Chapter 63
With her opponent admitting defeat, the referee immediately announced the result. Hearing the announcement, Heng Yu sheathed her sword and helped Ji Zixian up from the ground.
Ji Zixian steadied herself, thanked Heng Yu with a smile, picked up her fallen zither, put it in her storage ring, and then walked down from the arena with Heng Yu.
“Fellow Daoist Luo’s soul is very strong,” Ji Zixian said with admiration. “That ‘Soul-Suppressing Melody’ mainly targets the opponent’s soul. Even my senior sister has difficulty breaking free from its control in a short time. I didn’t expect Fellow Daoist Luo to recover so quickly. I underestimated my opponent in this match.”
With Ji Zixian’s strength, she wouldn’t normally lose so quickly. It was just that she misjudged Heng Yu’s strength. When she played the “Soul-Suppressing Melody” and launched her sound wave attack, she didn’t set up any follow-up moves in time. When Heng Yu attacked her within a few breaths, there was a large gap in Ji Zixian’s defenses, allowing Heng Yu to easily gain control.
Heng Yu nodded, understanding the surprise in Ji Zixian’s words. After all, the “senior sister” Ji Zixian mentioned was the number one among the younger generation of the Sound Sect, a cultivator who had already reached the mid-stage of Core Formation. Moreover, that senior sister specialized in soul cultivation, her soul much stronger than others at the same realm.
Even she couldn’t break free from the “Soul-Suppressing Melody” in just a few breaths, so Ji Zixian naturally never thought her opponent could be stronger than her mid-Core Formation senior sister.
“My situation is a bit special,” Heng Yu said.
Ji Zixian chuckled playfully. “If there’s a chance in the future, I’d like to spar with Fellow Daoist Luo again. I’m not reconciled without showing my true strength.”
Heng Yu smiled. “No problem. Once the free sparring arena opens, Fellow Daoist Ji can find me anytime.”
They had reached the bottom of the arena. Seeing Liaowu approaching through the crowd, Heng Yu nodded at Ji Zixian and turned to greet him.
Liaowu’s next match was equally swift. His attacks were as monotonous as ever, but his overwhelming strength crushed all resistance.
After two rounds, three-quarters of the cultivators had been eliminated. Those who remained were generally not weak.
Starting from the third round, the opponents became increasingly powerful. In this round, He Ru Mo, the lowest-ranked among the Hehuan Sect’s young masters, was defeated by a strong opponent and sadly withdrew from the competition.
By the fourth round, four more young masters were eliminated, including Mu Huan. This result infuriated her—not only was she behind Wu Mei and Heng Yu in her inner sect mission progress, but now her performance in the Dharma Assembly was also worse.
The only thing that consoled Mu Huan was that Dao Zhuo, that fool, at least knew to comfort her, buying her many beautiful trinkets to cheer her up.
Heng Yu returned from her victorious match and, seeing that Mu Huan was actually happy about this, clicked her tongue. “Just some trinkets, and you’re this happy? Have you fallen?”
Wu Mei, who had also just returned, winked. “Lord Luo, you’re being unkind. You should understand the difficulties of Mu Zhu’s mission.”
Chi’s residence was next door, and since Heng Yu and the others weren’t being quiet, he naturally overheard their conversation while sitting by the window. He coughed and commented objectively, “You two are being a bit harsh.” But after only two seconds of objectivity, Chi, whose mission was ranked S, added, “But A-rank missions are indeed very difficult. It’s understandable.”
Mu Huan: “…”
She gritted her teeth. “All three of you, shut up!”
“Are you getting angry from embarrassment?” Heng Yu laughed. “Alright, I’m currently studying sword formations, so I won’t chat with you and comfort you.”
Mu Huan laughed in exasperation. “Is that your way of comforting me?”
Heng Yu replied matter-of-factly, “I’m urging you not to lose yourself over a small setback and a few sweet nothings.”
Wu Mei put on an exaggerated expression of being touched. “I never thought I’d see such heartwarming camaraderie in our Hehuan Sect.”
Chi, inside his room, chuckled softly, amused by Mu Huan’s frustration, but kindly refrained from adding fuel to the fire. To be fair, Mu Huan wasn’t eliminated in the fourth round because she was weak, but because her opponent was too strong. There were no weaklings who had made it to this round, but unfortunately, every match had a winner and a loser.
After teasing Mu Huan a bit, Heng Yu stopped provoking her and returned to her room, immersing herself in the study of sword formations.
Sword formations were a powerful offensive tool. Heng Yu, a sword cultivator skilled in formations, had been wanting to develop some powerful sword formations ever since she saw Chang Xiyi’s Azure Sea Billowing Sword Formation in the first round.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t made much progress in such a short time.
Just as Heng Yu was deep in thought, someone knocked on the door. She got up to open it and found a junior sister at the Qi Refining stage standing outside. The junior sister, dressed in a purple dress typical of the Hehuan Sect, saluted Heng Yu cheerfully and handed her a jade slip. “Lord Luo, I’ve been instructed to deliver the information on your next opponent.”
“Thank you,” Heng Yu took the jade slip.
After the junior sister left, Heng Yu returned to her room and examined the jade slip, then smiled. Her next opponent was Qin Jingfeng of the Black and White Academies.
The information stated that he was highly skilled in sword formations, particularly adept at transforming sword Qi into formations.
This was exactly what she needed.
In the blink of an eye, the fifth round began. On a certain arena, a match had been going on for fifteen minutes, attracting a large crowd.
A fifteen-minute match wasn’t unusual, but what was unusual about this match was that—in those fifteen minutes, the two opponents had never directly engaged.
The competitors were, of course, Heng Yu and Qin Jingfeng. From the moment the referee called “begin,” Qin Jingfeng had taken control of the match’s tempo by quickly setting up a formation. The sword formation enveloped Heng Yu, but before the audience could worry about her, she quickly broke it.
For the next fifteen minutes, this process repeated itself.
Breaking another formation with her sword, Heng Yu took two steps forward, stepping directly into another formation.
Heng Yu raised her sword again and calmly broke the formation. Then she shifted her footing, took three steps to the left, and triggered yet another formation.
After such a long time, even a fool would have realized something was wrong. “Fellow Daoist Luo, are you doing this on purpose?”
Heng Yu stood within the sword formation, being attacked by sword Qi from all directions. Since she had been discovered, Heng Yu blocked the potentially fatal attacks while admitting frankly, “I happen to be studying sword formations recently, hoping to create some powerful ones for myself. Seeing that Fellow Daoist Qin is so skilled in sword formations, I couldn’t resist the temptation. Please bear with me.”
She still hoped to gain inspiration from Qin Jingfeng, so she didn’t want to end the match quickly. Instead, she observed his sword formations bit by bit, studying his thought process.
“…” After a moment of silence, Qin Jingfeng quickly adjusted his mentality. “Fellow Daoist Luo is skilled in formations. It’s indeed too difficult for my sword formations to trap you.” Then his expression turned serious, and he held his sword horizontally.
“But before the match started, I also investigated Fellow Daoist Luo.”
As his voice fell, Heng Yu noticed that the sword formations she had just broken reappeared. Then, all the formations began to rotate rapidly, merging and transforming into a large formation that enveloped the entire arena in the blink of an eye.
“Fellow Daoist Luo wants to use me to study sword formations, and I’m also using your mentality to showcase my recent achievements.”
The large formation covered such a wide area that Heng Yu couldn’t avoid it. She looked up at Qin Jingfeng, knowing that the formation’s core was located on him.
Without any panic, she said calmly, “So this is Fellow Daoist Qin’s true skill.”
With that said, Heng Yu leaped back, avoiding the formation-enhanced attack, preventing her movements from being restricted. Inside an opponent’s formation, being restricted meant certain defeat.
Next, Heng Yu focused on dodging the attacks while observing the formation’s trajectory. Only when she couldn’t avoid an attack did she use her sword to deflect it. This made her appear somewhat disheveled. Her left shoulder was hit hard by an attack, causing her to cough up blood.
Before she could even wipe the blood from her lips, she rolled twice on the arena, narrowly avoiding another powerful attack. But this time, as Heng Yu stood up, she used her sword to draw a half-arc on the ground.
This seemingly insignificant action caused Qin Jingfeng, who had been calm and composed, to change his expression. He formed seals, accelerating the formation’s attack, attempting to restrict Heng Yu’s movement.
Heng Yu continued to dodge, but with each dodge, she would casually draw a few sword strokes on the ground or in the air.
The spectators below couldn’t understand what she was doing, but Qin Jingfeng, the creator of the formation, knew very well that those were the formation’s minor cores. Every sword strike of Luo Heng Yu’s was destroying a minor core.
When enough of these minor cores were destroyed, he, the true core of the formation, would inevitably be affected. As expected, the power of the formation began to weaken. Qin Jingfeng gritted his teeth, knowing he couldn’t waste any more time. He abandoned his advantage and charged towards Heng Yu.
After nearly half an hour, the two finally engaged in close combat. As their swords clashed, Heng Yu didn’t forget to continue destroying the formation. With her final sword strike, the formation crumbled, and Qin Jingfeng was struck by the backlash, coughing up blood.
In that instant, Heng Yu closed in, her attacks raining down on Qin Jingfeng, sending him flying off the arena. His back slammed against the ground, his face paling as he lost consciousness.
Seeing her opponent out of bounds, Heng Yu relaxed, only to feel her body go limp. She used her sword as a crutch, barely managing to stay on her feet.
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