"Liu Mubai, that useless waste, really worthless."

Seeing Liu Mubai step down from the arena, Li Tailong’s eyes flickered with a chilling intent, and he gave a cold snort, clearly extremely displeased.

"It’s fine; there’s now a chance to teach him a lesson personally." Li Yifeng remained calm in expression, but despite his words, he actually regarded Ling Chen’s displayed strength very seriously.

"I was careless."

Returning to the Liu Family’s area, Liu Mubai appeared somewhat despondent; he regretted not heeding Liu Mengru’s advice, resulting in his miserable defeat.

"It’s good to learn a lesson from it."

Liu Mengru spoke indifferently; she knew that even if Liu Mubai gave it his all, he still wouldn’t be a match for Ling Chen.

"Defeating Liu Mubai, this Ling Yu can now be considered in the second tier of the younger generation."

A warrior watching the match stroked his chin.

Generally, the younger generation is divided into three tiers. The first tier consists of the chief talents of the Nine Great Families plus Li Yifeng from the royal family, with these ten people in the first tier.

Then the second tier consists of the top three young talents from the Nine Great Families, plus the chief talents from other top Saint Families outside the Nine Great Families.

After defeating Liu Mubai, Ling Chen undoubtedly stepped into the second tier smoothly, whereas previously, he was merely a nameless figure in the eyes of many warriors.

As the sun gradually set in the west, the Heavenly Sword Tournament also moved into the heated stage. The young experts from various aristocratic families, through layer after layer of elimination and screening, had now been reduced by more than half.

Yet, as night fell, it did not affect the enormous Imperial City at all, as the surroundings of the city were embedded with gems that glowed at night, coupled with the festive lanterns, making the entire city brilliantly illuminated.

In such an environment, even though the matches were still going on intensely, the view was not affected at all.

It must be said, the talent strength of the first tier is indeed higher by a notch; everyone’s matches were relaxing and easily crushed their opponents.

Soon, Ling Chen faced his second match.

"Xing Family, Xing Wuyuan, here to learn from your esteemed skills."

Xing Wuyuan ranked third among the young experts of the Xing Family. His strength surpassed Liu Mubai and he was quite famous among the second-tier talents. As soon as he entered the scene, he attacked Ling Chen with an impressive heatwave, dazzling light constantly erupted.

Facing the overwhelming hot palm force, Ling Chen simply struck with one sword. As the sword was wielded, the scorching heat wave dissipated, a piece of Xing Wuyuan’s clothing was sliced off.

"Heavenly Punishment Six Yang Palm!"

Xing Wuyuan’s mind tightened, unleashing a subconscious killer move.

Six scorching sun-like palm forces transformed mid-air into a dazzling giant palm, and a golden-colored light halo erupted, causing the golden energy waves to radiate widely, creating signs of melting rock on the earth’s surface, radically shooting toward Ling Chen from not far away.

"Thunder Cut!"

The blazing golden giant palm looked indestructible, but Ling Chen’s Thunder Cut could slice through even heavenly thunder with one sword, let alone a giant palm formed by True Qi condensation.

Slap!

The giant palm’s five fingers were severed at once, unexpectedly cut off by a single sword.

"What?"

Xing Wuyuan was extremely surprised, very unwilling, and struck with another palm.

Slap!

Palm force was once again cut to pieces. Ling Chen, holding the Red Sky Sword, flickered several times to Xing Wuyuan’s front, slicing forward with one sword.

Xing Wuyuan quickly set up a thick layer of Protective True Qi around him; this layer of Protective True Element was compressed from fire-attribute True Qi, anything touching it would be repelled by the explosive force on it, difficult to approach, confident in blocking Ling Chen’s attack.

However, he underestimated the speed and sharpness of Thunder Cut. The highly compressed Protective True Qi was like a crimson crystal, just touched by Ling Chen’s sword, was sliced open with a dark crack.

"I lost!" Xing Wuyuan took a deep breath, his eyes carrying a hint of shock.

"Xing Wuyuan is defeated too!"

An exclamation sounded from the stands.

"First defeat Liu Mubai, then defeat Xing Wuyuan; this Ling Yu, formerly entirely unknown, could it be that the Ling Family was deliberately concealing his existence in advance?"

"It’s possible. The Ling Family has been plotting meticulously for this Heavenly Sword Tournament; it seems they want to make a big impact at the event, aiming to reverse the accumulated decline over decades."

"Could it be that this Ling Yu is actually the Ling Family’s trump card this time?"

The crowd buzzed with speculations.

"Hah, merely defeating two worthless opponents, no need to be so arrogant."

Upon hearing these voices, Ling Hai said somewhat displeased.

"Haha, Ling Hai, Xing Yunfeng ranks in the Xing Family’s strength far below Xing Wuyuan. If Xing Wuyuan is considered a small fry, then wouldn’t it mean you’re even inferior to a small fry yourself?"

Nearby, Ling Tong couldn’t help but mock.

"What did you say? Just a Ling Tong, you dare insult me!"

Ling Hai’s eyes almost bulged out; his status in the Ling Family was far more respected than Ling Tong.

"It’s a fact; if you lose, accept it quietly."

Ling Xue snorted coldly; she was quite disgusted with Ling Hai’s behavior of being useless against outsiders yet full of bluster when dealing with his own people.

"Don’t get cocky; Ling Yu’s merely won two matches. Ling Xue, don’t forget, the leader of the younger generation in the Ling Family is still Ling Yuxuan Second Brother, Ling Yu, he remains just a supporting character!" Ling Hai said with a gloomy glint in his eyes.

"Who is the supporting character and who is the protagonist, it’s too early to say now."

At this moment, a faint voice came over, and the crowd looked over to see the speaker was none other than Ling Chen, who had just stepped down from the arena.

"Oh?"

Ling Yuxuan’s face showed a slight smirk, meeting Ling Chen’s gaze, "It seems defeating those two has bolstered your confidence quite a bit."

"Do you really think, with your strength, you can compete with me?"

"Whether I can or not, we’ll only know after trying."

Ling Chen didn’t regard Ling Yuxuan’s slightly fierce gaze; Ling Yuxuan was undoubtedly the most outstanding among the young generation of the Ling Family, but that was only in the past.

Now, who knows?

"The Ling Family fools, still infighting at such a time."

From the Gui Family in Liang Province side, Gui Tianchou sneered coldly. From ancient times, countless aristocratic families had fallen due to disunity, internal problems arose, and this Ling Family, though a family with a thousand-year lineage, persistently committing the same errors, truly foolish to the extreme.

"Sima Family, Sima Linyuan, versus Ghost Family, Gui Tianjian!"

Ling Chen and Xing Wuyuan’s battle had just wrapped up. With a shout from the referee, another heavyweight match came into view of the audience; this battle attracted many people’s attention, even Ling Chen was quite focused, as Sima Linyuan was considered his friend, whereas that Gui Tianjian was the second best of the Heavenly Wolf Clan Ghost Family, with the Gui Family in Liang Province being the most openly hostile towards the Ling Family during this Heavenly Sword Tournament, posing the greatest threat.