Even so, that move of Xiao Ji’s is basically maxed out in how hard it counters pure Defenders; even Feng Yuan will have to factor this in next time he’s pulling templates, though that’s only natural.
Even in Beast Tamer matches, it’s not just about raw power Order—various mutual countermeasures are also crucial. If you don’t have enough answers, a higher Order of strength is just for show.
That’s also why, after the Crystal Domain manifested, a huge number of Spirit Beasts rose to prominence in Beast Tamer matches: when their Ultimate Moves are combined with the Crystal Domain, they can form specialized counter effects against specific types.
Of course, that’s all future stuff; for now at least, the Crystal Domain still can’t impact the upcoming grand tournament too much.
The damage dealt by the Shadow Leopard is all being shifted onto the Shadow Turtle by the curse. At this moment the Shadow Leopard also realizes it and is forced to retreat; there’s no helping it—attacking the Flame Chasing Furry Dog right now is equivalent to attacking the Shadow Turtle, and it’s the kind that can’t inflict any damage on the Flame Chasing Furry Dog itself.
The Flame Chasing Furry Dog’s eyes light up and it activates Determined Flame Assault without hesitation. Determined Flame Assault will inflict a certain amount of damage on itself; in exchange, it has a Rule Level guaranteed-hit effect and a special Rule Level penetration effect against flame-based defenses.
If it weren’t for its power not being particularly high, this move would definitely be used all the time. However, in this situation, any Ultimate Move the Flame Chasing Furry Dog uses that would hurt itself instead has the damage taken by the Shadow Turtle, so naturally it can throw it out with zero scruples.
Of course, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog knows this special state can’t last long; the opponent Feng Yuan summoned this time is not that easy to deal with.
Just as the Flame Chasing Furry Dog expected, as it uses Determined Flame Assault to smack the Shadow Leopard flying, the Shadow Turtle also disengages from Absolute Defense. Xiao Ji immediately lets out a warning cry and cancels Curse Mark·Transfer.
It absolutely doesn’t believe the Shadow Turtle lacks ways to self-harm; this trick is strong because of its element of surprise. If you try to maintain it for too long, you’ll only end up in a one-for-one trade.
That’s still assuming both sides’ strength is similar—if either side is weaker, the weaker one dies first.
The Flame Chasing Furry Dog instantly launches Flaming Charge to evade the Shadow Leopard’s Void Instant Kill. The Shadow Leopard is naturally agile; when targeting Xiao Ji, that nimble body can suppress Xiao Ji, but against the Flame Chasing Furry Dog, it’s not that big a deal.
Its own speed isn’t bad either; it’s just only slightly better than the Shadow Leopard’s. What’s truly troublesome is Void Instant Kill, because that’s a Space Series Ultimate Move, which neither it nor Xiao Ji can block.
By relying on Void Instant Kill, the Shadow Leopard can instantly close in on the Flame Chasing Furry Dog. If it can’t dodge in time, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog will be heavily wounded in an instant.
After all, unlike Xiao Ji’s all-round development, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog’s strengths are offense and speed. Aside from that, it’s pretty mediocre; defense and stamina are severely weak points.
That makes it so the Flame Chasing Furry Dog simply can’t withstand more than a few of the Shadow Leopard’s hits.
Up in the sky, Xiao Ji is preparing to interfere in the battlefield again; otherwise, with how things are right now, being chased by the Shadow Leopard nonstop, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog has no way to launch effective attacks.
And also...
Its gaze falls on the Shadow Turtle, and Xiao Ji notices the other side taking advantage of the moment nobody’s watching to start using Healing Moves to recover.
If it doesn’t impose restrictions, the stamina it worked so hard to cut away via curses will quickly be patched back up.
Thinking that, Xiao Ji directly tosses out Curse·Life Reversal.
This one is a purely Curse Ultimate Move, the kind that can trigger Justice Punishment, and its effect is brutally simple: it inverts healing effects into damage effects.
Compared to a standard Healing Ban, this Ultimate Move is more effective specifically against Healing Moves.
With the curse slapped on, the Shadow Turtle naturally can’t keep secretly healing. As a pure Defender, it doesn’t have any Ultimate Move whose power scales up as its stamina drops; but Healing Ban doesn’t mean it can’t do other things.
Layer after layer of bulwarks are erected, and especially against Xiao Ji’s curses, the Shadow Turtle further spreads out Holy Soil for protection. With its feet on Holy Soil, curses will fail to take effect; even the Curse·Life Reversal on its body is automatically cleansed.
Of course, that’s not costless either: Holy Soil’s effect doesn’t distinguish friend from foe, and after clearing negative effects and curses, Holy Soil will slowly purge all statuses on the target standing within it, good and bad alike.
But the Shadow Turtle doesn’t need any buff states anyway; it’s a Defender—having shields to play with is enough.
With curses unable to keep working, Xiao Ji doesn’t mind; that last hit was just to break the situation first. If it doesn’t hit the turtle, then it can only hit the leopard—but because it had retreated to a support position earlier, the situation had become very unfavorable for it and the Flame Chasing Furry Dog.
So landing one on the turtle can effectively dampen the leopard’s momentum. After all, among Spirit Beast Ultimate Skills there are special moves that pressure the opponent with sheer "momentum": as long as you hold the advantage, you can massively boost the power of all your Ultimate Moves. Xiao Ji can’t be sure whether Feng Yuan gave the leopard such a move.
This time Xiao Ji is actually overthinking it a bit; Feng Yuan isn’t that over the top. The Shadow Leopard doesn’t have any momentum-type methods. However, once it’s stuck in a two-on-one situation, the Shadow Leopard begins relying on its own agility to look for openings.
Watching the Shadow Leopard flicker back and forth, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog gets a little annoyed. It lets out a long howl and plans to make a move on it, but at that moment Xiao Ji calls out from the sky to stop the Flame Chasing Furry Dog.
With a swish of its tail, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog doesn’t understand what Xiao Ji is planning, but that last time was pretty good, so it doesn’t act on its own.
Flames converge around it as the Flame Chasing Furry Dog starts to charge according to Xiao Ji’s instructions. At this moment, the Shadow Leopard launches a fierce attack. Xiao Ji lets out a long cry, and a pillar of ghostly blue fire surges up from the ground, sealing off every angle from which the Flame Chasing Furry Dog could be ambushed.
By forcibly altering Void Instant Kill’s landing point, the Shadow Leopard charges again. This time, Xiao Ji doesn’t hesitate: scarlet chains fall from the sky, and as that chain passes into the hexagonal Barrier, it instantly vanishes. In the next moment, scarlet chains abruptly erupt from the Shadow Turtle’s body, binding it tightly.
"That looks like one of Xiao Ji’s exclusive techniques?"
Touching his chin, Feng Yuan mutters. He really hasn’t seen this kind of Ultimate Move before, and its effect is quite odd: clearly the target was the Shadow Leopard, yet in the end it locked onto the Shadow Turtle.
No, not only that—Feng Yuan can sense that as the chains bind the Shadow Turtle, all of the Shadow Turtle’s Spatial Barrier-type Ultimate Moves have been forbidden.
A Sealing-type Ultimate Move? That is odd; that stuff may be exclusive, but it doesn’t seem to be a Divine Beast Technique, so why can it ignore Holy Soil’s effect and perform a Sealing?
Feng Yuan really can’t figure out what Xiao Ji is using here, but as Holy Soil continues to work, the chains start to crumble, and Feng Yuan guesses a possibility.
Holy Soil’s immunity targets the Spirit Beast itself that stands on the soil, but if Xiao Ji’s Sealing Ultimate Move is aiming at the Ultimate Moves themselves, it seems it can temporarily bypass the immunity effect.
However, in the subsequent Purification, this sort of loophole exploitation will definitely be cleansed away. So what exactly is it trying to do?
Looking at the Shadow Leopard, Feng Yuan feels Xiao Ji’s goal shouldn’t simply be to shut down the Shadow Turtle’s Ultimate Moves.
Before he can think further, changes have already appeared on the Shadow Leopard’s side. Xiao Ji’s attack has temporarily sealed most of the Shadow Turtle’s spatial defense methods, so the Shadow Leopard, which had planned to rely on Spatial Barriers to force an offensive, is directly struck by the ghostly blue flames.
Right now, because of the power inheritance effect, Xiao Ji’s Attributes have dropped drastically and can’t inflict much damage on the Shadow Leopard. However, Xiao Ji has spiked those ghostly blue flames with an extra effect.
Energy Burn—this is a trait commonly used among the Ghost Series; applied to an Ultimate Move, it can constantly drain the target’s Energy while dealing damage.
This move isn’t very effective against targets with high Energy recovery speed, but for the Shadow Leopard it’s enough to prevent it from regenerating Energy and even cause its internal Energy to rapidly diminish.
The Flame Chasing Furry Dog doesn’t give the Shadow Leopard any chance to retreat; as the ghostly blue flames hit, its own attack arrives as well.
The Incineration-trait Fire Dragon coils around the Shadow Leopard in an instant, continuously inflicting massive damage.
Because of Xiao Ji’s chains, the Shadow Turtle is completely unable to support the Shadow Leopard at this time. Energy Burn also disrupts the Shadow Leopard’s Energy flow, stretching out the casting time of its Ultimate Moves.
Enduring the burning pain from the Fire Dragon wrapped around it, the Shadow Leopard once again activates Void Instant Kill. The Fire Dragon, losing its target, turns into a skyfull of flames and returns to the Flame Chasing Furry Dog’s side.
Using Void Instant Kill to escape, the Shadow Leopard is in pretty bad shape at the moment; its previously sleek fur is now covered in scorched marks.
After all, the Flame Chasing Furry Dog is a Spirit Beast that specializes in offense, and it has inherited nearly seventy percent of Xiao Ji’s Attributes; its power is naturally high.
"Didn’t manage to one-shot it, huh. Still, this sequence was really something."
Touching his chin, Feng Yuan feels a bit of regret. The Shadow Leopard’s template is somewhat similar to the Flame Chasing Furry Dog—both are low-HP, low-defense Attackers. In such a matchup, failing to one-shot it can only mean that from the Legendary Order onward, one-hit kills have become difficult.

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