The Tournament Begins, Storms Rise!

Meanwhile, in the Pang Family's council hall.

The Fifth Realm assassin who had fled back knelt on the floor, trembling all over as he recounted everything that had happened at the inn.

"Fifth Realm Martial Awakening?!"

Pang Jinbiao's eyes flew wide open. The terrifying vitality and blood of the Eighth Realm erupted in an instant, blasting the assassin several meters back and making him cough up blood.

"An outer-city girl with no background broke into the Fifth Realm at twenty?! Did your intelligence officers eat shit for a living?!"

The hall was silent as a grave. The elders all lowered their heads, and no one dared touch this sore spot.

Pang Jinbiao's chest heaved violently, the killing intent in his eyes nearly solidifying into substance, but he ultimately forced it down.

"Patriarch, should we directly send a Sixth Realm Attendant to..." the gray-robed elder at his side asked softly.

"Idiot!" Pang Jinbiao cut him off coldly. "The Martial Dao Tournament will begin soon, and the Imperial Clan Guard currently controls the entire city. If we make another big commotion at that inn, it would be the same as slapping the imperial family in the face before everyone!"

He snorted coldly, crushing the armrest of his chair to powder with his five fingers.

"Since she signed up, deal with her in the arena. Go grease the palms of the official in charge of the draw and secretly arrange the brackets. Have our people kill her openly and honorably on the stage! I want her to know that after offending the Pang Family, the arena will be her living coffin!"

"Yes, Patriarch!"

"..."

Inside the inn.

The secluded courtyard had suffered some damage from last night's brief fight.

However, the innkeeper was a shrewd and perceptive man. Anyone capable of opening an inn in the Imperial City naturally knew how to read faces and gauge the situation.

Knowing that a martial artist like Su Yueli, who could draw assassins and still emerge unscathed, was not someone to provoke, he immediately decided to move her to a quieter superior room. He never mentioned compensation, simply considering himself unlucky.

After changing rooms, Lin Ye came over and chatted with her for a while.

"Miss Su, do you think those people from the Pang Family will send more assassins?" Lin Ye gripped the hilt of his saber, still looking somewhat nervous.

"Probably not in the short term."

Su Yueli shook her head, seeing the situation clearly. "After failing just now, they cannot gauge my true strength. With the Martial Dao Tournament at hand and the Imperial City under strict guard, if the Pang Family loses several more dead warriors and causes too great a disturbance, they will have no way to explain themselves to the city guards."

Lin Ye relaxed slightly upon hearing that. After making a few idle remarks, he tactfully withdrew and no longer disturbed her.

Su Yueli closed the door and resumed sitting cross-legged, consolidating the Fifth Realm vitality and blood she had just broken through to.

Over the next day and a half, everything was indeed as she had expected—calm and peaceful.

The Pang Family seemed to have gone mute. No further assassination attempts occurred.

Su Yueli also completely stabilized her Fifth Realm Martial Awakening cultivation.

Time flashed by.

On the morning two days later, dawn had only just begun to break.

"Miss Su! The Martial Dao Tournament begins today!" Lin Ye had been waiting outside her door early in the morning, his tone brimming with excitement.

Su Yueli pushed the door open. After the two of them had a simple breakfast, they headed straight for Great Li's Imperial Martial Arena.

The moment they reached the outer perimeter of the arena, they were met with a grand sight of surging crowds.

Ten enormous bluestone arenas stood in a row. The surrounding spectator stands were packed tightly with martial artists and commoners who had rushed over from every province and prefecture. Voices roared like boiling water, and the clamor shot straight into the heavens.

Suddenly, a fierce commotion broke out within the crowd.

"Make way! The people of the Four Great Lineages are here!"

Su Yueli looked along the passage the crowd had opened.

She saw martial artists from four camps surrounding their respective patriarchs and core descendants as they marched mightily onto the elevated platform.

Su Yueli's gaze fell upon a burly middle-aged man walking at the very front.

The Pang Family's patriarch, Pang Jinbiao.

This was her first time seeing the rumored helmsman of the Pang Family.

With only a distant glance, Su Yueli could sense the powerful vitality and blood within him.

Just as the rumors said, he was in the Eighth Realm. Yet his true foundation was likely even deeper. Su Yueli felt that Pang Jinbiao was perhaps only a hair's breadth away from becoming a Ninth Realm martial artist—a genuine Eighth Realm Peak expert!

Facing such a mortal enemy, Su Yueli felt no fear in her eyes. Instead, her five fingers slowly tightened, and battle intent surged darkly in her heart.

Beyond the Four Great Lineages, at the foremost seat high above the arena, lay the viewing platform of the Great Li Imperial Clan.

Beneath a bright yellow canopy, the Emperor of Great Li had not attended in person today. Presiding over the proceedings from the main seat was one of the current imperial princes.

However, Su Yueli's attention was not on that dignified and noble prince.

Her gaze settled on a young man in plain robes standing slightly behind the prince.

The young man stood with his arms folded, watching the ten arenas below with a lazy expression. He seemed utterly out of place beside the imperial guards sitting primly around him.

What powerful concealment, Su Yueli thought, narrowing her eyes slightly.

From such a distance, she could not sense even the slightest fluctuation of vitality and blood from him, as though he were merely an ordinary person.

Yet her instincts told her that this young man was far from simple, perhaps even more dangerous than the geniuses of the Four Great Lineages below.

This Imperial City truly was a place where clouds and dragons mixed together...

"Good heavens, there are far too many experts here."

At that moment, Lin Ye shrank his neck and swallowed. "I took a rough look just now. There are dozens of martial artists at the Third Realm Peak alone, and quite a few in the Fourth Realm as well. I wouldn't even dare dream about winning the Great Li Martial Dao Tournament. I feel like even reaching the top ten would be harder than climbing to heaven."

As he spoke, he turned to Su Yueli with a grin. "But Miss Su, you're so strong. Taking a spot in the top ten will definitely be no problem for you."

Su Yueli withdrew her gaze, her expression calm. "In martial contests, cultivation level is only one factor. On the stage, where life and death are decided in battle, mentality and killing moves are the hammer that delivers the final verdict. Do not show fear before you have even stepped onto the stage."

Lin Ye nodded deeply, clearly taking her words to heart, and closed his mouth like a student receiving instruction.

"Silence!"

An angry shout infused with immense vitality and blood resounded across the entire venue, suppressing the clamor of over a hundred thousand people.

A referee dressed in official robes stepped to the edge of the platform and began announcing the tournament rules.

"The Great Li Martial Dao Tournament concerns only Martial Dao, not one's origins!"

"Those who fall from the arena lose! Those who verbally admit defeat lose! Those who remain down for ten breaths after falling lose!"

"Blades and swords have no eyes; life and death rest in one's own fate. But if an opponent has clearly admitted defeat, no further lethal strike may be delivered. Violators will be executed on the spot by the Imperial Clan Guard!"

The rules were simple and brutal, and heated discussion immediately erupted from the spectator stands.

After announcing the rules, the referee paused briefly.

Then he continued.

"Next, the imperial rewards for the top three of this Martial Dao Tournament will be announced!"

The entire venue quieted down, and more than a hundred thousand people pricked up their ears.

"Third place will receive one mystic-grade weapon and one hundred thousand taels of silver!"

"Second place will receive the right to select one martial technique from the Imperial Armory, in addition to three bottles of Fourth Realm demonic beast essence blood!"

Gasps rang out from below the platform. The rewards for second and third place alone were already lavish enough to make people green with envy.

The referee drew a deep breath, and his voice became even more thunderous. "The champion shall receive one earth-grade weapon!"

"And... one promise from the Great Li Imperial Clan! So long as it does not violate Great Li law, the imperial clan will unconditionally intervene or fulfill one request!"

The instant those words were spoken, the more than one hundred thousand people present erupted into a complete frenzy.

"Did you hear? This year's champion will actually receive an earth-grade weapon!"

"The imperial family's promise is the most important thing, isn't it..."

"Exactly. No wonder the Four Great Lineages have sent out even the geniuses they kept hidden away this time. The Pang Family and the Lin Lineage especially—apparently, they have already signed life-and-death pledges in private over this weapon."

"I don't know about that. There are a few ruthless figures from the outer city too. That Mad Saber from Shuo Province, and that mysterious fierce man from Lingshui who supposedly punched Pang Hu to death with one blow. I wonder whether he came today..."

Listening to the discussions around her, Su Yueli raised her brows in slight surprise.

Martial artists' techniques and weapons were divided into four grades: heaven, earth, mystic, and yellow. The higher the grade, the stronger it was.

For immortal cultivators, however, there seemed to be an imperial grade above them.

But... the Pang Family had likely sealed off the news of the killings at the inn that night. No one had connected her to the mysterious fierce man of rumor.

Soon, the drawing results were announced.

Su Yueli looked at the number plate in her hand: Group Twenty-One.

Lin Ye came over with his own plate. "I'm in Group Thirty-Five. Good, good—I didn't run into you during the preliminaries, Miss Su. Otherwise, I would just forfeit right where I stood."

Su Yueli ignored his flippant words and raised her head toward the massive matchup board, beginning to search for her opponent in the group.

The board was densely packed. After searching for a while, she saw only that her opponent was named Chen Tie, with no indication of any major power he came from.

It seemed that, like her, he was a Rogue Cultivator martial artist who had come from the outer city to compete.

Boom—!

The war drums sounded, and the first matches began simultaneously on all ten arenas.

Twenty competing martial artists leaped onto the stages one after another.

Su Yueli swept her eyes over them. In this first round of preliminaries, most of the contestants were rather ordinary in strength, basically stuck between Second Realm Meridian Opening and Third Realm Bone Forging.

The fighting was fierce, with every punch landing solidly on flesh, but in the eyes of a Fifth Realm expert like Su Yueli, every move was full of openings.

"Look! That's the Yun Lineage's second young master on Arena Five—Yun He!"

Someone beside her cried out, pointing toward a nearby arena.

Su Yueli looked in that direction and saw a noble young master dressed in brocade standing on Arena Five.

The moment Yun He stepped onto the stage, he revealed the vitality and blood fluctuations of an early Fourth Realm cultivator. Faint gusts of force swirled around him.

Reaching the early Fourth Realm at around twenty years old made him a rare genius anywhere.

His opponent was a burly man at the Third Realm Peak.

"The match begins!"

At the referee's command, the burly man roared and swung a heavy hammer at Yun He.

A disdainful sneer curled across Yun He's lips. He neither dodged nor evaded, instead stepping through an exquisite footwork technique. Then, with the fingers of his right hand joined like a blade, he chopped at the burly man's carotid artery.

Bang!

The burly man's eyes rolled back, and his body crashed to the ground as he fainted.

A one-strike instant defeat. Thunderous cheers immediately erupted from beneath the stage.

Su Yueli watched Yun He enjoying the cheers atop the arena and raised her brow slightly.

The fist techniques and footwork of these great lineages truly were exquisite, and the foundation built from piled-up resources was sufficiently solid.

But in her view, Yun He's attack patterns were too conventional. In the end, he lacked the vicious aura and killing intent forged by rolling through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

If it came to a true fight to the death, Yun He would likely suffer a great loss.

"Second round, Groups Twenty-One through Thirty, take the arenas!" the referee's booming voice rang out once more.

My turn.

Su Yueli untied the wine gourd at her waist and handed it to Lin Ye. Her figure flickered, and her cool green silhouette landed upon Arena Two.