Chapter 319

Chapter 319: A Miraculous Archery Art

The same frenzy erupted on the opposite end.

Both sides attacked downward, trying to force their end of the scale lower.

Beside Wang Jie, someone unleashed a One Blade strike carrying more than two hundred thousand in power—clearly an elite disciple from a great sect.

And there were many like him.

Wang Jie had spent too long in Black-White Heaven. Compared to this, his world had been narrow.

He’d known the outside was vast, but seeing it in person was different.

Here, Full-Star Realm cultivators who could crush Roaming-Star Realm were everywhere.

This was the gathering place of the four Bridge-Pillars. Every kind of battle style existed here.

Wang Jie entered the tournament through Black-White Heaven, but that didn’t mean the people around him were from Black-White Heaven. The distribution felt random.

Then, suddenly, their end of the scale began to rise.

Panic spread instantly.

“What’s happening?”

“Who isn’t giving it their all?”

“We are!”

“Look over there—on the other side! Isn’t that Pan Fan? The sword court expert who left a message in the Star Vault Vista report?”

“It is. He was even featured. That means he’s no nobody.”

“And there are Jia Yi Sect experts over there too—names people recognize.”

“So what about us? Do we have anyone?”

People scanned their own end, desperate.

Finally, someone recognized Wang Jie.

He’d been quiet so long that without his provocative quote, most would have forgotten him entirely.

But now, in this scramble to find strong allies, the name surfaced.

“Your Excellency… are you Wang Jie?”

The moment his name rang out, heads snapped toward him.

And in that single distraction, their end rose even faster.

Wang Jie raised a hand and slammed a palm downward.

A violent shockwave rippled across the scale, checking the rise at once.

Across from them, eyes turned.

“That can’t be… Wang Jie?”

“One of the seven who received Enlightenment Tea?”

“We’re unlucky enough to run into him right away?”

“Unlucky?” someone scoffed, trying to sound brave. “We have more experts. Besides, he’s just a Lockforce cultivator. Past achievements don’t mean anything now.”

The words were bold.

The faces were not.

Pan Fan lifted his gaze, locking onto Wang Jie from afar. He stepped out, gripped his sword, and thrust toward Wang Jie’s end—attacking directly.

On the scale, people in front of Wang Jie scrambled back. Two were too slow and caught the edge of the sword qi—both arms severed.

The sword qi kept coming.

Wang Jie flicked a finger.

It shattered.

Pan Fan stared at him, eyes burning. “Even my Senior Brother Yuan Mu didn’t receive Enlightenment Tea. Wang Jie—show me why you deserve it.”

Then he stepped forward and charged.

It wasn’t impossible to cross between ends of the scale.

But the price was brutal.

If someone from the opposite end forced their way onto this end, then twenty people on this end would be eliminated.

One person traded for twenty.

Heaven’s rules were never perfect.

Not even the Starry Sky Martial Tournament.

The strong shouldn’t be dragged down by the weak.

That was the tournament’s version of fairness.

Pan Fan kept coming. And the closer he got, the more everyone felt an invisible pull dragging them upward toward that mercury sky.

They said twenty would be eliminated, but everyone was affected. It was just a matter of which twenty couldn’t hold on.

Already, people were being lifted.

“Pan Fan, stop!” someone shouted, striking out.

Pan Fan’s sword flashed.

His swordsmanship was strange—his body moving with the blade, the blade moving with his intent. In a single sweeping pass, three people were pierced clean through.

They vanished, eliminated.

Pan Fan’s gaze never left Wang Jie.

He poured starforce into his sword, inhaled, steadied himself.

Heart sinks into the sword. Sword moves with spirit.

Moving sword—first strike.

Slash.

The blade cut through the void, a cold line that seemed to vanish as soon as it appeared.

Wang Jie didn’t move.

People stared, stunned—including those still being pulled upward.

He didn’t react?

If Wang Jie lost here, the Star Vault Vista’s “Enlightenment Tea equals top twenty” record would be broken on day one.

The Star Vault Vista would become a joke.

Surely he couldn’t be that weak.

Pan Fan ended up back-to-back with Wang Jie.

He slowly lowered his head, staring at his sword as if it no longer belonged to him.

“How…?”

His knees buckled.

He fell.

His sword cracked—and shattered.

From beginning to end, no one saw Wang Jie move.

Pan Fan’s body dissolved, eliminated.

In this place, death wasn’t death. It was removal.

That was the miracle of the Starry Sky Martial Tournament.

People were truly here, yet outside aids were forbidden—no pills, no formation scrolls, no chen artifacts. And even when you “died,” you didn’t truly die.

It was as if the tournament had dragged them into a sealed, strange space of its own.

Pan Fan’s defeat ignited Wang Jie’s side. People roared and attacked downward again.

This time, the scale started to sink—clearly.

But too slowly.

Wang Jie struck down with another palm.

Lockforce rippled visibly across the surface like waves on water, and the scale dipped much faster.

Across the gap, faces tightened. No one mocked him now.

Someone who received Enlightenment Tea was never an easy target.

“Impressive,” a voice said behind Wang Jie. “How did you do that? I almost couldn’t see it.”

Wang Jie turned.

A man in ragged clothes stood there, a crude bow slung over his back.

His eyes didn’t quite align.

Wang Jie’s expression went strange.

“Cross-eyed?” someone muttered.

The bowman snapped his gaze over and roared, “What did you say? I’m not cross-eyed!”

The shout startled everyone.

Then laughter erupted.

“Hahaha—cross-eyed!”

“A cultivator and he’s still cross-eyed?”

“Brother, try moving your eyeballs!”

Even the people on the opposite end laughed.

The bowman trembled, furious. “I’m not cross-eyed! You’re all rude. I’ll make you pay!”

He drew his bow—without an arrow—and aimed forward.

The laughter only grew.

“Brother, you don’t even have arrows!”

The bowstring released.

A soft hum sounded.

Wang Jie’s gaze sharpened.

The void ahead rippled—then the ripples solidified into streaking arrows.

The laughter was still hanging in the air…

…but the laughers were gone.

The sound didn’t even have time to finish traveling before bodies vanished, eliminated one after another.

The scale went silent.

Those who hadn’t laughed stared in horror.

What kind of archery art was that?

Someone swallowed hard. “Is he… Zhou Ye?”

The bowman lowered his weapon, smoothed his tattered clothes, and became calm as still water, as if the earlier rage had never existed.

“I am Zhou Ye,” he said evenly. “From the Southern Dipper.”

Then he bowed toward the one who spoke. “Greetings.”

That person trembled as they returned the bow. “H-Hello. Hello.”

Wang Jie studied Zhou Ye.

So this was the one from the Star Vault Vista special report—the man even Du Xian knew nothing about.

That display just now was anything but ordinary.

No one laughed at his eyes anymore.

Zhou Ye looked back at Wang Jie. “Impressive. How did you do that? I almost couldn’t see it.”

Wang Jie blinked.

He’d asked the exact same thing twice.

“Brother Zhou’s archery is just as impressive,” Wang Jie said. “Respect.”

Zhou Ye waved it off. “So-so. Brother Wang—since you cultivate Lockforce, have you ever been looked down on?”

He seemed to realize his phrasing was dangerous and immediately added, “I don’t mean I look down on Lockforce cultivators. It’s just… since I was born, I’ve lived inside misunderstanding and mockery. Maybe you’ve suffered something similar.”

Wang Jie nodded. “I have. My experiences aren’t so different from yours.”

Zhou Ye exhaled, almost wistful. “The world’s prejudice is like a mountain. Hard to move.”

“Um…” someone said carefully from nearby. “Not to interrupt, but our end is rising again.”

Wang Jie and Zhou Ye both looked across.

Even without Pan Fan, the other side’s overall strength remained fierce.

And Zhou Ye’s earlier burst had eliminated some of their own side as collateral damage.

Zhou Ye stepped forward, lifted his bow, and aimed at the opposite end. “The rise was caused by my rash action. Then I should be the one to correct it.”

He paused, voice steady. “And no—I don’t regret what I did.”

He loosed.

The same ripples spread through the void.

The opposite end unleashed a storm of attacks, trying to disrupt the invisible arrows.

But the ripples ignored everything, as if they came from a different layer of void, flowing forward unhindered.

The moment the ripples touched someone, they vanished.

Zhou Ye shot again.

He didn’t seem to care if his method was seen, or if it painted a target on his back.

In the opening moments of the Starry Sky Martial Tournament, with an Enlightenment Tea recipient beside him, his actions looked reckless.

But he still did it.

Gradually, the scale steadied.

Zhou Ye repaired the imbalance his earlier outburst had created.

With Wang Jie and Zhou Ye on their end, people finally felt secure.

Unless the opposite side had two Enlightenment Tea-level monsters, this should be theirs.

Then the opposite end shifted.

Everyone there moved forward, forming a wall—blocking sight.

Wang Jie’s brow lifted.

He extended a finger and pressed down: Heaven and Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

A crushing force slammed into the scale, forcing it to dip.

Whatever the other side planned, it didn’t matter. If he pushed the scale down, they lived.

Zhou Ye loosed another arrow.

Ripples spread again, and once again the opposite end panicked, retreating from the unseen reach.

Then the scale shuddered.

Wang Jie frowned.

It stopped sinking.

He pressed again.

Still no movement.

At the same time, the wall of bodies on the opposite end slowly parted, revealing what they’d been hiding.

A colossal creature.

Whale-like. Vast enough to make the scale feel small.

It faced Wang Jie’s end, threw back its head, and howled.

Someone gasped, voice tight. “Imperial Kun?”

Another shouted in shock, “That’s right—Eastern Dipper Bridge-Pillar’s Imperial Kun. This is bad. Imperial Kun is monstrously heavy. Once it exerts itself, our end won’t be able to press down.”

“Now we know why they blocked the view,” someone else said, grim. “They were afraid we’d stop Imperial Kun from acting.”

Zhou Ye loosed an arrow.

Ripples hit the Imperial Kun.

The Imperial Kun roared, and visible sound-waves rolled outward, overlapping the ripples—then sliding past them at an angle, slipping free.

The archery ripples tore blood-thread wounds across Imperial Kun’s hide, damaging it.

But the sound-waves slammed into Wang Jie’s end as well, forcing Zhou Ye back several steps.

Then the Imperial Kun surged upward and smashed down.