The crowd erupted. “What’s going on?”
“That beauty entered his body?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Who is this person?”
“I think the Sky Hall King’s disciple, Li Qingyu, brought him here. Looking at their conversation, he seems to be Li Qingyu’s big brother.”
“He’s challenging Ning Wushuang!”
“He’s going to challenge Ning Wushuang while in the Heavenly Will stage? Is he courting death?!” Many people gathered around due to the weird matchup, whispering among themselves.
“Junior Sister Li, is this person your big brother?” a lady asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s his name?”
“Li Tianming.”
“Oh, you’re not worried for him? Ning Wushuang clearly wants to teach him a lesson by accepting the challenge. How did he provoke her?”
“Let’s just watch,” said Li Qingyu.
“Alright. But I suggest you find an elder.…” The lady rolled her eyes. She was clearly unhappy with Li Qingyu’s reply.
“Qingyu, how did that lady fuse into your brother’s body?” a man asked. The topic had also attracted many people’s attention.
“That’s because they’re a natural pair to begin with,” Li Qingyu explained.
“Well, your brother is really fortunate. Your sister-in-law is really gorgeous. But the downside is that she doesn’t have any cultivation, which is a little weird.”
“What’s it got to do with you?” Li Qingyu rolled her eyes.
“Watch how you speak. Do you think that you can be so arrogant just because you’re the Sky Hall King’s disciple?” The man frowned.
“It has nothing to do with my master. It’s because my brother is here,” Li Qingyu replied.
“Haha!”
Li Qingyu was suddenly startled as she noticed that Feng had disappeared. She immediately called out to him, “Feng!”
“Big sister, I’m here.” A voice came from her feet. When Li Qingyu looked down, she immediately smacked herself on the forehead. Because Ye Lingfeng had no interest in Tianming’s fight, he was pulling the weeds on the ground.
At the same time, the battle finally broke out on the stage. Tianming couldn’t be bothered to waste time and made a pact with Ning Wushuang to settle this in a fight between beastmasters. Otherwise, it would be too chaotic if both sides summoned their lifebound beasts for the fight, and Tianming didn’t want to waste any time on her.
As it was a ranking battle, killing one’s opponent was forbidden, but severely injuring them was fine. There were elders watching from the Dao Pagoda behind the Evil Suppression Pillar to enforce that rule. Ning Wushuang held onto her Hurricanesnow Saber and immediately charged over, executing the Cherry Illusory Saber. After making a breakthrough, she had gotten faster and stronger.
“Li Tianming, I’ll let you see if I’m still a fly!” Ning Wushuang couldn’t forget the humiliation she had suffered in their previous fight, and today was her chance to cleanse her humiliation. Right at the start of the battle, she unleashed the Cross Chop. Her technique was faster and more ferocious, and at the same time, her saint ki was also stronger than before.
“She made a breakthrough!”
“She’s in the third level of the Earth Saint stage now!”
“She’s truly terrifying, being able to achieve this even with the lifetime curse. If she didn’t have the curse, she’d probably be ranked in the top three!” many people exclaimed. All of them felt that Tianming, who was only in the Heavenly Will stage, would die under Ning Wushuang’s Flower Burial Dance. To prevent death in the ranking battle, the elder in the Dao Pagoda was even prepared to rescue Tianming. But Tianming remained where he was and swung out his sword, unleashing the Shenxiao Sword Art’s third sword. The three Heavenly Wills began converging toward the Grand-Orient Sword.
“That sword!” Many people could tell that there was something unusual about Tianming.
Tianming’s sword intent burst out in the next moment, along with Jiang Feiling’s Temporal Field, Spatial Wall, and Celestial Wings. This time, Tianming was much stronger than before. With the Insightful Eye, Tianming saw through Ning Wushuang’s illusions and appeared before her.
The Grand-Orient Sword and Hurricanesnow Saber clashed. In the next second, the Hurricanesnow Saber was sent flying away. At the same time, one of her arms flew out, and she screamed out with a pale face, “Arggggh!!”
It was a complete, one-sided suppression. Compared to their previous battle, Ning Wushuang couldn’t put up any fight at all. Tianming slammed his palm down on Ning Wushuang’s head, causing her knees to hit the ground. This time, her bones were shattered, and she couldn’t stand up.
“Urgggh.…” Ning Wushuang knelt on the ground with blood tears streaming down her cheeks, completely dumbfounded. “You and your venomous heart!”
Just when she wanted to raise her head, Tianming kicked her forehead. The momentum behind the kick made her spin a few times in the air. Lying in a puddle of blood, she could only tremble.
Standing before her, Tianming asked, “I heard that the saint origin is located in the dantian?”
“Y-y-you!” Ning Wushuang struggled to raise her head, but what met her was Tianming’s sword stabbing into her Dantian.
“Urggghhh.…” Ning Wushuang widened her eyes with fear. She could sense that her saint origin had been crippled, and her saint ki would slowly dissipate into spiritual energy. With that, her cultivation had been crippled.
“Wuuuu.…” Ning Wushuang could only cry out in pain, lying on the ground. All of her ambitions had been ruined.
“Big brother, what did this girl do?” Feiling was in a daze. She thought that Tianming had only wanted to teach her a lesson, but his mercilessness caught her by surprise.
“I was almost killed by her in the Infernal Soul Purgatory.
“Do you remember Yun Zhenzhen? She killed Yun Zhenzhen and framed me for it, causing Yun Zhenzhen’s father to nearly kill me,” Tianming said, putting his sword away. He said it lightly, but only he knew what danger he was in at that time.
“What a ruthless person to kill someone of her own!” said Feiling.
She would obviously stand firmly together with Tianming. The world was ruthless, and being magnanimous would only get them killed sooner or later. But fortunately, Feiling wasn’t such a person.
“So she deserves it,” said Tianming. He didn’t even look at Ning Wushuang, who was trembling in a pool of blood, and jumped off the stage. When he raised his head, he noticed hundreds of gazes directed at him. Honestly speaking, the ranking battle between beastmasters and lifebound beasts would usually take a long time. Everyone in the surroundings knew that Tianming was Li Qingyu’s brother, and they had just been saying that Tianming was courting death to challenge Ning Wushuang. But in an instant, the battle was over.
The battle lasted less than three breaths and ended with Ning Wushuang lying on the ground. She couldn’t even get up on her feet, which made it clear that she had been crippled. For a moment, everyone was dumbfounded, looking at Tianming with reverence.
“A Heavenly Will defeated a third-level Earth Saint?”
“It’s been barely three breaths!”
“He’s called Li Tianming?”
When Tianming hopped down the stage, the crowd opened a path for him. They couldn’t hide their mood, and they even developed fear toward Tianming. Tianming knew that if the matter of today spread out, everyone in the Decimo Dao Palace, or even the Divine Capital as a whole, would come to know his name. That was great, as he wouldn’t have to introduce himself again and again.
“Hold it right there!” A woman in red suddenly appeared on the stage. She looked bewitching, but she was cold and severe at the moment. It seemed that she was one of the elders supervising the ranking battle between Tianming and Ning Wushuang.
“What’s the matter?” Tianming asked. This woman was a Supernal Mentor in the Saint stage.
“How dare you be so ruthless as to cripple someone here when the two of you have no grudges!” the woman reprimanded.
“Mentor, no one said that we’re not allowed to cripple our opponent in the ranking battle.” Tianming raised his head. When everyone saw how unyielding Tianming was as he spoke to the Supernal Mentor, all of them could feel their scalps going numb. Tianming was this daring?
“Outrageous! Come with me to the Ancient Qilin Clan!” The woman in red said coldly. Ning Wushuang might be from a clan of sinners, but they were still famous. So the woman in red couldn’t explain to them that a genius from their clan had been crippled under her watch.
“No need for that. I just came back from the Infernal Soul Purgatory. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the Future Hall King about it. The three Hall Kings were the ones that brought me back today,” said Tianming. He was a straightforward person, and since he had someone backing him up, he wouldn’t hide it. Sooner or later, everyone in the Decimo Dao Palace would come to know his name and identity. So Tianming made his backing clear, since he didn’t want to repeat it again and again.
“You’re using the Future Hall King as your backer?” The woman in red wanted to laugh. But all of a sudden, an old, rough voice came from the Dao Pagoda.
“Su Hongyin, come back.”
The woman in red was briefly stunned when she heard that, and she couldn’t help taking another look at Tianming. It was clear that she had been called back because that existence didn’t want her making trouble for Tianming. She could only stare at Tianming briefly, then turn back to the Dao Pagoda. Everyone was depressed. They thought that Tianming would be severely punished for his deeds, but in the end, nothing happened to him.
“Who is he?”
“He seems to be related to the Ancient Qilin Clan?”
“Get someone to look into him!”
“Not even Mentor Su could do anything to him, not to mention that he’s also Li Qingyu’s big brother. That means he’s a descendant of the legend, Li Shenxiao!”
“Li Qingyu is a pentabane and enjoys such a high status. So how many bane-rings does he have?”
There were all kinds of discussions about him. Moreover, everyone could see a new name at 180th on the ranking: Li Tianming. Ning Wushuang would drop a rank, according to the rules, but her name had been directly erased. It was all done by Tianming, which made the onlookers curious, and some of them even maliciously speculated.
“Qingyu, Feng, let’s return home.”
“Alright!” Li Qingyu knew that her brother would be fierce. Together, they left the Evil Suppression Plaza. But suddenly, Tianming saw someone familiar standing in the corner looking at him—Jun Niancang. Tianming looked at him from afar, and he could see the sorrow in Jun Niancang’s eyes. This time, Tianming had defeated someone in the third level of the Earth Saint stage all by himself, without relying on a Spiritburn Tome.
The gap between them had grown wider, so could Jun Niancang still take his revenge? Right now, he could only lean against the wall and look at the white-haired youth, who had risen like a sun. There was nothing Jun Niancang could do to stop him.
He initially thought that Tianming would die in the Ancient Qilin Clan, but reality showed that not only could the Ancient Qilin Clan not kill him, they even allowed him to rise into the sky. Tianming was now ranked on the Earth Ranking, and Jun Niancang wondered how high Tianming’s rank would reach after a hundred days.