Chapter 216 | Su Ling and Lin Tian

Chapter 216: 216 | Su Ling and Lin Tian

Down on the lower stone walkway beside Stage Two, Zhou Kai’s ragged groans faded as a high-grade numbing pill dissolved beneath his tongue.

Instructor Qing knelt on one knee beside him, her fingers pressing three acupoints around his shattered right thigh to seal the ruptured blood vessels. Her face was expressionless, yet the crimson tassel hanging from her sword hilt trembled slightly from the sheer force of her grip.

"Carry him back," Qing ordered the four support alchemists waiting by the tunnel entrance. "Use the Jade-Bone pill.

"Yes, Instructor Qing!"

As disciple disappeared, Qing slowly stood up and wiped a drop of Zhou Kai’s blood from her thumb. When she turned back toward the supervision bench, her eyes briefly rose toward the Crimson Nimbus disciple.

Fang Yu and Chen Hao stood with their fists clenched at their sides, while Gao Chen stared down at the bloodstained Stage Two in silence.

Moments ago, when Zhao Lie had raised his iron boot over Zhou Kai’s knee, Elder Bai’s fury had caused her to flare her Core Formation Divine Sense outward by instinct—preparing to crush the stage barrier. Only at the very last moment she remembered the joint supervision pact of the twelve sects: if an Elder interfered with an active bout, the entire Crimson Nimbus delegation would be stripped of its qualification and fined half a border vein on the spot.

Coupled with the lingering strain from fighting few days ago, her Soul Fragility flared sharply. Fine, invisible needles seemed to stab her soul.

Beside her, Elder Liu immediately noticed the sudden paleness on Bai’s cheek and the slight stiffness in her shoulders.

Elder Liu gave a small white jade bottle from her sleeve, tipped out a translucent blue Jade-Lotus Spirit Pill, and passed it quietly into Elder Bai’s palm beneath the cover of the table cloth.

"Take it," Elder Liu murmured in a voice only the two of them could hear. "Retracting your divine sense that abruptly tore at your mind again."

Elder Bai did not refuse. She raised her sleeve as if adjusting her veil and swallowed the pill seamlessly.

A cool, soothing medicinal mist spread from her throat toward her upper consciousness. Yet because her spiritual sea was still churning with suppressed anger, more than half of the pill’s medicinal essence remained suspended in her pathways, dissolving far too slowly to clear the throbbing ache behind her brows.

Down on the arena, the matches did not pause for the wounded.

"Stage Three, Match Seven!" the third magistrate’s voice echoed across the colosseum. "Su Ling of Frost-Moon Valley, versus Tie Kuang of the Scarlet-Axe Sect!"

Su Ling descended sixty feet through the open air like a falling snowflake. She reached the center of Stage Three without making a sound, the white-blue silk of her robes fluttering gently around her ankles. At her waist hung her frost-wrapped longsword.

Across from her, a burly Peak Level 9 Foundation disciple from the Scarlet-Axe Sect leaped onto the stage with a heavy double-bladed battle axe in his hands.

"Junior Sister Su!" Tie Kuang shouted, grinning fiercely as he circulated his blazing blood-qi to ward off the cold. "My Scarlet-Axe Sect knows Frost-Moon Valley excels at keeping distance, so don’t blame me for rushing in close!"

Su Ling did not answer. She merely rested two pale fingers against the hilt of her sword.

"Begin!"

Tie Kuang roared and stomped the granite slab, charging forward like a charging bull. His heavy battle axe swung down in a whistling crimson arc aimed straight at Su Ling’s shoulder, carrying enough brute force to split a boulder in two.

Not until the axe blade was three feet from her face did Su Ling move.

Shiiing—

A clear, ringing chime echoed like thin ice cracking over a frozen lake.

A flash of pale-blue sword light swept upward from her sheath. There was no loud explosion of colliding Qi—only a sudden, bone-piercing drop in temperature that made the spectators in the front rows shiver.

Where the thin frost blade met the heavy iron axe, a layer of white hoarfrost spread across the axe.

Before Tie Kuang could pull his weapon back, the frost raced down the axe shaft, climbed over his iron gauntlets, and locked both of his elbows and shoulders in a solid crust of blue ice!

"What—?!" Tie Kuang’s eyes widened in shock as his forward momentum froze mid-stride.

Su Ling stepped lightly past his stiff left side. With a flick of her wrist, the flat of her scabbard struck the center of his chest.

Crack—thud!

Covered in frost from neck to waist, Tie Kuang skidded backward across the slick ice covering the granite floor and tumbled cleanly over the white boundary line, landing on the lower walkway while shivering so hard his teeth rattled together.

In a single breath, Su Ling slid her sword back into its sheath.

"Winner of Match Seven—Su Ling of Frost-Moon Valley!"

Loud cheers erupted across the colosseum tiers. Defeating a fellow Peak Level 9 Foundation powerhouse in a single exchange without spilling a drop of blood was a display of a top sect’s leading genius.

As Su Ling turned to leave, however, her eyes lifted briefly toward the eastern gallery—pausing for a quiet second on the dark-robed youth leaning against the pillar of the Crimson Nimbus terrace before she stepped down the stairs.

The morning bouts continued into early afternoon as the sun climbed directly overhead.

During the eleventh fight on Stage Four, senior representative Fang Yu was drawn against the Black-Sun Sect’s third-ranked disciple, a lean youth wielding a pair of hooked sickles.

Up in the Black-Sun terrace, Mo Yan leaned forward eagerly, waiting to see a second Crimson Nimbus disciple carried out on a stretcher.

Yet Fang Yu had watched Zhou Kai’s tragedy closely. For six exchanges, he fought purely on the edge of the boundary line. The instant the Black-Sun disciple’s sickle flashed downward toward his kneecap in the seventh exchange, Fang Yu simply use his own wind-step talisman against his shield and launched himself ten feet backward out of the ring!

The hooked sickles tore deep sparks out of the empty floor where was standing.

Landing safely, Fang Yu cupped his fists coldly toward the referee. "I step out and concede."

On the stage, the Black-Sun disciple spat on the floor in frustration, while up in the Black-Sun terrace, Elder Mo let out a cold snort.

"Running like rabbits the moment they can’t win," Mo Yan mocked loudly enough for the neighboring terraces to hear. "Let’s see if their fifth representative jumps off the stage just as fast!"

As if answering his voice, the bronze bell rang from the central tower for the sixteenth bout of Stage One.

"Stage One, Match Sixteen!" the chief magistrate announced. "Lin Tian of the Crimson Nimbus Sect, versus Lei Zhen of the Iron-Peak Sect!"

In the Crimson Nimbus side, Chen Hao and Fang Yu immediately straightened up.

Elder Liu’s expression softened slightly as she looked toward the side pillar. "Go. Teach them what an accident looks like."

Lin Tian pushed himself off the stone pillar, walked down the terrace steps to the Stage One.

Lei Zhen

Standing nearly seven feet tall with arms as thick as pine trunks, Lei Zhen wore heavy bronze-plated armor over his sect robes. In his left hand he carried a Black Iron Tower Shield, and in his right he gripped a spiked war-mace that scraped loudly against the stone steps with every stride.

As an allied sect that traded iron ore with the Black-Sun Sect, Lei Zhen had already received a quiet message from Mo Yan during the break.

Stepping onto Stage One, Lei Zhen slammed his tower shield into the floor with a BOOM that made dust rise from the seams.

"So you’re the brat who caught Senior Brother Mo off guard on the street yesterday?" Lei Zhen sneered, eyeing the grey cloth still wrapped tightly around the broadsword on Lin Tian’s back. "Aren’t you going to use that piece of scrap iron? Or are you planning to jump out of the ring like your cowardly senior brother just did?"

Lin Tian stopped ten paces away, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

"For a piece of shit like you," Lin Tian said calmly, "using the blade would be a insult."

Laughter rippled through the arena, while Lei Zhen’s scarred face twisted with rage.

"Arrogant bastard! Let’s see you talk with every bone in your arms crushed!"

"Begin!" the Stage One referee dropped his flag.

ROOOAAR!

Lei Zhen’s Peak Level 9 Foundation aura erupted in a wave of earthen yellow light. Raising his tower shield in front of his chest like a moving city wall, he stomped the floor with his Mountain-Splitting Stamp!

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Every heavy step cracked the surface of the floor. He charged straight at Lin Tian like an iron juggernaut, intending to use the unstoppable momentum of his shield to smash Lin Tian flat onto his back—and then bring his spiked war-mace down onto both of Lin Tian’s shoulders before he could utter a single word of surrender!

Down on the supervision bench, Instructor Qing’s eyes narrowed sharply, though she did not rise from her seat. She knew better than anyone here what lived beneath Lin Tian’s calmness.

Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet.

Lin Tian did not retreat.

Not until the charging iron tower shield was three feet from his chest did Lin Tian reach back with his right hand and grip the hilt of the Profound Void-Yang Blade—leaving the thick grey wrapping cloth completely tied around the metal.

Inside his body, the Primordial Yang-Tyrant Body woke with a low, silent hum.

Lin Tian swung the heavy, cloth-wrapped broadsword horizontally with one arm—slamming the flat of the wrapped weapon straight into the center of the charging Black-Iron Tower Shield!

BOOOOOOM!!

The sound was not the ring of a sword clash. It was the deafening explosion.