The collision happened in a flash, and the thunderous boom echoed across the entire battlefield, making everyone still locked in combat stop involuntarily. The members of the Wild Beast Legion watching from afar were left stunned, their eyes fixed on Fire Dance in the distance as though time itself had frozen in that moment.
They simply couldn't believe that the killing technique unleashed by the Wild Beast Legion's number one assassin, Rain Ink, had been so effortlessly neutralized.
After all, once Rain Ink activated his Divine Phantom, his speed was utterly unmatched. After executing the Nine Shadow Steps, his five figures became virtually indistinguishable—even a Domain master could only gamble on a one-in-five chance of hitting the real one. Yet Fire Dance had shown zero hesitation, easily matching Rain Ink's attack speed before sending him flying with a single strike.
"Repelled?"
The various factions and independent experts observing from Silverwing Town through the Magic Water Mirror were all struck dumb, unable to react for a moment.
Everyone in Silverwing Town understood just how terrifying Rain Ink was. After all, he had once fought the War Puppets and Hell Chariots outside Silverwing Town, single-handedly destroying a Hell Chariot right under the Black God Legion's nose and nearly crippling a War Puppet in the process.
Yet now he had been easily repelled by Fire Dance. How could anyone not be shocked?
"This… this can't be!" Yan Tianxing stared blankly at Fire Dance, his mind reeling with a mixture of shock and elation.
He hadn't expected Fire Dance to be this powerful—she had actually managed to hold her ground against Rain Ink!
Facing Rain Ink's killing technique, even he would have been dead for certain. Setting aside the fact that he couldn't match Rain Ink's speed, even if he could, his odds of blocking the attack would have been a mere one in five.
And just as everyone was reeling from what they had witnessed, Rain Ink landed and began studying Fire Dance with careful scrutiny.
"You're impressive! You're the first person to block me head-on since I first learned the Nine Shadow Steps." Rain Ink's gaze was filled with admiration and excitement as he looked at Fire Dance. "The question is whether you can handle my next move as well. This is also an application of the Nine Shadow Steps that I've never used on anyone before. I hope you won't disappoint me!"
As soon as Rain Ink finished speaking, he split from one person into two—two identical figures, their auras perfectly indistinguishable. These were true solid clones.
Rain Ink activated the Nine Shadow Steps once more. The two Rain Inks instantly became ten, all converging on Fire Dance from every direction. The sight made Yan Tianxing's scalp tingle.
Using combat skills with clones was extraordinarily difficult. Clones weren't the original body, so controlling them was cumbersome—even he could barely manage some basic techniques. The fact that Rain Ink could execute something as complex as the Nine Shadow Steps spoke to a level of mastery that was simply staggering.
Ten Rain Inks, all impossible to tell apart. If only one of them were real, that would be one thing—but two were genuine. At such terrifying speeds, even if one could block one of them, there was no way to block the other's attack as well, unless one possessed a solid clone skill. But solid clone skills were incredibly rare; not everyone was as monstrous as Shi Feng, who could conjure eight solid clones at once.
"This Zero Wing main force captain is really something—making Captain Rain Ink go all out like this. Black Panther's death wasn't unwarranted," Hui Mang muttered under his breath as he watched Rain Ink's ten figures.
This technique that Rain Ink had created had even earned praise from their commander, Jing Feng, who had admitted he couldn't withstand it either—unless one possessed a long-duration invincibility skill, severe injury was inevitable.
And this time, Rain Ink's offensive was clearly different from before. The ten figures weaved and crisscrossed around Fire Dance in a chaotic dance, like celestial demons gone wild, dazzling to the eye. It was obvious he no longer wanted to collide head-on with Fire Dance, given her advantage in raw power.
Rain Ink circled around Fire Dance for a brief moment, then all ten figures stabbed toward her from different angles.
Shadow Kill!
Instantly, the ten figures transformed into ten black shadows that shot toward Fire Dance at even greater speed. The surrounding space grew hazy in that moment.
Just as the ten black shadows closed to within a yard of Fire Dance, she—who had stood motionless until now—swung her Thousand Transformations once more, tracing a light arc through the air. A crescent-shaped spatial rift instantly split open before her.
The spatial rift spread rapidly around Fire Dance like a protective barrier, expanding outward at such speed that no one could react before two muffled impacts rang out. Two figures were sent hurtling fifteen yards away.
Those two figures were Rain Ink himself and his solid clone. The solid clone's health had instantly plummeted by more than half, while Rain Ink himself had lost a fifth of his HP.
"This is impossible!"