Tu Zhongqiu’s brow furrowed slightly. He sent a quiet voice transmission to Gong Ze, who was beside him. “That Lu Xingyuan is no ordinary opponent...”

Gong Ze stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his sharp, clouded eyes fixed on the two figures battling on stage. "He's incredibly strong. But even if we understand the significance of this battle, do you think those two don’t understand it as well? Watch closely. I’m sure the winner won’t be clear until the very end. Besides... heheh, Brother Tu, do you really think the Daxia Sword Sect of today fears losing a few resources?”

Tu Zhongqiu looked at Zhou Shiyu’s upright posture, a subtle smile touching his face. “The Daxia Sword Sect of today? No, it doesn’t need to be.”

As the two spoke, Zhou Shiyu and Lu Xingyuan traded blows on the stage at blinding speed. Cracks burst across the stage floor one after another.

Boom! Boom!

Thunderous blasts rang out as the two figures crossed paths again and again, every clash carrying a raw, violent beauty.

Lu Xingyuan wielded the dark gold Swimming Dragon Staff with a swift, ferocious style. Like Lu Wuhen, he was a spirit-martial dual cultivator, and he had tempered his body to an extraordinary level of toughness.

But Zhou Shiyu’s physical strength was just as formidable. He wielded the three-thousand-jin Bladeless Sword with ‌terrifying ease.

The two men fought with wide, sweeping motions, as though they could cleave mountains and split rivers.

Thud! Boom!

Zhou Shiyu spun, using the force of his opponent’s staff to sweep back in a horizontal slash. The sheer pressure of that single strike boxed Lu Xingyuan in.

Lu Xingyuan’s eyes widened. With no time to think, he bent low and drove the staff up toward Zhou Shiyu’s wrist, lunging through the void like a spear.

Zhou Shiyu’s expression did not change. The instant he sensed the shift, he flipped his wrist and brought his sword crashing down toward Lu Xingyuan’s shoulder.

The descending blade slipped past the staff, and Lu Xingyuan’s thrust struck its flat. Using that contact as leverage, Zhou Shiyu redirected the strike from Lu Xingyuan’s shoulder to his head.

His attack caught Lu Xingyuan off guard. He hadn’t expected Zhou Shiyu to react so quickly. His skill at borrowing force was impossible to guard against, executed with consummate precision. Even when Lu Xingyuan changed up his rhythm, Zhou Shiyu still found the weak point in each strike and countered it at once.

Lu Xingyuan’s expression grew increasingly grim. His attacks were the more ferocious of the two, yet Zhou Shiyu never lost his calm. Clad in black, he moved like a ghost, impossible to pin down.

Zhou Shiyu looked nonchalant, but he was just as stunned. In the span of a few minutes, Lu Xingyuan had shifted his rhythm four times over. The sheer variety in both technique and force was nothing short of uncanny. The moment Zhou Shiyu adapted to one change, Lu Xingyuan changed his rhythm again.

Bang!

Like a returning spear, the staff drove hard into Zhou Shiyu’s abdomen, the force exploding outward. He slashed down at Lu Xingyuan’s shoulder, but the staff swept up to block it. Pushing off it, Zhou Shiyu shot backward hundreds of zhang.

He looked down at the bowl-sized puncture wound in his abdomen and swallowed hard. Any slower, and the sweeping staff blow that followed would have cut him clean in half.

Both men now wore grave expressions.

Lu Xingyuan’s entire right shoulder and collarbone had been pulverized into a bloody ruin. His right arm hung limp, yet his grip on the long staff never loosened.

Zhou Shiyu’s heart was racing too. If he hadn’t chosen to trade blow for blow just now and had tried to parry instead, he would have been gravely wounded. “This man... is terrifyingly strong.”

Lu Xingyuan stared at Zhou Shiyu from across the arena, forced his shattered collarbone back into place, and looked at him with wary eyes. “You are the strongest heavy-sword cultivator I have ever encountered. Cultivating heavy sword techniques to your level is exceedingly rare.”

The platform beneath their feet was a wreck. The first two matches had been ferocious, but neither had wrought destruction on this scale.

The weaker cultivators among the spectators couldn’t even follow the exchange. Every shift and strike was decided in an instant, and a moment’s hesitation meant death. Even Illusory Refinement Realm cultivators found themselves holding their breath.

Tu Zhongqiu sucked in a sharp breath through gritted teeth, his eyes fixed on the two fighters. “What a brutal fight!”

Zhou Shiyu sealed his wounds with a casual gesture. “Enough feeling each other out. Let’s get serious.”

His words drew astonished gasps from the crowd.

Ji Yuchuan turned and sent a voice transmission. “Pavilion Master, Lu Xingyuan still has more up his sleeve. According to the information I gathered, before Lu Wuhen was born, he was hailed as the greatest genius the Lu clan had produced in a thousand years. He and another member of the clan were known as the Lu clan’s Twin Monks, though no one ever learned the other person’s identity. His true strength runs far deeper than what he’s revealed.”

When Ji Yuchuan finished, Li Guanqi murmured a single syllable in reply. “Mm.”

Ji Yuchuan looked up at Li Guanqi, whose expression betrayed not the slightest ripple of emotion.

“Don’t worry,” Li Guanqi said softly. “Zhou Shiyu... isn’t as simple as he looks, either. His force of will is immense, possibly second only to Ye Feng’s. Someone like him doesn’t make promises lightly. But once he commits to something... he’ll see it through, even if it kills him.”

Boom!

Even as Li Guanqi spoke, the situation on the stage shifted again.

The dark gold staff in Lu Xingyuan’s hands, suffused with his vital force, shed its outer layer like molting skin. A dense coat of dark gold scales rippled across its surface, churning as if alive. “Heaven-Opening, Jiao Dragon!”

Boom!

As the staff revealed its fearsome form, Lu Xingyuan’s eyes locked onto Zhou Shiyu.

Lu Xingyuan’s aura surged to half a step into the Combined Body Realm. No longer concealing his power, his confidence swelled. He stared at Zhou Shiyu and said in a low, rumbling voice, “Come. Give everything you have... and kill me!”

Lu Xingyuan was a battle junkie through and through. A century of confinement by his family had left him starving for a proper fight, and the pain of his injuries only fueled that hunger.

Zhou Shiyu licked his cracked, bleeding lips and tasted the metallic sweetness in his mouth. The same fire burned in his eyes.

He gripped the bladeless sword with both hands and looked back at Gu Huai. Gu Huai’s shoulders shook as he bit his lip, anxious tears glistening in his eyes.

Zhou Shiyu flashed a grin, and the wild, violent aura around him erupted.

A steady, mountainous force burst from within him. His will to protect shot straight for the heavens, and terrifying sword qi tore through the sky, slashing crack after crack into the void above.

“Heaven-Opening, Judgment!”

Boom!

The pitch-black heavy sword transformed. Its hilt took the shape of a roaring dragon’s head, and a cold gleam ran along the once-dull spine as a blade emerged. If the Bladeless Sword had been Zhou Shiyu’s shield, then the Judgment Sword was his conviction given form, a blade meant to cut down everything that threatened what he held dear.

Gripping the Judgment Sword, Zhou Shiyu’s aura reached its apex. He roared, “Let’s fight!”