Chapter 213 (II): Champion

Zhang Yuanqing dragged in one ragged breath after another, his hands and feet twitching, his heart ready to quit on him any second. Even so, a grin spread itself across his face.

"No. You've lost!"

Right on cue, two hard kicks struck Zhao Chenghuang across the face like slaps. His body seized up, his stride wobbled, and he almost pitched over.

With veins bulging at his temples, Zhao Chenghuang set his face and continued his advance. He was down to the last remaining drops of Power, but victory stood only a dozen-odd steps away.

Weathering the deluge of kicks, he closed in on Yuanshi Tianzun one step at a time, his features contorted, teeth clenched and holding on, blood weeping from the corners of his mouth, the skin at the corners of his eyes splitting.

One step. Two. Three. Finally, after the eighth, the favored son of heaven of the Taiyi Sect took a savage kick to the back of the skull and went down with a crash.

The Red Dancing Shoes didn't let him off, stamping on him again and again, snapping bone after bone. They would not stop attacking until the target was dead. That was the rule. Only the master of the item could stop them.

Only when Zhao Chenghuang finally lay still for a long stretch of time, his breathing faint, did Zhang Yuanqing finally give the order to stop. That was too close. The guy's a monster.

The Red Dancing Shoes halted at once and came clip-clopping back to their master with graceful little steps.

The armored swordsman elder strode into the ring, eyes bright, and called out, "The final battle is over. Yuanshi Tianzun wins!"

The announcement triggered a wall of sound like nothing else before it, a massive detonation of sonic energy. Every official Walker was up on their feet shrieking, the deafening roar of countless people cheering together all at once.

Yuanshi Tianzun! The champion!

The biggest dark horse of the tournament.

Shichiro was over the moon. "Boss, thanks for the five years of salary... I'm buying a sports car, I'm getting a Songhai City sky floor apartment, hahahaha...!"

Phoenix Descending and the others were flushed with excitement as well.

Fu Qingyang, who usually wore a severe expression, cracked a rare smile. Beside him, Call Me Queen and Guan Ya were shrieking and clapping in unison.

"Baby, baby!" Mama Xie cried as she hugged her daughter, beside herself. "Mama's rich!"

Xie Lingxi was thrilled too, her arms around her mom's waist, shrieking without pause.

Mr. Bill rose, even more worked up than the Five Elements Alliance members. "My god, my god..."

Annie pressed her lips together, gazing at Yuanshi Tianzun's figure, completely lost in what she was seeing.

Just as lost was Zhu Rong, her cheeks flushed pink and her breathing quick. The better Yuanshi Tianzun was, the fiercer the urge to break him, to sully him. This young man was good enough to move her, good enough to obsess over.

The Five Elements Alliance elders traded glances, and they could see the same delight in each other's eyes. It had been years since the inception of this tournament, and in the beginning, the Five Elements Alliance and the Taiyi Sect had jointly hosted it. But in every tournament, the champion was inevitably a Nocturnal Specter. Only once had the Five Elements Alliance taken the crown—the year the Female Marshal had risen in the Saint-tier tournament. Aside from that, it was always a Taiyi Sect Nocturnal Specter, with no exceptions.

Even Fu Qingyang had never won a Transcendent-tier title. The Rich Young Master's true rise, his real power, had only appeared at the Saint tier. At the Transcendent tier, he'd had the strength to stand against Saints, but his opponent back then had been Yin Ji.

Because of this string of losses, the Five Elements Alliance had stopped co-hosting the tournament with the Taiyi Sect, choosing to run their own.

Finally, the Five Elements Alliance had won a title again.

Amid all the cheering, the Taiyi Sect's Nocturnal Specters were protesting loudly.

"Elder, Yuanshi Tianzun cheated, he cheated!"

"He took a drug before using Origin Overdrive. It has to be the drug that gave him that ability! His win is blemished!"

"That's right, it's in the tournament's rules! No Saint tier items and no drugs. He broke the rules!"

The clamor eased a notch. The expressions on the Five Elements Alliance Walkers' faces flickered, and one after another, they looked toward the elders.

Elder Zhao and the others didn't speak up to level the charge, but they all turned to the armored swordsman. He was an elder of the White Tiger Legion, and the match referee.

The armored swordsman thought for a moment, then walked over to Yuanshi Tianzun and said gravely, "Yuanshi Tianzun, the pills you took just now are suspected to be illegal, in contravention of the rules. As per the regulations, you'll have to submit to an inquiry."

"I understand," Zhang Yuanqing replied.

He nodded, fished a pill out of his pocket, and handed it over. He'd held this one back on purpose.

Once the referee took it, Zhang Yuanqing said, "It's a drug for stabilizing the soul and mending soul trauma."

He was confident it was clean. At the Transcendent tier, the only pills one could get their hands on were a Wood Demon's antidote pills or some tonic pills the Scholars cooked up.

Those pills worked, but the rules didn't so much as mention them. Taking them or not made no difference to a match. This wasn't some sort of sporting meet for ordinary humans, where such enhancements mattered. The kind of thing that was banned were the kinds of potions that could flip a situation on its head, something like Life Essence.

The armored swordsman studied the pill for a moment, then popped it into his mouth. He swallowed, reading the drug's effects, then said, "This does not violate the rules, but there's no way to prove the pill you handed me is the same one you took. I'll need to run a lie detection test on you."

His voice deepened, and he asked in a grave tone, "Yuanshi Tianzun was the pill you took the same as the one you handed me?"

He was a Sovereign-tier Scout, and required no items to make a Transcendent-tier Spirit Realm Walker speak the truth.

Zhang Yuanqing felt a formless pressure come down on him, and he couldn't help the fear that rose within him. He felt like a foot soldier standing before a marshal, not daring to hide a thing. He answered straight.

"They are the same!"

The armored swordsman gave a nod, looked out to the stands, and declared again, "The winner is Yuanshi Tianzun!"

The Five Elements Alliance Walkers finally let out the collective breath they were holding, cheering loudly as the atmosphere boiled over.

The expressions of the Taiyi Sect's Nocturnal Specters soured. They were unconvinced and unwilling to accept the outcome, but there was nothing they could do about it.

Maoshan Warlock couldn't stomach the reality of it and snapped, "Rules or no rules, he still used a drug. Using a drug is cheating! We don't accept it."

Other Nocturnal Specters stepped in to back him up.

"Yeah! If you’ve got the guts, beat Zhao Chenghuang fair and square. You’re no hero for playing in the gray area. Why not challenge him without those pills?"

"He won the match, but lost the plot. We will absolutely not accept it."

The Walkers on the Five Elements Alliance side blew up, cursing back across the gap.

"Bullshit! Can't the Taiyi Sect take a loss? As long as there's no violation, Yuanshi Tianzun can pop whatever he damn well wants."

"Inside the rules, anything goes. If you can't take a loss, then piss off! Quit yapping over there."

"Your own elders haven't said a word! Have some shame."

The Taiyi Sect elders accepted it, of course, but that didn't stop their own people from protesting either. Cursing when one lost was normal enough. Feelings had to be vented.

Right at that moment, the Red Dancing Shoes, back at their master's side, made a request.

【Will you dance with me? If you will, march in place!】

"I will!"

Painfully, Zhang Yuanqing forced his worn-out body upright, got to his feet, thought about it, then turned to face the Taiyi Sect crowd.

The red dancing shoes set the tempo with a few taps, tapping out a cheerful beat, and Zhang Yuanqing fell right in with it.

One man and one pair of shoes, facing the whole Taiyi Sect, dancing like there was nobody else around.

The cursing match in the stands stalled as the countless number of spectators stared, dumbstruck, at Yuanshi Tianzun.

What is he doing? The Taiyi Sect Walkers froze, and The Five Elements Alliance Walkers froze too.

Tap tap tap, tap tap tap...

The dance flowed on, the Red Dancing Shoes moving gracefully and elegantly while Yuanshi Tianzun lurched all over the place, as though he was doing it to mock them.

The dance wrapped up quickly. The red dancing shoes stepped its left foot back, lifted its heel, and dropped a picture-perfect curtsy before turning into twin streaks of red light and disappearing.

Zhang Yuanqing offered the Taiyi Sect a mocking curtsy of his own.

The Taiyi Sect's Nocturnal Specters finally caught on, their expressions twisting.

"He's mocking us!"

"Damn that Yuanshi Tianzun! Elder, I can't take it anymore, I'm going out there to kill Yuanshi Tianzun!"

"Screw it, I'll take him on right now!"

"This is going too far!!"

Proud as they were, these Nocturnal Specters had never been served up a humiliation like this. Every one of them lost it.

Fengdu Ghost King and the other Saints all wanted a piece of him themselves. Their eyes twitched murderously.

Zhang Yuanqing made a beeline for the exit.

"Return, return!"

With that, he was gone from everyone's sight, gone from the glare of the seething Nocturnal Specters.