Chapter 47
At the referee’s command, the cultivators scattered across the arena instantly charged toward Zhuang Han, who stood arrogantly in the center.
With perfect mutual understanding, everyone treated him as their common enemy. Only after joining forces to eliminate Zhuang Han could they relax and compete fairly against opponents of similar strength.
Yu Tai did not charge forward. She remained where she was with her sword in hand, quietly observing their movements.
Only a handful of people chose to watch coldly like Yu Tai, allowing the others to surround and attack Zhuang Han. Yu Tai noticed that those cultivators were all wandering cultivators who wore no sect uniforms.
Shaking her head inwardly, Yu Tai thought that the disciples of righteous sects were truly hopeless.
Zhuang Han sneered at the insignificant little ants throwing themselves at him.
He raised his fist and met the flying sword head-on.
A crack rang out. The cultivator stared in disbelief. His sword had actually been broken by a single punch from this body cultivator, while his opponent remained completely unharmed?!
To what realm did one have to temper the flesh to achieve such a thing?
Many of the cultivators at the front witnessed this seemingly impossible scene with their own eyes.
Their blazing enthusiasm was doused as though with a bucket of cold water, and many immediately thought of retreating.
Seeing this, Zhuang Han threw back his head and laughed. “Hahahaha! How could vermin like you possibly be a match for me?”
After laughing, he turned his enormous eyes toward Yu Tai again, his gaze filled with possessiveness.
Ever since he saw Yu Tai leap from her flying sword like a fairy and land in the arena, he had been unable to see anyone else. Only one thought remained in his mind.
He wanted the woman before him.
*Well? Haven’t you been conquered by my charm?*
Yet the girl he had set his heart on did not spare him so much as a glance. She merely lowered her eyes to the sword in her hand, deep in thought.
Zhuang Han nearly choked on his anger. He slammed another fist into the face of the nearest cultivator, sending the man flying out of the arena. The cultivator’s features caved in, and his face was drenched in blood.
Yet even that enormous commotion failed to draw Yu Tai’s attention. She stared at the sword in her hand and considered what Jiang Li had said that day.
He had said this sword did not suit her.
She had never considered the matter before. But now that Jiang Li had raised it, she found herself unable to stop thinking.
Indeed, this sword was the original Yu Tai’s counterfeit “bonded sword.” Although it was not half her soul as a true sword cultivator’s would be, it had developed a degree of spiritual qi after being used for so many years.
But this sword truly did not suit Yu Tai.
It was too sharp. Every time it left its sheath, its keen edge seemed intent on venting every ounce of power within it, violent and cold.
It suited the original Yu Tai’s temperament perfectly, but it felt awkward in Yu Tai’s hands. She preferred sabers to swords-especially the exquisite sensation of a keen blade cutting through soft flesh and striking bone.
It seemed that once she found something suitable, she would still have to replace it.
Fortunately, the original Yu Tai had not yet forged a true bonded sword. Otherwise, matters would have been difficult.
She remained there thinking for so long that she even began wondering what Shu Li would cook that evening. They had eaten fish constantly over the past few days, and she was beginning to tire of it…
“Beauty.”
As she was thinking, a rough voice suddenly sounded before her.
Yu Tai looked up. The muscular brute who had dared stare at her so disgustingly earlier was slowly approaching.
He stepped well beyond the distance anyone should consider safe and continued pressing closer.
Meanwhile, every cultivator who should have been surrounding him was gone. Even the wandering cultivators who had chosen to wait and watch like Yu Tai were lying on the floor at some point, apparently unconscious.
“Are you finished?” Yu Tai casually waved her sword as though loosening up.
Hearing this, Zhuang Han assumed she had been waiting especially for him. His entire body thrummed with excitement, and he quickened his steps toward Yu Tai.
“Junior Sister! Dodge!” the Qingshan Sword Sect disciples below the arena shouted anxiously.
They had originally thought that even Zhuang Han would be exhausted after being surrounded by every cultivator in the arena. Yu Tai could then reap the benefits while he was weakened.
But was this man some kind of monster? Rather than being surrounded and attacked, he had carried out a one-sided massacre.
Not one of those cultivators had been his match. Worse, he only fought more fiercely as the battle continued, without the slightest sign of fatigue!
Hearing their shouts, Yu Tai even found time to glance down. A faint smile appeared on her aloof face as she looked in their direction.
At the sight of a smile on the face of their normally unapproachable Junior Sister, the two momentarily forgot what they had wanted to say. They blushed and looked at each other.
“I didn’t imagine it, did I? Junior Sister smiled at me just now.”
“Junior Brother, how have your eyes already failed at such a young age? She was clearly smiling at me!”
Shu Li stood beside the two and listened to their argument, a trace of amusement rippling through his clear eyes.
He knew Yu Tai’s smile had been telling him to watch closely.
Seeing such a beautiful female cultivator about to be attacked by that crude brute, the surrounding spectators could not help feeling some sympathy.
“Zhuang Han! Don’t hit such a beautiful woman in the face!”
“Be careful! Have you never heard of treating a lady gently?”
Amid the jeers from below, Yu Tai shifted aside and dodged Zhuang Han as he lunged toward her.
Zhuang Han licked his cracked lips, his eyes blazing as he stared at Yu Tai. “Beauty… Let me hold you, and I’ll gently toss you out of the arena.”
A hint of fear appeared on Yu Tai’s delicate, flower-like face, arousing in him the destructive urge to ravage her. But in the next instant, the girl who had seemed afraid suddenly raised her sword and attacked.
A malicious smile spread across his face. He neither dodged nor retreated. Instead, he stood in place and extended a hand with a sinister grin, intending to smash the coldly gleaming sword to pieces and then take the beauty into his arms to comfort her.
Everyone below the arena held their breath. Some even covered their eyes, unable to watch.
The instant the sword point nearly touched Zhuang Han, he swung at it with a fraction of his strength.
But the expected sight of the blade shattering never came. Instead, sheets of blood flooded his vision. A tearing agony ripped through his chest-a pain he had not felt for many years.
His impervious flesh… had been cut open by a sword.
Several people near the arena were unfortunate enough to be sprayed with Zhuang Han’s blood. As his body crashed to the floor, they cried out and scrambled back, staring at the scene on the platform in disbelief.
The girl in the white disciple uniform patterned with blue stood intact before them, sword in hand. Not a drop of blood stained her pristine clothes. Her aloof, beautiful face was expressionless, and she gazed indifferently down at her defeated opponent as if looking at an ant.
“You’ve lost.”
Her clear, melodious voice brought everyone back to their senses.
In an instant, the crowd erupted.