Chapter 73

Chapter 73: Sun You Yi

News of the debate spread like sparks along the route: the Ling Zhen Sect and the Chang Yuan Sect were fighting atop a vessel in the Cloud Sea.

Nearby sects immediately gathered, steering their flying tools closer until they surrounded the Immortal Crane Roaming Vessel. Disciples leapt out to watch, and even elders kept a thread of attention fixed on the arena.

Talented disciples appeared one after another. Spectators murmured in admiration—marveling that the Ling Zhen Sect’s inheritance had not been extinguished, that its next generation was strong, and that Chang Yuan was clearly rising, its air of a great sect growing sharper by the year.

After four rounds, the score sat at two to two.

The final round would decide everything: victory, reputation, face.

Ling Zhen’s first fighter in the last round was Ding Zheng, a ninth-level Qi Refining Stage disciple.

Zhao Chun recognized him. Before the selection tournament, Ding Zheng had been only at the eighth level, yet he still fought his way into the top 20. Over the year and a half that followed, he broke through to the ninth level. Even so, his strength fell short of another ninth-level disciple on their side, Jian Zhong He. Ding Zheng leading off was clearly meant to probe, to test.

Chang Yuan had only one ninth-level disciple left as well, and he stepped onto the platform as the first responder.

Ding Zheng fought hard. He lasted more than 10 exchanges.

He still lost.

Jian Zhong He’s expression sharpened below the arena. He had been one of the eight ninth-level Qi Refining Stage disciples in the selection tournament. Even if he could not compare to the sect’s true monsters, he should have been able to hold his own against a Chang Yuan disciple.

The two fought with everything they had—techniques, talismans, bursts of qi, every last trick they’d learned. But the Chang Yuan disciple was standing at the very edge of the Foundation Establishment Stage, only a step from breaking through. His reserves of true qi were simply greater.

In the end, Jian Zhong He could not continue and was forced off the platform.

The thick-browed Chang Yuan disciple had clearly spent a great deal of true qi as well, but his face said he still had more to give.

On Ling Zhen’s side, only two eighth-level disciples remained.

The odds tilted.

Bian Ru stood near Zhao Chun, sword in hand. Among the eighth-level disciples she was considered decent—but against the thick-browed Chang Yuan disciple, her chances were almost nonexistent.

“You go… or should I—” Zhao Chun asked quietly, fingers tightening around her hilt. If Bian Ru refused, Zhao Chun would take the fight herself.

Bian Ru’s eyes sharpened. “It’s fine,” she said firmly. “If I lose, then you go.”

The words had barely left her mouth when a wave of startled murmurs rose from the spectators.

The thick-browed disciple turned back toward the Chang Yuan crowd, signaled once—and leapt down from the platform.

He was forfeiting.

Bian Ru hesitated, confusion flashing across her face, but she still stepped onto the arena. She practiced the sword, yes, but she had not entered the Entry Realm. She was not a true sword cultivator yet.

The Chang Yuan crowd parted.

A saber-wielding girl sprang onto the platform in one clean motion.

She was also at the eighth level of the Qi Refining Stage, yet she carried herself as if everyone around her existed merely to frame her presence. The Chang Yuan disciples behind her wore the same pride, as if her confidence belonged to all of them.

Up in the pavilion, Li Shu received Shi Tong’s voice transmission, confident and pleased.

“Fellow Daoist Li,” Shi Tong said, “allow me to introduce her. She’s a personal disciple I accepted in recent years. Her strength is decent enough. Please, take a look.”

Li Shu exchanged a glance with Huo Zi Xun. Both understood at once: only a top-tier genius earned words like that.

Li Shu’s brow furrowed as he looked at Bian Ru’s rigid stance on the platform.

This fight would be brutal for her.

“Chang Yuan Sect, Sun You Yi,” the saber girl said brightly, mischief flickering at the corners of her mouth. “Please instruct me!”

“Ling Zhen Sect, Bian Ru,” Bian Ru replied, voice tight.

The instant Sun You Yi’s saber came down, Bian Ru understood what she faced.

Suppression.

Strength, speed, technique—Sun You Yi crushed her across the board. Bian Ru could not push back at all.

Bian Ru gritted her teeth. Sun You Yi could have ended it in three moves.

She did not.

Instead, Sun You Yi held back, restraining her power to a level that let Bian Ru barely struggle. She disrupted Bian Ru’s rhythm again and again, jabbing at openings, forcing awkward counters, turning the match into a slow humiliation.

Watching from below, Zhao Chun’s displeasure deepened.

Anyone could see it. Sun You Yi was stronger by far.

And yet she chose to toy with her.

Another voice transmission came from Shi Tong, his tone almost indulgent. “My disciple is mischievous. Even my other disciples suffer under her temper. Fellow Daoist Li, please don’t blame her.”

Li Shu’s expression hovered in a strange place—half irritation, half amusement. He and Huo Zi Xun exchanged a look that held more interest than anger.

The truth was obvious to anyone with a keen eye: Sun You Yi had stepped into the first realm of the blade Dao.

An Entry Realm blade cultivator.

The spectators erupted.

“Her strikes are smooth, and she hides her blade-light within the saber itself. She’s been in the Entry Realm for a while,” someone said, astonished. “To reach that realm at the Qi Refining Stage… that’s rare. That’s genius.”

“You don’t know Chang Yuan,” another replied. “Their blade Dao is flourishing. Elder Shi Tong is famous in the Southern Domain as a saber cultivator. Last gathering they even had a disciple, Geng Tian Qin, who entered the second realm. Shame he still lost to the Ling Zhen Sect’s chief Foundation Establishment Stage disciple, Huo Zi Xun.”

“So the two sects really do have history.”

A third voice sighed. “If Sun You Yi is an Entry Realm blade cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage… the Ling Zhen Sect is probably going to lose.”

“Enough. Watch.”

Among the gathered spectators stood a young sword cultivator who had only recently entered the Entry Realm himself. His face was dark with tension. He had believed his sword talent surpassed most of his peers. He was headed to the Hundred Sects Assembly hoping to see what disciples from the Zhi Yue Sect and Rong Qing Mountain could do.

Instead, on the journey—within a lower-tier sect that did not even have a Profound Division Stage cultivator—he had encountered someone with talent that threatened to outshine his own.

It sat bitter in his chest.

“Senior Brother,” a disciple beside him whispered, “how strong do you think she is?”

The young man let out a slow breath. “Her cultivation is lower than mine,” he said, voice thick, “but her blade-Dao talent… is slightly better.”

The disciples around him stared, stunned. In their eyes, Senior Brother was already untouchable. And yet even in a sect like Chang Yuan, there was someone like this.

On the platform, Sun You Yi smiled as she played her game a little longer. Then, once she’d had her fill, she flipped the saber and struck with its flat.

Bian Ru was knocked off the platform in a single motion.

She staggered back to Zhao Chun, face pale, sweat soaking her clothes. Exhaustion was nothing compared to the humiliation clinging to her like a stain.

The Ling Zhen disciples had all understood what Sun You Yi was doing. Their expressions twisted—shock and anger mixed with something stranger.

“Junior Sister,” Fang Cai Ran said from behind Zhao Chun, her voice edged with fury, “why don’t you let her see what ‘strong’ really looks like?”

It was no surprise. Bian Ru belonged to Ge Xing Chao’s line, and Fang Cai Ran had always protected her junior brothers and junior sisters fiercely.

Zhao Chun lowered her gaze, calm as a blade laid flat. “Those who humiliate others will be humiliated in turn,” she said. “Even a child should understand that.”