Trial Equipment! Codename Dragon Sting! Death Match! One-Hit Kill!

Early the next morning after obtaining the Dragon Fang Knuckle Duster and Dragon Bone Soft Armor, Huang Yun headed out.

He did not leave Gengjin City directly. Instead, he turned through several streets and headed north.

While wandering around yesterday, he had noticed a fairly large spirit arena in the northern district of Gengjin City. Though it could not compare to the Great Soul Arena in Suotuo City, it was wild enough.

The rules for matches here were few. Life and death were of no concern, and many desperadoes and bounty hunters liked coming here to make quick money.

When he reached the entrance, he looked up at the sign above the doors.

The five iron-cast characters, "Gengjin Spirit Arena," were rusted around the edges and gave off a rugged, vicious air.

More people were coming and going at the entrance than Huang Yun had expected. Most were dressed as Soul Masters, and quite a few bore injuries, their eyes full of murderous intent.

He stepped inside.

The hall was more spacious than it looked from outside, but it was packed with people. The air was thick with the pungent smells of sweat, blood, and strong liquor.

A massive Soul Tool screen directly ahead scrolled through the day's match information and odds. Several long queues stood before the counters, filled with people registering for matches or placing bets.

Huang Yun waited at the end of a line for a while. When it was his turn, the burly man at the counter, who was missing half an ear, looked up at him. His gaze paused on the mask over Huang Yun's face, and his voice was rough. "Registering for a match?"

"Yeah."

"Codename, level, and a registration fee of ten Gold Soul Coins."

Huang Yun took out twenty gold coins and tossed them onto the counter. "Codename Dragon Sting. Level fifty-five Soul King."

The burly man lowered his head to register him, then handed over an iron number plate. "Death match or regular match?"

"Death."

The burly man gave him another look, amusement appearing in his eyes.

The rules of a death match were simple. No calling for a stop, no surrendering. The fight continued until one side completely lost the ability to fight or died.

Not many people signed up for them. Those who did were either ruthless or stupid.

"Fine. Wait a moment while I match you with an opponent."

He fiddled with a Soul Tool for a few moments before quickly looking up again. "Found one. A level fifty-seven Soul King, codename Butcher. He has twenty-three kills under his belt and happens to be waiting for a death match opponent too. You can switch if you want. No rush."

"No need. Him."

The burly man grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. He handed over a plaque marked "Area C, Ring Seven." "Go on. You'll be up in half an incense stick's time."

Huang Yun accepted the plaque, turned, and headed toward Area C.

He passed through a dim corridor. The walls on either side were covered in blade marks and bloodstains, and the rusty smell in the air grew even stronger.

At the end of the corridor, the view suddenly opened up. A ring roughly twenty zhang square stood ahead, surrounded by an iron cage. Its surface was paved with rough stone slabs, their cracks embedded with old dark-brown bloodstains.

Around a hundred people sat scattered through the stands. Some clutched betting slips and shouted themselves hoarse, while others leaned back with liquor bottles in hand and watched the show.

As Huang Yun emerged from the contestants' passage and stepped onto the ring, someone also came out of the passage across from him.

The man was extremely tall, at least over two meters, with knotted muscles all over his body. He was bald, and a vicious scar slashed diagonally from his forehead to his chin.

His upper body was bare, exposing scars both old and new. An iron chain was wrapped around his waist, its end connected to a bloodstained short-handled axe.

The moment he stepped onto the ring, he spat in Huang Yun's direction. Grinning to reveal a mouthful of blackened yellow teeth, he roared in a voice as booming as a broken gong, "Another little brat. Luck's on my side today."

Huang Yun ignored him and flexed the fingers of his right hand.

The knuckle duster was already on, fitted over his middle and ring fingers. Its dark-gold Dragon Bone base hugged his knuckles, while the Dragon Crystal tip was tucked against the inside of his palm, hidden from view.

He did not want his opponent to see it in advance.

The referee standing outside the iron cage struck a gong. Its sound was piercing. "Area C, Ring Seven, death match! Dragon Sting versus Butcher! Begin!"

Before the gong's echo faded, Butcher moved.

He violently kicked off the ground and charged at Huang Yun like a wild bull. He swung the short-handled axe at the end of his chain, carving a flash of cold light through the air as it came chopping down with a shrill whistle.

The axe strike was fast, vicious, and heavy, a typical power-attack fighting style.

Someone below the ring shouted in approval.

But Huang Yun merely shifted lightly to the side.

The axe blade passed right by his shoulder and slammed into the ground with a dull boom. It split the stone slab with a crack two fingers wide, scattering shards of rock.

Butcher missed his first strike and let out an enraged roar. He snapped the chain back, and the axe blade swept toward Huang Yun in a horizontal arc.

Huang Yun leaned backward. The blade skimmed past the tip of his nose, and the wind it raised made the surface of his mask tremble faintly.

After missing twice in a row, Butcher's vicious expression grew fiercer. The muscles in both arms bulged as his Soul Power erupted in full force, and five Spirit Rings—yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black—rose beneath his feet.

His third Spirit Ring lit up. A layer of dark-red Soul Power covered the short-handled axe, and its blade swelled by a full size.

"Third Soul Skill—Blood Butcher Axe!"

The short-handled axe abruptly split into three blood-red phantoms in midair. They slashed simultaneously at Huang Yun's upper, middle, and lower body from three directions, sealing off most of his room to evade.

This was clearly his usual killing move. No one knew how many had died beneath those three axes.

Someone in the stands sucked in a breath.

But Huang Yun stood still.

At the instant the three blood-red axe phantoms were about to strike him, his body turned into a streak of blue-white lightning and passed directly through the gap between them.

First Soul Skill—Lightning.

His speed surged in an instant. In Butcher's eyes, the three axe phantoms slowed as though frozen solid.

In less than a breath, Huang Yun had appeared before Butcher, close enough to see the black grime embedded in the scar on his face.

Butcher's pupils abruptly contracted. His arm was still extended from swinging the axe, too late to pull back, leaving him completely exposed.

Huang Yun clenched his right fist, the tip of the Dragon Fang Knuckle Duster in his palm aimed directly outward.

Raikiri activated.

Milky-white arcs of electricity burst from his palm and gathered at the Dragon Crystal tip. The dark-gold glow became dazzling in an instant, and a sharp explosion cracked through the air.

Then he threw his punch.

The punch was unimaginably fast. Butcher saw only a flash of golden light before his entire face felt as though it had been pierced by a red-hot iron spike.

The Dragon Fang Knuckle Duster's tip pierced his brow without resistance, punched through his skull, and emerged from the back of his head. At the same time, the thunder-element energy contained within the Dragon Crystal detonated, black lightning exploding inside his skull.

BOOM!!!!!

Butcher's enormous bald head exploded from within, bursting apart like a watermelon.

The moment his head burst open, black lightning shot from the cracks, spraying blood, flesh, and bone fragments in every direction. The headless body remained rigidly standing as it twitched twice, then crashed to the ground. The short-handled axe slipped from his grasp and rolled far away.

Five Spirit Rings rapidly dispersed from the corpse, and his axe Martial Soul vanished as well.

The entire arena fell silent for a moment.

Then someone sharply inhaled, someone's wine cup fell to the ground with a smack, and the hundred or so spectators stared at one another in stunned silence.

"He actually one-shot a five-ring Soul King! That's terrifying!"

"Could that spike be his Martial Soul!?"

The referee outside the iron cage was stunned as well. He stared at the mangled head on the ring for several breaths before coming back to his senses and shakily raising a hand to announce, "Dragon Sting... wins."

Huang Yun shook his right hand. The remaining flesh and bone fragments on the knuckle duster's tip were seared by lightning and instantly turned to ash.

He lowered his head to glance at the headless corpse on the ground. His expression did not change as he turned and headed toward the contestants' passage.

Only then did noisy discussion finally erupt from the stands behind him. Some cursed, while others began asking who exactly the masked man was.

Huang Yun did not look back.

He returned to the spirit arena's main hall and slapped the iron number plate onto the counter. "Settle it."

The half-eared burly man looked at him, then at the commotion coming from the direction of the ring. "You get fifty Gold Soul Coins as a first-win reward for a death match. Also, your points start from zero. Winning a death match gives three points, so you currently have three."

He paused, then lowered his voice. "Did you kill Butcher just now? That guy's been fighting in Area C for over a year. No one's ever managed to take him down."

"Yeah."

Huang Yun accepted the money pouch and weighed it in his hand. Without saying anything else, he turned and walked out through the spirit arena's doors.

Outside, daylight was bright, and people filled the streets. No one knew what kind of killing had just taken place on Area C's Ring Seven at the Gengjin Spirit Arena.

Walking down the street, Huang Yun clenched and unclenched his right fist.

The feedback from the knuckle duster was extremely satisfying.

When Soul Power activated Raikiri, the Dragon Crystal tip lit up with almost no delay. The energy transmission was exceptionally smooth. The moment it pierced through Butcher's brow, Huang Yun had not felt the slightest resistance. It had gone through like a hot knife through butter.

And that had only been a level fifty-seven Soul King.

What if he faced a Soul Saint?

Could the Dragon Fang Knuckle Duster combined with Raikiri pierce through a Soul Saint's defenses just as easily?

He thought it could.

Huang Yun looked down at his right hand. The dark-gold Dragon Crystal tip shone with a faint halo under the sunlight, with flickering lightning faintly moving within it.

A smile curled at the corner of his mouth. He put away the knuckle duster, slipped both hands into his pockets, and headed toward the inn.

This battle had yielded quite a lot.

It had allowed him to make an initial test of Dragon Sting's formidable power.