Kill Tiger Guard

On the arena platform.

Lu Li's gaze tightened slightly. He could not help lowering his eyes for a glance below the stage, and his expression abruptly turned solemn.

He took in every reaction below. Quite a few gamblers who had been roaring moments ago fell silent without thinking, unable to conceal the hesitation in their eyes...

He knew he had encountered a formidable opponent.

But You Dian'e had asked him beforehand about the Fifth-Level Skin Tempering Tiger Guard and only arranged this match after receiving his consent. It was no conspiracy.

Tiger Guard was lean and wiry, hidden within black clothes. His cold gaze locked firmly onto Lu Li.

Then Lu Li noticed that Tiger Guard's face was pallid, like skin that had never seen sunlight for years, without the slightest trace of blood. His eyes were unnaturally calm, a dead calm, like the barren stillness after ten thousand people had been slaughtered.

The instant Tiger Guard stepped onto the stage.

The clamor around the arena, the wind in the venue, and the swaying lamplight seemed to be drained away for an instant before returning to normal.

Lu Li's eyes flickered, and a ripple rose in his heart. The man before him felt like a killing machine. Tiger Guard's breath was even and steady, without the slightest fluctuation. Lu Li could find no obvious weakness.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The war drums sounded. The Deathmatch Arena began!

The entire venue held its breath.

Tiger Guard stood in place, saber in hand and arm hanging at his side, utterly motionless. His indifferent gaze seemed to be telling Lu Li to make the first move.

The entire venue erupted.

"What is going on? Tiger Guard never leaves his opponents a chance to catch their breath!"

Discussions broke out below the stage.

"Could it be that Tiger Guard cannot find Overlord's weakness and is waiting for an opportunity?"

Someone on the second floor cried out in a low voice.

Tiger Guard was probing him.

He had killed too many talented geniuses who hid their true abilities.

"This is completely different from his usual swift-kill style!"

At that moment, Lu Li gathered his mind. He lightly raised his arm, saber light flashing as he swept forward, choosing to strike first.

With the Eight Trigrams Instant-Shadow Step beneath his feet, he used the saber technique within the Eight Trigrams Instant-Shadow Step for the first time. This was a secret technique he had comprehended after breaking through the limits of the Eight Trigrams Saber. Although its limit-breaking evolution had focused on footwork, Lu Li had once more derived a new limit-breaking secret technique from the Eight Trigrams' eight saber forms.

His opening move was the Eight Trigrams Eight Absolute Sabers' "Qianyuan Rends the Wind."

The saber rose from the Qian position. With a tap of the Instant-Shadow Step, he arrived in an instant. The long saber slashed diagonally upward from below, its spine tensed as it gathered force. Saber wind tore through the air, targeting Tiger Guard's opening guard and the flaw exposed when he raised his arm.

Tiger Guard, who had remained deathly still, suddenly moved!

Tiger Guard's saber became a black line of light, fast beyond measure, soundless and without even a whisper of wind. Its angle was tricky and strange, defying all reason, yet it targeted Lu Li's throat, his fatal point.

Lu Li unleashed his perfected Instant-Shadow Step to its limit. His body slid three inches to the side, narrowly evading the saber tip.

At the same time, Lu Li suddenly sank his waist and pressed close to the ground, sweeping his saber horizontally. His entire body was nearly plastered against the arena's bluestone surface.

The long saber lay low to lock the feet, its heavy blade severing the roots.

The saber light flowed along the ground, cutting toward Tiger Guard's ankles, shins, and the brittle bones behind his knees.

Tiger Guard leaped into the air and vanished from Lu Li's sight. His second killing strike followed with seamless fluidity. With an almost imperceptible flick of his wrist, so fast it could not be seen, he kept his saber force silent and contained as the heavy saber shot like lightning toward the back of Lu Li's neck.

In that flash of lightning and spark of flint.

Lu Li's spinning figure shifted sideways across the ground. His foot stepped into the Li position, his waist and abdomen twisting at top speed as he spun sharply within an inch of space. Saber light erupted with his turn!

A streak of cold radiance burst forth. The saber momentum was fierce, too swift to leave an afterimage. This counterkill with a supreme technique was completely beyond Tiger Guard's expectations.

He could not understand Lu Li's movement technique, much less his saber technique. More importantly, he could not believe Lu Li had reacted in time.

In such desperate situations, countless people had died beneath his saber. He had never failed.

The cold indifference in Tiger Guard's eyes gradually gained a trace of life. The doubt ordinary people possessed actually appeared in his eyes. Then came a thread of relief, and his gaze slowly emptied...

His right hand instinctively tried to cover the blood spraying from his throat, but when it rose halfway, it fell again...

As his body crashed heavily onto the arena platform.

Fifth-Level Skin Tempering—Tiger Guard was dead!

The second floor was stunned into silence!

Qian Fu on the third floor abruptly rose to his feet. He had not seen Lu Li's last slash clearly either.

Explosive roars rang out across the venue.

Lu Li slowly sheathed his saber and steadied his footing. His thoughts raced as he began reviewing the sequence of strikes from moments ago.

Tiger Guard had trained with the saber year-round. In his hand, it moved as naturally as an arm or finger. His combinations were silky, meticulous, and fluid. He had a powerful presence and had killed countless people. Relying on his ultimate single-saber technique to crush his opponents' mentality, he would then flash behind them at extreme speed, creating a blind spot before unleashing his second killing move.

If it had been an ordinary martial artist, intimidated by the momentum of his first strike and thrown into mental disorder, they would certainly have found it difficult to block the second fatal strike.

But Lu Li had spotted a tiny flaw. Tiger Guard's right hand had an old injury. When delivering the second strike, it gave an extremely slight tremor, which Lu Li caught.

Tiger Guard's lethal combination was evaded by the Instant-Shadow Step, forcibly cutting its momentum short by half a beat.

That half-beat gap left his killing intent hanging in empty air and buried his life with it.

After Mo Tiezhen announced the victor, Lu Li silently walked down from the arena.

Without lingering, he found You Dian'e and retrieved the three thousand and five taels of silver that belonged to him, then left the gambling house by the way he had come.

The burly man guarding the door watched Lu Li's retreating figure and fell into thought.

Another one had walked alive off the Deathmatch Arena.

Before long, two concealed figures silently emerged, trailing the slender figure ahead from afar.

Lu Li headed toward the city outskirts.

And began digesting what he had gained tonight.

With three thousand taels' worth of banknotes tucked heavily against his chest, Lu Li did not feel it was secure enough. He secretly tightened the money pouch again, fastening it inside his clothes and securing it tightly.

He walked slowly.

Setting out from the Outer City gate, he would follow a small dark grove for the time it took an incense stick to burn, cross a fairly tall stretch of woodland, then race all the way to the Black Flood Dragon River...

He had rehearsed this route countless times in his mind. Now he went over it once more, and after confirming there were no omissions, he began to quicken his pace.

For the moment, he had not discovered anyone following him.

But.

Not discovering them did not mean they were not there.

At times he ran quickly, at times he walked slowly, and at times he doubled back.

All along the way, his eyes watched in every direction and his ears listened to all sides.

Even when he reached the riverbank, he found no one following him.

That was not right, was it?

Lu Li considered it. Either the person tailing him was an expert, or their realm was far above his own. He absolutely did not believe the gambling house would not send anyone after him.

After arriving at the Black Flood Dragon River, he looked around but found nothing. Then, facing away from Blackwater City, he plunged headfirst into the water.

After entering the water, he did not begin swimming into the distance. Instead, he secretly dove back near where he had just entered, held his breath, and concealed himself faintly beneath the low bank.

After about half the time it took to drink half a cup of tea, he heard two sets of footsteps, one heavy and one light, approaching along the distant shore.

Lu Li inwardly thought, Just as expected.

He held steady, remaining silently motionless beneath the water. The river at night was quite cold. Though he had already reached Fourth Skin Tempering, the bone-piercing chill kept eroding him, making his heart grow cold.

Just then, an aged voice sounded.

"Looks like he's an old hand. He slipped away using the water."

Another deep, heavy voice said in a low tone.

"He won't be easy to chase underwater. Let's go back and report."

Once the words fell, the heavy and light footsteps gradually receded.

Yet Lu Li did not surface.

"Trying to bluff me?"

Just like that, Lu Li remained submerged for about two quarters of an hour. There was still no movement above the water.

He waited another half hour. After stealthily surfacing for a breath, he dove down once more and swam underwater in the direction away from Blackwater City.

After Lu Li left, one figure remained on the shore while the other hurried toward the waterway entrance that had to be passed to reach Blackwater City.