Kid, you've done well. Leave this to me.

The young man’s cultivation was very poor.

He was only at the Nascent Soul stage.

To be precise, it was poor compared to everyone present.

For someone his age, he might already be considered a prodigy.

Wang Ba found it rather amusing. “You little brat, are you here to get yourself killed?”

The young man closed his eyes.

“I’m certain to lose today. But if I don’t fight with everything I have and strive for even the slightest chance, I’m afraid I’ll never be able to find peace in my heart again.”

As his words fell, the young man opened his eyes.

Between closing and opening them, his entire bearing had changed.

The spiritual energy around him began to rise at an astonishing speed.

The rust on his sword also began to fall away.

“An Immortal King’s remnant soul… But after losing the reinforcement of his immortal status, it should possess no more than the strength of the Mahayana stage. And it won’t be able to last for long.”

The Old Emperor saw through the young man’s transformation at a glance.

Su Ji was not surprised either.

The Canghuang Realm was simply too vast. There would always be a few people whose luck was so extraordinary that it could no longer be explained by common sense.

The smile on Wang Ba’s face froze.

He sensed the powerful aura erupting from the young man. That strength had already surpassed the Nascent Soul stage and was closing in on the Deity Transformation stage. It was still continuing to rise.

“Putting on an act!” Wang Ba roared.

His enormous fist, carrying the force of thunder, slammed toward the young man.

The terrifying power compressed the air into visible ripples that surged straight toward the young man’s face.

The young man did not move. He merely raised the rusty sword in his hand.

“Buzz!”

The sword hummed softly. The rust completely peeled away, revealing an ancient, unadorned blade beneath.

A fine crack spread across the blade, yet it emanated a heart-stirring sword intent filled with gray decay.

Although the blade was already pressed tightly against Wang Ba’s fist, it thrust forward once more with renewed force.

Amid Wang Ba’s furious roar, the ancient sword in the young man’s hand finally pierced through his fist and into his body.

Wang Ba’s figure abruptly froze, his face filled with disbelief.

His physical body had reached the late Dao Integration stage and was impervious to weapons. How could it have been pierced by a single sword?

He tried to mobilize his spiritual energy and counterattack, only to discover that the spiritual energy throughout his body had sunk into a quagmire and could no longer circulate.

The young man simply continued pushing inward, slowly but surely. He drove the sword upward, piercing deeper and breaking through farther.

Muscle fibers harder than meteoric iron were severed and torn apart by the gray, decaying sword intent. His blood and marrow were boiled until they seethed, and the pressure transmitted through the ancient sword forced boiling blood from his body, flowing down to the ground like a waterfall.

Devoured and shattered by the scorching sword intent, his flesh curled and melted like plastic, dripping away bit by bit.

Blood and flesh splattered across the arena.

Under the young man’s sword, Wang Ba’s body was as fragile as paper.

“How… how is this possible?!” Wang Ba let out an unwilling roar.

He could feel the life force draining from his body. That sword intent was not merely murderous. It carried a strange power that devoured life and dragged everything toward withering decay.

The young man’s gaze remained cold and emotionless.

He merely tightened his grip on the sword. The blade trembled, releasing a deep hum.

Under the sword intent, Wang Ba’s body rapidly shriveled.

His burly frame visibly contracted. His skin became wrinkled, and his hair turned gray in an instant.

In the span of a few breaths, a powerhouse at the late Dao Integration stage had been completely drained of his vitality and reduced to a corpse of skin and bones.

“Bang!”

Wang Ba’s body collapsed to the ground with a dull thud.

The ancient sword was pulled from his body. Wang Ba’s vital essence stained the blade, yet it now gleamed with an even more dazzling radiance.

A gray halo flowed across its entire length, while the cracks in the sword grew increasingly pronounced, as though the blade might shatter at any moment.

The arena fell into absolute silence. Everyone stared blankly at the scene before them.

A young man at the Nascent Soul stage had killed Wang Ba, a late Dao Integration powerhouse, with a single sword strike?!

It overturned everything they knew.

The young man stood at the center of the arena, the ancient sword angled toward the ground. His face was deathly pale, utterly devoid of color.

He barely managed to remain standing as his gaze once again turned toward Tong Xiaoxiao on the high platform.

Tong Xiaoxiao looked at him. At last, a glimmer of tears appeared in her hollow almond-shaped eyes.

She wanted to say something, but no words came out.

The young man gave her another weak smile.

“Miss, perhaps you don’t remember the stable boy you once helped…”

He had only spoken half a sentence when he suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Even with the Immortal King’s remnant soul secretly exerting its power within him, he was ultimately still only a young man at the Nascent Soul stage.

Below the arena, the crowd began to stir once more upon seeing the young man’s weakness.

“That brat is finished!”

Dozens of figures once again charged toward the arena.

However—

“Buzz—”

The ancient sword hummed again, and a gray sword intent instantly enveloped the young man.

The cultivators rushing onto the arena were flung backward the moment they touched the sword intent, as though they had crashed into an invisible wall.

Within the sword intent, a blurred phantom slowly took shape.

Its features were indistinct, yet it radiated a pressure that made everyone’s heart tremble.

It raised a hand and casually waved it at the cultivators flying backward.

“All of you, get lost!”

Those cultivators were swept away like leaves in a hurricane. They were instantly thrown off the arena and crashed heavily onto the ground, spitting blood as terror filled their eyes.

“Kid, it’s about time we withdrew. This is your limit.”

The voice of the Immortal King’s remnant soul rang out in the young man’s sea of consciousness, carrying a note of exhaustion.

The young man swayed. The ancient sword in his hand hummed, and the gray cracks across its surface became even more pronounced.

He suddenly tightened his grip on the hilt until his knuckles turned white.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of timing, and sometimes it’s fate,” the remnant soul continued. “The true experts haven’t even entered the fight yet. Even if I stake my life, we still won’t be his match.”

The young man did not answer.

He merely drew in a deep breath and once again turned his gaze toward Tong Xiaoxiao on the high platform.

The girl remained expressionless, her eyes hollow.

“Then I’ll be knocked off the arena with my head held high, rather than run away with my tail between my legs.”

At the same time—

A refined figure slowly stepped out from below the arena.

It was none other than the Tong family’s chief consecrated elder, Li Yunzhi.

His expression was calm, as though the bloody slaughter that had just taken place on the arena had nothing to do with him.

He stepped onto the arena and looked at the young man.

“You’ve done well enough, boy. Leave this to me,” Li Yunzhi said gently.

The young man did not yield.

He merely raised the ancient sword in his hand, pointing its tip straight at Li Yunzhi.

“Please instruct me.”

Li Yunzhi let out a soft sigh and shook his head.

“Why bother?”

He did not draw his sword. Instead, he extended a single finger and lightly pointed at the ancient sword in the young man’s hand.

“Buzz—!”

The ancient sword trembled violently. The gray sword intent erupted in an instant, surging toward Li Yunzhi like a raging sea.

Yet Li Yunzhi’s finger remained as steady as a pillar holding back the sea.

The overwhelming sword intent vanished the instant it touched his fingertip.

The young man’s expression changed dramatically. He felt an unstoppable force travel through the sword, numbing the web of his hand and nearly knocking the ancient sword from his grasp.

The last remnants of the Immortal King’s soul power within him surged wildly, attempting to resist that force.

“The battles ahead are beyond your current level,” Li Yunzhi said again.

He casually flicked the ancient sword in the young man’s hand.

“Clang!”

A crisp sound rang out.

The ancient sword flew from the young man’s grasp, traced an arc through the air, and plunged heavily into the edge of the arena, where it continued to hum.

The young man’s body jolted violently as he spat out a mouthful of blood and was sent flying backward, crashing heavily against the edge of the arena.

He struggled to get back up, only to find that the spiritual power throughout his body had collapsed, while the power of the Immortal King’s soul within him had also fallen into silence.

“I…”

The young man panted weakly, his eyes filled with unwillingness to accept defeat.

Tong Xiaoxiao watched this scene unfold. At last, a faint ripple appeared in those hollow almond-shaped eyes.

Her gaze fell upon Li Yunzhi on the stage.

She wanted to say something, but her throat felt as though it had been blocked, and not a single sound came out.