The Heavenly Sword Breaks!
"Heh. Good lad, I didn't expect you'd actually sign a life-and-death contract and go through with it!"
Li Tianshuo was half out of his mind with rage.
Two defeats at this boy's hands, in front of every Sky Tiger Gang member watching. The humiliation had settled into something sharper than embarrassment.
Now they stood on the Life-and-Death Arena, where he could unleash everything he had held back before. He refused to believe that an Eightfold Heaven expert of the Spiritual Martial Realm couldn't put down a piece of trash still stuck at the Middle Stage.
A duel for pride and a duel for blood were not the same fight, not even close.
Confidence poured off him, thick enough to taste. It was exactly why he'd agreed to the death match so fast.
Zhang Lingxiao answered without missing a beat.
"Li Tianshuo, are you serious right now? I'm the one who proposed this duel. What exactly are you shouting about? Stop performing for the crowd; it's embarrassing."
Li Tianshuo's face twisted, mortified.
From below the arena came two bursts of bright, silvery laughter, and right behind them, one loud and hearty.
The first two belonged to Ouyang Shishi and Li Ruoxi, both firmly on Zhang Lingxiao's side. Others in the crowd wanted to laugh too but didn't dare do it openly; they settled for muffled snickers behind their hands. Ouyang Shishi and Li Ruoxi didn't bother hiding theirs at all.
But it was the third voice that pulled every eye in the arena, Li Tianshuo's and Zhang Lingxiao's included.
The laugh belonged to a tall, lean man with a shaved head and a long sword at his hip, standing beside Ouyang Shishi and Li Ruoxi. His face was set hard with resolve, and though not a trace of spiritual energy stirred around him, something about his presence alone silenced any doubt about his strength.
Zhang Lingxiao and Li Tianshuo both turned to look at him.
The man grinned up at Zhang Lingxiao. "Kid, I believe in you. Kill this washout of a Sky Tiger Gang second-in-command, and you'll have my protection."
My protection.
Four words, spoken plainly, and yet backed by something unmistakably absolute.
Every Qingyun Mountain disciple in the crowd turned to study the bald man, whispering guesses about which sect or power he might lead, bold enough to stand against the Sky Tiger Gang in the open. But when they compared notes, every answer came back the same: nobody recognized him.
Zhang Lingxiao didn't know him either.
A stranger offering protection and doing it loudly enough for Li Tianshuo to hear it read like deliberate provocation. Maybe the two of them had history.
But Zhang Lingxiao caught the same confusion in Li Tianshuo's eyes.
Neither of them knew who this man was.
There wasn't time to dwell on it. Li Tianshuo, never one to fight fair, had already closed the distance and struck first.
He swung a battle-axe half his own height in each hand, the blades carving toward Zhang Lingxiao in a brutal arc.
Zhang Lingxiao reacted on instinct, twisting clear at the very last moment, slipping the strike like smoke.
"You slippery little rat! Stand still!"
Li Tianshuo roared and swung again, both axes cutting through the space Zhang Lingxiao had just vacated.
Zhang Lingxiao summoned the Heavenly Sword into his hand, disdain plain on his face.
"You're the one who should be running, trash."
He moved before the words finished landing, the blade already arcing toward Li Tianshuo's exposed back.
The first move of the Nine Nether Sword Technique.
Heavenly Fiend Sword.
Every ounce of contempt Zhang Lingxiao felt for Li Tianshuo and the Sky Tiger Gang poured into the strike. Sword aura tore free of the blade, carrying a killing intent sharp enough to feel like it could cut the sky itself.
A sword exists to kill. That was the whole of it, and there was something almost peaceful in owning that truth.
Ouyang Shishi's eyes flickered with something complicated as she watched. This strike hit harder than the one she'd traded with him the day before; he'd been holding back on her, clearly.
The bald man's eyes sharpened with surprise, then something closer to reverence.
"This kid... has he actually grasped the true heart of the blade? That's not a trace of understanding; that's real mastery. My own master might not swing a sword this heavy... Has he broken through to some deeper insight?"
"What a find," he murmured.
On the Life-and-Death Arena, Zhang Lingxiao's strike blazed, brilliant and merciless, and came down on Li Tianshuo like judgment itself.
A sharp cry tore out of Li Tianshuo as he crashed onto the platform, a deep wound splitting open across his back, bone visible beneath torn flesh.
Silence dropped over the arena. No one could quite process what they'd just watched.
Snap.
A small, clean sound cracked through the quiet and in total silence, it landed like thunder.
Zhang Lingxiao's sword.
It had shattered.
"Hahaha! That's our Sky Tiger Gang's Second Leader for you, a body strong enough to break that hothead's own blade! Brother Shuo is unstoppable!"
"Brother Shuo! Brother Shuo! Brother Shuo!"
The chant rolled through the arena in waves, each louder than the last.
Li Tianshuo rose slowly through the cheering, pain and smugness fighting for space on his face, as though he'd meant to shatter that sword all along.
"Hahaha! Zhang Lingxiao, you're finished! A sword cultivator with no sword, what exactly do you plan to fight me with now?"
His laugh came out twisted, dripping with satisfaction.
Zhang Lingxiao looked down at what remained of the Heavenly Sword in his grip. He tightened his hold for one long moment, then let go, sending it back into the Nine Netherworld Demon Palace.
"Su Qing... I'm sorry. The sword you gave me is broken. Guess I've gotten too strong for it to handle. Heh."
He let out a quiet laugh.
To everyone watching, it looked like something in him had finally snapped.
Weak-minded hothead. How did someone like that even earn Core Disciple robes bought his way in, probably.
"Oh no, what's happening?" Worry creased Ouyang Shishi's face.
Even she couldn't make sense of it. Zhang Lingxiao's sword aura had been overwhelming, so how had the blade broken? Could Li Tianshuo's body really have shattered it, the way the crowd was claiming?
A low hiss of murmurs spread through the crowd.
"This Zhang Lingxiao is too strong. He needs to join Ten Thousand Swords Peak."
No one in the crowd understood why the Heavenly Sword had broken.
But everyone knew the bald man's name now.
He was the peak master of Ten Thousand Swords Peak, the famously elusive chief disciple, Feng Jian.