The shadows cast by the fighters on stage retreated steadily until none remained; evidence of how slow the first round of competition was. By the time the final group of 30 took their place, the sun was directly above the arena, terrorizing the crowd with an unrelenting heat.
Huang Yun stood ready on the side of the platform with several clan elders waiting impatiently for the announcer to call his name. As a member of the last group, he stood in the arena for over a day and a half without fighting, leaving him agitated and quite irritable. He wanted to display his strength to his rivals immediately and solidify his place as the number one in his generation, but until now, he was only able to stand silently.
Despite the recent distractions, he had not lost focus on his true purpose for competing. He wanted to become the head of the Huang Clan and bring it to a new age of glory, standing on top of the bodies of all who challenged him. Today was his first step in securing his place as the clan patriarch; unfortunately whittling the numbers was taking much longer than he thought.
The rewards from tournaments such as these were always great crowd draws that filled the stands and padded the number of fighters. As far as he was concerned, the rewards were a nuisance and the only thing they did was delay the important matches by forcing superior fighters such as himself into battles with street rabble.
However, when he saw the daughter of the city lord his opinion changed quickly. Her beauty did not lose out to Fairy Xu at all and her talent was equally impressive. Although the city lord’s daughter was inferior to him in terms of cultivation, few in the Huang Clan had ever reached Mid-Core by 20 years of age and currently there were no female clan members close to her potential.
Fairy Xu was also a mid-core cultivator; however, her background was unknown to Huang Yun. He could not be certain, but his impression of her was a runaway female disciple or clan member. Normally, the only reason to escape a sect or clan was to avoid punishment or to avoid a cultivation pairing. Neither one of those scenarios was favorable to him.
If she came from a weak clan or sect then it would not be a big deal to him. Paying off a poor clan would be easy with the Huang Clan resources and if they still bothered, he would take no issue with destroying them. Still, it was a headache to deal with and the clan elders would not agree to it unless he could prove she was worth it.
There were many clan laws Huang Yun did not agree with, but before he became patriarch, he would need to convince the elders of his talents and secure a cultivation partner worthy of becoming the clan matriarch. Fairy Xu was a good candidate, but now he was certain the city lord’s daughter was the heavens paving the way for him.
Although the Huang Clan did not strictly forbid the patriarch from taking a concubine or two, other than the founder, none had ever done it. Clan doctrine considered fleshly desires to be mortal sins and the elders agreed that a patriarch must be free of any such weaknesses. It was a clan law he did not agree with, but for now he could not challenge.
When the announcer called his name, Huang Yun stepped onto the stage wearing a confident grin and held his head high above the others. His opponent, a boy of similar age was a mid-core disciple from the Wind-Fire Palace, a sect known for their wide variety of elemental attacks.
Although the Wind-Fire Palace was not a top tier power, they held a high status in the region for their profound arts and Huang Yun felt he could not have picked a better first opponent. The boy wore the palace’s signature white robes with red flame accents and held a 1.5-meter long broadsword with three red jewels embedded into the pommel, undoubtedly fire-based beast cores. From what he understood, the tall boy with a muscular frame was a core disciple, a perfect stepping-stone.
When Huang Yun turned towards him, the palace disciple cupped his fist and politely said, “I am Lin Jie of the Wind-Fire Palace, thank you for exchanging pointers with me, I look forward to our exchange.” The Palace believed in honor before all other merits but Huang Yun responded condescendingly saying, “Is that was this is supposed to be? You’re not worthy of learning from someone like me. Attack me with your best move, this round has already lasted too long and I’m tired of waiting.”
The word’s made Lin Jie’s face twist in anger but it only lasted for a moment. When the gong rang, Lin Jie drew his sword to his right shoulder and sprung forward, racing in Huang Yun’s direction while disregarding everything else. The reaction was exactly what Huang Yun hoped for and he nodded approvingly at Lin Jie’s determination. To spring forward into battle betting everything in each attack, he thought it was very admirable.
It was very admirable, but at the same time, he thought it was extremely foolish. Just before Lin Jie arrived, Huang Yun wrapped his body in a layer of protective qi and allowed the broadsword to land in the crease between his left shoulder and his neck. Lin Jie activated one of the cores on his sword and a burst of flames surrounded Huang Yun, threatening to eat him alive.
However, it did not matter if Lin Jie struck once or 100 times, he would never be able to penetrate Huang Yun’s protective qi barrier. Through the flames, a hand shot out and grabbed Lin Jie’s throat before slamming him to the ground, breaking dozens of bones in his neck and spine.
The flames surrounding Huang Yun instantly disappeared and Lin Jie lay sprawled on the ground unconscious. After checking the condition of the palace disciple, the announcer placed a healing pill in the boy’s mouth and named Huang Yun the winner of the match. It was an impressive display of his strength and when he looked in the direction of the city lord’s daughter, he saw her large beautiful eyes light up.
At that moment, he made up his mind. As long as his investigation showed no problems, he would use Fairy Xu to advance himself further and take the city lord’s daughter as his cultivation partner. If he was able to advance to the Nascent realm within the next year, he would be unrivaled in his clan and the position of future patriarch would be his alone. These two women and the tournament were essential to his future, one he was certain would only grow brighter in time.
***
Within the grand banquet hall of the mayors mansion lay the bodies of 53 core level cultivator’s who were twitching and writing in agony. Unable to fight against the pain, one by one, they slowly gave in to the poison and the last of their life force disappeared.
Opposite the entrance was a large table where four elders of the Nascent Realm and a Soul Nourishing practitioner were seated, frozen in place, unable to move at all due to the pain. A black mist spread throughout the room and overtook the fleeing guest’s rapidly just moments before.
Two men, one short and one tall dressed completely in black robes slowly walked through the maze of bodies on the floor, young and old, men and women alike. The black mist was indiscriminate and for the first time, it acted precisely how they wanted.
The current scene was the culmination of their hard work and the final test before they put their full plan into action. With almost a dozen failures occurring before, their patience with the alchemist had reached its end but now with this success, the pressure they felt from the guild flew off their shoulders like a feather in the wind.
As they approached the table, they noted the time it took for the Nascent realm cultivators to succumb to the poison and none lasted longer than the time it takes to brew a cup of tea. The mist was more effective than they had anticipated and in the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the Soul Nourishing elder collapsed as well.
An expert with hundreds of years of experience dropped dead before their very feet, unable to utter a single word before he died. It was impossible to know for sure if the powder could kill a Dao Connection expert, but from the results, they both knew it would weaken a Dao expert enough for them to finish the job if they needed to.
Despite the delays, the alchemist’s work was impressive and the two men were already considering whether they should offer him a position within the guild. They developed this powder for a specific case, but if the alchemist continued to produce essence-draining powder, he would greatly expand the list of people they were able to target.
If they were able to take down Dao experts then there was nobody in the world capable of challenging their guild. The powder alone guaranteed them both a place at the elders table where they would have input into the guilds future directions and missions. It also guaranteed wealth and resources they were only able to dream about previously.
After removing the most valuable objects from everyone in the hall, the two men lit a fire and razed the entire mansion to the ground. Unlike the small villages in the frontier, there would surely be a large number of people investigating this incident before the bodies turned to ash. They did not believe they could erase all of their tracks, but burning the mansion would be enough to hide any traces of the black powder.
As they exited the small city stealthily, both men felt a sense of pride that was difficult to describe. In three months, they would take on the biggest case their guild had ever accepted, one nobody thought they could complete. However, they knew that if they succeeded, the world would never be the same and just the whisper of their names would strike fear in every expert under the sun. Neither of them could wait for that day to come.
