Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Active and Passive

Sister Tang shouted, “You’re at the Ninth Seal, and he’s only at the Eighth. Winning like this is unfair!”

The words turned Yun Lai’s gaze murderous. He lifted a hand. A tiny bow condensed in his palm, an arrow forming with it, and he flicked his wrist.

Sister Tang couldn’t even dodge.

At the last moment, a figure stepped in front of her and casually slapped the arrow aside. “Now it’s my turn.”

Everyone froze. It was Wang Jie.

Bai Xiao clutched Bai Yuan tightly, eyes locked on Wang Jie’s back. She knew who he was—the base’s only trialist had been with him.

Yun Lai narrowed his eyes, surprised. “That just now… Jia Eight Steps?”

Wang Jie met his stare. “I want to test your Eight-Cloud Arrow.”

Yun Lai’s expression darkened. “No wonder this base is crawling with natives. One expert after another.”

He raised his bow. “Fine. If you want to die, I’ll grant your wish.”

The arrow left the string—and the world seemed to fall silent.

Earlier, the Eight-Cloud Arrow had been brushed aside by the Jia Yi Divine Sword, but that didn’t mean it was weak. It only meant the Jia Yi Divine Sword was monstrously strong.

Bai Yuan had spent ten years refining a single move, and even that had only been possible because of the chance the third batch of trialists had brought.

Other than him, Yun Lai didn’t believe any native on Blue Star could stop an Eight-Cloud Arrow. Not a single one.

Wen Zhao watched without speaking. She was sure she’d never seen Wang Jie before. His trial records had been sealed.

Even with his status, Yun Lai was still just a disciple—he hadn’t even truly entered the sect.

The arrow reached Wang Jie, power enough to punch through two major bases—

—and stopped.

It hovered before his forehead, clamped in his hand.

For a heartbeat, no one could breathe.

What…?

Yun Lai’s face twisted. How was that possible?

Trialist information wasn’t something ordinary people could access, and even those with permission never saw everything. If Yun Lai weren’t Yun Lai, he wouldn’t have had the right to view it at all. The others could barely glimpse scraps.

Lian Qin and the rest were just as stunned. You could do that?

Bai Yuan stared, blank for a second. Without the Jia Yi Divine Sword, even he would have struggled to stop an Eight-Cloud Arrow at that distance.

This Wang Jie was stronger than he’d thought—far stronger.

Wang Jie lowered his arm. The arrow in his palm was ice-cold and unbelievably tough, forged from a material he didn’t recognize.

He’d planned to dodge. But the instant the arrow left the bow, he knew he could catch it—now that he had eight times the strength he once did.

He caught it… and his palm was scraped raw. The force packed into that single shot was terrifying.

Yun Lai didn’t speak. He fired again—two arrows, both aimed for Wang Jie’s throat.

Wang Jie didn’t try to catch them. He stepped into Jia Eight Steps and surged forward. The arrows tore through empty air, skimmed the base wall, and blasted a corner into rubble.

Wang Jie lifted a finger.

Luo Xuan Finger.

Yun Lai shot at empty space. He thought he’d missed—until the arrow curved in midair, as if it had a mind of its own, and chased Wang Jie.

Wen Zhao’s eyes tightened. This was the true Eight-Cloud Arrow.

Power was only part of it. Control was the core.

A normal cultivator below the Ten Seals could control at most five arrows. Yun Lai could control eight. That was why he’d mastered Eight-Cloud Arrow.

She hadn’t warned Wang Jie about it—not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t. Whatever their differences, she and Yun Lai both belonged to the sect.

Wang Jie hadn’t expected the arrows to cover for each other. He shifted hard again, narrowly slipping past the curve.

Yun Lai suppressed his aura and kept firing, clearly finished with testing.

He went straight to eight arrows.

The eight shots spiraled around him in tight orbit. Wang Jie’s spiral qi bursts couldn’t reliably reach Yun Lai from afar; Yun Lai recognized Luo Xuan Finger, and the arrows kept their spacing, intercepting the strikes as they came.

With eight arrows circling, Wang Jie was driven back step by step.

He lifted a hand to snatch one.

Wen Zhao almost shouted.

At the last instant, Wang Jie yanked his hand back.

He could catch one arrow—but the other seven would crash down at the same time. He’d have to take all eight at once.

Unless it was the Jia Yi Divine Sword, no battle skill in the current Jia Yi Sect—at the same level—could manage that.

Yun Lai watched him retreat, voice cold with certainty. “You’re strong. You’ve mastered Jia Eight Steps, so you can catch one of my arrows.”

He sneered. “But so what? There are countless strong people in the universe. If brute force alone could break Eight-Cloud Arrow, the Jia Yi Sect would have been wiped out long ago.”

As he spoke, he lifted his hand again. A tiny bow condensed in his palm, and the currents inside his body began to boil. “Trying to stand out? Then die.”

Countless tiny arrows burst from his hand, threading into the Eight-Cloud Arrow formation and streaking toward Wang Jie like a swarm.

Wang Jie flipped back. His arms rotated in reverse, compressing the air.

The ground cracked under his feet. Dust whipped up without a hint of wind.

Terrifying strength erupted outward, driven by imprint power—bang.

The air became a visible storm that slammed into Yun Lai. The shockwave shoved Bai Yuan and the others back, and the storm met the rain of arrows head-on.

Yun Lai had never imagined a native could wield such strength—compressing air into a battle skill. Simple. Brutal. Effective. It forced his arrow rain to reverse.

He clenched his fist. The eight arrows shot straight at Wang Jie.

Wang Jie compressed the air again and blasted outward. The move consumed raw strength while barely using imprint power, making it perfect for him.

But this time, he couldn’t force the eight arrows back.

They fused into one.

A single shot ripped through the storm and drove straight for Wang Jie.

Instinct took over. Wang Jie caught it with both hands.

The arrow dragged him backward and smashed him into the city wall, shattering thick stone and flinging him into the base. He gritted his teeth, raised his left arm, and slammed down.

His wrist guard crashed into the arrow and knocked its path aside. It skimmed his cheek, carving a thin line of blood, then tore through the entire Shang Jing City Base, punched through the northern wall, and vanished into the distance.

A deep scar split Shang Jing City Base in two.

Everyone stared, stunned.

Wang Jie had been dragged more than a thousand meters.

This was Yun Lai’s strength.

This was what it meant to be recognized as a prodigy by the Jia Yi Sect.

Wen Zhao couldn’t compare.

None of the previous trialists were on his level.

And yet… Yun Lai was still shaken.

Wang Jie slowly lifted his head and wiped the blood from his face. Without that wrist guard, he wouldn’t have deflected the arrow so cleanly.

He followed the crack in the ground and walked back out of the base.

On either side, no one dared make a sound.

This man had taken Eight Arrows as One head-on.

Bai Yuan smiled. With this fight, the base was safe.

Yun Lai couldn’t beat him.

Because Wang Jie still had a trump card.

Wen Zhao knew Wang Jie could fight Yun Lai—but it should have been after he broke through the Ninth Seal, not now.

And Eight Arrows as One had only scratched his skin.

Yun Lai stared at him outside the base, disbelief written across his face—the same look he’d worn when he saw the Jia Yi Divine Sword. “Who are you?”

Wang Jie shook out his arm. “Wang Jie. A native.”

“Impossible. How could a native stop my Eight Arrows as One?”

Wang Jie touched his cheek again, then let his hand drop. “Didn’t I get hurt?”

Yun Lai looked like he’d seen a ghost.

This trial ground was supposed to be worthless—barely enough for him to earn an A-grade result. Yet freaks kept appearing: one with the Jia Yi Divine Sword, and another who could withstand Eight Arrows as One.

Forget natives—even formal disciples of the Jia Yi Sect rarely managed that below the Ten Seals.

What was wrong with these people?

Wang Jie met his stare. “You’re done attacking. My turn now, right?”

Yun Lai’s voice turned ice-cold. “Native, you really think you can beat me?”

Wang Jie smiled. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

Yun Lai frowned, about to speak—when the ground beneath him shuddered. He tried to move, but the surrounding void thickened like a swamp, trapping him in place.

Then he looked up.

A single finger pierced through the clouds and descended.

Every cultivator saw it.

If the Jia Yi Divine Sword, magnified a million times like a small mountain, had been shocking, this was worse. A sword could be forged. A finger belonged to a living body.

Yun Lai had never imagined something that colossal could appear inside a trial ground—ready to crush him.

What was this…?

Cloud and earth were pierced at once.

Yun Lai shot out eight arrows. They whirled around him and smashed into the heaven-shaking giant finger.

Boom.

The world trembled. Terrifying ripples swept outward, warping the air so violently no one could look straight at it.

Even the base shuddered.

Wen Zhao stepped forward without thinking. Wang Jie’s Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger was terrifying—he’d used it to one-shot that giant centipede. No matter how strong Yun Lai was, he wouldn’t come out unscathed.

In her eyes, the power of Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger wasn’t below the Jia Yi Divine Sword at all.

If it hadn’t been lost, its name wouldn’t have been much lesser.

The scorching air finally dispersed.

A massive swath of earth had caved in.

Yun Lai lay in the crater. His once-luxurious clothes hung in rags. He panted like a man who’d been forced to doubt everything he believed.

Blood stained him in several places. Blocking that blow had cost him.

Wang Jie couldn’t help admiring it. A prodigy really was a prodigy.

Yun Lai’s defense was far stronger than that centipede’s.

All eyes locked onto Yun Lai as he dragged himself up, climbed out of the crater, and stared at Wang Jie with a pale face. “That was Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.”

Wang Jie nodded. “That’s right.”

Yun Lai’s smile turned bitter.

One native knew the Jia Yi Divine Sword. Another knew the lost Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger. It was madness.

No wonder he’d never seen this man before. The sect must have hidden him.

“Where did you learn it?” Yun Lai demanded. “Are you even a native?”

“I’m from Hua Xia—real as it gets.” Wang Jie lifted a hand. “As for where I learned it…”

He pointed at the sky.

Yun Lai followed his finger toward the sky projection. Could the Martial Hall show it too?

Wang Jie clenched his fist. “All right, alien.”

His voice was calm, almost conversational. “You have two choices now: surrender on your own… or surrender the hard way.”

He tilted his head. “Pick one.”

The surrounding cultivators stared at Yun Lai. Had this powerful trialist really lost?

Yun Lai sneered, sweeping his gaze across the crowd. “Surrender?”

He spat the word. “Native, who do you think you are?”

His voice rang across the entire Shang Jing City Base. “This is only a trial. See it clearly—only a trial.”

“I lost, but why would I surrender to a bunch of cannon fodder being sent to the interstellar battlefield?”

“You’re just natives. Nothing but war slaves.”

“You really dare do anything to me? With a single sentence, you won’t even get the chance to struggle on the interstellar battlefield.”

“Your entire Blue Star will vanish into the endless universe in an instant.”

“Ask Wen Zhao if I can do it.”

Many people turned toward Wen Zhao.

Wen Zhao didn’t refute him. To a colossal power like the Jia Yi Sect, a single planet was insignificant.

And the Yun family was one of the three great houses of the Jia Yi Sect, with experts like Ru Yun among them.

Yun Lai brushed dust from his sleeves and fixed a cold stare on Wang Jie and Bai Yuan. “Native, look carefully. My name is Yun Lai. Under my name, there are dozens of planets like Blue Star, and I can mobilize dozens of star-breaking realm cultivators. Any one of them could destroy Blue Star.”

“I hold the lives of hundreds of billions in my hands, and you dare demand I surrender?”

With that, he turned and walked away.

Among the hundred thousand packed into the base, no one spoke.

Yun Lai had laid bare Blue Star’s disastrous fate again.

Waiting for every person of Blue Star was a future as a war slave—and a certain death.

He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a sudden chill crawled up his spine.

Yun Lai spun around.

All he saw was a fist.

Bang!