【……Three…Two…One…fight!】

As the system's announcement echoed, the preparation time ended, and the barrier vanished.

The mid-tier battle between [Sengoku] 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 one sentence: he never thinks too much.

Regardless of the opponent's thoughts and tactics, he always starts with a Meteor Fist.

In an instant, qi surged, fist shadows burst forth, and countless white-blue punches rained down on the two members of [Sengoku] like a meteor shower.

"Tch... not just Bi Laoshi, this guy is also troublesome..." Facing the unavoidable, dense attack, Imagawa Yoshi conjured a light green shield in front of him to block; he thought that such a move only pursued speed and range, and its power wouldn't be too strong... But after actually receiving the blow, he was surprised to find that each punch shadow had considerable destructive power, far exceeding his expectations.

However, Oda Ai, standing aside, did not make any special response to the attack; she simply maintained her stance, using the qi field around her body 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, "He's hiding in the back, maintaining that watchful state, while having 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, "Well... although the opponent's lineup is unexpected, I've already teamed up with Imagawa, so I can only use the original tactics..."

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

Outsiders wouldn't understand these words, but teammates who had trained together certainly would. Before her voice faded, Imagawa Yoshi unhesitatingly activated his title skill on Oda—

[Name: Three-Step Phase]

[Special Ability Type: Active]

[Cost: 500 Stamina, 50 Spirit Power]

[Effect: Creates a "Three-Step Phase" for oneself or an ally (limited to once per script entry, lasts for thirty-nine seconds; when cast on an ally, 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 dealt by the "Three-Step Phase" is identical to that of the original; the "Three-Step Phase" cannot be destroyed by any effects in the current timeline.]

Just reading the description of this title skill doesn't give a direct sense of how strong it is, because the written explanation never states what this "Three-Step Phase" actually is; in simpler terms... the so-called "Three-Step Phase" is "oneself from about three seconds ago."

Taking Oda Ai as an example, from the moment Imagawa Yoshi successfully used the skill on her, about three seconds later, Oda Ai's "Three-Step Phase" would appear; from an outsider's perspective, the "Three-Step Phase" is a semi-transparent, ghost-like Oda Ai, whose every move is three seconds slower than the "current" Oda Ai.

Whatever Oda Ai does, her "Three-Step Phase" will do the same thing after a delay; for example, if she stands somewhere and swings her sword forward, her "Three-Step Phase" will swing the same sword in the same way, in the same location, three seconds later; or if she uses a spirit-power consuming S-rank skill on a target, three seconds later, her "Three-Step Phase" will cast a completely identical skill in the same location, like a replay...

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 "Ragnarok."

There is no doubt that this move is very powerful; especially when used on a top master like Oda Ai, it has a "one plus one is greater than two" effect.

According to Sasaki Mei's original plan, in the "mid-tier battle," they would at least encounter Honghu or Zhaoying Wang. At that time, Oda Ai, with the "Three-Step Phase," would launch a sudden attack... and would definitely be able to kill the opponent with weaker close combat abilities.

However, the situation has changed. When facing the combination of Tianma Xingkong and Bi Laoshi, this move may not be able to instantly kill anyone (at least Sengoku thinks so), but relatively speaking... attacking the "weaker" one has a better chance of success.

Therefore, Oda Ai, after receiving the buff, moved swiftly, raising her sword and advancing rapidly, her blade pointing at... Tianma Xingkong.

Clang—

The first clang shattered the sky, and opened the prelude to a round of rapid exchanges.

Fast! Faster than lightning.

The two's movements and attack speeds had reached their peak. Blade against fist, instantly sparking the sound of clashing metal.

Endless blade shadows, dancing in formation, a few points of joy, a few points of wildness.

Infinite fist shadows, spreading like wings, the left hand destroying 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 at a disadvantage; because the "Three-Step Phase" failed to play its due role.

Faced with the onslaught of Oda Ai and her "Three-Step Phase," Tianma Xingkong made the most correct choice at the first moment: to move, and to move quickly in the same direction non-stop.

This can be said to be the situation Oda Ai fears the most, because such tactics would completely nullify the effect of the "Three-Step Phase."

A little thought makes it clear... as long as Little Ma never returns to the route or location he passed through in the past three seconds during the battle, then the opponent's "shadow from three seconds ago" is just for show.

If Oda Ai were facing Honghu or Zhaoying Wang now, she could naturally rely on her speed advantage to circle around the opponent's main body, launching a "figure eight" or even more complex crisscrossing, enveloping attacks. That way, the power of the "Three-Step Phase" could be fully demonstrated.

However, Tianma Xingkong isn't slower than Oda Ai in speed. Once he sees through the weakness of the "Three-Step Phase" and reacts as described above, Oda Ai will be helpless.

"Tch... he's clearly a fool, but his battle intuition is surprisingly good..." Oda thought to herself as she continued to exchange blows with her opponent, "Facing a move he's seeing for the first time, he made the simplest and most effective response without even thinking; and... this kid is clearly stronger than he was in S2..." Thinking of this, a few obvious glints of anger flashed in her eyes, "Speaking of which... it was also him back then... who forced a mutual destruction with me when I used a 'consumption skill'... and now he's fighting me evenly... It's so infuriating! Why is it that a genius like me is evenly matched with a dumbass like you!"

The more Oda Ai thought about it, the angrier she got. A genius like herself, who could crush most opponents with talent alone and who occupied a lot of studio resources; whose skill equipment and other combinations were top-notch, and could even fight one of the Four Pillar Gods head-on... But she couldn't beat a hot-blooded idiot who only knew one or two skills. This could no longer be described as "humiliation."

In her extreme anger, she made her old mistake—throwing all competitions and the overall situation to the back of her mind, and falling into a self-absorbed state of vowing to fight her opponent to the death.

From this moment on, Oda Ai's attack no longer held back in any way; she didn't care about the consumption of stamina and spirit power, the cooldown time of skills, or the changes in other parts of the battlefield... she only had one thing in her eyes now—to kill Tianma Xingkong.

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

Unfortunately, Oda Ai failed to notice these things, her mind completely focused on the high-speed exchange with Tianma Xingkong...

In that instant, Oda, who changed her tactics and sped up the pace, successfully forced a flaw out of Little Ma.

Suddenly, Oda's ultimate move appeared!

The blade came from nowhere, and death was unrecognizable.

The moment the fighting spirit collided, only the strong proved invincible.

When the killing strike first met, blood was shed on the battlefield, but this blood... came from both of them.