Chapter 205

Chapter 205: Toying

But in that same instant, Li Shuang’s sword had already fallen.

Wu Ling Chuan tore out of the chain with all his strength. Their soul force was close, so a Secret Soul Method could not cause a huge impact, only a brief daze.

Against an opponent on the same level, that daze would mean death.

But Li Shuang’s cultivation stage was lower. Wu Ling Chuan dodged with all his might, and the sword that should have killed him now only carved a long gash across his chest.

Wu Ling Chuan’s blood fell and covered a patch of Wen Lin’s blood on the stage.

“There are still two moves,” Li Shuang said to him, a strange smile on her face.

Wu Ling Chuan clenched his teeth and said: “Fellow Daoist Li hid very deep. Those two moves, I won’t let you have them.”

This time he drew his blade and chose to meet her head on.

Tyrant Blade Sect’s Heaven Severing Blade had a strange trait. When the blade art came out, the baleful aura gathered on the blade would also affect the opponent. The longer the fight lasted, the deeper the opponent fell under that aura.

The aura hit the soul directly. By the later stage of the fight, the opponent would lose the ability to battle.

As Wu Ling Chuan struck, blood-red baleful aura surged toward Li Shuang.

But the moment that aura entered Li Shuang’s sea of consciousness, stars flashed on the Nine-Petal Azure Lotus, and the blood-red aura vanished without a trace.

Li Shuang raised an eyebrow. Tyrant Blade Sect surpassed the Sword Sect because Yan Zhong He had gotten this Heaven Severing Blade. She had not seen the reason before.

Now that she had trained a Soul Method, she knew the source of its power: it could touch the soul.

But compared to a true Secret Soul Technique, this Heaven Severing Blade carried a faint hint of evil. It did not look like a good thing.

And her Rebirth Art restrained it completely. For her, the Heaven Severing Blade was as good as useless.

Li Shuang swung her sword once.

Wu Ling Chuan blanked for an instant again.

This time, a large patch of flesh was sliced from his arm.

On the stage, his blood covered even more of Wen Lin’s blood.

“Fellow Daoist Wu, continue,” Li Shuang said, her eyes cold.

Wu Ling Chuan gritted his teeth. Li Shuang was truly strange.

But it did not matter.

Heaven Severing Blade was already in play. She had to be under its influence. The longer it lasted, the deeper it would go. He wanted to see if Li Shuang could keep acting so arrogant.

Wu Ling Chuan dragged out the time with pain and stubbornness.

He would win. He must.

But he waited and waited.

His wounds grew in number. Li Shuang still showed no sign of being affected.

His eyes grew redder and redder. [She must be just holding on. She will show a flaw. She must. When she does, I’ll land a killing blow.]

He was trapped inside the fight and could not see the truth.

To everyone else, he was being played with like a toy in Li Shuang’s hands.

“Senior Sister Li hasn’t even used her full strength,” a Sword Sect disciple murmured.

Li Shuang had not opened her Sword Domain. Her strongest single-target sword art, Lotus in Ice, was nowhere to be seen.

She was simply toying with Wu Ling Chuan.

Before, Wen Lin had been teased and tormented like this again and again by Wu Ling Chuan. Now Li Shuang was paying it back in full.

On the stage, Wen Lin’s blood was slowly covered by Wu Ling Chuan’s blood.

In that instant, everyone understood what Li Shuang meant: the blood of a Sword Sect disciple can only be repaid by the enemy’s fresh blood.

A disciple could not help it and shouted: “Li Shuang!” Her lone voice echoed across the field, and she covered her mouth in shame.

The next moment, many Sword Sect disciples joined in and shouted together: “Li Shuang! Li Shuang!” The sound gathered into a flood that seemed ready to drown everything.

Wu Ling Chuan’s heart trembled.

He roared: “Li Shuang, you are strong outside but weak inside. Watch this strike.”

“Heaven Severing Blade, first form: Heavenfiend Blade!”

He raised his blade. A fierce, unstoppable blade art was about to fall.

Li Shuang looked at him, and the hint of mockery in her eyes was hard to hide.

She could clash with him head on.

But there was no need.

Wu Ling Chuan’s pupils shrank. A sense of doom rose inside.

Sure enough, at the exact moment his blade art was about to land, his soul jolted again.

His hand went soft, and the blade art scattered in the air.

Li Shuang did not use any named sword move. Sword light flashed. Streaks of light left mottled wounds across Wu Ling Chuan’s body.

He half knelt in despair, blood seeping from everywhere.

Li Shuang walked toward him.

“I admit defeat!” Wu Ling Chuan shouted with the last of his strength.

Li Shuang looked at him calmly and said: “Accepted.”

“Li Shuang!”

“Li Shuang!”

For a time, the shouting grew like thunder and shook the sky.

A smile appeared on Wen Lin’s face. He could no longer stand and fainted at once.

“Quick, take Senior Brother Lin to heal,” people cried, and they rushed him away in a panic.

Wu Ling Chuan’s face was pale, his eyes full of despair.

If Li Shuang’s side lost, there might not be much punishment.

But he had lost.

Wu Ling Chuan did not dare turn and look at Yan Zhong He. In the past, his Master had favored him most.

But now there was Fang Qing Yu.

He had also lost to a Sword Sect disciple.

[Will Tyrant Blade Sect still have a place for me in the days to come?] Wu Ling Chuan’s heart sank in waves of despair.

On the stage, Ye Zhao Zhao’s face had also looked bad at first.

Very soon, though, she drew in the huge tide of negative emotion pouring off Wu Ling Chuan, and a smile finally appeared.

[Let Li Shuang enjoy herself for now. When my strength rises, I will make her pay with my own hands,] Ye Zhao Zhao vowed.

Li Shuang looked down at Wu Ling Chuan and said suddenly: “Your aura is weaker than the last time we met.”

Wu Ling Chuan snapped: “I already conceded. Do you still want to insult me?”

Li Shuang glanced toward Ye Zhao Zhao, then said quietly: “I was silent for ten years. No matter how hard I tried in those years, my cultivation would not advance. It even started to fall. The cause began when someone named Ye Zhao Zhao came to Ling Xu Peak. She framed me again and again, making my Master and fellow disciples misunderstand me. After that I lived in pain day and night. My cultivation could not move forward. Strangely, Ye Zhao Zhao, who had Mixed Spiritual Roots, began to surge ahead.”

Meng Yi Fei’s eyes showed a hint of doubt. Li Shuang had never said this before. Bringing it up now seemed to have a deeper meaning.

“Wu Ling Chuan,” Li Shuang said, looking at him with meaning: “I don’t know what that Ye Zhao Zhao truly is. For now, think of her as someone who can drain another’s cultivation and use it for herself. I said Fang Qing Yu is the Ye Zhao Zhao from back then. Your situation now is the same as mine was. These three months, your cultivation has not advanced at all, right? And that so-called Fang Qing Yu, who only has a common-grade spiritual root, has suddenly shown talent beyond normal, right? Today you lost and fell into a deeper dead end. I’m afraid her cultivation will surge again.”

As her words fell, Wu Ling Chuan’s heart jerked hard. He swung his head around and stared at Ye Zhao Zhao.