Just You Lot, and You Think You Deserve to Make Me Use a Second Strike?

Dust and smoke blotted out the sky, rubble flew everywhere, and the shockwaves from the explosion turned over the ground within a thirty-meter radius.

Everyone waited for the dust to clear.

Qi Tian sheathed his saber and stood still. A full-force slash from a Half-step Martial Sect would leave even an opponent of the same rank badly battered.

Not to mention the thirty-odd attacks that had followed it.

Even if a Martial Sect had come, they would have needed half a day in bed after taking that barrage.

The dust cleared.

Li Zhengyang stood where he was.

The ground beneath his feet had shattered, and the stone slab he stood on was webbed with cracks. But he had not moved. Not even a strand of hair was out of place.

The Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear lay across his front, the dark-gold patterns in its three blood grooves glowing.

Astral Qi formed an almost transparent barrier over his body, with the residual energy from dozens of attacks still coursing across its surface.

"Is that all?"

Li Zhengyang dusted off his shoulder.

Qi Tian's pupils shook violently.

His slash, combined with the joint assault of more than thirty people, had not even scratched the other man's clothes?

Impossible.

Unless...

"You're not a Martial Spirit."

Qi Tian's voice changed.

Li Zhengyang did not answer. He raised the Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear one-handed in his right hand.

The 106-pound S-rank heavy spear was as light as a chopstick in his grip.

"You just took a round at me."

Li Zhengyang leveled the spear, its tip pointing at Qi Tian.

"By the rules, it's my turn now."

Blood Qi poured into the spear.

It was unlike anything anyone had seen before.

All three blood grooves on the Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear lit up at once, dark-gold light surging forth.

Astral Qi seeped out from the spear shaft and gathered at the tip, forming a spinning vortex.

Broken stones on the ground were drawn up by the vortex, circling the spear tip.

Buzzzzzz!

A low-frequency tremor spread outward, and the air density within ten meters doubled outright.

The knees of several nearby Martial Spirits buckled, and they nearly dropped to their knees.

Qi Tian gritted his teeth and held on, his broad-bladed saber raised before him as he pushed his Astral Qi to its limit.

The thirty-odd people behind him also entered defensive stances.

Li Zhengyang gave them no time to prepare.

Mountain-Splitting Spear Art.

Horizontal sweep.

The spear swept from left to right in a half-circle.

The motion was slow—so slow that everyone could see it clearly.

But the Astral Qi wave that surged out with the spear's momentum was too fast for anyone to evade.

A crescent-shaped dark-gold slash wave whipped out from the spear tip, two meters high and broad enough to cover the entire front of the encirclement.

Qi Tian raised his saber to meet it.

All the Blood Qi of a Half-step Martial Sect condensed onto the blade, and the thickness of his Astral Qi reached the greatest limit of his life.

The saber light collided with the spear wave.

There was no deadlock.

Not even half a second of one.

Qi Tian's broad-bladed saber split down the middle, and its Astral Qi blade light shattered instantly.

The broken saber flew out and embedded itself in a rock twenty meters away.

The spear wave continued forward.

Qi Tian's Body-Protecting Astral Energy before the spear wave—

Shattered.

He flew backward, spraying blood. His back smashed through a simulated rock wall in the Mimetic Battlefield, embedding him deep in it as stone chips scattered everywhere.

What about the people behind Qi Tian?

They were worse off.

The crescent spear wave swept across them, and the Astral Qi defenses of the dozen or so people in the front row exploded at once.

When a Seventh-Rank Martial Spirit was struck by the spear wave, the Blood Qi in his chest flowed backward. As he flew away, broken teeth and bloody foam sprayed from his mouth.

The Ninth-Rank Martial Spirits fared a little better. They blocked it, but both arms were broken, their weapons flew from their hands, and they collapsed to their knees, unable to rise.

Those in the back rows were struck by comrades flying out from the front, triggering a chain of collisions as they fell in heaps.

One spear strike.

Less than a second from start to finish.

Thirty-four people were all down.

Cries of pain rose one after another across the wilderness. Broken arms, broken legs—people lay in every imaginable posture.

Only Li Zhengyang remained standing.

He drew the spear back and rested it on his shoulder.

The cardboard sign was still stuck in the ground, still upright.

[Robbery]

[Hand over your point badge voluntarily and avoid a beating. Resist, and pay your own medical bills.]

In the stands.

In the stadium of one hundred thousand people, one could hear a pin drop.

The spectators who had been cheering, mocking, and placing bets moments ago had all gone silent.

Hu Dahai stood with his mouth open, maintaining that pose for at least ten seconds.

The veteran beside him tugged at his sleeve.

"Old Hu, don't look like that. You look like you're having a stroke."

"One spear strike." Hu Dahai's voice cracked. "One spear strike took them all down."

"Mm."

"Thirty-four of them."

"Mm."

"Including a Half-step Martial Sect."

"Mm."

Hu Dahai suddenly whipped around and grabbed the veteran by the collar.

"All you know how to say is 'mm'?"

Inside the Mimetic Battlefield.

Li Zhengyang walked over to where Qi Tian was embedded in the rock wall and reached down to feel around his waist.

The point badge—taken.

The storage pouch—removed.

He opened it and took a glance.

A few pills, a spare dagger, and a wallet.

Three cards and some cash were inside the wallet.

"That's it?" Li Zhengyang turned the wallet upside down. "You linked up with more than thirty people for an ambush, and this is all you brought with you?"

Qi Tian was embedded in the wall, blood bubbles hanging from the corner of his mouth, his ears ringing, but he was still conscious.

Hearing Li Zhengyang's words, he was so furious that he nearly spat out another mouthful of blood.

I came here to compete, not to go shopping. Why would I bring money?

Li Zhengyang stuffed the storage pouch into his pocket and turned toward the groaning people sprawled across the ground.

He searched them one by one.

Point badges, collected.

Valuables, collected.

Things that did not look valuable but might still sell for a few bucks, also collected.

His movements were practiced.

So practiced that the beaten seed competitors briefly wondered whether this kid had robbed travelers before.

One of them even tried to resist, dragging himself up from the ground with a broken arm and trying to run.

Without even turning his head, Li Zhengyang flicked the butt of his spear backward.

Bang.

The man took a blow to the back of the head and flopped back onto the ground, immediately behaving himself.

"Don't move. Turn over—what's that bulging thing in your left pocket?"

"It... it's medicated ointment for bruises and sprains."

"Ointment works too. Hand it over."

The point badges and belongings of all thirty-four people were stripped clean.

Li Zhengyang rose to his feet and weighed the thirty-four point badges in his hand.

Including his own, that made thirty-five.

A spot in the top ten was secure.

But he did not stop.

He turned and looked at the several hundred competitors watching from the outskirts.

They had been watching the show from two or three hundred meters away. Some of the bolder ones had even been quietly discussing whether to take advantage of the chaos and launch a sneak attack to snatch a few badges.

Then they saw Li Zhengyang carrying his spear as he walked toward them.

One step at a time.

Neither fast nor slow.

The spear rested on his shoulder, while his other hand still carried that tattered cardboard sign.

"Fuck! He's coming over!"

"Run!"

No one knew who shouted first.

The hundreds of elites carefully selected from every fortress now put on a spectacular mass rout.

Some dove into the forest, some jumped into the river, and some scrambled up the hills.

Even more directly crushed the withdrawal scrolls in their hands.

A flash of white light, and they vanished.

They withdrew from the competition.

Voluntarily withdrew.

The contestant counter in the Mimetic Battlefield began jumping wildly.

500...467...389...241...

The number kept dropping.

In less than three minutes, the number of contestants in the arena fell from five hundred to fewer than fifty.

The remaining dozen or so had either run too far away to see what had happened here, or were hiding in some nook and cranny, trembling too much to move.

Li Zhengyang stopped walking.

He did not pursue them.

He stood alone in the empty wilderness, surrounded by rubble, broken weapons, and the cardboard sign still planted in the ground.

Exactly five minutes had passed since he landed from the teleportation.

He planted his spear into the ground and sat down.

He took out the pile of point badges he had collected and laid them out before him, counting them one by one.

"Thirty-five. Add the few I picked up on the way, and that makes forty-one. Enough."

He looked up at the sky.

The dome of the Mimetic Battlefield simulated a blue sky. A small red dot blinked in one corner—the drone camera used for the livestream.

Facing the camera, Li Zhengyang raised one finger.

First place.

In the stands.

At the center of the main viewing platform, Xiao Ding slapped the armrest and rose to his feet.

"Good!"

This shout startled the advisers and fortress commanders around him.

Xiao Ding burst into laughter.

"What a Martial Spirit! A twenty-year-old Ninth-Rank Martial Spirit!"

He turned to look at Lin Zhenshan.

Lin Zhenshan's hand holding the teacup froze in midair. The muscles on his face twitched twice before he forcibly squeezed out two words.

"Not bad."

Xiao Ding's smile faded as he sat back down.

Yet his forward-leaning posture did not change, his hands clasped over his knees.

"That old bastard Zhao Tiehan hid a true dragon from me."

He tapped the armrest, summoning the adjutant at his side.

"Pull up the complete file on this Li Zhengyang."

"Yes, sir."

"Also."

Xiao Ding paused.

"Notify the finals committee. Change the rules."

The adjutant froze.

"Replace the finalist's opponent. Send Lu Chen from the Guard Corps."

The adjutant's face went pale.

Lu Chen.

Deputy commander of the Northern Frontier Military Region Guard Corps.

A Martial Sect.

Not half a step away, but a genuine Martial Sect.

This had already gone beyond the scope of a selection match.

The adjutant swallowed and reminded him quietly, "Commander, Lu Chen is a Martial Sect. This..."

Xiao Ding's fingers tapped the armrest.

"I just want to see—

how far this dragon can go."