"Holy shit?"
The sword swept in at a vicious angle, its trajectory impossible to make out. Chun Xiaobai felt danger rushing straight at him, cutting off every escape above.
In that hairbreadth instant, Chun Xiaobai found inspiration in desperation. He dropped into a squat, curling his entire body into a ball.
The razor-sharp blade skimmed his scalp, the fierce wind of its Sword Qi stinging his cheeks.
"Damn it, I let my guard down!"
Chun Xiaobai exhaled, his heart still pounding. "This guy really does have something to be proud of."
The disciples outside the arena erupted at the sight.
"Senior Brother Zhao's swordsmanship really lives up to its reputation!"
"Yeah, he scared him straight onto the ground!"
Seeing Chun Xiaobai's bedraggled crouch, everyone began clapping and cheering excitedly for Zhao Wuyuan.
Where did that leave my dignity as king of the mountain?
Chun Xiaobai was furious. The moment he raised his head, he saw Zhao Wuyuan turn his wrist again, sending another flash of sword light sweeping toward him.
He pushed off hard, springing from the ground in a hawk's twisting flip, and brought his sword across!
Clang!
With a crisp clash of metal, Chun Xiaobai firmly blocked Zhao Wuyuan's sideways thrust.
Seizing the opening as their blades collided, Chun Xiaobai used the force to dart backward, instantly putting some distance between them.
He understood.
This fellow's excellence lay not in strength, but in what Elder Zhao had mentioned... control over his sword!
In his hands, an ordinary longsword became a weapon whose tip darted and withdrew unpredictably, impossible to guard against.
Only someone like Chun Xiaobai, whose saber skills had long been tempered to perfection, could hold his own. Anyone else would have been skewered clean through the heart by that first strike.
Outside the arena, Gu Changfeng stood with his hands behind his back, watching the exchange and nodding to himself.
Only two brief sword strikes had passed, but he could already see the depth of Chun Xiaobai's foundation.
His reaction speed and his ability to anticipate danger far surpassed those of ordinary people.
These were not things painstaking practice of individual moves could produce. Only genuine trials of life and death could carve such instinctive reactions into the marrow.
Where on earth did this brat come from?
Seeing his viciously angled strike so easily neutralized, Zhao Wuyuan felt his pride take a blow.
He decided not to give Chun Xiaobai another chance.
He immediately unleashed the sword technique that had made his name-Star-Shattering Sword Art!
He stamped his left foot hard against the ground. The longsword in his right hand spun at high speed with a piercing hum, and he became a blur as he charged straight at Chun Xiaobai.
Yet Chun Xiaobai neither dodged nor retreated. His eyes stayed fixed on Zhao Wuyuan's footwork.
With fifteen years of life-and-death experience wielding a saber, he saw at a glance that the foundation of this sword art lay in its footwork and positioning!
Now!
Chun Xiaobai's gaze sharpened. Instead of retreating, he advanced, whipping the blade with both hands until the longsword hovered above his head.
When the approaching blade came within a foot of his chest, he caught that fleeting opening with perfect precision!
He abruptly tilted his body right and snapped his wrist. The longsword suspended above his head slashed straight down at an impossible angle!
Zhao Wuyuan realized that the plain, unadorned blade was cleaving down through the gaps in his intricate sword radiance with the precision of a master butcher carving an ox.
His pupils abruptly contracted.
With no time to hesitate, he jerked his right hand back, withdrawing his sword and holding it horizontally above his head.
Clang!
Zhao Wuyuan felt an inconceivable force slam through his blade. His right arm went numb, instantly losing all sensation.
The force did not stop there. It drove through his body into his chest, sending him sliding helplessly backward.
Pfft!
When he finally stopped, a sweet taste rose in his throat, and he could not hold back the mouthful of blood that sprayed out.
"Blade Soul?!"
At the sight of Chun Xiaobai's breathtaking strike, Gu Changfeng looked as though lightning had struck him. His earlier composure vanished completely.
Even his hands behind his back began trembling slightly.
Blade Soul...
That was the equivalent of a sword cultivator's Sword Heart!
Only with a Sword Heart could one be considered a true sword cultivator; only with a Blade Soul could one be considered a true saber wielder!
This... the entire Southern Heaven Commandery hasn't produced a saber wielder with a Blade Soul in thousands of years!
And our Azure Cloud Sect has actually welcomed one as a disciple?!
The disciples watched as Senior Brother Zhao Wuyuan, the peerless swordsman they believed invincible, was injured by a single strike from the obscure Chun Xiaobai.
All their earlier anticipation vanished. The arena fell so silent that not even a crow or sparrow could be heard.
It was as though they could not accept what had happened.
Bai Jin'er and Fang Yuan froze at the sight as well, then burst into earthshaking cheers.
"Wow! Senior Brother Chun's going to win!"
Their shout, however, jolted the stunned onlookers awake.
Everyone's gaze whipped toward them, fixing intently on the pair.
Noticing the strange looks, their cheers gradually faded, and they sheepishly rubbed their noses.
Zhao Wuyuan noticed the cheers around him dying away. Then he looked at Chun Xiaobai's calm expression, and fury instantly surfaced on his face.
I'm a genius ranked in the top hundred of the Azure Cloud Sect's Outer Sect. How could I possibly be defeated so easily?
Zhao Wuyuan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, abruptly shifted his feet, raised his longsword, and lunged at Chun Xiaobai again.
As he charged, a vicious gleam flashed through his eyes, and he gathered the spiritual energy within his body directly onto his blade!
"Holy shit, you're fighting dirty!"
Sensing a lethal aura of death rapidly closing in, Chun Xiaobai's heart lurched.
With spiritual energy gathered upon it, this strike was clearly more than ten times faster than before!
Chun Xiaobai instantly pushed his concentration to its limit, yet he still could not track that lightning-fast sword radiance.
The blade was about to pierce his forehead!
He gritted his teeth and unleashed every ounce of strength in his body, preparing to stake his life on one final struggle!
Just then, however, he suddenly felt something tap the very center of his crown, neither hard nor soft, and his vision briefly darkened.
That single tap!
It made Zhao Wuyuan's blindingly fast Sword Momentum seem as though someone had pressed a slow-motion button, abruptly reducing its speed a hundredfold in Chun Xiaobai's eyes.
Chun Xiaobai had no time to consider why.
Following his battle instincts, he tightened his grip on his longsword, caught an opening with perfect precision, and slashed diagonally upward!
"No!"
Seeing this strike that had stripped away all ornament to return to the essence, Gu Changfeng moved without a moment's hesitation.
Hum!
An invisible surge of Sword Intent burst from his body, instantly forming a barrier before Zhao Wuyuan's chest.
Clang!
Almost the instant the Sword Intent formed, Chun Xiaobai's seemingly ordinary strike hurtled into it. The collision unleashed a deafening clash of metal that made everyone's eardrums ache.
"This..."
Chun Xiaobai froze. "What's going on?"
"Did I hit a wall of air?"
Zhao Wuyuan, however, recognized at once that Elder Gu had used Sword Intent to block this fatal blow for him!
For Elder Gu to intervene personally and save him meant that, in swordsmanship alone, he was already inferior to Chun Xiaobai!
Yet just then, a cold gleam suddenly sharpened in his eyes. Taking advantage of Chun Xiaobai's daze, he turned his wrist and sent his longsword thrusting sideways at Chun Xiaobai's throat from another vicious angle.
Before you continue