Lu Yun held his hand high and spun in all four directions, displaying his palm to the crowd.

“Senior brother Chi Wuxia’s facial defense is very strong indeed. Look! My hand’s swollen from it!” he proclaimed with grave solemnity while Chi Wuxia wanted to vomit blood.

If he didn’t emerge the victor today, he’d be the butt of all of the jokes in the chaos even if he died after a valiant showing in the arena.

“Have you heard? Chi Wuxia—you know, the greatest genius of the nine divine sects—his strongest defense is thick skin!”

“Yeah, I have! His skin is so thick that it made the Inception prince’s hand swell up!”

“No wonder Huo Shentong and Jin Gushen are both ranked lower than him. Their skin isn’t as thick as his…”

There would undoubtedly be quips like these after today, ones that included the fire elemental divine sect as well. Maybe it’d just be called the fire elemental sect then.

Chi Wuxia bounded up from the ground with alarmed haste, but when he reached a meter in height, Lu Yun forcefully waved his arm and sent another face slap thundering his way.

The fire elemental disciple plowed back into the ground, creating a human-shaped hole in the arena.

“I thought I’d smash your head like a melon with this slap.” Lu Yun frowned at his hand. “It looks like I’ve underestimated your strongest defense still. You are quite formidable indeed.”

Disoriented and head spinning from the slap, Chi Wuxia asked absentmindedly, “Strongest defense?”

“Your thick skin,” Lu Yun answered matter-of-factly.

“Hahaha. HAHAHA!!” Raucous laughter exploded around them as the six palaces held their bellies and slapped each other on the back. Even the nine divine sects couldn’t help some chuckles.

“AHHH!!” Chi Wuxia realized that he’d been mocked once again and struggled with impotent fury to get to his feet.

Smack!

Out came another face slap to slam him back down.

“Enough!” the Nirvana princess spoke up. “Prince of Inception Palace, it only requires the head hitting the ground to kill someone. Why must you humiliate Chi Wuxia like this?!”

Any fool could tell by now that Lu Yun was doing this on purpose. His cultivation was far superior to his opponent’s, so much so that Chi Wuxia couldn’t last even one move from him!

No one felt that they understood the situation at hand. Lu Yun had been evenly matched with Jin Gushen earlier, so why could he so easily walk over Chi Wuxia like this? Or was Chi Wuxia the same as Huo Zongxing of the fire origin divine sect, both of them strutting around with unearned reputations?

But Chi Wuxia possessed a glorious battle record and had killed countless vicious chaos beasts. There was nothing to doubt about his strength.

Then… the only explanation was that the Inception prince was too strong.

“Humiliate Chi Wuxia?” Lu Yun dropped the act and stared coldly at the Nirvana princess. “That’s right, I’m going to wipe the ground with his face. What can you do about it?”

“You!!” Killing intent flashed across the Nirvana princess’ face at the temerity of Lu Yun targeting her.

Smack!

Lu Yun delivered another ringing slap, one that knocked all of Chi Wuxia’s teeth out of his mouth.

The crowd looked askance at each other. Why had the Inception prince suddenly blown up at the Nirvana princess?

The six sacred palaces had shown up to support him because he was only sixth level mortal realm. His actions now were answering kindness with ingratitude.

“Or does the Nirvana princess wish to have a go in the ring?” Lu Yun walked over and carefully placed a foot right on Chi Wuxia’s face, then shot a frosty glare at the Nirvana princess.

“You humiliate Chi Wuxia because of me?” A gray flame rose in her eyes.

Instead of responding, Lu Yun put his weight on his foot, drawing a frown from the Nirvana princess.

“I know that the nirvana phoenixes possess a combat art of rebirth. You hide a strand of soul force somewhere in the chaos, so that it can be reborn into a new whole if you die,” Lu Yun said instead.

The phoenixes of the world of immortals possessed a similar combat art, but a castrated version. They split part of their souls out, limiting their potential in the process and preventing themselves from practicing the art to its fullest due to an incomplete soul.

The demise of the phoenixes in the world of immortals had been both due to the curse and because of this art of rebirth. The nirvana phoenixes, however, possessed the art in its entirety. Extracting a strand of soul force didn’t impact the soul.

As he possessed the bloodline of a nirvana phoenix, so did Chi Wuxia also possess their combat art. This was why those of Nirvana Palace hadn’t thought he’d died when his soul lamp went out—his soul force didn’t grow back into a new whole.

Given his complete defeat at Lu Yun’s hands, his mother was debating how to provoke Lu Yun so that the Inception prince would kill Chi Wuxia. Rebirth would free her son from this situation.

Lu Yun didn’t fall for it and exposed her instead.

“Prince of Inception Palace, I believe I haven’t offended you, so why do you treat my son this way?” asked the Nirvana princess with a sigh.

“Haven’t offended me? What about Wei Yuan?” Lu Yun demanded coolly. “Wei Yuan turned in his method beyond the chaos, so what crime has he done for you to extract his nirvana phoenix bloodline and cripple his cultivation?!”

Wei Yuan!

Lu Yun was tormenting Chi Wuxia all for Wei Yuan!

Of the Six Royals, the other four were immediately elevated to core disciples when they returned to their sacred palaces. They also shared their reflections beyond the chaos with their faction.

But Wei Yuan didn’t even see the Nirvana monarch before he was imprisoned by his princess. His cultivation was summarily destroyed and his nirvana phoenix bloodline extracted. If it wasn’t for the princess wanting the Thousand Obliteration Formation of the Six Royals, Wei Yuan would’ve died long ago.

Due to their practice of this formation, there was a subtle connection between the Six Royals. If any of them ran into trouble, the other five would immediately sense it. Lu Yun and Qing Yu had employed formula dao to derive the specifics of Wei Yuan’s situation.

Of course, the Nirvana princess didn’t know that the formula dao existed. Otherwise, she only needed to take a few simple preventative measures to conceal her actions.

“Nonsense!” some Nirvana disciples instantly refuted. “Her Highness sent Wei Yuan to cultivate in the Nirvana Sea of Flames after he offered up his method to the palace. He’s a core disciple now!”

“Be careful of what you speak of, prince of Inception Palace! There is no room for nonsense here!”

Though Lu Yun was the Inception prince, he was only sixth level mortal realm. As stunning as his feats were in the Inception Spiritrial Arena, even Chi Wuxia would be able to crush him with a finger once all this was over, to say nothing of the abundant Nirvana experts.

“Besides, even if Wei Yuan’s been crippled and locked away, that would be due to certain crimes he’s committed. An outsider has no place in the internal affairs of Nirvana Palace!” Nirvana disciples were disgruntled with Lu Yun’s humiliation of Chi Wuxia to begin with, so this was the perfect opportunity for them to take a stand.

“I don’t care about your internal matters, but Wei Yuan is my friend. Since your princess is torturing him, then I’ll torture her son!”

Craaack!

Lu Yun leaned heavily on his foot and drew forth a series of teeth numbing cracks from Chi Wuxia’s face. However, Chi Wuxia set his jaw and refused to scream.