The crowd roaring for Sir Icarus's blood fell silent as the martial artist stood in the parting dust, spitting a tooth out but smiling a bloody grin, eyes alight with heaven's thunder even as they placidly gazed on his foe, Ar Gau-Lee. The hush from the rows and rows of spectators was so deep you could hear a mouse cough into it's paws, that's how silent the arena was at the moment! Only the sound of crumbling bricks from the Jingu-Bang strike dared interrupt. Sir Icarus drank in the quiet greedily. Oh yes! These were the best moments!

Ar Gau-Lee's cold raptor blue eyes narrowed. The young legend looked at the smiling fool standing before him and thinking about the situation he smirked right back. Of course, the idiot had harmed himself leaping into the ground under his staff! The dust from the arena had obscured it, but he saw the hole in the wall behind his enemy, and further a fresh cave carved into the hill a mile distant. He gripped the orange metal staff and gave it a twirl.

“Your feat dodging it is impressive, considering your full belly! As a reward, I shall show you my invincible staff technique once again, and send you to heaven where you can contemplate the order of everything and your place in it while waiting to be reborn as a tadpole.”

Sir Icarus closed his mouth, lest his own mirth burst out. This was Glass Storm Sect's great up and coming warrior? He had to hold up a hand.

Spectators watched this happen and started to murmur unhappily. They had wanted a real fight! For the first round to be some nobody giving up after one attack. This was supposed to be the elite's chance to show off their pupils. Yet the Old City sect had put this fat fool before them?

Ar Gau-Lee could keep fighting until the idiot yielded, so he set his staff to his side and held out a palm. “Go on, are you going to beg for mercy? If you lay down and grovel now, I won't hit you after you yield.” He sounded magnanimous but it was a lie! His villain heart was full of envy for how Little Wi had chosen to hide in his factions camp. He also not only had the favor of the emperor, but the judges watching were all in his pocket! They wouldn't call a late hit even if a bird called three times after Icarus gave up. He was going to stain the ground with this cheeky brat!

Sir Icarus nodded. “If you wish to give up, or fight my junior, Little-Spear-Heart, he could perhaps cut his teeth on you...”

He paused and watched as Ar Gau-Lee's face twisted in rage. Even the gold beads he wore on his blue-pheonix silk robes danced from his trembling!

“... As long as you brought all your fellow disciples out too. I wouldn't coddle him you know!” Icarus laughed now, and there were gasps in the crowd.

The tall Chameleon Clan Smith in his booth, Lady Xue Zhou, stood up from where she was sitting next to Little-Spear-Heart and called out “Do not be reckless! Ar Gau-Lee is the favorite to win the tournament!” Little-Spear-Heart looked nervous too. 'Ah!' Icarus thought 'I had not sparred in front of them yet.'

His smile only grew as he saw Ar Gau-Lee go red, his face scrunching like a bull about to charge! He pulled his staff up.

“You will regret your impunity! If you live through this attack, then I will be sure they dump your broken form in the street to be trampled into the gutter!”

With that Ar Gau-Lee rushed at the puny Icarus, pulled his staff back, then snapped it forward. It was the Jingu-Bang technique once more, augmented by Glass Storm Sect's blood line to break through any defense! It was called the seven mile strike, because the force of the attack killed anyone foolish enough to stand even seven miles behind an enemy of the Glass Storm Sect! Now, he was going to hit the worm before him with the staff channeling the technique, which if this Icarus was lucky would reduce him to a bloodstain before he could even think of the pain it would cause! Ar Gau-Lee hoped his enemy was stronger then he appeared, just so he could suffer after taking the hit.

His eyes lit up as the man didn't dodge, letting his staff go right at his face! He was dead!

There was a sudden jolt as the staff stopped. There was no retort of explosive Ki blasting another hole in the wall, no spray of red mist, and without the dust that had been kicked up by his first attack he could now clearly see what had happened to the first attack.

Sir Icarus grinned, his teeth clamped onto the staff. He spit it out, nearly jerking the weapon out of Ar Gau-Lee's hands, then wiped his mouth. “I didn't properly catch it the first time, because your chi tastes like garbage! Bleh! Does your clan cultivate in a sewer?”

“What?! IMPOSSIBLE!” Ar Gau-Lee cried out! It was a trick, this man had almost no Ki! He was the lowest of the low, possibly an F- class cultivator.

“Ah, I see the problem. You are a leaky windbag, holding your mouth open like that! Someone probably thought your cultivation base was a latrine and put a turd gem into it!”

The crowd was just stunned. They knew the Glass Storm Sect technique was one of the strongest known styles, and the young master Ar Gau-Lee was expected to win!

Ar Gau-Lee closed his mouth and returned his spirit to confidence. The man had used a treasure! As a proud strong warrior, he could see the man had a merchant's body. Ah, then he would strike him a thousand times, and add to the burden of death reducing the fortune he had spent on impact charms to nothing!

A hundred times his staff lashed out, blasting Ki out and kicking up a cloud of dust as he blasted the far wall of the arena into a thousand thousand shards of dust, destroyed six hills and brought them crashing down into a valley. As he stepped back and planted his staff, he swept a hand over his head to fix a stray strand of hair, then turned and found Little Wi sitting near the brute Icarus had been with the other day. Little Wi's hair was as green as jade, and she was a thin beauty. Of course, her rich family was the real reason he was after her! Crushing this man, he'd not only continue his climb through the ranks of this tournament, but he'd take Little Wi back into his camp and marry her, which of course would let him get her wealth! Then, well, the ambition of man is understood by heaven. Little Wi was unfortunate to have sided with Sir Icarus. Had she come to him openly, she might have been a good third or fourth seat wife, fit for enjoying when he tired of fuller beauties who possessed bodies meant to be used, rather then looked at!

All these thoughts happened when he heard laughing and clapping in the silence after the mountains fell. He spun around, as the crowd had been watching in silence. Then he spotted who was so amused. Up high in his gold booth, the emperor was roaring with laughter, slapping his knee. What? He looked at his staff, confused. Was him crushing a fool so amusing that the legendary cold-hearted Emperor Jiti the second had broken his face? He started to smile himself at the thought. Perhaps he had even greater ambition, a thread of connection between him and the ruler of the entire realm! The smile became a chuckle, then he was laughing as well. It was amusingly perfect! A perfect debut for him in the tournament!

Then he heard the crowd gasp between Emperor Jiti's laughter, and he spun and Ar Gau-Lee saw something impossible!

Sir Icarus stood untouched! Not even his clothes were ruffled by the barrage of attacks!

Ar Gau-Lee was about to attack again when he heard a sound. One that filled his heart with dread, he looked to his side and saw a thin black line snaking down the staff, splitting like a little black thunder bolt. He forced his hand to go still as the creaking noise continued, each little finger of darkness marring the perfect orange finish. 'No this cannot happen!' he cried in his own mind.

The noise stopped and he held the staff still, fearing that any motion would bring this vision of insanity to pass! The weapon forged out of a meteor ox's metal bones could strike the sun and not melt. It took a dragon smith to forge it, no other fire but the breath of a great dragon could do it! They needed a titan to hammer it, for any other being was too weak to move the metal. It had been cooled in the tears of a snow witch, the rarest and coldest material, tempering it so that not even a god could hope to break such a treasure. Yet he saw cracks in it! So he stood very still, willing his staff to stay together.

A faint gust of wind swept across the arena, and in slow motion he felt it stir his hair, play across his neck, catch the cold trail of a sweat drop. The wind brushed his staff, and with that it crumbled into a pile of orange shards. He couldn't help himself, staring like a dumb cow at the staff, then at Sir Icarus, who's eyes were lit up with amusement. All the while the emperor was laughing even harder!

Ar Gau-Lee spit up blood then fainted right there, falling to the ground and dirtying his robes. Everyone was stunned, except the still laughing emperor and of course, Sir Icarus, who simply looked at the judges and tilted his head.

“Does this count as a knock out?”