Chapter 140: Forced On Stage

"What do you mean?" Wang Han asked. "Should we send a younger hunter to challenge him?"

"Of course! I don't believe that the Sage of the Six Seas would be willing to fight against someone of the younger generation."

Wang Han mulled over the proposal. He was thinking of something similar, but Zhang Lie was an overwhelming opponent for the hunters of his generation. At the very least, there were no suitable hunters in their three clans who could even defeat Zhang Lie, let alone kill him directly.

"Don't worry, Clan Head Wang—I've come prepared." Li Mo was as confident as ever.

"Li Xin!" he called out, and one of the hunters from the Li delegation stepped forward. His deep blue armor made him look somewhat like Li Mo. He was glancing at Zhang Lie with an icy demeanor.

"Li Xin? The Li clan's going to send Li Xin to challenge the Sage of the Six Seas? What a joke! Li Xin might be a genius in his own right, having advanced to the third realm before the age of thirty, but no matter how strong he is, he's still a member of the younger generation. Against a sage, what could he do?"

Vigorous discussion broke out among the audience.

Even Zhang Lie was a little confused. Neither Ren Tianlong nor Sheng Fei were a match for Lin Xiu—just what could Li Xin do?

Only a moment later, he realized what kind of trick Li Mo was trying to pull.

"I'm truly impressed by the instructors under the Zenith Dojo's employ, but it's a shame that Dojo Leader Zhang himself has yet to have a chance to shine! As a result, I've specially called Li Xin over in hopes that you'll accept the challenge. You're both relatively close in age, so it's in accordance with the rules," Li Mo explained.

"Oh? That's not a bad idea. Li Xin might be older than Zhang Lie, but they're both from the same generation!"

"Indeed, this would certainly be an interesting fight!"

"Interesting? Same generation? Zhang Lie's barely in his twenties, and Li Jin's already well into his thirties! Given the time dilation in the dimensional world, they're pretty much a century apart! Furthermore, Li Xin's been in the third realm for more than a year, whereas Zhang Lie hasn't even been in the first realm for a full year yet!"

Naturally, some people realized that Li Mo was twisting the truth.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

In the arena, Lin Xiu smiled. Under ordinary circumstances, he would disdain the very idea of interfering in the younger generation's business, but not if it was under military command. Above all, he was a soldier, and his job was to carry out orders efficiently and effectively. His task was to protect Zhang Lie, and he would do so even at cost to his reputation.

Furthermore, strictly speaking, Li Xin and Zhang Lie certainly weren't considered hunters of the same generation—or, more accurately, if Li Xin and Zhang Lie could be considered to be in the same generation, so could he and Li Xin. After all, Lin Xiu had just entered his forties!

However, if Zhang Lie were to choose to avoid this last challenge, it would surely affect the reputation of the Zenith Dojo.

Zhang Lie didn't deny Li Mo's argument outright, but he seemed a little discomfited by the idea. "Clan Head Li, your argument has some merit, but I'm not sure it's in the spirit of the challenges."

Li Mo smiled. "Rules are there to be broken! Dojo Leader Zhang, your instructor's peerless—isn't it meaningless to have him continue fighting?"

"Of course it's meaningful," Zhang Lie countered. "I'm showing off the impressive ability of the instructors of Dojo Zenith."

"These are pretty words, Dojo Leader Zhang, but are you simply masking your fear?" Li Mo raised his eyebrows, his lips curling up into a mocking grin. The longer this verbal battle went, the more confident he was that his plan would succeed.

At this point, all he wanted to do was get Zhang Lie on stage!

"A-Afraid? Not quite, but I'm only a first-realm hunter!" Zhang Lie stuttered and stammered, an uncomfortable expression on his face, stunning Sun Mengmeng, Fang Yi, and the other hunters of Team Zenith. They stared at him as though they were looking at an impostor.

After all, in front of them, Zhang Lie had never seemed to be afraid of anything. Even when he was faced with a three-star black-tipped scarab, he had rushed forward without any reservation. Although his opponent was a third-realm hunter, the members of Team Zenith didn't think that Zhang Lie would be so scared that he would start stammering.

In other words... he was faking it.

"Surely you must be joking, Dojo Leader Zhang. If you can found a dojo, then you must surely be stronger than an ordinary second-realm hunter. Isn't it too modest to style yourself as a first-realm hunter?"

"That's right, Dojo Leader Zhang, show us your true capabilities! Aren't you the fearless Dragonwolf that we've all heard about?"

Other members of the audience began to instigate him.

"Look, Dojo Leader Zhang! Everyone wants you to show us your skills."

Wang Han smiled like a fox. If Zhang Lie were to step on stage, he would likely lose; if he didn't, the boost to the dojo's reputation from the first five challenges would all go to waste.

Zhang Lie sighed, and he seemed even more troubled.

"But I—against a strong opponent, I'm afraid it'll be hard for me to hold back, so..."

"Is that all, Dojo Leader Zhang? Please, feel free to use your full strength! If anything happens, don't worry, you won't be to blame!" Li Mo boomed, as though he could already visualize Zhang Lie's death throes.

"Dojo Leader Zhang, you won't deny us all the chance to see the Dragonwolf Zhang Lie in person, would you?"

The crowd was thrilled by Wang Han's suggestion. After all, most of the audience had only ever seen Zhang Lie fight on a recording, and this was a rare opportunity to witness his strength for themselves.

It was for this reason that Li Mo had guessed that the audience would side with him.

"Very well, Clan Head Li. As long as you don't blame me for any accident—"

"Of course not, of course not! No matter what happens, the Li clan will not hold you responsible, Dojo Leader Zhang!"

"In that case, I would be honored to accept Young Master Li's challenge. Please, be careful!" Zhang Lie shook his head helplessly, his tone so disdainful of Li Xin's strength that Li Xin almost exploded on the spot.

The two of them stepped on stage; the audience's attention was fully focused on them.

"I heard you were the one who killed Li Jin," Li Xin began, his eyes gleaming with killing intent.

"Indeed. I was only planning on giving him a beating, but he refused to stop bothering me, and then—well, you know the rest," Zhang Lie replied with a gentle smile.

"If you kneel down and beg for mercy now, I might consider sparing your life," Li Xin spat out. To him, Zhang Lie was a stinkbug he could crush without any effort at all.

"You're welcome to try." Zhang Lie's body vanished without a trace.

"Ha! Have you got nothing but tricks?" Li Xin's eyes filled with disdain. He released a gust of genetic energy, forming a web of lightning that blanketed the arena. The lightning web shifted back and forth, trying to sift the arena for traces of Zhang Lie.

"Do you really think you can hide in stealth against a lightning-attuned hunter?" Li Mo chortled to himself, as did Wang Han and Qin Zongming.

Zhang Lie, who was hidden by one corner of the arena, suddenly smiled. Lightning-attuned genetic energy was an extreme counter against environmental- and stealth-based techniques, but Zhang Lie's venombane scorpion soulshard was far from ordinary. In addition, the stealth ability it conferred wasn't environment-based, but a rarer spatial version instead.

Li Xin's lightning web impacted a particular location with a purple flash, and Zhang Lie's figure appeared before his eyes. Unstealthed, Zhang Lie stumbled forward with his sword. Zhang Lie's thrust was rough and haphazard, as though he had been caught unawares.

"[Thunderflash Sword]!" A blinding flash of lightning passed through Zhang Lie without any resistance at all.

The spectators were silent, their eyes wide open in shock. Had the Dragonwolf Zhang Lie been vanquished just like that? The match had barely begun! The spectators couldn't believe that he had fallen so easily.

"Captain!" Fang Yi, Sun Mengmeng and the others instinctively cried out in shock.

"Don't worry, that's not his real body," Lin Xiu whispered to them.

Indeed, Zhang Lie's 'corpse' was slowly turning transparent, and there was no sign of blood on the floor.

Li Xin's eyes bulged. If this was just a clone, where was his actual body? After all, his lightning web had covered the entire arena; there was no way Zhang Lie had avoided the attack. He would have sensed any disturbance in the web, but there had been nothing unusual at all!

This lad's stealth technique is pretty interesting. No wonder he was able to kill Li Jin!?Genetic energy exploded from him as he clutched his broadsword and began searching carefully for Zhang Lie.

"Zhang Lie's trying to hide? Isn't he being too cowardly?"

"Cowardly? Are you a fool? His opponent's a third-realm hunter, and he's only in the first realm! Why would he go for a direct confrontation?"

"That's right. If it were me, I'd do the same—start by exhausting and annoying your opponent!"

"In that case, we're in for a slog! They both seem to have significant reservoirs of genetic energy, so how long will we have to wait before something interesting happens?" the guests murmured to themselves.

The hotly anticipated clash had devolved into a game of hide-and-seek. It really was looking like it would be a boring match.

Li Xin could find no trace of Zhang Lie at all. As Zhang Lie vanished and reappeared, he activated [Mirrored Refraction] concurrently with his stealth ability to create clones of himself where he stood. The moment the clone appeared, he vanished.

Li Jin struck clone after clone to no effect; during this process, it became clear to him that Zhang Lie's stealth went beyond the level of a standard environment-based technique, and he instead began to focus on the minute spatial fluctuations that occurred each time Zhang Lie used his ability.

He felt a spatial fluctuation behind him, and he immediately swung his sword toward that location. The blade of the sword smashed against the arena as Li Xin frowned: he hadn't struck Zhang Lie, but only one of his countless clones!

After yet another failed attack, Li Xin was exasperated.

"Is this really a third-realm hunter? He's starting to look more and more like a fool!"

"I have to admit, Li Xin does look rather foolish chasing after shadows the way he's doing now!"

"Right, can't he just stand still and do nothing? Why waste so much energy?"

"What? Don't you think Zhang Lie's fighting style is deplorable? Real men should face each other head-on!"

"Not when there's such a wide power disparity between them, surely?"

The spectators seemed to be even more flustered than the combatants themselves.

"Young Master Li, as a third-realm hunter, I hope you'll go easy on my first-realm self," Zhang Lie suddenly said, incensing Li Xin further. His body appeared behind Li Xin, to his right, but Li Xin sensed spatial fluctuations coming from his front instead.

"Die!" Li Xin thundered, striking toward his front with his broadsword. Lightning crackled and space twisted: this blow was far stronger than any that had come before it, because this was the only blow that Li Xin had imbued with his full strength!