142: Chapter 142 Instant Kill!

On the other end of the arena, Lu Xinghe drove his scabbard into the floor tiles.

His sword was a narrow-bladed straight sword. There were no flashy enchantment patterns on the blade, only a single silver line running from tip to hilt. That was the "Sword Trace Path" passed down through generations of the Sword Saint lineage—it did not determine strength by the number of circuits, but by the purity of sword qi.

At this moment, the veins on the back of his hand gripping the hilt bulged.

"One punch."

He enunciated the two words heavily.

"You didn't even discuss it, just straight up—in front of the entire audience—said you would finish me off with one punch."

He looked up. There was no anger in those eyes, only a cold light burning at the depths of his pupils, the kind that only ignites after being looked down upon to the extreme.

"Wei Xiaoyu."

He drew his sword. The moment the blade left its scabbard, the silver line running from tip to hilt lit up. The floor tiles of the entire arena trembled slightly.

"I don't care who your father is. And I don't care which Tier 9 made that furnace set on your body. If you dare to use one punch—I will make you regret it for the rest of your life on this arena."

Wei Xiaoyu walked onto the arena.

Her battle axe was still resting on her shoulder, her pace neither fast nor slow. Reaching the center of the arena, she stood still, took down the battle axe, and handed it to the side. A staff member hurriedly ran over to catch it.

She turned around.

She raised her right fist to her chest.

"I won't use the axe," she said to Lu Xinghe.

"Because someone told me that using my fists is enough. If you think this is looking down on you—" She looked up, her dark golden pupils devoid of any provocation, holding only a very pure sense of seriousness. "—then use your sword to prove me wrong."

The corner of Lu Xinghe's mouth twitched.

Then he smiled.

That smile was not one of anger or contempt, but the irrepressible, teeth-gritting, excited smile of a person dominated by a martial artist's instinct.

"Good."

He held his sword horizontally.

Silver sword qi steamed up from the blade. It was not ordinary magical radiance, but crystals of the Sword Path Law with a density high enough to form liquid droplets—the core inheritance of the Sword Trace Path, with every wisp of sword qi condensing the tempering of sword intent from six generations of the Sword Saint lineage.

He unfolded a card.

Tier 5, S-Rank!

Weapon Card—Silver Thread Light Wheel Sword!

The card flipped, and sword light poured out from the card, flooding into the straight sword in his hand.

The silver-white radiance instantly expanded to a scale that covered half the arena. The silver line running through the blade suddenly split into hundreds of extremely fine threads of light, each thread weaving complex sword array patterns in the air.

The entire audience moved in unison—they collectively gasped.

"Tier 5 S-Rank?! This guy must have had it appraised in advance, he revealed the quality directly!"

"Wasn't Luo Xinghan Tier 7 just now? I feel like it was a bit lacking..."

"Idiot! That Tier 7 of Luo Xinghan's is at most B-Rank, it's a cross-tier card that a Tier 5 Card Creator went to great lengths to make, but because it's cross-tier manufacturing, the quality definitely won't be high. How could B-Rank compare to S-Rank?"

"Low-tier S-Rank is ten times rarer than high-tier B-Rank!! Especially after S-Rank, a slight improvement in quality means a huge increase in power! Hasn't that card of Wei Xiaoyu's been appraised yet? Although not being appraised can hide functions, there will be corresponding attributes after appraisal."

"The Sword Saint lineage actually strengthened a Tier 5 weapon card to S-Rank quality!!"

"Quality crushes tier!! This is the real top-tier armament!!"

"Luo Xinghan's Tier 7 B-Rank is just a piece of scrap iron compared to this sword!!"

The chief appraisers from major guilds sprang up from their seats. Holographic data panels lit up one after another in the VIP area, and over a dozen analyses were pinned to the top of the live stream comment section— "Tier 5 S-Rank Sword Card, sword qi core density is nine times that of a regular Tier 5 card", "Sword Trace Path inheritance circuit, non-mainstream Space Folding framework, stability rate breaks through conventional limits", "This sword can unleash Tier 6 mid-stage combat lethality in the hands of a peak Tier 4".

The Sanctuary Guild's appraisal channel even popped up a red warning box directly.

[Warning: Lu Xinghe's current sword qi density has exceeded the Tier 5 upper-tier threshold.]

[Additional judgment: Sword Intent Law trace detection positive. This is a Law Inheritance-type armament.]

Qi Yuan posted three words in the Sanctuary appraisal channel.

[Not bad.]

Su Bai shifted his gaze away from Kyubey's tail.

He glanced at the row of data on the holographic screen.

Then he pulled the lollipop out of his mouth.

"It's okay."

Two words. The tone was about the same as evaluating the braised pork in the cafeteria today.

Zhao Dahai turned his head from the box railing. His fat face was turned deathly pale by the row of red warning text on the holographic screen.

"It's okay?! Tier 5 S-Rank!! Nine times the sword qi density!! Law Inheritance! You call this just okay?!"

"The quality is okay." Su Bai stuffed the lollipop back into his mouth. "It's just that the circuit is a bit old. The Sword Trace Path's framework is third-generation Space Folding, which is twelve years behind the fifth-generation one Lin Xiao used for her Monthly Exam."

"...So what you're saying is."

"Yeah. It's outdated."

Zhao Dahai opened his mouth. He turned to Lin Xiao, seeking a look that said "Is he showing off again?" Lin Xiao was scrolling through her phone, her fingers flying across hot posts on the forum. She didn't even look up.

"What he said is correct. The stability of the third-generation framework is only sixty percent of the fifth-generation, the drawback being that while the upper limit is decent, the fault tolerance is extremely low. Once it exceeds the critical point—"

"It will shatter." Su Bai finished for her.

"Just like the moon eater."

On the arena.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming raised his right arm.

"Countdown—Three! Two! One!—Begin!"

Wei Xiaoyu rushed out the moment the word "Begin" landed.

There was no charging up, no preamble. Her feet crushed the arena floor tiles, and her whole body compressed into a dark golden straight line. Her right fist clenched tight. The joints of her four fingers aligned in a straight line. The furnace engine inside her body let out a dull roar—not a mechanical roar, but the kind of sound produced when a star-level energy collapse framework is activated under extreme load, like magma surging deep within the earth's crust.

Lu Xinghe's sword slashed down at the same moment.

Hundreds of silver light threads wove into a massive sword array in the air. Sword qi sealed off Wei Xiaoyu's attack route from all directions, each thread of light precisely locking onto her joints and vital points. This was the secret killing move of the Sword Trace Path—the Heaven Net Sword Array. Generations of Sword Saints had used this move to seal off countless opponents who were one tier higher than them.

Then Wei Xiaoyu's fist collided with the front of the sword array.

Dark golden radiance exploded from her fist.

It wasn't penetration. It was crushing.

Hundreds of silver light threads shattered simultaneously in an instant. The crystals of sword qi were ground into powder by the force of the punch, the silver powder curling back in mid-air like a waterfall flowing in reverse. The speed at which the sword array collapsed was faster than the speed at which the Heaven Net had unfolded, brittle as if dismantling a cage made of paper.

Lu Xinghe's pupils shrank to pinpoints.

He instinctively held his straight sword horizontally across his chest—and then he heard the blade trembling. That Tier 5 S-Rank straight sword of the Sword Saint lineage, that Law Inheritance-type armament capable of unleashing Tier 6 lethality in the hands of a Tier 4—was shaking.

Wei Xiaoyu's fist arrived. Golden light gushed out from her fist. It was the collapsed energy released by the furnace engine under extreme overload, compressed in less than 0.1 seconds into a thin, intense layer of light membrane almost like liquid covering the surface of her fist.

The fist landed on the blade.

Clang————!!!

The metallic explosion blasted through the entire arena's sound system. The arena floor tiles curled outward centered on Lu Xinghe into a massive stone flower. The Tier 4 arena could not withstand the shockwave of this punch, and the entire platform sank two centimeters.

Lu Xinghe flew out. His body flew out first. The sword shattered into three pieces in his palm. The silver sword trace running from tip to hilt flared brightly for a split second just before shattering—like a brief, stifled scream.

He slammed into the energy barrier. The light wall exploded into a spherical indentation. His back was embedded in the light wall, his eyes rolled back, his mouth agape, and a small trickle of blood foam spilled from the corner of his mouth. The three shattered pieces of the blade scattered on the arena floor, the silver light on the blade surface extinguishing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

One-hit kill.

Silence.

The entire arena felt as if someone had unplugged all audio sources from the headphones.

Hundreds of thousands of audience members stood where they were. No one spoke, no one moved, even the comments stopped in this instant. The comment section at the bottom of the screen scrolled a few scattered question marks, and then it completely froze.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming gripped the microphone.

On this face that had experienced countless shocks since the start of the tournament, the expression at this moment was not shock. It was something deeper, more essential, something surging up from the bone marrow.

Awe.