Tricky Sword King

After watching matches in the Hell Slaughter Arena for several days and learning a great deal about combat, Jiang Mingyang decided to enter the arena himself...

Half a month later.

In the stands of the Hell Slaughter Arena, many flushed spectators shouted excitedly:

"Kill... Kill... Tricky Sword King, kill them! Come on!"

"Tricky Sword King, watch your back! Kill them! Don't back down—crush them!"

"Foolish King is invincible! Kill the Tricky Sword King already! Haha! Hurry up, I said kill the Tricky Sword King!"

"Ant King will win... Forget it, Ant King isn't up to it! Foolish King will win!"

Inside the Hell Slaughter Arena.

Two mangled corpses lay on the left side of the arena, clearly the first to be eliminated from this match.

Aside from those two, eight people remained. One held a longsword engraved with intricate patterns, caution in his eyes and his breathing slow and measured. It was Jiang Mingyang.

This was Jiang Mingyang's eleventh match, the one that would bring him his eleventh consecutive victory.

As a veteran of ten straight wins, Jiang Mingyang was matched against opponents who had mostly won around ten matches themselves. Every one of them was an expert who had emerged from among hundreds of desperadoes.

At this level, a match could sometimes go on for an entire day without a single death. After all, none of them lacked the patience to hunt. All they wanted was to avoid a mistake.

Other times, the fighting ended swiftly. No one at this level lacked the ability to seize an opening or exploit an enemy's weakness.

The deciding factor was whether someone appeared who could overwhelm the rest. If so, the fight would end quickly.

If the fighters were evenly matched, with no one standing out, the battle would drag on for a long time.

Everyone who reached ten consecutive wins had a reputation in Slaughter City that was enormous beyond reason. People with time on their hands dubbed them one "King" or another.

Because of his uncanny swordsmanship, Jiang Mingyang had been named the Tricky Sword King.

Seven others remained in the arena with Jiang Mingyang, and every one of them was a decisive killer.

Jiang Mingyang was arguably the strongest person in the match, someone capable of overwhelming the others.

He could even eliminate at least two or three enemies in an instant, but he chose not to flaunt his strength and become the obvious threat in the arena.

Jiang Mingyang did not believe he could instantly kill two or three enemies and then fight the remaining four alone.

After all, he could use the Spiritual Holy Sword at most five times. He had already used one strike against one of the two dead fighters, leaving him only four.

Even if all four strikes hit, the remaining three would very likely gang up on him.

He was not afraid to face three attackers, but it was better to guard against the one chance in ten thousand.

Better to maintain this rough balance. Once a few more died, Jiang Mingyang could decide the outcome.

The Martial Soul of the Soul Master near the northern edge was the Iron Shovel, which gave him a considerable advantage.

But the Iron Shovel Soul Master's true strength was only around Soul Ancestor level, the weakest of the eight who remained.

He had survived largely because his Iron Shovel Martial Soul was useful for both attack and defense, and because the others were holding one another in check.

The Iron Shovel Soul Master could see the situation in the arena too, and his eyes were full of wariness.

He could not help cursing his terrible luck. Anyone called a "King" in the Hell Slaughter Arena was a monster among monsters. Usually, a match had only one such fighter, if any.

But three had appeared in this match. Their simultaneous presence, together with the other fighters, had created a delicate balance in the arena.

The Iron Shovel Soul Master knew that once this fragile balance broke, he would be the first attacked—and the first killed.

At the thought, despair crept into his eyes. An absolute gap in strength was terribly hard to overcome.

Just then, the Soul Master to the west, whose Martial Soul was the Flame Blade, finally lost patience and attacked Jiang Mingyang from the side.

The balance in the arena shattered in an instant.

Three Soul Masters charged at the Iron Shovel Soul Master. Meanwhile, the two fighters bearing the title of "King"—Ant King and Foolish King—clashed. Both had been famous for some time, and each considered the other his greatest enemy.

Seeing the Flame Blade Soul Master attack, Jiang Mingyang flicked his sword up to deflect the descending Flame Blade, turned the sword over, and thrust its tip toward the man's face.

The Flame Blade Soul Master hurriedly pulled his blade back to guard himself... In an instant, the two were trading blows.

Jiang Mingyang could undoubtedly kill the Flame Blade Soul Master in an instant, but the time was not right.

Seven others still remained. Jiang Mingyang could not yet decide the outcome on his own.

Since he could play it safe, he would. By his reckoning, if just one more person died, he could all but decide the outcome: strike the two most vicious Kings and two of the others with the Spiritual Holy Sword, then face the final two alone. That would be no problem.

If he killed the Flame Blade Soul Master instantly, the others would still attack him. He might even draw both Foolish King and Ant King into a three-way melee.

So he might as well keep trading blows with a Flame Blade Soul Master he could easily thrash.

Before long, the three attacking the Iron Shovel Soul Master killed him, then turned on one another.

Seeing this, Jiang Mingyang decisively sent a strike of the Spiritual Holy Sword at the Flame Blade Soul Master. The man instantly clutched his head in agony.

When the three fighting among themselves saw him clutching his head, they all slashed at him at once.

But as their blows fell, one of the three, a Soul Master whose Martial Soul was a dagger, swiftly drew back his weapon and stabbed at the Soul Master whose Martial Soul was a long saber.

The saber-wielding Soul Master had no time to dodge. He forced his body sideways, taking the stab in the right side of his back, then spun to slash at the dagger-wielding Soul Master while retreating rapidly.

To his surprise, the third fighter, a Soul Master whose Martial Soul was a tiger, stood squarely in his path. One swipe of a claw ended the saber-wielding Soul Master's life.

Then, as if by unspoken agreement, the tiger-wielding and dagger-wielding Soul Masters attacked Jiang Mingyang together.

The balance of attack, defense, strength, and weakness among them had shifted with startling speed, but Jiang Mingyang was not surprised in the least.

In the chaotic slaughter of the Hell Slaughter Arena, the situation changed in the blink of an eye. He had to keep all his attention on the fight.

Jiang Mingyang gave an uncanny smile. Heh~ One fewer.

Half an hour later, only one cry filled the Hell Slaughter Arena: "Tricky Sword King is invincible... Invincible..."

When Jiang Mingyang emerged from the Hell Slaughter Arena, many people were waiting outside the entrance. They were there to pick off badly wounded Soul Masters as they came out.

Their eyes were vicious and greedy, but the moment they saw Jiang Mingyang without a scratch, every last one turned and ran. What else could they do? He did not have a scratch on him!

Jiang Mingyang casually flicked out several arcs of sword energy at a few randomly chosen Soul Masters who were running too slowly, then collected their Bloody Mary at his leisure...

In Slaughter City, there was no currency—or rather, Bloody Mary served as currency.

After collecting the Bloody Mary, Jiang Mingyang slowly headed toward the place where he usually rested.

Jiang Mingyang could not help feeling that his first impression had been right. Even small details like these showed the difference between the inner city and the outer city.

The inner city was so much more polite. People even knew to cover things up a little. Was this what the inner city was like? It was wonderful.

Suddenly, Jiang Mingyang caught sight of a scene and hurried away. It was too frightening.

Jiang Mingyang quickened his pace...

Mingyang wished to stir up chaos, but feared the officials would not obey him.

So he devised a test. Holding up a deer before Emperor Li Qinghe, he said, "This is a horse."

Qinghe laughed. "Has the chancellor made a mistake? You call a deer a horse."

Seeing this, Mingyang asked the officials beside him, "Can you tell whether this is a horse or a deer?"

One of the officials said, "The chancellor is mistaken. This is a deer."

Mingyang flew into a rage. "With such treacherous ministers about, how can His Majesty's eyes and ears perceive the truth?"

He had the man killed, and all the officials beside him trembled with fear.

Mingyang asked the officials again, "Can you tell whether this is a horse or a deer?"

They all replied, "A horse."

Mingyang smiled and said to Qinghe, "Your Majesty, this is a horse! Not a deer!"

Qinghe said, "Yes, yes. It is a horse."

An idiom's origin: "Pointing at a Deer and Calling It a Horse."