Chapter 243 — The Four Who Remain

The high-altitude gale swept across the peak, carrying away the lingering heat of the initial rounds. As the afternoon light softened into a deep, honeyed gold, the thirty floating blue jade platforms began to shift. Guided by the subterranean qi currents, twenty-6 of the slabs drifted slowly toward the outer edges of the courtyard, while four massive, three-hundred-foot arenas locked into a wide, central grid directly beneath the elevated northern platforms.

On the highest floating platform, the golden light-screens flared sharply, wiping away the scattered bracket trees to display four distinct, high-stakes matchups:

[QUARTERFINALS — THE SUPER EIGHT]

Lin Xiaobao vs. Chen Guo

Su Qing vs. Ran Ji

Meng Huo vs. Ba Tu

Ye Chen vs. Shen Hang

The ten thousand spectators packed into the tiered stone stands leaned forward as one, the deafening roar of the crowd gradually settling into a tight, expectant silence.

A single, crisp reverberation of the gong shattered the stillness.

Lin Xiaobao stepped onto the first central platform, his light leather boots making no sound against the smooth blue jade. The wind caught his empty right sleeve, snapping the pinned cloth flat against his ribcage. In his left hand, the worn, dark-grained hilt of his chipped wooden training sword rested against his fingers, the tip pointed straight down toward the stone flags.

Across the open jade, Chen Guo planted his boots. His orange-and-white robe tightened across his shoulders as he drew in a deep, abdominal breath, his chest expanding against the fabric. His fingers wrapped around the polished brass hilts at his waist, and with a swift, synchronized pull, two wide, curved steel sabers cleared their scabbards in a sharp, ringing shriek of cold metal.

The jade floor cracked under the sudden expulsion of Chen Guo’s energy. Stone dust plumed around his boots as he rocketed forward, his arms crossing mid-air to drive a shearing, scissor-like arc toward Xiaobao’s throat and chest. The dual blades whistled with the velocity of a falling timber, generating a pressure wave that flattened the loose hem of Xiaobao’s tunic.

Xiaobao’s expression remained fixed, his breathing unhurried. Planting his left foot firmly into the blue jade, his ankle rolled and his spine arched at a sharp, lateral angle. The upper edge of the incoming saber brushed the empty cloth of his right sleeve, slicing through nothing but mountain air by a hairsbreadth.

Before Chen Guo could pull his trailing saber around to complete the sweeping circle, Xiaobao’s wrist snapped upward. The chipped wooden blade flicked twice in a soundless blur against the amber light.

TAP-TAP.

The worn wood didn’t clash with brute force; it found the precise vibrational node at the exact center of balance on Chen Guo’s left blade, redirecting its forward momentum downward. The heavy steel bounced off course, striking the inner crossguard of the right saber with a jarring screech of white-hot sparks. The two blades bit into each other, their cross-angled geometry jamming tight into an immovable dead-lock.

Chen Guo’s eyes widened as his own momentum turned against him.

Xiaobao did not wait for the binding to snap. His left boot lunged forward, sliding an inch across the smooth blue jade to step directly inside the open blind spot between Chen Guo’s crossed wrists. The dark grain of the wooden hilt rose through the narrow gap like a shadow, stopping dead in the air—half an inch away from the frantic, pulsing vein of Chen Guo’s throat.

The roaring wind across the peak seemed to drop away. A single bead of sweat traced a jagged path down Chen Guo’s jawline, detaching to strike the tangled, cold steel below with a faint ting. Chen Guo’s chest rose and fell in two violent, heavy spasms before his fingers slowly lost their grip. The twin sabers clattered loosely against his palms as he dropped his gaze, brought his left palm over his right fist, and bowed low.

"I yield, Brother Lin."

High above the ironwood rim, the golden sky-display pulsed with a crystalline chime, burning the updated bracket tree into the air.

As Xiaobao’s boots touched the outer flags, the second platform flared to life.

Ran Ji dropped his center of gravity the moment his leather soles met the jade floor, his weight sinking low into a horse stance. His calloused fingers tore across the metallic casing of his 9-Star Weight Bracelet, his knuckles turning stark white as his thumb forced open the secondary inscription seal he had spent three bitter months refining in the dark.

Opposite him, Su Qing stood unmoving. Her boots were planted close together, the crimson-and-white fabric of her robes whispering against the high-altitude current. Her right hand rested casually against the smooth leather grip of her sheathed blade, her eyelids closed, her chest rising and falling in a rhythmic, unhurried cadence that matched the deep, unyielding tide of the mountain.

"Begin!" Elder Wu’s voice dropped from the canopy of clouds.

Ran Ji’s palm slammed flat against the blue stone.

FWOOM.

A pale blue geometric ring detonated outward from beneath his hand, sinking into the polished jade. Three jagged runic characters ignited beneath the floorboards, turning the stone opaque. Three paces away, the air above Su Qing’s boots compressed instantly, the invisible weight of a localized gravity well snapping shut over the stone.

"Surge!" Ran Ji gritted his teeth, veins bulging along his neck as he forced every ounce of his remaining qi into the seal, aiming to cement her boots to the floor for even a fraction of a heartbeat.

Su Qing’s eyes snapped open.

Her crystalline pupils caught the ambient amber sunlight, shifting into an intricate, concentric ring of silver light. Through her Spatial Intuition Eyes, the invisible pressure-lines of the array didn’t look like a solid wall—they appeared as a blinding, geometric web of shifting qi-density running through the stone.

She didn’t leap upward to invite the crushing drag, nor did she brace her shoulders to break the lock.

Her left heel shifted, her weight transferring seamlessly into a rapid, three-inch zigzag. Her boots stepped only upon the razor-thin intersections where the array’s intersecting lines crossed into absolute zero-density. To anyone watching from the stands, she appeared to simply drift through a storm of invisible gravity spikes, her feet skimming the slate as if walking across open air.

Ran Ji’s jaw slacked, his breath catching in his throat as he tracked her movement. He whipped his hand back, frantically trying to reverse the array’s polarity, but it was already too late.

A cold, smooth edge brushed the skin of his neck.

Su Qing stood directly at his flank, her posture upright and undisturbed, her steel blade still firmly locked inside its leather scabbard.

Ran Ji stared down at the glowing blue runes dying beneath his boots, letting out a long, shuddering breath of utter disbelief. "You... you mapped the flow before the pressure even reached the surface..." He loosened his grip, letting his arms drop to his sides as the blue light dissolved into the grey stone. "I yield, Sister Su."

The third platform shuddered as Meng Huo and Ba Tu stepped onto the blue jade floorboards together.

Neither man reached for a weapon. Ba Tu had stripped down to his thin inner shirt, his broad shoulders, thick neck, and calloused hands bearing the raw, unyielding density of a man who had dragged four-ton slate blocks across Floor 1 for three straight months. Meng Huo walked up to meet him, his thick arms bare, his chest expanding like a heavy bellows.

Without a word, both men charged.

They collided in the absolute center of the arena like two iron oxen. Their hands clamped onto each other’s shoulders, their heavy boots biting into the jade floorboards with a thundering impact that echoed down through the stone stadium. Sweat poured from Ba Tu’s jaw as he ground his teeth, his neck muscles bulging as he tried to twist Meng Huo’s weight to force a hip-throw.

Meng Huo’s jaw locked, his dense, heavy bone structure absorbing the crushing force without yielding a single inch. The ironwood border of the platform trembled, the hanging skirts of marigolds and red roses fluttering violently under the physical shockwaves radiating from their locked frames.

Ba Tu roared, driving his right heel into the stone and using his entire back to hoist Meng Huo off his feet.

Meng Huo didn’t resist the momentum. As his boots left the stone, he wrapped his thick arm around Ba Tu’s waist, shifting his massive physical density downward like an anvil. Both men crashed heavily onto the floorboards in a tight grapple, rolling across the jade toward the outer boundary line.

With a final, explosive grunt, Meng Huo planted his elbow on the stone, using leverage to lock his chest over Ba Tu’s while keeping his own body an inch inside the ironwood trim. Ba Tu’s legs hit the open air, landing flat on the white stone courtyard floor below.

Both men lay on the stone, chest heaving, sweat soaking their shirts as they stared up at the sky.

Ba Tu let out a booming laugh, slapping his palm against the courtyard flags. "Your bone density is absurd, Meng Huo!"

Meng Huo sat up, wiping sweat from his forehead with his forearm, a wide, rare grin breaking across his face as he extended his hand to pull Ba Tu back onto his feet.

The high-altitude gale suddenly dropped to a razor-thin, freezing whistle as the fourth arena locked into the central grid.

Ye Chen stood lean and motionless, his left thumb nudging the crossguard of his dark steel saber a fraction of an inch from its sheath. The cold mountain wind whipped his orange-and-white robe, but his frame didn’t sway a single millimeter. His posture—carved by hundreds of thousands of form repetitions under the crushing press of nine-star gravity—exuded a quiet, predatory focus.

Ten paces across the blue jade floorboards, Shen Hang held his heavy iron spear horizontally with both hands. He took a slow, deep breath, his abdominal muscles expanding against his belt. Deep beneath his skin, the ancient, dormant energy of his Immortal Spear Body began to churn. A pale, golden luminescence seeped through his pores, turning his skin to polished brass and causing the air around his leather boots to warp like heat rising off sun-baked iron.

In the tiered stone stands, ten thousand spectators froze. On the gilded VIP platforms, regional clan heads lowered their tea cups, their eyes widening as a suffocating wave of pure, concentrated martial intent settled over the central ring.

"Begin!" Elder Wu’s thunderous roar echoed down from the clouds.

Ye Chen’s right shoulder twitched.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Without pulling his blade fully from its sheath, Ye Chen executed three quick-draw flicks. Three razor-thin, crescent arcs of golden wind-blade qi tore through the space between them, whistling so sharply they cleanly bisected the falling marigold petals in mid-air.

"Immortal Spear Art: Iron Wheel Deflection!" Shen Hang bellowed.

Planting his back heel into the jade, Shen Hang twirled the long iron shaft before his chest, transforming the heavy weapon into a blurring, golden disc. The iron spearhead met the incoming air arcs with three blinding metallic cracks. Sparks erupted across the ring as the wind-blades shattered into glowing light particles.

Before the glittering fragments hit the stone floor, Ye Chen had already closed the distance. His boots left no footprints as he glided through the lingering light, his steel saber clearing its scabbard with a high-pitched shriek.

"Seven-Star Flash Saber: Autumn Storm!" Ye Chen roared.

His arm dissolved into a silver blizzard. Dozens of razor-sharp slashes rained down upon Shen Hang’s guard, targeting his wrists, throat, and shoulders with terrifying, surgical precision. The steel cut through the air with a rhythmic whir-whir-whir, each arc carrying the condensed weight of three months of iron-bracelet training.

Shen Hang didn’t retreat a single inch. His long iron spear moved like a coiled golden dragon, the heavy shaft shifting from high parries to low deflections in a rapid, continuous drumroll of clashing metal.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Sparks rained down onto the blue jade like molten copper, biting deep into the dark ironwood trim of the platform.

"You’re open, Shen Hang!" Ye Chen’s eyes flared with a sharp, golden light.

Pivoting his rear foot ninety degrees, Ye Chen twisted his hips and thrust his saber straight toward the center of Shen Hang’s chest.

"Saber Art: Phantom Dragon Breach!"

The air pressure inside the three-hundred-foot ring imploded. The condensed physical density built up in Ye Chen’s meridians erupted outward, manifesting as the faint, roaring ethereal head of a golden dragon coiling around his steel blade. The sheer pressure wave of the thrust carved two deep, parallel grooves into the blue jade floorboards beneath his boots.

Shen Hang’s eyes narrowed into slits as the roaring aura rushed into his vision. "Not while I stand!"

He drove his rear boot into the stone, cracking the jade flagstone beneath his heel. Funneling the entire, unyielding force of his Immortal Spear Body into his core, he thrust his heavy iron spear straight forward to meet the dragon head-on.

"Immortal Spear Art: Mountain-Splitting Thrust!"

THUNDEROUS CRACK!

The collision of pure sword intent and immortal spear force detonated across the platform.

The spatial shockwave expanded outward in a violent, golden ring. The three-hundred-foot blue jade slab shattered instantly—a spiderweb of deep, jagged fissures exploding from the center out to the ironwood borders. The heavy, hanging skirts of yellow marigolds, dark red roses, and saffron chunis draped along the edges were ripped into raw threads, scattering thousands of flower petals into the howling mountain gale.

Down in the lower stadium, thousands of spectators gasped, shielding their faces as pulverized jade dust and shockwaves blew over the front tiers.

Up through the swirling grey dust cloud, two figures launched sixty feet into the open air.

Ye Chen flipped twice mid-sky, his leather boots tapping off a piece of rising, broken jade stone to launch himself higher. His saber swung wide, cutting a blinding, two-hundred-foot arc of golden qi straight down through the debris.

"Seven-Star Flash Saber: Descending Sun Cut!"

"Immortal Spear Art: Sky-Piercing Dragon!" Shen Hang shouted from mid-air.

Surrounded by a blazing golden aura, Shen Hang thrust his iron spear upward three times in rapid succession. Three massive, golden spear-lights shot through the floating rubble, colliding with Ye Chen’s descending saber arc in mid-sky.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Six shockwaves exploded in open air, blowing the dust cloud away to reveal the two disciples falling back toward the only remaining, solid fragment of the shattered platform.

Their boots hit the cracked stone simultaneously.

Ye Chen didn’t waste a single breath. The moment his soles touched the jade, he dropped low, sweeping his saber in a devastating, horizontal arc aimed straight at Shen Hang’s exposed right flank.

"Saber Art: Crescent Moon Sweep!"

Shen Hang didn’t attempt to bring his long spear around to block. Instead, he let out a guttural roar as the golden light of his Immortal Spear Body flared to its absolute zenith. His skin transformed into the shade of solid, unyielding brass.

CLANG!

The flat of Ye Chen’s steel saber struck Shen Hang’s shoulder armor with a deafening chime. The brass skin absorbed the cutting edge, the sheer physical density of the body trait holding the blade trapped against the metal plate for a split second.

"Got you!" Shen Hang grunted through gritted teeth.

Using that single fraction of a second, Shen Hang let go of the spear handle with his left hand, clamped his right palm over the pommel, and drove the blunt iron butt of the weapon straight into Ye Chen’s chest.

"Immortal Spear Art: Sovereign Strike!"

The concentrated, piercing momentum of his Immortal Spear Body surged through the iron shaft like a battering ram.

BOOM!

The blunt pommel slammed directly into the center of Ye Chen’s breastplate. The shockwave blew out the back of Ye Chen’s orange-and-white tunic, his boots dragging across the cracked jade floorboards as he was propelled backward. His heels carved two long, white channels into the stone before coming to a violent stop—his boots resting half an inch over the empty, ninety-foot drop.

Absolute silence crashed over the entire ten-thousand-man stadium.

Ye Chen stood frozen at the absolute precipice of the platform, his chest heaving violently in deep, ragged cycles. His left sleeve was shredded from shoulder to wrist, and small wisps of white smoke rose from his scorched breastplate. He looked down at his heels hovering over the open sky, then slowly looked up.

Three inches from his throat, the blunt iron pommel of Shen Hang’s spear held completely still, suspended in mid-air without a single tremor.

A long, slow breath escaped Ye Chen’s lips. The razor-sharp, cold light in his eyes gradually softened, replaced by a deep, quiet look of genuine respect.

He reached up, smoothly pulled his saber back, and slid the steel into its dark leather scabbard with a sharp, echoing CLICK. Bringing his left palm over his right fist, he bowed his head.

"Your spear intent is heavy, Brother Shen. A fine, undisputed victory."

The golden luminescence surrounding Shen Hang slowly faded back beneath his skin, leaving his face pale and his arms trembling slightly from the sheer strain of holding back his final force. Sweat soaked his inner shirt as he pulled the heavy spear back, planted its butt firmly against the cracked jade, and returned the bow low.

"Your speed almost took my ear off, Ye Chen," Shen Hang breathed, his voice hoarse and raw. "If that stone platform held for three more seconds, I would be the one floating down there."

High above the destroyed arena, the razor-sharp golden light-screens flared sharply, burning the final result into the sky for the entire peak to see: [Match 4 Winner: Shen Hang].

The entire stadium erupted into a sky-shaking, deafening roar. Capital merchants, visiting cultivators, and thousands of Outer Disciples slammed their fists against the stone benches, cheering at the absolute limit of their lungs for the brutal, magnificent display of martial skill.

Up on the Peacock Feather Throne, Shaurya leaned back into the crimson silk, a slow, razor-sharp smile playing on his lips as his golden pupils reflected the four finalists standing amid the settling dust.

King Tian Long leaned forward, his silver eyes reflecting the four victors standing on the central floor. He glanced over at Shaurya, who sat relaxed on the Peacock Feather Throne, swirling the ice in his Cold Coffee.

"The Semi-Finals are set," Tian Long said, his voice carrying deep appreciation. "One-armed sword discipline, spatial awareness, pure physical iron, and an immortal spear body. Your outer ranks carry talent that royal academies would go to war for."

Shaurya set his glass down on the jade table, his golden pupils catching the bright glare of the setting sun as the golden sky-screens shifted once more, setting up the semi-final brackets.

"The initial warm-up is over, King Tian Long," Shaurya whispered, his voice smooth as silk. "Now... let’s see who takes the peak."

To Be Continued...