Chapter Ninety-Two: The Flame-Blooded Arena Tournament, Part One

Jimo looked at Geng Xiao in surprise. She truly had not expected this cold, detached man to possess such a gossiping side. Geng Xiao grew somewhat uneasy under her odd stare and looked away. Jimo smiled faintly and asked another question.

“Must people register in advance to take part in their arena matches?”

She had assumed a contest of this sort would require a rather cumbersome process.

“For those of us who were already confirmed as participants, yes, the names are submitted ahead of time, and opponents are then chosen at random by lot. But there are also some arrogant fools who refuse to register beforehand and instead wait until they reach Flamewind City, where they challenge the current champion at random. The one who defends the arena for the Flameborn never refuses any challenge.”

“The Flameborn spirit-refiners’ arena is different from the others. Aside from you, the outsider, all the rest are disciples of the Flameborn clan. If you want to go up, just pick a champion and challenge them directly. There’s no need to register in advance, and the Flameborn will not consider it any violation. If you can win ten matches in a row, there will be rich rewards. Rest assured.” Bai Ze reached out and patted her shoulder.

This fellow had boundless strength and no notion of restraint. Poor Jimo nearly had her shoulder slapped so hard she toppled to the ground, drawing a furious glare from her.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye. On the third day, Jimo, Bai Ze, and Geng Xiao followed the signs all the way to the arena district for spirit-refiners. To Jimo’s astonishment, the arena district for a mere spirit-refiner competition drew as many as tens of thousands of spectators.

“Why are there so many people watching a spirit-refiner’s arena match?” Jimo asked, looking at the densely packed crowd before her in amazement.

“There’s nothing strange about it. The people of the Flameborn are a little different from us. They place great value on low-level cultivators. The younger a genius is, and the lower their cultivation, the more they are esteemed. So long as such a person grows up safely, each one will become a formidable figure. At every arena contest, many Flameborn experts secretly watch the spirit-refiners’ matches. And it’s not only the Flameborn—many high-level cultivators from our wider cultivation world also observe from the shadows.” Bai Ze glanced at her and took up the explanation.

“Is that so? The Flameborn really are unlike the rest. Among us humans, geniuses who have not yet matured are often not thought much of. They are the exact opposite.” Jimo sighed with feeling.

“There are differences, yes, but in essence it is the same. The Flameborn do indeed value exceptional talent, but geniuses who have not yet grown still need ruthless tempering. It is the same for humans, the same for beastfolk, and the same for the Flameborn. Take their arenas, for instance: even when members of the same race fight one another, the casualty rate is extremely high. No matter the race, however astonishing the talent, without harsh and unforgiving training, no genius can truly come into their own.” Geng Xiao said.

Jimo nodded in agreement. She quite recognized the truth of Geng Xiao’s words. With her temperament, if no one stood behind her with a whip, relentlessly driving her onward, then no matter how outstanding her talent might be, she believed she would never amount to much in life. Gain and effort were often proportional; whether in the immortal path or among mortals, it was always so.

“Enough talking. The arena matches are about to begin. Jimo, watch carefully. At the start, they choose the champion. If someone wins three matches in a row, they automatically become champion. Then the next challenger comes onstage to defeat them, and that person will take the previous champion’s place. Arena combat is extremely brutal; every victory or defeat comes with severe injury or death.” Bai Ze interrupted Jimo and Geng Xiao.

“Mm.” Jimo smiled slightly and said no more. Though in her heart she did not believe she could lose to any opponent of the same rank, such words were not appropriate to boast aloud.

The Flameborn spirit-refiner arena contest had five stages, all set up at the Floating Mountain Stadium in the eastern district of Flamewind City. The stadium could hold one hundred thousand spectators. The five arenas were arranged in a line from east to west, separated by roughly one kilometer each. The position where Jimo and the others stood was near the far right end, that is, at the lower right side of the fifth arena.

As soon as the signal sounded, two contestants leapt onto each of the five arenas at once. The pair who entered the fifth arena were a young man and woman. The young man looked about fifteen or sixteen, with dark skin, but bright, sharp eyes. He was even taller than Bai Ze by a little, which was one of the Flameborn’s defining traits: height.

The girl wore a close-fitting red outfit. She appeared one or two years older than the young man, with striking features and a fiery figure, but her expression was as cold as frost—a classic beauty of chilling loveliness. What surprised Jimo most was that the weapon in her hand was actually a scarlet whip.

“Hm? Little Jimo, that girl on stage is about your age, and even the weapon in her hand is similar to yours,” Bai Ze said with a soft exclamation when he saw the girl’s weapon. Jimo had already been in the Flame Domain for more than three years and was now eighteen.

“Yes. I wonder how strong she is. Let’s watch first.” Jimo nodded. It was rare to meet a cultivator who used the same kind of weapon as she did, so she naturally took great interest in the young woman in red.

“I am Cong Yue of the Darkwood Branch of the Flameborn. Please give me your guidance, senior sister.” The dark-faced young man on the arena clasped his fists and bowed to the girl in red.

The girl in red said nothing. She cast him a cold look, and with a flicker of her body, the red whip in her hand transformed into countless whip-shadows that lashed toward Cong Yue. Cong Yue did not panic. His body spun like a whirlwind as he charged bare-handed into the whip-shadows. His fist technique looked chaotic and unstructured, and his movements were not fast, yet every punch somehow blocked the lashes.

Bang, bang, bang! After more than a dozen violent explosions of air, the two fighters finally broke apart. The girl in red staggered back several steps, her full chest heaving. A flush of unnatural red had risen over her cold, lovely face. It was clear that in the previous exchange of hard blows, she had suffered no small loss.

After retreating, Cong Yue narrowed his eyes at the girl in red and then shot forward again like a ghost. She met him in haste with her whip. Her strength was already somewhat inferior to his, and with such a rushed response she was at a greater disadvantage. The moment they collided, she retreated rapidly, but Cong Yue kept close on her heels.

Just as it seemed the girl was about to be driven off the arena, Cong Yue suddenly accelerated and drove a fist into her chest. With a dull crash, the girl flew out like a kite with its string cut, and the sharp crack of ribs shattering beneath the blow made everyone listening feel a pang of discomfort in their teeth.

“That brat really doesn’t know how to show mercy to a beauty,” Bai Ze said, shaking his head repeatedly.

“In an arena match like this, life and death are left to fate. That brat has already been rather decent. If that girl in red had the upper hand, I’m afraid she would have torn his head off on the spot,” Geng Xiao replied lazily, glancing at Bai Ze.

“How do you know?” Bai Ze retorted in indignation. Hearing this, Jimo could not help looking toward Geng Xiao as well, wondering why he would say such a thing. Yet Geng Xiao simply looked away and refused to answer.

With no explanation to be had, the two of them could only turn their attention back to the arena. Cong Yue had won the first match; so long as he won two more, he could become champion. Once he became champion, he would shift to defense, waiting for others to come up and challenge him. Not long after the girl in red was sent flying, a red-haired youth floated up onto the arena.

He looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, handsome of face, dressed in black, his crimson hair and ice-blue eyes giving him an indescribably eerie air. When Jimo’s gaze fell on him, she could not help muttering under her breath, “Didn’t they say the Flameborn are all gifted monsters? This red-haired youth looks to be well into his twenties, yet he is only at the ninth level of spirit refining. Not much to speak of.”

“He only looks mature. In truth, his bone age is only eighteen, all right?” Bai Ze, having accidentally overheard her muttering, shot her a glare and said irritably.

“Only eighteen? He does look awfully mature.” Jimo was stunned.

On the arena, as though hearing Jimo’s mutter, the red-haired youth suddenly turned and looked in her direction. The moment their gazes met, Jimo felt that pair of eyes brimming with an endless, eerie coldness, and her heart inexplicably chilled.

“Flowers Without Trees!” Cong Yue clearly recognized the strange youth. When his gaze fell on him, his pupils contracted sharply.

“Will you go down on your own, or are you waiting for me to tear you apart and swallow you alive?” Flowers Without Trees withdrew his gaze and let it settle on Cong Yue. In his ice-blue eyes, a faint trace of blood-red surfaced. He extended his tongue to lick his lips, an uncanny expression rising over his face as he spoke with a half-smile.

“Hmph, Flowers Without Trees, your name may be famous, but it is only for brutality and bloodlust. I, Cong Yue, was not frightened into my place by anyone.” Furious, Cong Yue snorted coldly and a great blade appeared in his hand. He was also a well-known genius of the Flameborn and possessed a natural pride in his bones. How could he possibly step down from the arena because of one sentence from Flowers Without Trees?

The great blade in Cong Yue’s hand was nine feet long. Two lifelike coiling dragons were engraved upon the blade, and its edge shimmered with a cold gleam. If Jimo had been a person from Earth, she would certainly have recognized it, for this blade was essentially a replica of the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.

It seemed this Flowers Without Trees would be difficult to deal with, Jimo thought to herself. When Cong Yue fought the girl in red earlier, he had always been bare-handed. Now, facing Flowers Without Trees, he revealed his weapon from the very start. From that alone, one could see how highly he regarded his opponent.

Once Cong Yue had the blade in hand, he gave a fierce shout and swept it through the air, stirring a gust of chilly, ghostly radiance that slashed toward Flowers Without Trees. A cruel smile flitted across Flowers Without Trees’s lips. Seeing the blade come at him, he neither dodged nor retreated, but instead rose to meet it head-on. With a crack, his body was actually cut cleanly in two. Jimo’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. Was there really someone who would throw away their life like that?