A Life and Death Contract is a grim document. Once signed and witnessed, killing an opponent in a duel carries no penalty from the sect.
Lin Haoming remembered how the original Lin Haoming had been bullied into such duels repeatedly. To save his skin, he had surrendered his ancestor's treasures piece by piece until he had nothing left and was kicked out of the inner sect. Most of those who robbed him were now Foundation Establishment experts; revenge wouldn't be easy.
Situ Ping tossed a refined scroll to Lin. With no other choice, Lin signed his name. On the other side, Guo Xin looked slightly rattled by the escalation, but he didn't believe he could lose to a 7th-level junior.
"Good," Zhou Zhiye smirked, seeing the signatures. "I'll put up a bottle of mid-grade Heqi Pills—twenty of them, worth two hundred spirit stones."
Heqi Pills were luxury items for 9th-level or Great Perfection Qi Refining cultivators. A standard one cost three spirit stones, but mid-grade versions were worth ten each. Outer disciples rarely touched them unless they were attempting to break a bottleneck.
Situ Ping didn't offer items; he simply laid out two hundred spirit stones as his stake. He looked at Lin Haoming. "If you win, not only do you get your bet, but I'll personally reward you with one of those mid-grade Heqi Pills."
Zhou Zhiye wouldn't be outdone. "Guo Xin, if you win, I'll reward you with thirty spirit stones on top of the winnings."
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The Duel
The crowd cleared a space. Manager Ma stood in the center as the neutral arbitrator. The two combatants stood ten yards apart.
"Kid," Guo Xin sneered, "beg for mercy now and you might live. Otherwise... heh!"
Lin Haoming ignored him, focusing on Manager Ma as he recited the rules one last time. When the old man shouted, "Begin!", the fight ended almost as soon as it started.
Lin Haoming immediately threw out a talisman and spat a mouthful of Essence Blood onto it to supercharge its power.
Opposite him, Guo Xin tossed a half-foot-long flying knife into the air. With a hand seal, the blade glowed with a lethal blue light and shot toward Lin.
"A Mid-Grade Magic Tool!" the crowd gasped. With such a weapon and a higher cultivation level, Guo Xin seemed to have certain victory.
But then, Lin's talisman erupted in a brilliant green light. From the radiance, dozens of massive wind blades shrieked out like a torrential storm, swarming Guo Xin.
"AAAGH!"
Guo Xin had no defense against a high-grade talisman of that caliber. Before he could even scream a second time, he was sliced into unrecognizable chunks of red meat.
On the other side, Lin Haoming slapped a second talisman—a Vajra Talisman—onto his forehead. A golden barrier flickered into life just as the blue flying knife struck. The barrier rippled from the impact, but as Guo Xin's life faded, the knife lost its spiritual connection and clattered uselessly to the floor.
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The Aftermath
Lin Haoming stared at the pile of gore that used to be a man. Despite his past as a coroner dealing with corpses, the reality of taking a life himself left him pale. He didn't regret it; he knew that if he had been even a second slower, he would be the one on the floor.
Curiously, the Merit Beads vibrated. He had gained Merit! Someone was genuinely grateful he had won. It could have been Situ Ping for the prestige and the pills, or perhaps the other managers who now didn't have to pay out their bets.
He checked his Vajra Talisman; the single strike from the mid-grade tool had drained a third of its energy. If Guo Xin had been at the 9th level, the shield wouldn't have lasted two hits.
Lin picked up the blue flying knife and walked over to Situ Ping. "Senior Brother, a mid-grade magic tool."
"Not bad. I could use this," Situ Ping said. He grabbed five of the won Heqi Pills and handed them to Lin. "I'll take the knife as payment for these."
Zhou Zhiye, having lost both his bet and his borrowed tool, hissed, "That knife is worth a hundred stones! And those two talismans this kid used must have cost fifty. Where does a poor manager get that kind of hardware?"
Lin Haoming looked Zhou Zhiye dead in the eye. "My ancestor left them to me for protection."
It was the perfect excuse. Everyone knew his lineage.
Situ Ping laughed, clearly enjoying Zhou's misery. "Did you hear that? You think everyone is as shameless as you, lending out tools for a fair fight?"
The beads vibrated again. Situ Ping was actually feeling grateful toward Lin for making Zhou look like a fool.
Zhou Zhiye glared at Lin Haoming, a murderous glint in his eyes. Lin knew he had just made a powerful enemy, but in the Demonic Sect, that was just another Tuesday.