Consecutive Victories

Li Hanche stood on one side of the deathmatch stage.

A man emerged from the entrance tunnel opposite him. He was tall and lean, clad in tight dark-red leather armor. As he moved, it was clear there was no excess fat beneath the armor—only wiry, compact muscle.

His face was long, his cheekbones high, his eye sockets deeply sunken. Within his narrow eyes gleamed the savage light unique to a predator.

He held a short blade in each hand. The blades were slender and curved in strange arcs, like two coiled venomous snakes.

Martial Soul: Snake Fang Twin Blades. Agility-attack type. Level twenty-eight.

He stepped onto the deathmatch stage, lowered his head to look at the short figure in the ghost mask opposite him, and split his lips in a grin.

"So I was wondering what kind of person you were."

"Turns out you're just a little brat who hasn't even been weaned. Does the Great Spirit Arena throw every piece of trash it finds onto the deathmatch stage now?"

He rolled his right wrist, and the short blade spun once between his fingers, its edge reflecting a flash of cold light.

"Listen up, kid. The deathmatch stage isn't a place just anyone can come to. Once you step up here, you don't get to step back down. I'm in a good mood today, so I'll give you a chance—kneel, kowtow three times, and call me Grandpa. Then I'll let you die quickly."

A few low chuckles rose from the stands.

Li Hanche raised his right hand.

Icy-blue light exploded in his palm, and the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear condensed into form.

This time, he no longer suppressed his aura.

His level-fifteen soul power surged at full speed through his meridians, and the chill of the Frost Heaven Record spread in every direction. The temperature on the deathmatch stage abruptly dropped.

Snake Fang Twin Blades' expression changed.

He felt a pressure that should never have come from a six-year-old child.

But his combat experience far surpassed Luke's, and he did not allow that unease to cloud his judgment.

He licked his lips, leaned forward, and spread the two short blades at his sides.

The bell signaling the start of the deathmatch rang.

Snake Fang Twin Blades moved the instant it sounded.

A level-twenty-eight agility-attack soul master erupting at full force became a dark-red afterimage.

His tactic was simple and lethal: use his speed to circle behind his opponent, slit their throat with one blade, and end the fight.

He had slipped past countless opponents' fronts and cut open countless throats. This time would be no exception.

He was so fast that most ordinary spectators in the stands could see only a blurry shadow.

But Li Hanche saw everything clearly.

The mental perception honed day and night by the Mind-Clarity and Nature-Seeing Art broke down every movement of Snake Fang Twin Blades into slow-motion images at that moment.

The spear tip appeared a fraction of an instant earlier than Snake Fang Twin Blades had anticipated, at the spot he was about to reach.

Snake Fang Twin Blades' pupils contracted violently.

His body twisted forcefully through the air, abruptly changing direction. He crossed both short blades before his chest, blocking the spear's sharp thrust.

The spear tip struck the center where the blades crossed, sending sparks flying.

The force of the strike shook him backward, his boots plowing two pale grooves across the deathmatch stage.

His smile vanished.

There was something wrong with this child's speed—and with his strength.

That thrust had not been a lucky guess. The child had predicted his path and sent the spear tip ahead to the point he was bound to pass through.

That level of predictive ability could not possibly belong to a six-year-old child.

But he had no time to think, because the icy-blue spear was already stabbing toward him again.

On the deathmatch stage, the two figures became locked in combat.

Snake Fang Twin Blades truly was much faster than Luke. The two short blades in his hands were like living venomous snakes, thrusting, slashing, and circling from every bizarre angle.

Several times, the blade edges skimmed Li Hanche's clothes, cutting several tears into the cuffs and collar of his plain cloth garments.

But his spear was faster.

The moves of the Cold Gleam Spear Art grew increasingly fluid in his hands.

The longer Snake Fang Twin Blades fought, the more alarmed he became.

He discovered that his speed advantage was being steadily eaten away bit by bit. It was not that he had slowed down—it was that the child's movement had become increasingly uncanny. His feet made no sound upon the stage, and there was no warning whenever he changed direction. His entire body was like a ghostly shadow blown by the wind.

He hesitated no longer. His second soul ring lit up. Within its yellow glow, dark-green patterns emerged along the edges of both short blades, like a snake's venom glands.

Second Soul Skill: Snake Fang Poison Blades.

The sound of the blades cutting through the air turned sharp and hoarse as the dark-green edges stabbed simultaneously toward Li Hanche's ribs from two directions.

He had never failed with this move.

Unfortunately, his opponent was Li Hanche, a walking cheat code.

Snake Fang Twin Blades' right hand suddenly lost all strength. Then Li Hanche swept his spear shaft across, striking his left wrist and sending the short blade flying.

The spearpoint rested against his throat, in the exact same spot as in the previous match.

The deathmatch arena fell silent.

Snake Fang Twin Blades lowered his head to look at the spearpoint pressed to his throat, then raised it to look at that ghost mask.

His lips trembled. For the first time, something other than fear appeared in his narrow eyes—confusion. He had fought deathmatches for years, killed opponents far bigger than this child, yet today, a child who did not even reach his waist had pinned a spear to his throat.

And that child had not killed him.

Li Hanche withdrew his spear, turned, and walked toward the entrance tunnel.

The days passed one by one like this.

The regulars of the Grand Soul Arena remembered a name: Little Brother Needs More Practice.

When that name first appeared on the match roster, the gamblers burst into laughter and eagerly bet on his opponent.

The second time it appeared, the laughter was cut in half.

By the third time, no one laughed.

By the tenth, that name had become a monster that dominated both solo spirit fights and deathmatches.

The audience did not know what the face behind the mask looked like. They only knew that the small figure appeared punctually at the entrance tunnel every night: ghost mask, white robes, a token hanging at his waist.

He went up, fought, and came down. Never a superfluous movement, never a superfluous expression. He had never lost.

People began asking who this child really was.

A place like the Soul Arena drew all sorts of people, and there was no shortage of those with well-connected sources.

Yet every inquiry ultimately stopped at that token—the emblem of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family, bearing the seal of Crown Prince Xue Qinghe.

Those with sharp eyes recognized the token's weight and quietly drew back the feelers they had extended.

Anyone whom His Highness the Crown Prince was willing to entrust with his personal token was not someone they could afford to provoke.

Later, more detailed information still leaked out.

Li Hanche, six years old, born in the slums of Heaven Dou City. Innately full soul power. Martial soul: Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear, a top-tier mutated weapon martial soul. First soul ring: two thousand one hundred years—the first case recorded in the history of Douluo Continent.

His teacher was the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's guardian Douluo, Sword Douluo Chen Xin.

Those who still harbored even the faintest thoughts abandoned them completely upon hearing that final name.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin's disciple was not someone they could touch.

Even if that disciple was only six years old and did not reach their waists.

And whenever those defeated by Li Hanche on the fighting stage heard the announcer loudly declare, "The winner... Little Brother Needs More Practice," their faces would invariably flush red, then turn pale.

They had lost to a six-year-old child, and that child's name was even "Little Brother Needs More Practice."

If they had lost, that meant they were not even as good as "Little Brother"—they needed more practice.