Chapter 180, Five seconds
Long Tianyu’s lunge carried genuine force behind it.
Not the force of someone who believed they could reverse the outcome. The force of someone who had decided that if the outcome was already decided, they would face it while moving forward rather than while staying still.
Lin Yi read that distinction in the Dragon Knight’ s approach the moment the lunge committed. The angle was not the angle of someone reaching for victory. It was the angle of someone claiming the right to their final exchange.
The dragon aura expanded as Long Tianyu closed the distance, the full expression of his level 192 Dragon God Tamer capability deployed without reservation. The translucent dragon construct that had circled him in its close configuration extended outward and drove forward ahead of him as a projected force, the primary technique of the class at its maximum output.
Lin Yi held his position.
He could have stepped away. Phantom Void Step would have placed him outside the dragon projection’s range before it arrived.
He chose not to.
Instead, he let the projection impact against Celestial Armor and absorbed the force with Unbreakable’s twenty-percent single-hit cap reducing the incoming damage to what Celestial Armor could manage.
Long Tianyu read the absence of the sidestep and drove the follow up physical strike into the gap the projection impact had been designed to create. He was fast. Years of combat experience produced a follow-up that did not waste the window.
Lin Yi caught the strike arm at the forearm with his left hand, the same technique he had used in the first class of 1st Level A at Heavenly Phoenix Academy against Zhao Tianming, and redirected the momentum downward.
Long Tianyu was undoubtedly stronger than Zhao Tianming had been and considerably more experienced, and the redirect did not produce the same clean result it had in the seminar room. Long Tianyu converted with the strike into a grapple attempt, using the redirect’s contact point as a grip location and twisting to create a throw angle.
Lin Yi activated Sovereign Step, the pressure wave generated by the footstep moving outward and pushing Long Tianyu’s center of gravity out of the throw arc. The throw failed. Long Tianyu landed on his feet and immediately drove an elbow strike at Lin Yi’s mid section.
The elbow connected with his Iron Body Fortification passive.
It did not penetrate it.
Long Tianyu felt the resistance and recognized what it was. His expression did not change. He drove a knee upward toward Lin Yi’s injured thigh, the same location Cang Yutian had targeted, the experienced combatant’s instinct to address a known structural vulnerability.
Lin Yi shifted his weight and took the knee on the outer quad rather than the thigh wound location. He pushed Long Tianyu’s leading shoulder with his free hand, the push carrying Strength 5,924 in a controlled output that was not a combat strike but a directive, placing Long Tianyu two meters back.
They separated.
Long Tianyu was breathing more heavily than he had been at the start of the lunge. The dragon aura had returned to its close configuration, the projection technique exhausted, the class ability requiring recovery time before another full deployment.
His golden eyes were steady. His stance was the stance of someone who had taken everything the exchange produced and was organizing themselves for what came next.
He was not close to winning.
He knew that.
Lin Yi watched him. Long Tianyu had been on his knees under Sovereign’s Presence and had risen anyway. Had taken the two exchange dismantling that had preceded the spiritual pressure and had risen anyway. Had heard everything Lin Yi had said about strength and outcomes and the weak not deciding what they become, and had launched himself forward anyway.
Not from denial. From the look in his eyes before the lunge, Long Tianyu had already accepted the faith. He had accepted it fully and without self deception, which was itself a kind of dignity that Lin Yi had not expected to find impressive and found impressive regardless.
He is doing this to fall honorably, Lin Yi thought. Not to win. Not from hope. He has already made his peace with the outcome and wants to meet it on his feet.
He looked at Long Tianyu across the two meter separation.
"Five seconds," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu heard it. The words produced no visible reaction, no narrowing of the eyes, no change in stance. He understood what they meant and he had already decided how he was meeting them.
He charged.
Lin Yi activated Absolute Domain in the first second. All three combined effects deploying simultaneously, the domain expanding to maximum radius, the amplification and suppression effects running at triple values. Long Tianyu hit the domain’s edge and his movement speed slowed under the suppression, the dragon aura’ s output reduced by the domain’s combined effect.
In the second second, Lin Yi activated Attribute Surge and Dragon Sovereign simultaneously. The combined multipliers elevated his already extraordinary attribute values to a temporary peak that operated in a different tier from his standard output.
In the third second, he moved. Not toward Long Tianyu’s current position. Toward where Long Tianyu would be at the end of the current stride’s completion, the Predatory Instinct passive providing the movement trajectory in real time. He arrived at the arrival point before Long Tianyu did.
He drove the Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade forward in Absolute Slash. Defense ignoring. Full Strength scaled output without reduction from armor or passive resistance. Not at lethal depth. At the specific force level that would deplete the remaining HP above a threshold that left Long Tianyu functional but unable to continue combat.
The blade connected.
The impact was clean and the force was absolute and Long Tianyu’ s body received it with the armor’s defense doing what they could do, which was not enough, and the Dragon Knight went down.
Both knees. Both hands. Head down.
The fifth second elapsed.