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"This tournament is meant to be a friendly exchange, but blades have no eyes, and accidents may happen. Everyone must exercise restraint. Under no circumstances may you take a life." After the groups were assigned, Immortal Venerable Shen announced several rules of the competition. He even smiled and nodded toward Ye Qinghui's group, thinking, This time, I'll make you suffer. Ye Qinghui will leave dead or wounded.

"Damn it! The other groups only have one or two people at the Golden Core Late Stage. Shen Xingyan's group only has Shen Xingyan. Why does First Senior Brother's group have three?"

"These groups weren't assigned at random. Immortal Venerable Shen must be using his position to settle a personal grudge!"

"Poor First Senior Brother. His Inner Core hasn't recovered, and now he has to face such a dangerous battle. What are we going to do?"

Ye Qingyao, Ye Qingchuan, and the others grew worried. Ye Zhenzhen, however, held her milk bottle in her mouth and smiled at the familiar names in the group list. It's fine. Even without an Inner Core, First Senior Brother can handle these people with room to spare.

Ye Qingyao asked, "Junior Sister, do you have a plan?"

This mountain sage has a clever trick up her sleeve.

The tournament officially began. When Ye Qinghui stepped onto the stage, his first opponent was Li Tiankui, a saber cultivator who had reached the Golden Core Late Stage.

Even a single stage of difference between cultivators often meant an overwhelming gap in strength. Li Tiankui strode up to Ye Qinghui, who had lost nearly all his cultivation. Broad and burly, with a body like iron and a face full of whiskers, Li Tiankui swept his sleeve and stirred up a violent gust. His imposing presence utterly eclipsed Ye Qinghui's.

Li Tiankui sent out his Divine Sense to probe him, then sneered. "No Inner Core, and you still want to stand in my way? A dull sword without an edge will be nothing but scrap metal beneath my saber!"

"Then come and try." Ye Qinghui gave his long sword a light flourish and leaped into the air, standing tall and graceful as his robes billowed around him.

Li Tiankui raised his hundred-pound saber and hacked straight at Ye Qinghui. His powerful aura pressed down so hard it was difficult to breathe, and the whirlwinds it produced seemed capable of tearing space apart. Ye Qinghui did not meet the blow head-on. He shifted his feet and dodged, while the storm of energy from the saber gouged a gash into the ground beside him.

"What terrifying strength!"

"As expected of a saber cultivator at the Golden Core Late Stage. He's ferocious!" Awed by the saber's power, the spectators retreated.

Seeing the crowd intimidated and Ye Qinghui unwilling to take a blow, Li Tiankui grew smug. "Where do you think you're going?" he roared. His steps quickened, and his saber swept in every direction. At the Golden Core Late Stage, he was nothing like an ordinary, clumsy saber cultivator. Though he wielded a saber weighing hundreds of pounds, his movements were swift, and he pressed Ye Qinghui at every turn.

Without his Inner Core, Ye Qinghui relied on the agility he had honed through years of hard training and unleashed Flowing Light Illusion. His extraordinary speed created multiple afterimages to confuse Li Tiankui. He moved like a swimming dragon, graceful as a startled swan, slipping past each attack by a hair's breadth while his afterimages disrupted his opponent's sight and rhythm.

Again and again, the hulking man swung to cleave Ye Qinghui in two, only to strike a shadow. Thoroughly frustrated, he snapped, "Coward! Fight me head-on if you have the guts! Stop dodging!"

"Then come at me." Ye Qinghui suddenly appeared right in front of him, a smile spreading across his handsome, otherworldly face.

He dares come this close? He's asking to die! Li Tiankui roared. Pressure vast as mountains and rivers surged from him as he brought his saber down on Ye Qinghui's head.

Just as the saber was about to strike its target, dust billowed across the arena. Li Tiankui's fellow disciples assumed the saber's mighty force had raised it. They beat drums and gongs, raised their sabers, and cheered for his imminent victory.

A deafening crack rang out, and the arena shook violently.

Ye Qinghui dodged Li Tiankui's attack in a flash. Then he swung the Flowing Light Sword so fast that even the air could not keep up. Using softness to overcome strength, he knocked Li Tiankui's massive saber to the ground.

He held his sword against Li Tiankui's neck, his eyes bright as stars.

"How could this happen?" Li Tiankui had thought victory was in his grasp. Now disbelief filled his face, and his bull-like eyes nearly popped from their sockets. "What just happened? My eyes must have played tricks on me. Let's go again!"

Ye Qinghui shoved him off the stage. "Next time."

First Senior Brother is amazing! First Senior Brother is so handsome! Below the stage, Ye Zhenzhen clapped so excitedly that her little hands nearly turned red. When she had read the original book, she had learned that Li Tiankui possessed immense strength and was difficult to deal with. But his weakness was that he could not keep it up for long; once he attacked long enough, an opening would appear.

After hearing about Li Tiankui's weakness, Ye Qinghui had decisively avoided his edge before defeating him in a single move. He had shifted a thousand pounds with four ounces.

Next, he relied on his speed and Swordsmanship to win several more grueling fights. Every opponent was at least at the Golden Core Early Stage. None could be taken lightly, and he could not afford the slightest lapse in concentration.

After so many matches, Ye Qinghui was visibly exhausted.

In the tenth match, he faced another expert at the Golden Core Late Stage: Tang Jiuzhou, the young master of the Kunshan Tang Family, an Aristocratic Clan renowned for its formations. Tang Jiuzhou excelled at formations and carried himself with the force of a rainbow. He had already used his family's ancestral killing formation to quickly defeat more than ten people. Some had even been gravely injured by it and left barely breathing.

"How frightening!" Looking at the previous contestant being carried away after facing him, Ye Qingyao had a bad feeling. Before going over to treat the injured contestant, she warned Ye Qinghui, "First Senior Brother, his formation is extremely dangerous. You must put your safety first."

"That's right, Qinghui. Even I would need some time to break the Tang Family's ancestral killing formation," Ye Ruheng said, stroking his beard. "Protect yourself above all else. Don't try to force a victory."

It's not that hard. Stop worrying over nothing. Ye Zhenzhen winked at Ye Qinghui, took a Phoenix Spirit Fruit from the Heaven and Earth Pearl to replenish his spiritual energy, and handed him her milk bottle as well. She lowered the volume of her inner voice as far as it would go and secretly told him a few things.

"Junior Sister, that's downright devious." Ye Qinghui could not help laughing when he heard her plan, his face alight.