Wei Tianchong and his puppet had unleashed a storm of blows on Zhou Weixiao. Without even needing to use a shadow soldier, he had overwhelmed Zhou Weixiao with sheer force and dragged him down from the clouds and into the mud.
But unlike what Tang Jie had imagined, after winning, Wei Tianchong was not jumping with joy. On the contrary, he very calmly walked off the stage.
This was a maturing of spirit and the budding of self-confidence.
Just like how an upperclassman wouldn’t be celebrating over beating an underclassman, Wei Tianchong wouldn’t be feeling too excited about beating one Zhou Weixiao.
He had forgotten how such an opponent was an existence he could only look up to in reverence in the past.
The battles continued, with wins and losses on both sides, and things were going rather smoothly. When it was Tang Jie’s turn, he exchanged only a few blows with that Horizon Ocean Pavilion student before blasting him off the stage with one punch, ending the battle with little surprise.
As this was the first day, it was impossible to say which of the six major sects was stronger and which was weaker. But some of the more outstanding students had already begun to show their ability on stage and draw the attention of others.
Godhead Palace’s Yun Wuji, Fang Shiye, and Lin Changrui; the Thousand Passions Sect’s Deng Xiaoyu, Mu Yu, and Li Zhiping; the Seven Absolutions Sect’s Mu Yi, Xiao Wen, and Lin Wang; Horizon Ocean Pavilion’s Lan Yu and Gu Qinghan; the Beast Refining Gate’s Helian Hu, Ye Heizi, and Tian Zhao; and finally, the Basking Moon Sect’s Peng Yaolong, Tang Jie, and Ye Tianshang—each of them would obtain an unsurprising victory whenever they came onto the stage.
The day’s battles quickly concluded, and the returning crowd coalesced into various streams.
Xu Miaoran had no choice but to report back to her sect.
She looked reluctantly at Tang Jie. “If I don’t go back now, my esteemed teachers will really come over and take me back.”
“Will you still be able to come tomorrow?” Tang Jie asked.
Xu Miaoran shook her head, indicating that she didn’t know.
The next morning, when the day’s matches began, as expected, Xu Miaoran did not come.
Tang Jie began to search the crowd for her, and finally, in a corner of Horizon Ocean Pavilion’s section, he spotted her. She was sullenly sitting all alone, her hands propping up her cheeks.
Tang Jie chuckled at the sight of her. Taking out a message talisman, he wrote something down and burned it.
As Xu Miaoran was sitting there, she felt her waist warm up. She looked at her jade pendant and saw a line of words: “I see you.”
Her heart warming, she looked in Tang Jie’s direction and spotted him waving at her.
The two of them amorously gazed at each other, both feeling blessed for a brief moment.
At this moment, there was a boom from the stage, and then a bitter scream.
This howl drew the attention of Tang Jie and Xu Miaoran to the stage, and it was only then that they realized that a Seven Absolutions Sect disciple on the stage was holding his throat. With a groan, he collapsed, and large amounts of blood gushed out of his neck and painted the entire stage red.
He was dead!
The audience was aghast, but a few people had managed to keep their composure.
“What’s going on?” Tang Jie called out. He looked at the Godhead Palace disciple on the stage and saw that his hands were scarlet. He was in the middle of wiping off this blood and didn’t seem panicked at all.
“What else could it be? This isn’t some school tournament, but a mortal contest between the six major sects. Here, the defeated can die!” a student replied.
“This is impossible!” some other students shouted back. “Why wasn’t a rule like this announced yesterday?”
“This isn’t a rule, but an individual choice,” Peng Yaolong loudly replied. He had won his battle, but his opponent had been completely fine. The other sects had also been perfectly fine in their battles.
It was only when Godhead Palace and the Seven Absolutions Sect were on the stage together that the first battle had become bloody.
Upon seeing this sight, Tang Jie understood. “Mortal foes?”
The six major sects had both friends and enemies amongst themselves.
These friends and enemies weren’t made in a day, but were the result of gradual accumulation and evolution of a thousand years of history, paired with countless battles and immense loss of life and blood. As each generation taught the next, engraving the lessons in the blood, legends developed, even unique cultures.
The Seven Absolutions Sect and Godhead Palace were mortal foes.
There were far too many grudges between the sects, such that the youths who became students of these sects would first learn how to hate their foe rather than to cultivate.
When other sects clashed, they would at least consider the pros and cons before trying to make a lethal move. For example, Lan Yu had wanted to kill Cai Junyang, but he had first needed to create an opportunity. But when mortal foes were on the stage, they almost always both chose to kill each other.
Thus, an incident like this wasn’t strange at all.
“What about the dead students? If this keeps up, won’t both sects be missing people?” a student asked.
“Given the losses, I’m guessing that substitutes are allowed,” Ye Tianshang replied. “But is this really the problem you should be worried about right now?”
“What is it, then?” Someone still hadn’t realized what was going on.
Tang Jie explained, “The Basking Moon Sect has its own mortal foe.”
Peng Yaolong laughed. “That’s right.”
Everyone trembled in fear and looked in the direction of the Beast Refining Gate. Over there, a group of fearless students was looking back, the killing intent clear in their eyes.
Even the worst student of Basking Moon knew who their greatest foe would always be.
The Beast Refining Gate!
In the history of the Basking Moon Sect, the two sects had been at war for a thousand years. It had never stopped, and the two sides had never known peace.
There was no peace between them, no friendship, only a history of blood and a hatred that was carved into the bones.
If the people of these two sects ever ended up sitting next to each other, it wasn’t because they had become friends, but because they were seeking out the weak points of the other side so that they could better make a lethal thrust with their sword.
Tang Jie could sit together and talk with a fiend woman of Horizon Ocean Pavilion without the Basking Moon Sect caring, but if it had been someone from the Beast Refining Gate, he would have been banished.
Even though Tang Jie hated Godhead Palace the most, the history lessons of the last few years had caused Tang Jie to develop a poor impression of the Beast Refining Gate. He had always been good at culture studies, and so he knew by heart that 562 people of the Basking Moon Sect had died to the Beast Refining Gate, including six Celestial Heart Realm experts. And of the disciples and Spirit Masters that the Basking Moon Sect had lost in the last few centuries, half of them had been because of the Beast Refining Gate.
Of course, the same was true for the other side.
The hatred between the two sides was long past the point of talking things out. Killing on sight was the only correct path.
For the Basking Moon Sect, the best reason to kill ten thousand people wasn’t the gravity of their crimes, but because “they were all part of the Beast Refining Gate.”
If not for the rules, formation, and puppets of Red Plum City and the need to participate in the Immortal Fortune Conference, the Thousand Passions Sect and Horizon Ocean Pavilion, the Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate, and Godhead Palace and the Seven Absolutions Sect would have fought each other and made the streets flow with blood.
But even so, everyone was just waiting and biding their time.
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They were waiting for the chance to kill, to settle the score!
Today was the day Godhead Palace and the Seven Absolutions Sect settled their score.
The moment these two sects publicly clashed, the rules lost their meaning. Killing became the rule of the day, and eliminating one’s enemy the most worthwhile cause.
As for the other sects, there was no need to worry about any objection from them.
They all had their own problems that they wanted to take care of, all had targets that they needed to kill.
Thus, all six sects permitted this sort of killing.
The permission of the six major sects was the permission of the world!
Upon understanding this and then looking back at the murderous looks of the Beast Refining Gate students, everyone understood what they could look forward to.
Wei Tianchong shivered. “Do the two sects really have to kill each other?”
“If you don’t kill him, he’ll kill you,” Tang Jie warned. “In the rules of Immortal sects, you can’t cause trouble you shouldn’t cause, but you should kill all enemies that you need to kill!”
“Then what if I concede?” Wei Tianchong immediately said.
Tang Jie replied, “You can, but then you’ll probably be killed by the esteemed teachers. Oh, right, you’re True Person Changfeng’s disciple, so out of respect for him, the esteemed teachers probably won’t kill you.”
Wei Tianchong exhaled.
Tang Jie added, “True Person Changfeng will come personally to slice you into ten thousand little bits.”
Wei Tianchong’s chubby face instantly froze.
Tang Jie whispered into his ear, “This is about our common enemy, so you should never hope that someone will tolerate your behavior. Young Master, some mistakes are okay to make, but there are some mistakes that we shouldn’t even think about making! Kill your Beast Refining Gate opponent, or else your life will end here.”
Wei Tianchong shivered several more times before finally calming himself down. “Is that all we can do?”
“It seems to be,” Tang Jie indifferently replied. “True Person Changfeng had you come probably not so that you could get into the top ten, but so that you could take a life. If you can do it, then you’ll be worthy of continuing to be his disciple. If you can’t do it, then it’s better that you die so that someone incapable of making his way through the world won’t ruin his reputation.”
Wei Tianchong took in a deep breath.
Tang Jie added, “Fortunately, the bloody battle between the Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate will only happen on the fifth day, so you still have time to study your opponent.”
“Mm, I know.” Wei Tianchong nodded.
But then he suddenly thought of something and paled. “Not good! Junyang…”
Cai Junyang’s opponent was none other than the rank one of the Beast Refining Gate, Helian Hu!
Tang Jie helplessly sighed. “I can only hope that the esteemed teachers will permit concession when facing an opponent that can’t be defeated. I only worry that Junyang’s personality won’t let him do such a thing.”
The two of them looked at Cai Junyang, who was calm and indifferent, apparently not at all afraid of his foe.
“Is it allowed or not?” Wei Tianchong frantically asked.
“Won’t we find out if we keep watching?” Tang Jie breezily replied, his eyes turning to the stage where Godhead Palace and the Seven Absolutions Sect were fighting.
In today’s battles, these two sects were bound to be the main characters. A gruesome battle was playing out between them, a lesson to all the other students who were about to participate in this bloody struggle.