Martial Arts Overlord

Chi chi chi chi...

One strand after another of Sword Qi seemed to arise out of the void itself, dragging trails of dazzling sword light as they poured madly toward Su Rui from all directions.

Su Rui didn’t dare be careless. Her expression grew as heavy as water; she sat down cross-legged, circulated her Yuan Qi, took her twin sabers as instruments, and began to play.

Ming...

As the rising and falling, razor-sharp melody echoed, a momentum of clashing metal and warhorses spread out. The Yuan Qi impact shaped by the sound transformed into a tide of charging troops, surging forth to meet and cut down the incoming Sword Qi.

Ye Siyi’s attacks were wild and unrestrained, leaving no gap anywhere.

Su Rui’s Sound Skill, by contrast, stabilized the four directions, not leaving the slightest opening.

One attacking and one defending, the two were like the strongest sword meeting the strongest shield, forming a subtle balance where neither could advance any further. The battle entered a white-hot stage; who would win or lose now depended only on who could endure longer.

Everyone thought Ye Siyi, ranked on the ninth level of the Hundred Dragon Pillars, would claim the final victory. After all, the Hundred Dragon Pillars ranked by cultivation, and the key in this fight lay precisely in cultivation.

Yet the outcome was unexpected.

After a stalemate lasting half a stick of incense, Ye Siyi’s Yuan Qi began to falter, her attacks showed signs of stagnation, and Su Rui seized the opening at once. The sound waves erupted, directly shaking apart the sky-filling Sword Qi and almost blasting Ye Siyi off the dragon pillar.

"I lost."

Landing, Ye Siyi immediately conceded. With the initiative gone, she knew that continuing to fight held no chance of victory.

Weng!

Su Rui pressed her palm onto the trembling saber edge; that blood-boiling, killing-intent-laden clangor vanished at once.

Hu...

Letting out a breath of turbid air, Su Rui rose to her feet, sheathed her sabers, clapped her hands, and gave Ye Siyi a smile:

"You didn’t lose to me, you lost to Sound Skill. If we fought again, I’d probably find it hard to beat you. Let’s spar again when there’s time; it should benefit us both."

"Alright."

Ye Siyi smiled and nodded.

Her pursuit was simple: to live happily together with her younger sister Ye Xiaoshuang, so she cared little about winning or losing.

Luo Feng watched Ye Siyi retreat back to the eighth level and sighed inwardly, feeling a bit of regret.

Just as Su Rui had said, Ye Siyi hadn’t lost in terms of strength, but to the mysterious and unpredictable Sound Skill.

The Sound Skill Su Rui unleashed was not just simple Yuan Qi shaping on the surface; the melody fused with Yuan Qi could affect a Martial Artist’s mind.

Just now, Ye Siyi had been influenced by the melody, losing her usual calm. As a result, her Yuan Qi burned too quickly, and she ended up losing to Su Rui, whose cultivation was lower.

If the two were to fight again, with Ye Siyi mentally prepared for it, the outcome would be hard to predict.

After Su Rui and Ye Siyi’s duel ended, no one challenged the eighth level, and the ninth-level challenges began.

The Sky Sword Pavilion elder in charge of the matches announced the start of the ninth-level challenge, but after a short while, still no one came forward.

This result was only to be expected.

The next round would be the final round of the promotion matches; after that would come the ranking battles for the Top Ten New Dragons. All the contestants on the ninth level already had the right to enter the ranking battles. To issue a challenge now and risk an accidental injury that might affect their performance in the ranking battles would be unwise. Better to wait for the ranking battles to settle things.

The Sky Sword Pavilion elder had long anticipated this outcome and didn’t waste time. Seeing no challengers, he immediately declared:

"The third round of the promotion matches is over. The fourth round begins!"

Hua!

His voice fell, and a noisy uproar burst forth.

"The fourth round of the promotion matches has started. After this, it’s the ranking battles!"

"After watching the previous fights, I can’t wait anymore. I really want to see Luo Feng and these newly risen experts clash with the veteran Top Ten New Dragons. I wonder who’s stronger."

"Exactly, exactly. This year, each of these new experts is unbelievably strong. I’ve watched more than ten New Dragon List assemblies; this one is the most spectacular! Luo Feng’s godlike Qinggong and Saber Technique, Yang Wanyi’s Nine Suns Burn Demon Clothes that burns everything, Su Rui’s Sound Skill, He Qin’s icy Sword Intent, plus the Wild tribe’s Beast Taming, Lin Hongyi... tsk tsk, who knows what means they still haven’t revealed."

Amid the heated discussion, the last round of the promotion matches began.

After the previous three rounds, the strength gap between the contestants had gradually become clear. Since this was the final round of the promotion matches, once it ended, the rankings of those who failed to reach the ninth level would be their positions on the New Dragon List, carrying great significance. Challenges were no longer as fierce as in the first two rounds; everyone pondered for a long time before issuing a challenge to a suitable opponent.

Matches ended and began again. Disciples from every Golden Palace shouted loudly to cheer on their senior brothers and sisters. The contestants in each duel also went all out, unleashing their trump cards and fighting with everything they had, all wanting to earn a good placing and make their names resound through the rtiad. The matches’ brilliance and intensity were unprecedented.

The flames of battle spread like a wild fire in the wind, quickly burning from the first level all the way to the eighth.

At this moment, Xia Yunjing, who had been adjusting his breath to restore his Yuan Qi, opened his eyes and was the first to issue a challenge—and his target was none other than Su Rui, who had just defeated Ye Siyi to enter the ninth level as its lowest-ranked member.

Having watched Ye Siyi and Su Rui’s match, Xia Yunjing immediately cast a veil of water in front of him at the start of the duel to block the influence of the melody. Then, with Cold Chi Vigor paired with Chaos Hole Ten Thousand Water Jue, he launched wave after wave of fierce attacks from long range.

The Su Rui who had subdued Ye Siyi by using one art to restrain another and winning with the weaker side was facing a completely different situation against Xia Yunjing, a Bow Cultivator.

Though Sound Skill was formidable, it demanded extremely high cultivation from the Martial Artist. With her current realm, its most powerful attack had a range of two hundred meters; the farther the distance, the weaker the force. This was also why she hadn’t used Sound Skill in the previous New Dragon List assembly.

Back then, if she had used Sound Skill, its attack range would have been less than ten meters, practically useless—she might as well have relied on her twin sabers.

It could be said that attack range was Su Rui’s greatest weakness at the moment.

And this weakness, in front of Xia Yunjing the Bow Cultivator, was magnified without limit.

Right from the start, Xia Yunjing opened up the distance; the gap between the two exceeded four hundred meters. The power of Sound Skill was cut down to less than half, its threat to Xia Yunjing nearly negligible.

Several times, Su Rui tried to close the distance, but she was forced back each time by the endless, astonishingly powerful Cold Chi arrows.

These arrows were unbelievably fast and could even chase their target. Dodging them alone was almost the limit of her ability.

Only now did Su Rui truly understand how incredible it had been for Luo Feng to defeat Xia Yunjing before.

In the end, Su Rui was pushed to abandon Sound Skill and meet the battle with her twin sabers, yet she still could not reverse the situation and had no choice but to concede.

Thus, Su Rui, having set foot on the ninth level for less than one round of matches, once again retreated to the eighth.

Xia Yunjing’s challenge succeeded, and he smoothly advanced to the ninth level.

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