Ai's gaze and attention were still focused on Bi Laoshi, and she thought to herself, "Hiding in the back, maintaining that vigilant state, while letting his teammates fight us two-on-one… Once we show a weakness, he'll seize the opportunity to instantly kill us… What a terrifying man." Thinking of this, she changed her mind, "Oh well… although the opponent's lineup is unexpected, I've already teamed up with Imagawa, so I can only use the original tactics…"

"Imagawa!" In the next second, Oda Ai suddenly called out to her teammate, "Get ready!"

Outsiders wouldn't understand this, but teammates who had trained together would definitely understand. Before her voice even faded, Imagawa Yoshimoto unhesitatingly activated his title skill on Oda—

[Name: Three-Step Phase]

[Special Ability Type: Active]

[Consumption: 500 Stamina, 50 Spirit Energy]

[Effect: Creates a "Three-Step Phase" for oneself or a companion (limited to once per script entry, lasting thirty-nine seconds; when activated on a companion, the target must be within one's line of sight)]

[Note: The "Three-Step Phase" cannot make physical or non-physical contact with friendly units; the damage caused by the "Three-Step Phase" is identical to that which the main body can cause; the "Three-Step Phase" cannot be destroyed by any effects in the current time dimension.]

Just looking at the description, it's impossible to intuitively feel how strong this title skill is, because the written explanation never clarifies what this "Three-Step Phase" actually is; in fact, to put it bluntly… that so-called "Three-Step Phase" is "oneself from about three seconds ago."

Taking the current Oda Ai as an example, starting from the moment Imagawa Yoshimoto successfully used the skill on her, about three seconds later, Oda Ai's "Three-Step Phase" will appear; from an observer's point of view, the "Three-Step Phase" is a semi-transparent, ghost-like Oda Ai, whose every move is three seconds slower than the "current" Oda Ai.

No matter what Oda Ai does, her "Three-Step Phase" will do the same thing after a delay; for example, if she stands somewhere and swings a knife forward, her "Three-Step Phase" will swing the same knife in the same way, at the same position, three seconds later; or if she uses a spirit-energy consuming S-level skill on a certain target, her "Three-Step Phase" will replay it three seconds later, casting an identical skill from the previous position…

Seeing this, many people have probably guessed—that's right, this title skill, which is related to the "power of time," was also generated after "Twilight of the Gods."

There's no doubt that this move is very strong; especially when used on a top expert like Oda Ai, it has the effect of "one plus one is greater than two."

According to Sasaki Ming's original plan, he could at least encounter either Honghu or Zhao Yingwang in the "central battle." At that time, he would let Oda Ai, with the "Three-Step Phase" attached, launch a continuous fierce attack… which would definitely kill that opponent whose main body's physical skills were weaker.

However, the current situation has changed. When facing the combination of Tianma Xingkong and Bi Laoshi, this move may not be able to instantly kill anyone (anyway, the Warring States side doesn't think it can), but relatively speaking… it's still more likely to succeed by attacking the "weaker" one.

Therefore, Oda Ai, who had received the buff, moved swiftly and stealthily, raising her blade and advancing rapidly, the blade pointing at… none other than Tianma Xingkong.

Clang—

That first resounding clang had already shattered the sky, opening the prelude to a round of extremely fast exchanges.

Fast! Faster than lightning.

The two's movements and attack speeds had both reached their peak. Blade against fist, suddenly a series of metallic clashes rang out.

Endless blade shadows formed a continuous array, a bit of joy, a bit of recklessness.

Infinite fist lights spread like wings, the left hand shattering the sky, the right hand splitting the earth.

In less than ten seconds, the blade and fist had collided hundreds of times, the two fighting evenly matched, neither gaining the slightest advantage.

But… objectively speaking, Oda Ai was still at a disadvantage; because the "Three-Step Phase" had failed to play its due role.

Faced with the fierce attacks of Oda Ai and her "Three-Step Phase," Tianma Xingkong made the most correct choice in the first instant—to move, and to move rapidly in the same direction without stopping.

This can be said to be the situation Oda Ai feared the most, because this kind of tactic would completely nullify the effect of the "Three-Step Phase."

A little thought makes it clear… as long as Little Ma doesn't return to the route or position he passed through in the past three seconds even once during the battle, then the other party's "shadow from three seconds ago" is equivalent to a decoration.

If Oda Ai were now facing Honghu or Zhao Yingwang, she could naturally rely on her speed advantage to launch a figure-eight or even more complex intersecting encirclement attack around the other's main body, in which case the power of the "Three-Step Phase" could be fully demonstrated.

However, Tianma Xingkong isn't slower than Oda Ai in terms of speed. Once he sees through the weaknesses of the "Three-Step Phase" and makes the above reaction, Oda Ai has no way to deal with it.

"Tch… clearly a fool, but his combat intuition is surprisingly good…" Oda thought to herself while continuing to exchange blows with her opponent, "Faced with a move he's seeing for the first time, he made the simplest and most effective response without even thinking; and… this kid is obviously stronger than he was in S2…" Thinking of this, a clear anger flashed in her eyes, "Speaking of which… it was him back then too… who forcibly fought me to a draw while I was using a ‘consumption skill’… and now he's fighting me evenly again… it's so infuriating! Why is it that a genius like me is evenly matched with a hot-blooded idiot like you!"

The more Oda Ai thought about it, the angrier she got. A genius like her, who could crush the vast majority of opponents with talent alone, and who occupied a large amount of the studio's resources; whose combination of skills and equipment was top-notch in all aspects, and who could even fight the Four Pillar Gods head-on… but she couldn't win against a hot-blooded idiot who only knew one or two skills. This could no longer be described as "humiliation."

Enraged, she made her old mistake—putting the competition and the overall situation completely behind her, and falling into a state of self-absorbed obsession, vowing to fight her opponent to the death.

From this moment on, Oda Ai's attacks no longer left any room for maneuver; the consumption of stamina and spirit energy, the cooldown time of skills, the changes in other parts of the battlefield… she ignored all of these. The only thing in her eyes now was—to kill Tianma Xingkong.

If she could maintain her previous composure, she would have noticed… at this moment, her teammate Imagawa Yoshimoto had actually caught up and was planning to use his movements to stop Little Ma's movement; if Imagawa succeeded, then Little Ma would be in a very dangerous situation in the last ten seconds before the "Three-Step Phase" disappeared.

Unfortunately, Oda Ai didn't notice these things. Her mind was completely focused on the high-speed exchange with Tianma Xingkong…

In that instant, Oda, who had changed her tactics and accelerated her pace, successfully forced out a flaw in Little Ma.

Suddenly, Oda's ultimate move appeared!

The blade came from nowhere, and death was unrecognizable.

In the moment of battle will collision, only the strong prove undefeated.

The first encounter of killing moves added blood to the battlefield, but this blood… came from both people's bodies.