Fighting Trell

"Yes, good, no, it's great!" Yola said with excitement, but as she noticed Minos's smile fade, her excitement also dissipated.

"Yola, this is the second time you betrayed me. I should really kill you this time, don't you think?" Minos said, his face cold.

"Please master, spare me, I had no choice." Yola begged.

Given Merth's character, he would undoubtedly kill Yola, but Minos wasn't so blood-thirsty, not to mention Yola was only a mortal, trying her best to survive.

To kill her for doing what she was forced to do was a bit cruel, but at the same time, she wasn't a person worth investing in.

"Considering you've already done what I wanted you to do, we'll just call it even. Run Yola, and never come back." Minos said, while tossing her the cure to her poison.

"Yes Master, thank you, thank you!" Yola said with happiness as she took the pill before bolting out into the woods, trying to get as far away from this mess as possible.

"You can come out now." Minos said, after watching Yola completely vanish into the thick foliage.

At this point Trell's face had gone completely black, having long since realized Minos had somehow neutralized his trap.

Naturally he wasn't willing to come out, still afraid of Minos's treasure, worried that it would kill him in a single blow.

"Afraid, huh? Then I guess I'll have to come to you." Minos said, as he began marching towards the forest.

At this point, Trell couldn't help but begin slightly sweating, but he stood completely still, thinking Minos was just bluffing.

Shadow also stood in silence behind him, not saying a word. If one could see under his thick black cloak, they would also know that he was just as nervous, if not moreso.

Unfortunately for Trell and Shadow, Minos never bluffed. With his Diving Eagle acting as a scout, he could precisely tell where they were located.

As Minos walked closer and closer, the little hope left in Trell's heart was completely shattered, forced to admit that Minos wasn't pretending.

"Damn it! You forced me, Shadow, together!" Trell shouted in rage, the anger of being played with overwhelming his cautious nature.

With Trell's shout, the two shot out from behind their hiding place, running towards Minos at an incredible speed.

Minos had long since put away his Heaven-Sundering Sword, instead replacing it with a normal one. The Heaven-Sundering Sword was more of a trump card, and unless he was forced to use it, Minos preferred not to.

Besides, while Minos had a lot of experience fighting demon beasts, he had little when it came to combating other humans, and it was rare to have a chance to fight someone with similar strength.

While Trell and Shadow were heading closer to Minos, he was standing completely still, using his split souls to quickly formulate dozens of different combat strategies.

All this happened in a split second, and before Trell and Shadow could completely reach Minos, he had already decided on his next course of action.

It was unwise to fight two at once, so he quickly backed up, weaving between the trees to slow down their approach.

Trell was a little confused when he saw Minos's response, thinking that he would go on the aggressive, but now wasn't the time to talk, so he put these thoughts to the back of his mind and kept pursuing.

While Minos was zigzagging between trees, he would occasionally turn back, tossing rocks at both Trell and Shadow.

Given Minos's strength, these rocks were more like arrows, shooting forward with both incredible speed and power.

Trell was an experienced sword-master and had already reached the Ninth Layer of Mortal Renewal, so rather than dodging or taking the attacks head on, he used his sword to cut through each rock as they came close.

When breaking through to the Ninth Layer of Mortal Renewal Realm, one would open their Eye and Nux-Eye Lock, granting them enhanced vision.

This enhanced vision naturally came with incredible motion perception, so these rocks that would be blurs to most cultivators eyes were only average to Trell.

With his incredible vision and skillful sword skills, Trell cut through each stone with incredible precision, not letting a single one land.

However while Trell only treated the stones as a minor annoyance, Shadow wasn't so strong, constantly being pelted by the tough stones much to his furthering anger.

While the stones weren't strong enough to do serious damage, they were still painful, and the constant force was interfering with his speed, causing his position to begin trailing behind Trell.

Minos wasn't throwing the stones in an attempt to hurt the two, not even to slow them down, rather they were a test to check their strengths.

He was already aware of how strong Trell was, and his performance just confirmed it, but the cloaked figure was still a mystery.

However with this test, Minos confirmed that the figure wasn't at the Ninth Layer of Mortal Renewal, or else he would respond in a similar way to Trell.

As he guessed before, his strength was at best at the Eighth Layer of Mortal Renewal, meaning he no longer had much to worry about.

With this new information in mind, Minos already knew what to do next, but first he had to separate Trell and Shadow a little bit more.

Using the same strategy, Minos constantly pelted stones at the two, causing the distance between Shadow and Trell to further expand, from only a few meters, to a dozen, then hundred.

Trell saw this all happening, immediately realizing Minos's strategy of separating the two, but he didn't care. He had long since realized that Minos was likely not as strong as he thought he was, so he decided to just fight one on one.

If Minos really had a treasure capable of easily killing the two of them, why would he be constantly evading them?

With such a realization, he ignored Shadow, instead pushing his strength even more in an attempt to close the gap between him and Minos.

While Trell was slowly closing the distance, Minos was also preparing. Flexing his index finger, a little golden mouse burrowed out from his sleeve and jumped towards the earth.

With some maneuvering from Minos, the mouse began digging into the earth, quickly disappearing.

At the same time, Trell had finally managed to reach Minos. By this point, his face was red in anger, and he used his full strength to heave his sword out directly towards Minos.

Minos turned back just in time, using his own sword to receive the blow. The difference in strength between the two soon became apparent, and Minos's sword quickly gave in under the tremendous pressure.

Fortunately, Minos was already expecting such a result, and used the tremendous force to propel his body backwards, just barely avoiding the sharp blade.

At the same time, he used his incredible control of his body to guide the remaining power through his body and directly into the dirt beneath him.

With the force hitting the earth, the ground below his feet slightly sunk, pieces of dirt being shot off in all directions.

One could imagine the injury one would receive if they completely absorbed the force of such a blow, but Minos's skills had allowed him to avoid such a fate.

Trell was annoyed when he saw Minos seemingly unaffected by his attack, so he continued his assault with an even stronger vigor.

Minos received each blow with a similar strategy, causing the rage in Trell's heart to further build up. Fully enraged, Trell suddenly changed his strategy, taking a deep breath before shooting out another blade.

This time however, it wasn't a regular sword strike, instead Trell was finally utilizing one of his techniques.

His sword moved at an incredible speed, splitting into three phantoms, each attacking from a different direction.

Minos immediately recognized this move, having seen it in the library in the past, but despite knowing it, he had no idea how to diffuse it.

Since he didn't have a strategy, he would just use force. Slashing his sword horizontally, Minos used his Moon Tempest Sword, causing a long thin air blade shaped like a crescent moon to shoot out from his sword, directly towards Trell.

The two attacks quickly collided together, causing a small explosion of force, pushing Minos and Trell back.

While Minos was weaker then Trell in pure strength, his mastery of his sword technique was higher than Trell's, allowing the two's force to tie.

A small indent was left at the place of impact while Minos and Trell looked up at each other, not immediately continuing the fight.

Trell couldn't help but feel suffocated, he could tell his strength was clearly stronger then Minos's, but each blow was like punching cotton, seemingly powerless.

The thought annoyed him, and after only taking a split second to think, he burst back out directly towards Minos.

The two collided once more, but again Trell had the same feeling, like each attack was hitting air and doing nothing.

The anger caused his attacking to become more hectic, losing the control he had at the beginning. While this made it harder for Minos to properly respond, it was also the break he was looking for.

While Trell was attacking, he had no idea that Minos was using his split soul to control his Gold-Nibbling Mouse, having it dig directly under Trell.

Trell's face was getting redder and redder, his anger building up, fortunately he knew that Shadow was almost here, so he would soon be able to end this suffocating fight.