Not a sound came from around the arena or from the stands.
Though Fan Zhong's final, desperate strike had still failed to hurt Fan Qi, his solitary courage in pressing forward without retreat was enough to earn everyone's respect.
In the stands, the Sixth Princess trembled all over, great beads of tears rolling ceaselessly from the corners of her eyes.
Yet she showed none of her earlier fragility. She simply wiped away her tears hard and fixed her gaze on the arena below once more.
Below the arena.
"Even without the Blood-Detonation Art's enhancement, Fan Zhong's final kick already carried a trace of a Martial Dao Grandmaster's bearing."
Xu Taiping looked toward Fan Zhong's corpse in the distance, his voice full of respect.
"Indeed. Fan Zhong was no good-for-nothing, as he called himself. Quite the opposite-he was one of the few talents the Fan family had produced in recent years. Otherwise, he could never have mastered the Acupoint-Exploding Technique. Sadly, before a monster like Fan Qi, his talent was hardly worth mentioning."
Huang Que nodded.
"The second challenger in this Life-and-Death Arena: Qi Yan."
Just then, Fan Ye stepped onto the platform and called out the next challenger's name.
Almost as soon as his words fell, a white-robed youth with a spear on his back leaped up from below, landing gracefully in the arena.
"Your surname is Qi, and you wield a spear. Could you be the grandson of that old fellow Qi Kai of the Wu Kingdom?"
Fan Qi stood in the arena with his hands behind his back, casting an indifferent glance at the white-robed youth.
"I never expected Elder Fan to still remember my grandfather."
The youth smiled, then unstrapped the spear from his back.
"I do not recall any grudge between myself and the Qi