No Weapons

Chu Kuang!

The spear department director, his face contorted with fury, stood directly in front of Su Yu, blocking his path.

He pointed at Chen Feng's nose and let loose a torrent of abuse.

"Bullshit!"

"Why didn't you say this earlier?!"

Chu Kuang's voice boomed like a great bell, making Chen Feng's eardrums ring.

"Before you stepped onto that stage, why didn't you say high-tier weapons weren't allowed?"

"Just now, when you used a Heaven-rank spiritual martial art against a freshman, why didn't you cry unfair?"

"Now that you've been taken out with a single spear thrust, you jump up and scream about no spears!"

"Boy of the Chen family, you've shamed the entire Chen name!"

Chu Kuang's fiercely protective nature was on full display in this moment.

He didn't give a damn about weapons or rules.

Su Yu won, and that was the only fact that mattered.

"Cut the crap!"

Chu Kuang reached out his massive hand like a debt collector.

"You lost, so you lost!"

"Hand it over!!!"

Facing Chu Kuang, Chen Feng staggered backward under that terrifying pressure.

His face cycled through shades of pale and green.

Shame.

Utter shame!

Being called shameless to his face by a department director in front of thousands of students.

Chen Feng ground his teeth so hard he tasted blood in his mouth.

With trembling hands, he pulled a faintly glowing jade slip from his chest.

The Wuxiang Jie Ren — Blade of Formless Calamity.

The crown jewel of the Chen family's heirlooms.

"Give it to him!"

Chu Kuang snatched the jade slip without ceremony and shoved it straight into Su Yu's hands.

"Keep it safe, kid!"

"This is your winnings, won fair and square!"

Su Yu accepted the jade slip.

He felt its warm, smooth texture and the ripple of spiritual energy emanating from it.

A sense of satisfaction washed over him.

Heaven-rank top-grade, spiritual-type martial art.

In his hands, just like that.

All it had taken was a single spear thrust. If this was the quality of challenge, he'd happily take more.

"Thank you, Director Chu," Su Yu said casually, tucking the jade slip into his pocket.

Chen Feng watched his family's prized technique fall into Su Yu's hands, his heart bleeding dry.

His dao heart was teetering on the edge of collapse.

If he didn't reclaim his pride.

If he didn't win back that martial art.

He'd never be able to hold his head up at Capital Martial University — or in front of Lin Xiaoxiao.

And when he eventually returned to his family, his elders would break both his legs!

"SU YU!!!"

Chen Feng suddenly snapped his head up, both eyes boring into Su Yu like drills.

His eyes were bloodshot, veins vivid and terrifying.

He resorted to the crudest, yet most direct, of tactics: provocation.

"Do you dare, like a real man?!"

"If you've got the guts..."

"Put down that Abyssal Dragon Spear!"

"And fight me again — bare-handed?!"

Chen Feng's voice echoed across the arena.

"If you really have the strength of an elite freshman, defeat me with your fists!"

"Do you dare?!"

The moment those words left his mouth, the entire crowd erupted.

"Shameless! Absolutely shameless!"

"The guy is a spear artist, and you're telling him not to use a spear?"

"That's like telling a swordsman to throw away his sword, or a blademaster to discard his blade!"

"Chen Feng is desperate, and he's abandoned all pretense of decency!"

Even Lin Xiaoxiao, standing below the stage, frowned deeply.

But she wasn't worried in the slightest.

His manifestation-grade spear intent could still do the job.

As for Su Yu on the stage...

He couldn't believe his luck.

He nodded with genuine pleasure.

"Fine."

Su Yu's voice was calm, but it carried clearly across the entire arena.

"But what about the stakes?"

Seeing that Su Yu had actually agreed, a surge of wild joy rose in Chen Feng's chest.

As long as that damned Emperor-grade demon-slaying lance was out of the picture —

With his three thousand points of blood essence, plus the invisible, formless spiritual attacks —

Crushing a freshman with barely a thousand points of blood essence would be child's play!

"Good!"

Chen Feng gritted his teeth and roared.

"You want stakes? Fine!"

"Today, I'll wager everything I have with you!"

He tore open his tattered academy uniform, revealing an inner vest of dark, gleaming silver.

Ancient, intricate runes flowed across its surface like living veins.

The mere exposure of it to open air radiated an aura of unbreakable armor.

"This is the Royal-rank battle armor my grandfather gifted me — the 'Flowing Silver Mystic Mail'!"

Chen Feng slapped his chest, pride blazing in his eyes.

"It can withstand a full-force strike from a Martial Emperor!"

"It's worth a fortune!"

"If I lose, this armor — is yours!"

Royal-rank battle armor!

The dark silver sheen shifted in the sunlight.

The runes on that vest, the Flowing Silver Mystic Mail, seemed to breathe and pulse with every rise and fall of Chen Feng's chest.

An aura of dense, unbreakable defense blanketed the entire stage.

Below the stage.

Students of Capital Martial University gaped, gasps echoing across the crowd.

"That's a real Royal-rank battle armor!"

"Is the Chen family insane? Giving away a safety net like that to a sophomore?!"

"It's forged from deep-sea flowing silver and the natal scales of an eighth-tier beast, said to absorb a hit from a Martial Emperor and not crack!"

"Worth a fortune!"

"At least tens of billions — enough to bleed dry some second-rate families!"

On the duel stage.

A furious bellow cut through the air.

"NO WAY!"

"I absolutely do not agree!"

Chu Kuang lunged forward one massive step, his broad back shielding Su Yu completely from any further negotiation.

He had just tucked a Heaven-rank spiritual martial art into Su Yu's hand a moment ago, only to hear the kid actually accept Chen Feng's utterly absurd terms.

No weapon?

A bare-handed fight against a Grandmaster with three thousand points of blood essence and a Heaven-rank spiritual technique?!

Is this kid out of his mind?!

Chu Kuang's veins bulged on his forehead as genuine panic crept in.

Maybe the kids didn't understand, but he — a freak who had trained spear arts his whole life — knew the truth all too well.

Martial intent — especially weapon-type martial intent — absolutely requires a medium.

Even someone like him, Chu Kuang, who had polished his spear intent to the realm of "micro-control," able to fully harness every ounce of power —

Without a real spear in hand —

His devastating combat capability would drop to less than ten percent.

Why?

Because the intent must lead the spear!

Without a spear, what does your will anchor to? What does it command?

Unless —

A terrifying thought flashed through Chu Kuang's mind.

Unless this kid's spear intent has already surpassed micro-control and reached the second realm — the formless state.

Intent detached from physical form, forming blades from thin air, killing silently with a mere thought.

But the thought vanished as quickly as it came — snuffed out without hesitation.

Impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

This kid only awakened the first flicker of spear intent yesterday afternoon by the Weiming Lake.

All told, it hasn't been twenty-four hours yet!

Going from insight to fully mastering the formless state in a single day?

That wasn't genius. That was an insult to every martial artist who ever lived.

In Chu Kuang's eyes, Su Yu's one-shot victory over Chen Feng — shattering that weird Blade of Formless Calamity —

Was ninety percent due to that Emperor-grade Abyssal Dragon Spear.

The spear's innate demon-slaying properties and its terrifying killing aura, layered on Su Yu's bare hint of nascent spear intent — that's what created that utterly devastating result.