84 – Are You Not Entertained?

The shot rang out with deafening finality across the silent venue. Blood and fragments of bone splattered across the broken arena floor. Nearly a hundred thousand people watched, yet not a single voice rose. Then the sharp snap of a folding fan closing cut through the quiet.

“Young Master Xuan, that seems rather excessive, does it not?” Gongsun Qingchen asked, expertly concealing the smirk that threatened to surface.

“Some annoying Ouyang swordsman once required two shots to the head, so I decided it would make for a good habit. Besides, that strike from behind was the most foul,” I replied evenly.

“Not at all. I believe he fully expected you to handle it. After all, you are strong enough, are you not?” The snake twisted the words with practiced ease, attempting to shift the fault back onto me.

“Alright then. Anyone else?” I asked, raising my voice. Hateful gazes met mine from every direction, yet no one spoke.

“ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!” 

I roared the words across the venue, lacing them with Qi, soul power, and Merit Essence in equal measure. I directed the force carefully toward the viewing towers of the sects and noble families. This pretense had already gone too far. Qi Refining cultivators screamed and clutched their heads. Foundation Establishment cultivators gritted their teeth and scrambled to shield themselves.

Then another man. No, a boy. Just a Qi Refining disciple from the Tianjian sect entered the arena. After offering a respectful bow, he spoke quietly. “This one is here to pick my senior brother.”

I nodded and allowed him to collect the corpse before leaving. Only when he had fully departed the platform did a new idea settle into place.

“How about the infamous Young Master Qingchen himself, then? Care for a round with me?”

He had used his status to force this farce. I could use my current position in return.

“Me? With my meagre skills I would not even dare stand against Young Master Xuan.” He deflected smoothly. “However, if you insist, I could arrange for a champion to stand in my place.”

“As Master of Ceremonies, and by the rights granted under my appointment for this sacred tournament tradition established by Great Xia, I decline your proposal and insist upon my original invitation.”

I cited a rather niche authority I had noticed while reading the tournament’s history. The effect was immediate. Every gaze in the venue swung back toward the snake.

The noble families of Xian still clung tightly to tradition, hierarchy, and legitimacy. Even after the collapse of Great Xia into two separate empires, they continued to justify their privileges by claiming unbroken inheritance from that older, greater dynasty. Challenging a right explicitly tied to Great Xia would undermine the very foundation of their own status.

The Ouyang, Nangong, Dugu, and Dongfang elders exchanged sharp, measuring glances from their respective towers. None of them spoke in open support of Qingchen, yet none moved to restrain him either. They had not yet suffered public loss in this arena. None of the noble families would foolishly object as it would mean it would diminish their claim. Should one object, they would of course, lower themselves in status against other noble families which they absolutely cannot stand either. Their silence was deliberate and coldly calculated.

Among the sects the mood was far less restrained. They had already lost face and a disciple in the first two exchanges. Now it was becoming increasingly obvious that the noble families were content to let the sects bleed while they themselves remained untouched.

“Young Master Xuan is truly formidable,” Qingchen said at last, spreading his hands in a gesture of helpless concession. “This junior would not wish to further disrupt the dignity of the tournament with an unequal match. Perhaps it would be best if we considered the matter settled and allowed the formal proceedings to conclude without additional… complications.”

“Oh, so you are fine letting others die for your schemes? I suppose cowardice runs in the family.” I turned the statement into an open insult.

“Young Master Xuan, there is no need to be so crass,” Qingchen rebuked, still attempting to maintain a veneer of composure.

“He died like a coward.”

“What?”

“The uh… the idiot from your family that I killed at the foot of Lingshan.” I snapped my fingers beside my earhole, pretending to search for a name that refused to come. “I already forgot what he was called. Perhaps you will die the same way. Cowardly and forgotten.”

“Young Master Xuan.” This time an elder of the Dongfang family interjected. He was a massive old man with an impressive mane of hair and beard, his heavily muscled frame only barely contained by multiple layers of robes, clearly a dedicated Body Tempering cultivator. “This sort of challenge falls outside established tradition. It would be best…

“Silence!” I cut him off. “A fool of the Gongsun family already challenged me against the so called tradition, and I am here to finish what he started. You have no right to speak unless you intend to support his actions.”

The Dōngfāng elder’s entire face turned a deep, mottled red. The sound of his teeth grinding was loud enough to be heard across the nearby platforms. Yet he said nothing further and lowered himself back into his seat as the gazes of the Wuqing and Tianjian sects settled on him in turn.

Multiple strands of divine sense then converged on the snake. From the elders of his own family and from the other noble houses as well. After several tense moments he managed to force his expression back under control. He cupped his hands and bowed deeply.

“This humble Qingchen was foolish. I will take this loss and humiliation to heart and seclude myself in reflection as punishment.” The apology was a complete lie. It tasted sharp and spicy on my tongue. He intended to swallow the loss for now and strike back later. Like hell I would allow that.

“Yes, yes. You are a fool and a coward.” He had already turned to leave, so I added salt to the open wound. “So go back home, Motherfucker!”

Qingchen stopped dead. His shoulders stiffened, and when he spoke again his voice was low and shaking with barely restrained fury.

“What did you say?”

The words came out clipped and dangerous. His knuckles had gone white around the fan, and for the first time the carefully maintained mask of a refined young master had completely fallen away, leaving only raw and open rage.

“Are you deaf too?” I pressed further. “Must I explain explicitly what the most unfilial act a fool like you could commit against your own mother would be? No, wait. Perhaps your mother enjoys that sort of thing.”

Like a fire meteor, he crashed onto the arena floor directly in front of me. My jaws parted in a wide grin. His presence and cultivation were no longer restrained by composure. Only raw anger remained. He stood at the eighth level of Foundation Establishment, six full levels above my own second stage. His eyes were bloodshot with fury. A few months earlier, that alone might have been enough to frighten me.

“Referee. Do your job,” I said to the still-stunned man.

The referee’s gaze darted back and forth before he finally forced the word out.

“Begin.”

The instant the declaration left his mouth, I fired three railguns. All of them were rendered invisible and silent through illusion and projection. Each had been scaled to the same caliber I once used against the Golden Core corpse puppet (48mm). 

The first round struck the life-saving talisman, punched through it, and destroyed Qingchen’s head. The second shot passed through empty space where his neck and skull should have been. The third obliterated what remained of his torso. The kinetic force hurled the remnants of his body backward until they slammed into the barrier formation at the far end of the arena with a deafening impact, leaving fine cracks across the otherwise invisible wall.

Just as had happened with the five young masters at the foot of Lingshan, something ugly and red tore free from the corpse. This time, after undergoing body tempering myself, I reacted in time. My hand closed around the writhing mass, a Soul Grudge Curse. I dealt with it the same way I had before. My jaws opened, and I ate the Soul Grudge Curse. The taste was the same, disgustingly sweet and salty at once.

By the time I finished chewing and swallowing, an old man was already on the platform, cradling what little remained of the body.

“My son… my son…” he cried.

“Ah, my apologies. I thought he was stronger. With a six-level difference I fully expected him to be able to handle it.”

At my words a massive, overpowering presence erupted. Early Golden Core cultivation flared in uncontrolled rage. The pressure lasted only a moment before other Golden Core auras rose in answer. Elder Yinyue and Senior Sister Zhaoxia both stood to shield me. Even Marshal Wuya of the Hanshuang Sect revealed his own Golden Core strength without hesitation.

The Gongsun elder was forced to withdraw his power. “The Gongsun family will not forget this humiliation,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Alright. Perhaps I should visit the Gongsun family sometime in the future,” I answered at once.

He collected the remains of his son and left without another word.

“Well then. Let us continue the proceedings.” I returned smoothly to my role as Master of Ceremonies.

—

Some time later, after the three tournament winners had received their rewards, Qin Weiming heard his master’s voice in his mind.

‘It would be best if you never fight the young Xuan.’

‘Can you do what he did, Master?’ Weiming could not help asking.

‘Already comparing your master to others, you brat?’ Displeasure colored the reply. ‘Of course I can. But I possess far higher cultivation. Those capable of performing what he just did at his level can be counted on one hand. That is not the point, however. That Xuan has far too many tricks.’

‘Like the intangibility?’

‘Look at the central tower again, boy, and tell me what you see.’

Weiming obeyed. He saw only the old scholar remaining there.

‘Now look properly.’

A thread of his master’s divine sense entered his eyes. The truth that followed left him speechless. The Xuan had never left the central tower. His real body still sat comfortably in his original seat. A single line of divine sense extended from that body to the figure that had stood upon the elevated platform. In essence, the Xuan had never been in any real danger. The revelation explained how the illusion in the arena could become intangible at will. Yet it also raised a far more unsettling question, how had he made the illusion tangible in the first place?

‘Do not waste time obsessing over the how and why of another’s techniques. Focus on yourself. Now that you know this, you will at least be better prepared should unforeseen circumstances force you to face him.’

‘To win against him?’

‘To stay alive,’ his master corrected sharply. ‘Remember that the Xuan are renowned for their sword arts and the young Xuan has yet to reveal any skill with the blade.’

The implication sent a chill down Weiming’s spine. If the Xuan could kill someone six levels above him without ever drawing a sword… how terrifying would he become once he did?

“Now that the winners have received their rewards, it is time to reveal the results of the examination phase.”

The Master of Ceremonies’ voice carried across the venue. Two massive scrolls unfurled in the air on either side of him, displaying the rankings from the examination.

Almost immediately Qin Weiming and the other participants noticed the difference. The left scroll contained only a small number of names, nearly all of them from noble lineages. Everyone else appeared on the right scroll. In previous tournaments there had been only a single ranking list, allowing those of noble birth to flaunt their positions over the rest. Now fewer than thirty names occupied the left scroll, each displayed in large, unmistakable characters that forced them to be compared only against one another.

Weiming was no fool. He understood at once that the division was the result of the backroom politicking his master had warned him about during the Great Mortal Game. The noble families had sought to protect their own from the embarrassment of early elimination and had almost certainly bribed examiners to inflate certain rankings. The Wanli Merchant Guild had technically fulfilled whatever agreements were made by placing the nobles on their own list while simultaneously forcing those same nobles to compete only among themselves rather than against participants of more humble origin.

“The results of both the examination phase and the combat tournament are now clear. It is time for the sects to select and recruit their disciples.”

“This one is Elder Yinyue of the Tianhe Sect’s Hall of Learning.”

A clear female voice immediately rang across the entire venue. Every eye turned toward the elegant white-haired elder.

Because the Tianhe Sect had not actively recruited for so long, no one raised an objection as she claimed the first selection.

“The Tianhe Sect will recruit every name that appears on the right scroll.”

~ Valarion