Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

His venomous daggers aimed directly at Shiru’s chest.

Shiru didn’t dodge.

He flicked his wrist.

A massive, incredibly heavy, solid-gold ingot the size of a watermelon materialized from his spatial ring and dropped directly from the sky, plummeting toward Kui’s head with the force of a meteor.

Kui shrieked, aborting his lunge to dive out of the way. The gold ingot slammed into the arena floor, shattering the obsidian tiles.

But as Kui rolled to his feet, preparing to counterattack... his boot hit a smooth, invisible, frictionless patch of black ice that had miraculously manifested where he stepped.

Xie Wangchen, standing in the VIP box, subtly twitched his index finger.

Kui’s legs flew out from under him in a cartoonish, humiliating display of lost friction. He went airborne, his arms windmilling desperately.

"Gravity is the ultimate depreciating asset!" Shiru yelled, tossing a second, smaller gold ingot directly into the path of Kui’s descending body.

CRACK.

Kui landed spine-first directly onto the solid gold bar. The sickening, undeniable sound of a rib fracturing echoed through the silent amphitheater.

The local elite let out a high-pitched wheeze, his eyes rolling back in his head as he lost consciousness.

"The Winner of the match is...! Wen Shiru!" Elder Viper announced, furiously scribbling notes on how to weaponize precious metals.

Up in the VIP box, Ji’an slowly lowered her teacup, staring at the unconscious disciple.

"Did he just win a martial arts tournament by dropping economy on a guy who slipped on a banana peel made of ice?" Ji’an asked, her voice flat.

"The synergy between the merchant’s wealth and Sovereign Xie’s environmental hazards is flawless," Elder Hex praised breathlessly from the next table over. "They are operating on a higher plane of combat."

Ji’an shot a lethal glare over her shoulder at Wangchen. "I said random hazards, Little Puddle. Not targeted assassinations."

"The ice forms where the universe dictates, Chef," Wangchen lied smoothly, his face a mask of pristine, innocent immortal grace. "I merely facilitate the chill."

***

The bracket moved ruthlessly forward.

Match after match, the Celestial Sword Vanguard dismantled the Azure Dragon elites.

The Nascent Soul upgrades they had received in the Labyrinth of the Beasts, combined with Ji’an’s tyrannical conditioning, made them virtually untouchable.

But because they were desperately trying to impress Ji’an, they were overcomplicating everything.

Gu Zhiwei stepped into the ring against a massive, hulking local disciple who wielded a heavy iron chain-whip.

The moment the gong rang, Zhiwei didn’t assume a standard defensive guard. He turned his back to his opponent, ignoring the man with the chain-whip.

Zhiwei looked directly up at the VIP box. He puffed out his broad, heavily muscled chest, struck a flawless, bodybuilder-esque double-bicep pose, and flared his golden holy light to blinding capacity.

"OBSERVE THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR, BROTHER LIN!" Zhiwei bellowed, completely abandoning the match to aggressively flex at the judge. "MY PECTORALS ARE AS DENSE AS DRAGON-SCALES! MY DELTOIDS SANG WITH THE ESSENCE OF THE BEAR RIBS! DO YOU SEE MY DEFINITION?!"

"Zhiwei, turn around, you absolute moron!" Ji’an screamed, leaning over the balcony. "He has a whip!"

WHACK!

The heavy iron chain-whip struck Zhiwei squarely across the back, wrapping around his torso with enough kinetic force to shatter a boulder.

Zhiwei didn’t even flinch. His newly forged Nascent Soul body simply absorbed the impact.

He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at the disciple, his golden eyes filled with pure annoyance at being interrupted during his courtship display.

"You are ruining my lighting," Zhiwei scolded the local.

Zhiwei casually reached back, grabbed the iron chain, and executed a flawless, brutal judo-throw.

He yanked the chain with such monstrous, overwhelming physical force that the massive disciple was literally launched into the air, flying thirty feet across the arena before crashing headfirst into the stone wall.

CRACK.

A collarbone snapped.

The local was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Zhiwei immediately turned back to the VIP box, dropping to one knee, offering a deeply romantic, dramatic bow.

"I have broken the bone as you requested, my Fairy Commander!" Zhiwei shouted, his golden tail practically wagging. "Did you find my kinetic transfer attractive?! Shall I break another for your amusement?!"

Ji’an buried her face in her hands, letting out a muffled groan.

"I am going to fail him," Ji’an muttered. "I don’t care if he won. I am failing him for gross negligence of martial dignity."

"But his pectorals were very shiny, Ji’an," Zechuan offered helpfully, eating another lotus seed. "You must admit, the lighting was excellent."

"..."

.

.

.

By mid-afternoon, the Azure Dragon disciples had been eliminated from their own exam. The tournament had officially devolved into a vicious, personal, hyper-violent civil war among the Celestial Sword Vanguard Retinue.

The stakes had completely shifted.

They weren’t fighting for diplomatic supremacy anymore. They were fighting for the exclusive right to claim Ji’an’s attention.

The semi-final match pitted Lu Jianheng against Hu Yanlie.

***

The two heavyweights stepped into the arena. The remaining local disciples, heavily bandaged and nursing their shattered bones, watched from the sidelines in absolute awe.

Jianheng drew Autumn Frost, his icy-blue sword aura erupting, lowering the temperature of the arena. Yanlie cracked his neck, his crimson beast-fire igniting his fists, dropping into a low, feral stance.

"Yield, Beast," Jianheng sneered, his aristocratic face set in a mask of absolute resolve. "You lack the elegance to court the Apex Anomaly. Your brutish ways will only offend his refined palate. I will claim the victory, and I will present my sword at his feet!"

"YOU FIGHT WITH A TOOTHPICK!" Yanlie roared, pounding his chest. "THE CHEF DOES NOT WANT ELEGANCE! HE WANTS A MATE WHO CAN WRESTLE A DRAGON! I WILL BREAK YOUR LEGS, ARISTOCRAT, AND I WILL CARRY HIM TO MY CAVE!"

Up in the VIP box, Ji’an’s eye twitched so violently she thought she might have a stroke.

"They are literally arguing over my dowry while holding lethal weapons," Ji’an whispered, her soul detaching from her body. "They are having a custody battle over me. And they both still think I’m a guy."

"The sociopolitical dynamics of your retinue are fascinating, Martial Uncle," Elder Hex noted, furiously writing on her slate. "They utilize anyy kind of rivalry as a catalyst for kinetic output. It is a highly volatile, yet undeniably effective pedagogical strategy."

The gong rang.

The clash between Jianheng and Yanlie was not a spar.

It was a natural disaster.

KRA-KOOM!

Blue sword-light and crimson beast-fire detonated in the center of the arena, generating a shockwave that blew the toxic mist completely out of the valley.

They moved at speeds invisible to the naked eye. Jianheng’s blade carved massive, deep trenches into the obsidian floor, while Yanlie’s fists shattered the air itself.

"FROST-MOON SEVERING!" Jianheng bellowed, launching a massive, crescent-shaped wave of absolute zero aura directly at the Beast Lord.

"BEAST-KING AVALANCHE!" Yanlie roared, diving directly through the freezing wave, relying entirely on his raw, unadulterated muscle density to tank the hit. He closed the distance, wrapping his massive, scarred arms around Jianheng’s waist.

It was a brutal, grappling brawl.

Jianheng abandoned his sword, reverting to the bare-knuckle techniques Ji’an had forced upon them in the Labyrinth of the Beasts.

He drove a vicious elbow into Yanlie’s ribs. Yanlie headbutted Jianheng directly in the face.

Blood sprayed across the arena.

They were beating the absolute living hell out of each other, and they were loving every single second of it, completely consumed by their desperate need to prove their virility to the silver-haired chef on the throne.

"Wangchen," Ji’an muttered, leaning back in her chair, entirely done with the spectacle. "Drop the ice."

In the shadows, Wangchen smirked.

Suddenly, a massive, fifty-foot-wide patch of frictionless black ice materialized directly beneath the brawling titans.

Yanlie, who was mid-suplex, lost his footing entirely. His legs flew out from under him. Jianheng, trapped in the grapple, was dragged down with him.

The two massive, overpowered Nascent Soul prodigies hit the frictionless ice and began spinning out of control like two heavily armed beyblades.

They slammed into the stone wall of the arena at Mach 2.

CRACK. CRACK.

Two simultaneous, sickening snaps echoed through the amphitheater.

The dust cleared. Jianheng and Yanlie were tangled in a heap, both completely unconscious. Yanlie’s arm was bent at a highly unnatural angle. Jianheng’s shinbone was visibly fractured.

The arena was dead silent.

"Double knockout," Elder Viper hissed, raising his staff. "Compound fractures confirmed on both combatants. The match is a draw."

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