Chapter Ninety-Five: The Fireline Arena Tournament, Part Four

After watching the ten days of competition, Bai Ze’s worry over Ji Mo’s desire to challenge Mo Fan only grew stronger. Yet he had already said all that needed saying, already offered every warning he could. What remained for him now was only silent support. As a genius cultivator himself, he knew just as well that some things could be yielded or avoided, but there were others that, even at the cost of one’s life, could not be casually altered.

Mo Fan’s utterly unmatched momentum continued through the eleventh day. That day, a young man named Yan Xiu stepped up. Yan Xiu came from the Yan Family, ranked fifth among the ten great families of the Flame-Blooded Clan. He was twenty years old, a body cultivator at the fifth realm beyond mortality, and at the peak of the refining stage. He was three years older than Mo Fan, and before Mo Fan had risen to prominence, he too had been a dazzling figure. But after the bloodline awakening of the three-years-younger Mo Fan, he had been steadily eclipsed by that inexorable brilliance.

“Mo Fan, ever since you rose to prominence, you’ve been hailed as the foremost genius among the refining-stage disciples of our Flame-Blooded Clan. I’m three years older than you. Before your cultivation caught up, it would not have been seemly for me to bully the young by force of age. But now our cultivation levels are more or less even. Today, let me see whether your title of ‘first genius’ is truly deserved!” After stepping onto the stage, Yan Xiu lifted his thick brows and fixed Mo Fan with a sword-sharp gaze as he spoke.

“Brother Yan flatters me. Please, instruct me,” Mo Fan replied calmly. There was not the slightest trace of anger on his face. With his feet set apart, he stood in quiet focus. Clearly, the young man named Yan Xiu before him was no opponent to be taken lightly.

“Heh, Mo Fan, you really are arrogant. Competing with me on the same stage, and you won’t even draw a weapon—you even want me to strike first. Fine. Very well! Since that’s how it is, I won’t hold back!” Yan Xiu gave a cold laugh. With a flick of his wrist, a fiery red spear appeared in his hand. Then, with a fierce shout, he thrust the spear straight at Mo Fan.

To Ji Mo’s eyes, that spear seemed to transform into a raging fire dragon. The shrill whistle it tore through the air with was so piercing it seemed almost to stab into her eardrums, and the spearhead was already wreathed in blazing flames. If it were herself facing this strike, how would she break it? But before she could even begin to answer, she saw Mo Fan move. Just as the spear tip was about to touch his body, he vanished from where he stood.

When he appeared again, he was already only a few paces from Yan Xiu. The fist he had raised came down without hesitation toward Yan Xiu’s chest. Yan Xiu’s heart tightened. His body twisted slightly. Without time to think, he reacted on pure instinct, clenching his left hand into a fist and meeting the blow head-on. Boom! Yan Xiu was blasted backward.

But he was no ordinary man. Just as he was about to fly off the platform, his body somersaulted in midair. His spear stabbed twice into empty air as he steadied himself, then he shot backward like lightning. When he was still two zhang from Mo Fan, he gave a thunderous roar. Man and spear became a single streak of lightning, plunging down from above with the force of heaven’s wrath, lunging at Mo Fan with the might of a thunderbolt.

Boom! It seemed as though a searing whirlwind had risen across the entire platform. Within several zhang of Mo Fan, everything was sealed off by the terror of that strike. Countless spectators below the viewing stands had their hearts leaping into their throats. They could only feel as if the person confronting that dreadful spear power was themselves. Ji Mo was the same. Her lips pressed tightly together, both hands clenched into fists, her eyes fixed without a blink on the spear-light above the platform.

A fierce glint burst from Mo Fan’s eyes. No one knew when, but a thick, plain saber had appeared in his hand. Just as the spear tip was about to reach the crown of his head, he lifted the blade to meet it. Clash! The red spear in Yan Xiu’s hand was severed into two, while Yan Xiu himself let out a muffled groan and dropped from the air. A mouthful of blood spurted from his lips. The gaze he turned on Mo Fan was filled with hatred, unwillingness, and wariness.

Only then did Ji Mo clearly see the blade in Mo Fan’s hand. It was a dark, utterly unremarkable saber, its edge thick and blunt, without the slightest hint of brilliance or sharpness. And yet this plain, forgettable blade had so casually cut the Fire-Blood Spear in Yan Xiu’s hand into two. Ji Mo felt her own heart contract. This Mo Fan’s strength was simply unfathomable.

“Still want to continue?” Mo Fan exhaled softly and looked toward Yan Xiu, who stood several zhang away. Though Yan Xiu’s weapon had been broken, he himself remained on the stage. If he insisted on continuing, there was no reason it could not be done.

“Mo Fan, you are very good. You truly live up to the reputation of the Flame-Blooded Clan’s number one genius in the refining stage. I lost. I hope you can keep being this monstrous.” Yan Xiu slowly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, stared deeply at Mo Fan once, then turned and leaped from the platform.

“Little Ji Mo, after seeing today’s battle, do you still have confidence in yourself?” That evening, after returning to their lodgings on the day Mo Fan’s battle with Yan Xiu ended, Bai Ze, who had been silent for several days, raised the matter again.

“I don’t have complete confidence, but tomorrow I intend to take the stage in the very first match,” Ji Mo said, her eyes flickering slightly.

“Tomorrow? If you want to challenge him, you could just wait until the last day. Why must it be tomorrow? If you go up tomorrow, even if you really beat that boy, you’ll still have to defend the platform for eighteen days afterward. This, this is no joke.” Bai Ze nearly jumped to his feet.

“No. Mo Fan’s fighting spirit and momentum have only been accumulating more and more. The later it is, the worse it will be for me. After watching so many of his matches in a row, my mind has already been affected to a certain extent. If I go up now, I still have the power to fight. If I keep watching, I’m afraid I won’t even have the courage to step onto the stage,” Ji Mo said, shaking her head.

Bai Ze and Geng Xiao both looked at her. Their expressions were complicated, but they did not try to persuade her further. They understood what Ji Mo was saying. When two evenly matched opponents face one another, if one side’s momentum has already accumulated to a peak while the other has been robbed of composure, there is no need for the battle to continue. The outcome is already decided.

Early the next morning, Ji Mo, Bai Ze, and Geng Xiao arrived beside the platform at first light. Seeing Ji Fan leap onto the stage, Ji Mo immediately flashed up after him and cupped her fists in salute. “My name is Ji Mo. Please instruct me.”

“You also bear the surname Ji? That doesn’t seem to be one of our Flame-Blooded Clan’s surnames,” Mo Fan said, his thick brows furrowing slightly. The Flame-Blooded Clan was chiefly made up of the ten great surnames, though there were a few others as well. But there had never been a surname such as Ji.

“I am not of the Flame-Blooded Clan. I come from beyond,” Ji Mo answered without circling the matter.

“What? You, you’re saying you come from the Ten Great Cultivation Realms?” Mo Fan was greatly startled. In his mind, “beyond” naturally meant the Ten Great Cultivation Realms. But hadn’t the Ten Great Cultivation Realms gone tens of thousands of years without sending any refining-stage disciples into the Flame Domain? How could one suddenly have entered now? His shock was so great that he froze in place, momentarily unable to recover.

“What, does your clan have a rule that cultivators from beyond cannot step onto the platform to challenge?” Ji Mo could not help asking when she saw his reaction. Hadn’t Bai Ze and Geng Xiao said that anyone could come up and challenge? What was going on with Mo Fan’s response now?