Chapter 25: Breakthrough During Battle

The final four was decided.

Fang Che, Huo Churan, Qiu Yunshang, and Yu Zhongge.

To everyone's surprise, these three had all witnessed Fang Che's Buddhist Pagoda Blade, yet none of them had given up.

According to the rules, Fang Che had to fight two more battles.

While Fang Che was drawing lots, both Huo Churan and Qiu Yunshang had been looking on intently with their faces still bruised and battered.

Yu Zhongge was also watching, but he was looking far less worse for wear.

Fang Che flipped over the slip of paper to reveal the number "2!"

It was Huo Churan!

Fierce battle intent instantly surfaced in Huo Churan's eyes.

Fang Che turned to him with a friendly smile and said, "Looks like it's our turn to battle, Brother Huo."

He wanted to befriend Huo Churan the same way he had done Ding Jieran, but Huo Churan wasn't anywhere near as receptive.

A cold and arrogant look appeared on his face as he scoffed, "Don't treat me like a gullible idiot like Ding Jieran! I don't have time to make friends with you!"

Ding Jieran was furious to hear this, and he grabbed onto the hilt of his sword as he snapped in a cold voice, "Wanna say that again?"

"Settle down! I'll beat your ass after I beat Fang Che!" Huo Churan scoffed in an unyielding manner.

Ding Jieran took a deep breath, and a burst of peerlessly sharp sword qi and killing intent erupted out of his body as he said, "Alright, you better not run away!"

"It's alright, Brother Ding, he may not even have the ability to fight you by the time I'm through with him," Fang Che chuckled.

He then turned back to Huo Churan with a cold expression as he declared, "You're the one who refused to be friends, so don't blame me for what I'm about to do to you! Not just today, but from here onward, I'm going to beat the crap out of you every time I see you!"

"Is that meant to be a joke?" Huo Churan sneered.

Fang Che was furious, and he raised a hand to the heavens as he vowed, "From this day forth, I will beat you to a pulp every time I see you, and if I don't see you, I will actively seek you out!"

All of the spectators were stunned to hear this.

Does he have to go that far?

Unbeknownst to them, Fang Che was in a rather difficult predicament.

He had failed to befriend Huo Churan, and he couldn't kill him, either, after what happened with Ximen Xuri, so what was he supposed to do with him?

He had to find an excuse to use excessive force, and Huo Churan's arrogant personality had given him the perfect reason to pick on him.

It seemed that he had sworn that vow in a spur of the moment fit of fury, but in reality, this had been premeditated all along.

"Fang Che, make sure to spare him for me," Qiu Yunshang said.

"Alright, but I'm only leaving him within an inch of his life," Fang Che replied with a smile, but there was a cold look in his eyes.

***

The battle between Fang Che and Huo Churan commenced.

Huo Churan went all out from the very beginning.

His aura swelled drastically as soon as the commencement of the battle was announced, and a cloud of blood mist began to permeate out of his body.

Furthermore, his cultivation base was also steadily climbing, soaring all the way to the pinnacle of the fourth-rank Warrior Master tier!

He was wearing a white robe, but it appeared crimson from afar, and before long, the blood mist emanating from his body had encompassed the entire platform.

"He's using some type of secret technique that burns through his essential energy to temporarily enhance his cultivation base."

"Even if he comes out on top, he'll be feeble for quite some time. I didn't think he had a trick like this up his sleeve."

The two referees were looking on with grim expressions. They were firmly rooting against Huo Churan, and they would rather see any of the other three semifinalists come out on top.

Those palm techniques that Huo Churan had used earlier had well and truly turned all of the instructors against him.

However, from the looks of it, Fang Che was not going to be able to win this battle.

Even his Buddhist Pagoda Blade most likely wasn't going to be effective, given the gap in cultivation base between the two.

However, to their astonishment, Fang Che's aura also began to swell.

In the blink of an eye, he had also revealed a fourth-rank Warrior Master cultivation base and was keeping up with Huo Churan just fine!

The difference was that Fang Che's aura was much more stable, clearly indicating that he was a peak fourth-rank Warrior Master to begin with!

"Holy shit! He was still holding back all this time? This kid's even more of a sly bastard than the dean!" one of the referees blurted out before he had a chance to catch himself.

The other one hurriedly cleared his throat in a warning gesture, and the first referee turned to discover Gao Qingyu glowering at him from afar, instantly sending a chill running down his spine.

***

Meanwhile, Qiu Yunshang and Yu Zhongge were also duking it out in a strange reenactment of the battle between Fang Che and Mo Ganyun.

All of their clashes were extremely barbaric and straightforward, and Qiu Yunshang had been the initiator.

After multiple grueling battles, he was still carrying some rather severe injuries, so he didn't favor his chances against Yu Zhongge in a long and drawn out battle.

However, he was slightly superior to Yu Zhongge in terms of overall combat prowess, so he had adopted a very aggressive approach in order to exert as much pressure on his opponent as possible.

Yu Zhongge was forced to defend for his life. Even though he was only slightly inferior to Qiu Yunshang in overall power, the gap was magnified in a battle as brutal and straightforward as this one.

Finally, Yu Zhongge found a window of respite to draw his sword, but Qiu Yunshang began swinging his sword viciously through the air, using it like a saber.

After nine clashes, both swords snapped in unison, and they discarded their weapons to resume hand-to-hand combat.

Qiu Yunshang was already completely unrecognizable. His eyes had swollen into narrow slits, but he continued to pile on the pressure.

Meanwhile, Yu Zhongge was frantically dodging from side to side, hoping to tire out his opponent.

However, Qiu Yunshang's movement techniques allowed him to stick close to Yu Zhongge wherever he went, not giving the latter the opportunity to open up any distance between them.

As the battle wore on, Yu Zhongge was being driven closer and closer to the edge of the platform.

Finally...

Yu Zhongge and Qiu Yunshang were both struck by a punch to the right eye in unison, sending them toppling backward.

The difference was that Qiu Yunshang had fallen back onto the platform, while Yu Zhongge fell off the platform with a frustrated roar.

He sat on the ground as he pummeled the earth in vexation, while Qiu Yunshang was gasping for air as he laid on the platform.

His face had swollen to the size of his asscheek, and his eyes and nostrils had completely swollen shut. His entire face resembled one big, swollen bruise with only a hole where his mouth was.

Despite the terrible condition that he was in, he was exultant as he yelled to the heavens, "I won!"

***

In the other battle, Huo Churan was glowering at Fang Che with a furious expression.

This bastard's been hiding his true power!

As the seed of the Three Saints Church, Huo Churan had been given the same mission as Fang Che to win the new student tournament at all costs.

He had to win the tournament and make a name for himself, then infiltrate the Protectionists once he graduated.

From there, he would be able to secure valuable intelligence for the Three Saints Church.

That was his ultimate mission, but the first step to all of that was winning this tournament.

With that in mind, he let loose a loud roar, then suddenly backtracked three steps before drawing his saber.

An aura of fierce killing intent erupted out of his body as he stormed toward Fang Che like a crimson force of nature.

Right at this moment, Fang Che suddenly sprang up into the air while simultaneously letting loose a long roar.

Everyone immediately looked up with keen interest because the roar seemed to have erupted out of his mouth involuntarily, as if it had been drawn out by something.

Sure enough, Fang Che's aura began to swell rapidly, much to the astonishment of all of the spectators.

He's making a breakthrough!

The bottleneck to the fifth-rank Warrior Master tier was a major hurdle, yet he had made the breakthrough in the heat of battle, tapping into his latent potential when it mattered most!

This was undoubtedly going to be a legendary tale told for years to come!

Even after making his breakthrough, Fang Che continued to ascend, and it was as if his body were glowing under the light of the sun.

Upon reaching the pinnacle of his ascent, he swerved around on a rapid descent, plummeting out of the heavens like a shooting star.

In the blink of an eye, he was already upon Huo Churan, and he swung his saber into Huo Churan's with an almighty clang.

Huo Churan was instantly outmatched, letting loose an agonized cry as he was sent flying back through the air with blood trickling down from the corner of his lips.

His internal organs had been damaged by the clash!

However, Fang Che refused to let him off the hook.

He continued on his descent while unleashing another fearsome saber strike, and Huo Churan's saber was jolted out of his hand and flung high up into the air while he stumbled back in retreat with blood gushing out of his mouth.

"You asked for it!" Fang Che roared as he threw his own saber up into the heavens.

His right fist shot forth like lightning, striking Huo Churan on the left eye socket, followed by a punch to the right eye with his left fist, then another punch straight into Huo Churan's nose.

The gruesome sound of cracking bones had the spectators wincing involuntarily, and blood splattered all over the platform.

Huo Churan's howls of agony were sounding very nasally as his nose had been completely flattened!

His head snapped back from the blows, only to be wrenched back into place as Fang Che grabbed onto a fistful of his hair.

Immediately thereafter, Fang Che threw his knee into Huo Churan's dantian seven times in succession, breaking multiple ribs in the process.

Huo Churan was curled up into a ball as he was sent flying back through the air.

An almighty slap was thrown into his right cheek, and several teeth had only just come flying out of his mouth when received another slap to the left cheek, ridding him of the teeth on that side as well.

Fang Che twisted around in mid-air before aiming a kick straight into Huo Churan's chest, breaking several more ribs.

By the time Huo Churan began to drift off the platform, he had already fallen unconscious.

Fang Che rushed forward with tightly clenched fists as he roared, "This is what you get for insulting me! I'm going to kill you!"

He was seriously prepared to do that.

If no one got in the way, then he would kill Huo Churan and make it seem like a rush of blood to the head.