All hell broke loose after the first shots had been fired.
The remaining ten Martial Seniors instantly activated their Martial Heart.
A maelstrom of pressure unlike anything before washed over the Floating Sect, dousing everything and everybody in the glory of their might.
The combined bloodlust of twelve Martial Seniors was a sight to behold.
Every sentient lifeform below the Squire Realm quivered in fear.
It was as though the very island itself had held its breath.
Duchess Lioma leaped back with an incredulous expression. She truly knew that the Martial Seniors of the Floating Sect were beyond strong due to their environment, yet it was an entirely different thing to feel that strength, especially for the first time.
She had used a powerful technique, yet Senior Sarak had stopped her attack with a single hand, furthermore, he didn't even leverage his body's power in a better position. He was standing upright and normally.
The gap between them was painfully clear.
However, there were nine of them for that very reason.
Senior Sarak narrowed his eyes as two more shot forward appearing at his side, and launching powerful attacks at him. One of them appeared to be a rare heat-oriented Martial Artist, completely enveloped in flames while the other Martial Artist wielded an axe.
And yet...
BOOM!
A shockwave emanated from his body rippling through the atmosphere, pushing both of them away from him.
The two of them leaped back, shocked.
He had just casually withstood the attacks of two Martial Seniors with seemingly no damage whatsoever!
"Not a single scratch..." Duchess Lioma gritted her teeth as she activated another technique.
He simply brought his hands together in a praying gesture, glaring at them with sharp eyes. "You are not qualified to harm me."
It could have been dismissed as an empty boast...
Yet they weren't able to.
The three of them gritted their teeth as they began coordinating their attacks, looking to pierce his seemingly invulnerable defense.
"Together!"
The three of them blasted forward, tearing through the very air as they shot towards their target.
BOOM!!
"Urgh!" The three of them were blasted away with a titanically powerful shockwave that his body released.
The sheer power of the shockwave shook the very island to its core!
"He didn't even move!"
"He's too tough!"
('What is happening?') Duchess Lioma paused for a moment, glaring at him. ('Not only do our attacks not do any damage, but every time we strike him, his body releases that annoyingly powerful shockwave even though he didn't actually make any motions to activate it.')
It was absurd that he was able to handle three attacks so well with seemingly such little effort.
Furthermore, he did it in that ridiculous stance with a praying gesture.
('If his muscles aren't moving... then that means that power is coming from somewhere else... but wh-') Her eyes widened as she realized the truth. "He is absorbing power and turning it into fuel for his own attack!"
Senior Sarak did not respond, but inwardly he was not pleased that they discovered the principle of his technique that easily.
His Abyssal Mirror Style was a counter-offensive style that was highly monolithic and centered around absorbing his opponent's power even before they reached him, through the dense air of Ajanta Island, before absorbing it and radiating it back in the form of a shockwave through the air.
He applied a breathing technique to make the density of air around him grow progressively higher, making it function as a form of a cushion that allowed him to absorb the impact better. His Martial Body had evolved in a way that could permeate power from one end to the other remarkably well, allowing him to release a shockwave with the power that he absorbed.
In an environment like Ajanta Island, both the absorption part of the technique as well as the release of the shockwave were greatly empowered by the dense atmosphere.
On top of that, after having grown deeply familiar with the environment, he had been able to increase the power of the technique to far higher heights by optimizing the technique to his surroundings.
It meant that just the task of hurting Senior Sarak was absurdly difficult, even for powerful Martial Seniors.
"He can absorb impacts...?"
"If so, it's going to be extremely difficult to get him."
"It's three Martial Hearts versus one. Aim for his vitals." Duchess Lioma growled. "Pound at him till he bleeds."
The three of them threw themselves at him with fierce determination. They were determined to take him down before their time was up. They did not want to end up in a situation where they would have been unable to even harm him by the end of the battle!
Fortunately for them, not everything was negative. The fact that the man seemingly had no active offensive prowess was definitely a positive to them, it meant that they did not need to be very worried about active attacks from him. In fights between Martial Artists, both sides needed to be very wary about the active offensive prowess of their opponents, and thus needed to dedicate attention, and power to making sure they were ready to defend at all times. They also couldn't abandon defense to rush into an aggressive offensive lash-out without any backlash from the involved parties at the very least.
However, in this case, they could to a much greater degree. Just knowing that any offense he had was counter-offensive and would come in the form of a shockwave even the timing of which was known meant that they could do a lot more.
Senior Sarak silently gritted his teeth as he prepared himself for a beatdown of his life. He had no intention of winning, he just needed to stall long enough.
He wasn't suited to eliminating his opponents, that was a job that he had already appointed to others who were not on the battlefield at the moment.
('Those three better make good use of this battle.')
