A mediocre, below-average talent.
Those four words came down like four invisible hammers from the heavens, smashing the silence of the central square to pieces.
Each word carried an unquestionable judgment.
Each word became a soundless slap, striking the newly crowned champion in his black robes across the face.
Before Stone Platform 327, Xiao Yan stood rigid as stone.
Beneath his mask, his face had flushed with humiliation, but all color drained away, leaving it ashen. His blood seemed to freeze in that instant; his entire body was overcome by bone-deep cold.
His mastery of fire control, of which he was so proud; the Heavenly Flames on which he relied to dominate; his indisputable first place...
In just a few offhand remarks from that man, they had all become a complete and utter joke.
An unorthodox amateur.
All flash and no substance.
Those words humiliated him more than any curse in the world could.
Not far away, Liu Ling's handsome face twisted with delight. He watched the dazed, dispirited figure, no longer bothering to hide the mockery and superiority in his eyes.
On the high platform, Fa Ma opened his mouth, his expression awkward in the extreme. He was about to speak and ease the frozen atmosphere.
And at that very moment.
Bzz—!
A vast, abyss-like pressure, mighty as the sea, descended from the sky without warning!
It was not hostility directed at anyone. It was pure, absolute suppression, born of a difference in the very levels of life.
Where it passed, the air seemed to solidify into glass. The tens of thousands of spectators in the square felt an invisible mountain bearing down on them. Their hearts were clutched in an enormous hand, and their breath stopped!
Those with weaker cultivation crumpled to the ground, their faces filled with