The vast Sword City stretched between two mountain ranges.
The towering Sword Pagoda pierced the sky like a colossal divine blade. At this moment, the rising sun cast its rays upon the pagoda, etching its enormous shadow across the mountain gate.
Beneath this shadow lay ten dueling platforms.
After the Sword City elder finished speaking, the arena fell silent.
"Which hero will step up first to set an example for us?"
"Where are all those valiant warriors from earlier?"
...
To take the stage now meant holding it for three consecutive days—a daunting challenge.
Only those with unshakable confidence in their own strength would dare ascend at this moment.
"This one shall make the first attempt."
Suddenly, a voice rang out from the crowd.
Li Mo, who had just put away his brush, turned toward the sound.
The speaker wore beast-patterned armor, his features stern, a long spear gripped in his hand. Dozens of personal guards flanked him, exuding an air of solemn authority.
The "Hengyun Sword Mark" was not solely for comprehending sword techniques.
Though swordsmen dominated the scene, it was simply because martial artists across Yunzhou—and indeed the world—revered the sword.
"It's Young Marquis Zhong!"
"The young marquis is mighty! A true general's bearing!"
The crowd erupted in flattery, each trying to outdo the other.
Li Mo couldn't resist using his Heavenly Destiny Eye to observe him.
Hm?
His brow twitched slightly.
[Name: Zhong Zhenyue]
[Age: 22]
[Constitution: Iron Horse Golden Spear Body]
[Cultivation: Observing Divinity, Five Apertures]
[Destiny: Blue tinged with Purple]
[Evaluation: Son of the Southern Suppressing King. A hardened soldier since youth, straightforward to a fault.]
[Recent Misfortune: On his way to Yunzhou, he was deceived by the Misty Rain Pavilion's Holy Maiden, Yin Mianmian—who didn't even need to use her Bewitching Heart Art before he swore to marry her... Unwittingly aided Misty Rain Pavilion in seizing the Hengyun Sword Mark, later punished severely by his father.]
Li Mo: "..."
An inexperienced, iron-willed rich kid meets a top-tier seductress, huh?
This was troublesome.
The guy wasn't poisoned, wasn't ensnared by some bewitching technique, and wasn't even affiliated with Misty Rain Pavilion.
Sword City wasn't the Qingyuan Sect—its elders wouldn't just take Li Mo's word for it.
"One step at a time."
Li Mo shook his head.
He had two priorities now:
First, refine his "Nine Swords of Dugu" to a higher level through these duels.
Second, help the "ice block" (Ying Bing) and Princess Jiang Chulong study the Hengyun Sword Mark.
Misty Rain Pavilion clearly had designs on the Sword Mark, but his Heavenly Destiny Eye hadn't revealed any of their assassins yet.
Still, as long as the martial summit continued, they'd make their move eventually.
"Ice block—"
Li Mo turned to speak, only to find Ying Bing already standing on a platform.
The crowd erupted in gasps.
"Isn't that the Domineering Empress? Liu Wuyan?"
"It's her! They look identical!"
"Wait, bro, you've read 'The Domineering Empress Falls for Me' too?"
"So the comic actually based its characters on real people?"
"Ugh... I wanna be Empress Wuyan's loyal dog!"
"Empress Wuyan, invincible under heaven!"
"I'll raise her banner high—who dares oppose her?!"
...
The arena grew even livelier than when Zhong Zhenyue had stepped up, nearly devolving into a fan meetup.
Ying Bing's delicate brows furrowed.
She hadn't expected the comic to be this popular.
First of all, her name wasn't Liu Wuyan...
Yet her frown only amplified the cheers.
Li Mo: "...So Senior Brother Ouyang, you modeled Liu Wuyan after Ying Bing?"
"What could I do? She's the standard. You know how unfairly perfect our junior sister looks—I racked my brains but couldn't imagine a more empress-like figure."
Ouyang shrugged, then added:
"Oh, and Jiang Chen is based on you, Junior Brother Li. Art draws from life, after all. You taught me well."
Watching the frenzied crowd, Li Mo never imagined—
He'd one day be hit by his own ricochet.
Nor that he'd become a celebrity heartthrob...
"Wow, is that Jiang Chen?"
"He looks so gentle and handsome—a true gentleman!"
"Wait, so 'The Domineering Empress Falls for Me' is about them?"
"Eeeek! I wanna have Jiang Chen's babies!"
...
The spectators weren't just martial artists—commoners, nobles, and curious onlookers from across Yunzhou had gathered.
The solemn atmosphere of the sword trials had utterly evaporated.
On the Sword City's high platform:
"What is your External Affairs Hall doing?!"
Elder Zeng slammed the table, sending fruits bouncing into the air.
"Elder, we're helpless here!"
"We hired a hundred storytellers to promote our three core disciples, working in shifts until we've driven up the price of loquat syrup!"
The hall's steward wore a pained expression.
Even if the storytellers wore their throats raw, how could they compete with a hit comic?
"You've no idea—bookstores have queues daily, with people offering hundreds of taels just to read the latest chapter!"
"Our promotional methods... are outdated!"
"Outdated?!"
Elder Zeng snorted, eyeing the three disciples—Wu, Cao, and Bai Jinghong.
"These are just cheap tricks. True skill is proven on the battlefield!"
"You three must showcase your might and spirit later!"
"Yes!"
They bowed in unison, though Bai Jinghong sighed inwardly.
As they descended, Elder Zeng narrowed his eyes at the steward:
"Wait—how do you know about the bookstore queues?"
"Uh, just... strolling around..."
"A Sword City steward should feel ashamed! Hand it over!"
"But I haven't finished reading..."
Reluctantly, the steward surrendered the comic.
Once alone, Elder Zeng eagerly flipped through it like a man finding an antidote.
"Heh... the latest chapter... hehehe..."
Elder Zeng was a good elder.
He kept work and personal interests strictly separate.
...
On the platforms:
All ten were finally occupied.
The rules were simple:
Each participant could only ascend twice. Those exceeding a major realm must suppress their cultivation—this was a martial exchange, not a contest of raw power.
Of the ten current occupants, nine were in the Observing Divinity Realm.
Only Princess Jiang Chulong remained in the Inner Breath Realm.
Naturally, many seeking fame set their sights on her.
"Whose child is this?"
"Looks like a little beggar—I saw her feeding stray cats last night."
"Hey kid, scram! Don't cry when things get scary."
A swordmaster at the Mystic Core Realm leapt up, issuing a challenge.
Jiang Chulong stood clutching her jade sword and peach blossom branch, timid and lost.
She bit her lip, glancing at the adjacent platform—
Where Li Mo smiled faintly, giving her a covert thumbs-up beneath his sleeve.
Suddenly emboldened, she whispered:
"Has it... started?"
"Yes. It has."
Swish—
The peach blossom branch moved.
None saw its beginning, nor its end.
But once resolved, its path never turned back—unstoppable as the spring breeze.
And just like that—
It was over.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
