Chapter 3174 - A Step Back Leads to the Abyss

Yumo Yuanni had immediately accepted the challenge. He didn't want to waste any time and wanted to immediately kill Tianming.

"Stop!" At that moment, a pink-haired girl, Suishen Yao, intercepted him.

Yumo Yuanni had heard many things about her. He dared to trample on Suishen Zhao, but he didn’t dare to act rashly in front of Suishen Yao. He would be humiliated if she decided to beat him up right then and there.

So he frowned, took a few steps back, and quickly had his protector, Yu Nu, stand behind him. He then said to Suishen Yao, "Aren't you the one who had him challenge me? Why’re you stopping me now?"

Suishen Yao straightforwardly said, "You’re relying on having eighty more years of cultivation to shamelessly bully my brother, right?"

"What do you want?" Yumo Yuanni coldly asked.

"I'm not as shameless as you." Suishen Yao pointed to Tianming and said, "You bullied my brother, but I won't stoop to your level. Today, I'll send my disciple Tianming, an ordinary and unremarkable black ring disciple, to get justice for my brother!"

Yumo Yuanni was speechless for a moment, then sneered, "Then move aside and I'll twist his head off right now."

"Isn’t it too boring to fight like this?" Suishen Yao rolled her eyes.

"How do you want to fight?" Yumo Yuanni scoffed.

"If you have the guts, let’s raise the stakes. But I bet you don't dare. After all, you’re the type that needs ambushes to bully the weak." Suishen Yao shrugged with a smile.

With so many people watching, the invisible pressure on Yumo Yuanni grew. The more he looked at Tianming, the angrier he became. He grit his teeth and said, "Let out whatever bullshit you have already!"

"As expected of an elite Yumo clansman, vulgar and shameless," Suishen Yao said, fully controlling the rhythm of the conversation. Her words angered many specters, but before they could react, she dropped her bombshell challenge.

"It's simple! Yumo Yuanni, you and my disciple will fight. Whoever loses must kneel in front of the other and kowtow a hundred times! While kowtowing, you must say, 'If I can't defeat you in this lifetime, I’m a pig!'" Suishen Yao loudly declared.

Yumo Yuanni was stunned for a moment. If he lost and had to publicly kowtow and make such a vow, it would mean he could no longer rely on his family or elders. If Tianming died for no reason, Yumo Yuanni would forever carry the shame of being a pig.

Yumo Yuanni couldn't help but sneer, "You're so childish,"

"Do you dare?" Suishen Yao laughed.

"Why wouldn't I? But you better understand one thing: I don't need him to kowtow to me. I'll kill him today, and after that, there won't be any need for that pig to roll around!" Yumo Yuanni viciously snapped.

"That's your business. Just answer, yes or no?" Suishen Yao asked.

Yumo Yuanni was about to speak, when Yu Nu whispered something in his ear. Yumo Yuanni's eyes lit up, and he suddenly smiled, "I agree, but I have one condition."

"Say it."

Yumo Yuanni smiled and said, "If I win, I don't need this pig to do anything. But, I want Suishen Zhao to fulfill the bet and kowtow to me, saying a hundred times, 'I, Suishen Zhao, will always be inferior trash!'"

The crowd burst into an uproar. Everyone understood that although this was a battle between Tianming and Yumo Yuanni, the real confrontation was between House Yumo and House Suishen and between Yumo Yuanni and Suishen Zhao in the future.

If the bet was carried out, regardless of who lost, the impact on their future mentality would be huge due to their high status. Even kowtowing a hundred times would be a major blow. This seemingly small matter was actually a major psychological competition between two top houses.

"Yumo Yuanni's counterattack is quite ruthless."

"Suishen Yao definitely won't agree. She proposed this challenge to save face and doesn't care if Li Tianming dies, but having her brother get beaten and kowtow would be really humiliating."

"If Suishen Zhao suffers such humiliation at such a young age, it could affect his mentality and cause trouble in the future!"

"That sister’s too reckless. She better not ruin her younger brother."

Everyone realized that Suishen Yao was acting crazy. She had possibly even ordered Tianming to go up. Many people frowned at Suishen Yao, wondering how she would handle the situation.

To everyone's surprise, Tianming and Suishen Zhao said nothing and the pink-haired girl immediately agreed, "Fine! I agree on behalf of Suishen Zhao! If he doesn't dare to kowtow, I'll do it for him!"

Her statement caused the entire arena to boil. They were all minor pathkeepers. For ordinary people, or even eminents, to kowtow, it wouldn't be much. But those two carried the glory of specters and totemancers. A single kneel meant their entire cultivation system knelt, which wasn’t a personal matter.

So the seemingly impulsive bet between the young people had significant implications. As the two continued talking, many hurriedly informed the elders of the two families that the matter had escalated.

Suishen Yao's temper was exactly like that and she couldn't stand provocation. Now, all her anger was burning bright.

"Good!" Yumo Yuanni almost laughed out loud. He didn't expect such a good deal. Beating up Suishen Zhao, then making him kowtow a hundred times?

This time, I'll crush his martial heart and make him my stepping stone in Myriadpath Valley for thousands of years!

After thinking that, Yumo Yuanni quickly said to Suishen Yao, "Empty words mean nothing. How do you guarantee that you'll honor the bet?"

Suishen Yao immediately said, "I swear on the honor of House Suishen!"

She raised an eyebrow at Yumo Yuanni.

"Then I swear on the honor of House Yumo! If I don’t do it, I'm unworthy of being a House Yumo descendant!" Yumo Yuanni laughed.

"Great!" Suishen Yao gave him a cold look. She had set the stage and made the agreement. From there onward, all the pressure was on Tianming. All her big talk and vows would have to be defended by him.

He hadn't expected her to create such a huge scene. The conflict and anger had ignited the entire valley. It had even become a conflict between the totemancers and the specters, but the totemancers lacked a presence because Suishen Zhao wasn't personally fighting. Tianming couldn't truly represent them.

Suishen Yao had forcibly pushed him up.

Suishen Yao looked back at the white-haired boy and came to his side.

"Hey!" she called out to Tianming. "You know what to do, right?"

"I know. I have no way out but to fight for House Suishen," Tianming replied.

Everyone was agitated, but he was calm, as if he was unrelated to all of it.

"One step forward will let you soar, but one step back is the abyss. Life or death, it's up to you!" Suishen Yao said.

She was indeed a person of extremes. Tianming could see that she had pushed him to a dead end—did she really want to elevate him?

Not really. She just wanted to vent her anger and help Suishen Zhao take revenge. She hadn't expected Yumo Yuanni would make Suishen Zhao kowtow, but she couldn't retreat at that moment.

Her original plan was just to have Tianming desperately fight. If he died, it wouldn't matter much to her—or at least, it wasn't as serious as making Suishen Zhao kowtow.

Tianming understood all that, but didn't think much about it. She was Suishen Yao, and she was nothing if not self-centered. It was all normal.

His path depended on his own efforts now.

"Fight!" In reality, he had consciously led things to this point. Myriadpath Valley was different from other places. Despite not displaying his cosmic charts, his increasing combat power would be evident.

As long as he challenged the Fortuna Rankings or progressed on the Prehistoric Path, his fierce breakthroughs would eventually be exposed. Suishen Zhao and Suishen Yao also already knew. Since that was the case, Yumo Yuanni's appearance was an opportunity.

This battle will officially declare that I’m truly a genius....

And not someone who would be trash in the later stages.

The thirty-breaths and breakthrough would speak louder than words.

It was also an opportunity to completely bind himself to House Suishen. Many times, the world was black and white. Wanting to stay ambiguous meant that House Suishen wouldn't truly care about him.

"One step forward and my world will open up!" He needed a status to help him advance on the Prehistoric Path without worry.

Thus, Tianming stepped out on the Fortuna Arena. It was another large arena. The spectators had multiplied dozens of times compared to the battle between Tianming and Suishen Zhao. Most of them were foundationeers, while even the rest were almost foundationeers. Tianming's true realm, in front of the over a million cultivators, was almost at the bottom.

Thus, the pressure from the gazes on his body was immense. These gazes were filled with prejudice toward the 'tainted beastmaster'.

"Today, witness me as I consecutively defeat two minor pathkeepers and blind you prejudiced fools!" Tianming had remained very calm. Everything was all well within his expectations. The long-held speechlessness and oppression within him had all turned into burning anger.

Yumo Yuanni explosively landed in the arena, making it violently tremble. His inner fury was evident. Yumo Yuanni wasn’t Suishen Zhao, but a hellish, fierce demon. A chilling, bloody aura like that of hell instantly enveloped the entire area, with dark fog sweeping across the hemispherical space.

Such a duel between young apex talents, coupled with the pre-battle fury, aroused a martial fervor in many hearts. Even many older saints shouted in excitement. It was another side of Myriadpath Valley!

When Yumo Yuanni and Tianming's eyes met, neither of them had any intention of saying a word.

Yumo Yuanni only wanted to kill Tianming in the shortest time and most brutal way, to make him understand the gap in their statuses.

"He's undergoing a skyghoul transformation! It shows how angry he is!" Yumo Yuanni's body expanded, his astrons enlarging. He became ten meters tall, with a dramatically more powerful body. His long black hair, numbering in the tens of millions, wildly grew, becoming sharp spikes more than ten meters long.

The process was very similar to Zi Zhen's transformation.

His claws, his barbed hands and feet, and his body covered in thick scales... every part of his body looked like a perfect, powerful weapon, forming an ideal fighting physique. Specters were born killing machines.

If skyghouls were a race of evil demons, then the hellfiend skyghouls of House Yumo were their kings.

During the transformation process, the mask on Yumo Yuanni's face shattered into pieces, then merged into his face.

Tianming hadn’t known that the stiff-looking mask was actually his face, but with today's skyghoul transformation, his true appearance had been revealed.

A ferociously savage face appeared. It was no longer stiff but ferocious and bloodthirsty. Every tooth in his blood-red maw was a sharp spike. Even his meter-plus-long tongue was densely covered in sharp thorns, with a hardness comparable to top-grade artifacts and high astron density.

It could serve as a sword and was ironclad proof of House Yumo’s mighty bloodline inheritance.

Lastly, each of his eyes had six pupils. All of them contained fiendish images, each one different and exuding a kind of bloody splendor.

Yumo Yuanni was like a black-and-red version of Zi Zhen, but lacking her mysterious eeriness and possessing more savagery.

When such a Yumo Yuanni appeared before Tianming, the purple scarf around his neck surprisingly emitted a warm sensation. It wasn't strong, but it proved that everything Zi Zhen had said was true and that Yumo Yuanni had likely come into contact with what she wanted.

Without giving Tianming much time to think, Yumo Yuanni, having completed his skyghoul transformation, let out a piercing scream and lunged toward him like a ravenous monster!

Tianming seemed too small and too weak before the ten-meter-tall fierce demon.

That was the visual impression of over a million people.

In response, black electricity surged all over Tianming's body and he instantly vanished, leaving Yumo Yuanni to only strike at empty air no matter how fast or ferociously he attacked.