Atop Moonwatch Mountain, in the arena.
With victory within reach, Lü Chongrui did not press his advantage or reap the spoils. He turned his wrist slightly, raising the edge of his sword and reining in its murderous sharpness. He simply stood where he was, watching Lin Tao with a calm, indifferent gaze.
Lin Tao stood still, looking down at the ghastly wounds on his hands and abdomen, feeling the battered, chaotic blood and qi within him and his almost exhausted true qi.
He had lost. Utterly and completely.
Lü Chongrui had already shown mercy with that sword strike that threatened to cut him in half, withdrawing some of its force midway.
Had his opponent insisted on killing him without mercy, even if he had not been cleaved in two on the spot, he would surely have suffered irreversible injuries-shattered bones and tendons, devastated organs. His fate would only have been more miserable.
Already gravely wounded, he had no hope of turning the tables by gritting his teeth and stubbornly dragging the fight out. He would only make himself a laughingstock and needlessly worsen his injuries, losing both the match and his dignity.
At that thought, Lin Tao drew a long, deep breath of blood-scented air. Suppressing his resentment, frustration, and bitterness, he said in a low, hoarse voice, "I concede."
As the words fell, a mournful sigh stirred within him.
Five years of sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall, five years of arduous cultivation in seclusion. He had endured countless tedious days and nights and overcome ordeal after ordeal on the Martial Path, finally breaking through his shackles to reach true qi peak and catch up to Lü Chongrui's cultivation level.
He had thought those years of accumulation would be enough to erase the gap between them. Only after their