The second group came up faster than the first.
Four people, a complete set. Two boys and two girls, all at Core Consolidation Level 6, except for the girl leading them who had reached Level 7.
Luo Yang glanced at the girl’s left wrist; a faint layer of dark red still lingered around the bone, a sign that blood energy was not circulating smoothly within. The bone seemed to have set, but the internal circuits hadn't been fully realigned yet.
It looked like she hadn't fully recovered from an injury.
Luo Yang said nothing, as Zhang Xian was already shouting from below.
“Begin!”
This time, he used five swords.
Four were aimed at the four students, while one hovered on the periphery, specifically to patch any gaps.
The girl was clearly the captain. Her voice was steady as she issued commands, directing the two boys to cut in from the flanks while she and the other girl pressed forward from the front.
Their formation was well-spread, and their tactical thinking was clear; their skill level was indeed impressive.
However, her left wrist was half a beat slow on her second sword swing. Although her form didn't break, that half-beat delay was a massive opening in Luo Yang’s eyes.
Luo Yang’s sword slipped right through that gap.
He didn't touch her left hand; instead, he used the flat of the blade to tap her side.
It was very light, not even causing a wrinkle in her clothes.
But the position of that tap was precisely at the most congested node of her blood energy circulation, instantly dispersing the already sluggish energy at that point.
The sword in her left hand dropped instantly.
The remaining three barely managed to keep up with Luo Yang’s rhythm. The moment the two boys cut in from the sides, two swords blocked their paths in quick succession. He didn't use brute force, simply shifting their respective lines of power by a few inches.
The two boys slammed into each other. It wasn't a hard collision, but both were dazed for a second.
In that second, Luo Yang’s fifth sword, which had been circling the periphery, had already moved behind the other girl, its tip hovering just inches from her nape.
All four stopped. the entire match had lasted less than thirty seconds.
Luo Yang raised his hand to release his control, and the five swords dissolved into ash.
The Level 7 girl clutched her side and sat on the ground, her face pale. She looked up at Luo Yang, her lips trembling, but she couldn't get a word out.
Luo Yang walked over and crouched in front of her. He didn't touch her, only pointing toward her left wrist.
“Your internal injury hasn't healed,” he said. “Don't push yourself. If you force a fight, next time it won't just be a bone—it’ll be your entire body’s blood energy that suffers.”
The girl was stunned.
“How did you know?”
“I can see it.” Luo Yang stood up. “Rest for at least another three days. Find someone from the medical department to clear your channels twice a day, and don't do any high-intensity training for ten days.”
The girl was speechless for a long time. Her teammates looked at each other, none of them saying a word either.
The third group was also short-handed, with only three members, all at Core Consolidation Level 6.
This time, Luo Yang used only two swords. The first sword sliced diagonally into the smallest gap in their formation, forcing them to scatter.
The second sword arrived before they could regroup. Using the flat of the blade like a badminton racket, he swatted the boy standing in the front directly off the arena stage.
The remaining two were dazed for half a second, and in that time, Luo Yang’s two swords had already circled behind them, their tips hovering at their napes.
The entire match took only twenty-some seconds, ending even faster than the second group.
“Your coordination is too tight,” Luo Yang evaluated. “Try to open up your formation a bit to leave room for adjustments. People aren't machines; they make mistakes. The tighter the coordination, the more fragile the breakpoints become.”
The three of them stood there for a good while before they finally snapped out of it.
After two matches, Zhang Xian nodded from below the stage.
He turned his head to scan the bleachers. He knew exactly which of the remaining teams had the best condition and most complete coordination. His gaze swept across the grounds twice before finally landing on the pale gray shadow leaning against the railing outside Area 2.
“Xiao Qiu, it’s your team’s turn.”
The entire training ground erupted into a buzz.
The students had already been somewhat spread out, but now they all swarmed toward the stage.
Luo Yang’s performance in the previous two matches had already shocked everyone. But everyone could also see that this guy hadn't gone all out at all; he seemed to be solving every problem with the minimum number of weapons possible.
But Qiu Shubai was the Chief, and the team she led was the seed team personally designated by Zhang Xian. If they clashed, would they force Luo Yang to show his full strength?
Plenty of people in the academy had heard Luo Yang’s name, but almost no one had actually seen his real combat capability. The rumors of score-controlling, the jokes about him being a bottom-feeder, and those half-true, half-false outrageous achievements—all these things piled up, turning this guy into a shadow that everyone was curious about but no one could truly grasp.
But today, the opportunity seemed to have arrived.
“Holy crap! Chief Qiu is going up?”
“This should force that poser to show his real skills!”
“Quick, quick, find a good spot!”
The crowd surged toward the arena stage.
Tang Xuan came walking over with a bounce in her step. As she passed Luo Yang, she gave him a wide grin.
“Luo God, take it easy on us.”
Luo Yang smiled but didn't respond.
His gaze moved past Tang Xuan and landed on Qiu Shubai.
Qiu Shubai was also walking toward the stage. She wore a light gray training uniform, her pale gray hair tied back in a ponytail, with her bangs hanging down to cover half an eyebrow.
As she reached the steps, she looked up at Luo Yang.
“Don't hold back. Just give it your all.”
Luo Yang nodded.
As the four of them took their positions on the stage and their formation spread out, the air in the entire training ground seemed to grow heavy.
Luo Yang stood opposite them, but this time, he didn't just take a casual stance.
He straightened his back slightly, his right hand hanging at his side with his fingers loosely spread.
The golden tree in his Sea of Consciousness swayed gently, and the golden light flowing between its leaves trickled down his blood vessels, stopping at his fingertips.
He closed his eyes and then opened them.
The moment he opened them, the look behind his plain glass spectacles changed.
It was a look of genuine seriousness that said, “I view you as worthy opponents.”
Chu Zimo lowered his hands, and the energy of Shadow Bind surged silently between his fingers. The edges of the shadows beneath the stage began to warp slightly.
Tang Xuan crossed her hands at her waist, palms facing down. She didn't immediately manifest her Light Flame, but the temperature around her had already begun to rise.
Li Qiang’s silver light-mist spread from his feet, permeating the area around the team.
Qiu Shubai reached out, and Bloodfall solidified in her palm. The white light emanating from the blade was thicker than usual. The tip pointed diagonally at the ground, and a thick, blood-like substance seemed to churn slowly along the edge.
Luo Yang looked at the four figures. He withdrew the first batch of weapons from his space ring. Twenty first-tier longswords appeared around him simultaneously, hovering in a ring with their tips pointing evenly in four directions.
This was his “opening bid” for this confrontation.
It was a clear message to the four people opposite him that he indeed valued this fight and believed they were worth the use of these twenty swords.
This was only the opening; there was plenty more to come.
Zhang Xian stood below the stage. He raised his right hand to his chest and then slammed it down.
“Begin!”
Bloodfall moved on the final syllable of those two words.
The blade flicked upward from the ground at a speed that left no afterimage. Qiu Shubai lunged forward with the momentum of the strike, her pale gray hair whistling in the wind.
The sword light from Bloodfall didn't thrust straight at Luo Yang.
It first traced an arc in mid-air, the end of which took an unreasonable turn to strike upward from Luo Yang’s bottom right.
The tip was aimed at his right ribs, but Qiu Shubai’s entire center of gravity shifted half a step to the right at that exact moment.
She predicted Luo Yang would dodge to the left.
Luo Yang’s left foot slid half an inch, his left waist dropping as he ceded a finger’s width of space toward the front-left.
It was the same move he had used in the previous three matches.
But this time, something was already waiting for him in the space he moved into.
The white light orb in Tang Xuan’s hand left her palm.
The orb traced a brilliant white trajectory through the air and struck the space to Luo Yang’s front-left. Blinding light and searing heat exploded at that point, yet the blast didn't affect her teammates in the slightest.
It was a precise directional blast. The energy of the light orb didn't scatter but was compressed into a conical shape that poured toward the side of Luo Yang’s face.
Luo Yang’s right foot retreated half a step just before the explosion.
He didn't dodge the Light Flame; he used two swords to block in front of him.
Under the empowerment of Weapon’s End, Ember’s Birth, those two first-tier longswords forcibly withstood the conical energy, their blades emitting a sharp screech in that instant.
After the Light Flame dissipated, the right side of Luo Yang’s face was hidden from everyone’s view for half a second.
Chu Zimo’s attack arrived during that half-second.
He emerged from the shadow behind Luo Yang’s left, the dagger condensed from shadows thrusting toward Luo Yang’s left abdomen without hesitation.
The angle, timing, and force of the assassination were perfect for his level.
Luo Yang’s left hand, which had been hanging at his side, suddenly moved a second before Chu Zimo’s dagger could reach him.
His fingers spread, tips pointing down.
A sword flew in from his back-left, the tip cutting horizontally into the inch of space between him and Chu Zimo. The flat of the blade knocked the dagger aside, the counter-shock forcing Chu Zimo’s entire arm to twist outward.
His Shadow Bind still covered a five-meter radius, but he himself was no longer in the shadows.
In the next instant, the twenty swords around Luo Yang swarmed toward Chu Zimo simultaneously.
He intended to knock him away in a single strike!
Chu Zimo retreated almost instinctively, and the moment he pulled back half a step, Qiu Shubai filled his position.
The second strike of Bloodfall didn't follow any arc; it took the shortest possible path to thrust at Luo Yang’s chest.
There was no fancy setup for this strike. She didn't need to feint; she only needed to drive the blade straight in while he was occupied using eighteen swords to deal with Chu Zimo.
Luo Yang watched the white blade, laced with threads of red, thrusting toward his chest. He actually smiled—a smile he didn't even notice himself.
He raised his right hand. Five of the twenty swords simultaneously changed direction, returning to Luo Yang’s side like five bolts of lightning in an instant, all of them pressing down against the blade of Bloodfall.
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