Wu Jian breathed in sharply as he dodged the swinging scythe that came scant centimeters from carving a bloody furrow through his face. He thought that would be the end of it, but several droplets of blood flew from the scythe as it passed, each one changing into the shape of a needle.

[Spatial Folding]

Wu Jian created a tear in space. The blood needles flew through it, then appeared out of another tear behind Shā Ying Yue. If this was another type of attack, they would have struck her in the back, but Shā Ying Yue had complete control over her own blood even after it left the body. The blood curved around her and returned to the scythe in her hands.

“You’ve become even better at using that strange power of yours!” Shā Ying Yue said.

“And you’ve become stronger,” Wu Jian admitted. “But I’m not going to lose here.”

“Hah! I was thinking the same thing!”

Shā Ying Yue raised her scythe and swung it down. Wu Jian didn’t know what she was doing, but he prepared for anything.

[Blood Wave]

Anything except the giant wave of blood sweeping toward him and Mei Xilan. It was so massive that it covered the entire arena. Just how much blood was she using?! That was way more than a gallon!

While Mei Xilan leapt into the air to avoid the wave, Wu Jian summoned Pale Moon, which he hadn’t used until this moment, and swung the sword down as though to cleave through the heavens.

[Spatial Severing]

A massive tear in space opened before him. Midnight darkness and glimmering stars appeared behind the tear, which rent the blood wave in half. The split waves crashed on either side, leaving him unharmed.

“Did you think that was the end of it?!” asked Shā Ying Yue as she made a handseal. “Crush him!”

The blood traversing either side like a stream suddenly converged on him. This was an attack meant to crush him under the supreme pressure and strength of her blood. The blood soon engulfed Wu Jian completely, until not a single part of his body could be seen.

Shā Ying Yue grinned. “Well, that takes care of--eh?”

[Nihility]

Shā Ying Yue’s eyes grew wide when Wu Jian walked out of her attack as though nothing had happened. Noticing her surprise, Wu Jian went on the attack. He swung Pale Moon so quickly and so fast that it only appeared as a multitude of flashes. Each flash of light was a tear in space, and each tear flew toward Shā Ying Yue.

[Swords of Space Rondo]

Eyes bulging, Shā Ying Yue tried to block one of the spatial tears with a shield of blood, but the spatial attack tore straight through it. There wasn’t a substance known to man that could block an attack that tore through space--at least, to the best of his knowledge. Shā Ying Yue had no choice but to scramble away from his attacks. She flipped and jumped and rolled along the ground, doing her best to dodge the unceasing stream of attacks he sent at her.

She’s very graceful.

Even while scrambling to and fro to avoid his attacks, she continued to move with a belly dancer’s grace. He was impressed. However, he had no intention of letting this battle continue.

[Spatial Folding]

Immediately after his last attack, Wu Jian shoved his hand through a portal, grabbed Shā Ying Yue’s left leg, and yanked. The woman squawked in surprise as she went down. She tried to stand back up, but he threw Pale Moon so hard that it sliced through several strands of her hair before becoming embedded into the ground near her face. As Shā Ying Yue froze in shock, Wu Jian appeared before her, grabbed Pale Moon, and pointed the tip at her face.

“This is my win,” he declared.

“Ah ha ha ha. Yeah, it seems like it.” Shā Ying Yue smiled easily, uncaring about whether she won or lost. “You’ve become really strong, huh? I didn’t even manage to cut you this time.”

Wu Jian shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you did. Your blood techniques don’t work on me since I can easily remove your blood from my body.”

Nihility was a technique that caused Wu Jian to phase out of this space and into another, thus granting him an incorpeal form. Anything that was not a part of Wu Jian was removed. This included poison, blood, and forgein objects. He was a little surprised after some experimentation to realize that he could also remove his clothes this way if he wanted. They technically weren’t a part of him, but he often considered them to be so, which was why they normally remained even after he used the technique.

“Haaah. You just have a counter for everything, don’t you?” Shā Ying Yue released all the oxygen in her lungs in a single breath. “All right. I surrender.”

Huǒ Yan raised his hand. “All of Team Four’s members have surrendered or are unable to fight. The winner of this round is Team Three!”

The audience burst into raucous applause as the crazy cheers. Not a single person present remained sitting. They stood out, clapping and shouting, creating a cacophony of noise so loud that it caused Wu Jian’s eardrums to feel like they were going to burst. He ignored the sounds as best he could and held out a hand toward Shā Ying Yue. She looked at the hand, unsure at first, but then smiled and placed hers in his, allowing him to pull her up.

“You never would have beaten me back then. It feels like I’m getting left behind,” she said with a wistful smile.

Wu Jian shrugged. He didn’t know what to tell her. He had worked hard to get to where he was.

“I won’t lose next time,” she told him.

“No, you will. I refuse to be beaten by anyone,” Wu Jian declared. He was going to keep getting stronger and stronger, so nothing like the tragedy of his family’s destruction would ever happen again, so no one would be able to take away something so precious again. Wu Jian refused to lose anything else.

***

Wu Jian and Mei Xilan made their way back to the competitors sitting area and watched the rest of the battles for the day. There were a lot of great cultivators battling, so Wu Jian made sure to pay attention.

Both the Yuan Peninsula and Zhou Kingdom lost their matches.

The Yuan Peninsula was a mere shadow of its former self thanks to the magical beast rampage that took place within its borders. Their kingdom had been returned to them thanks to the efforts of the Heavenly Sword Sect, but that meant very little in the grand scheme of things. So many of their best and brightest cultivators had died during that incident. The cultivators who were now fighting in this tournament were much weaker than everyone else. Wu Jian thought it would have been better for them if they declined to attend. No one would have blamed them after what happened, but he guessed it was impossible when their pride was on the line.

While the Zhou Kingdom was in a better position than the Yuan Peninsula, they had still been considerably weakened and ultimately that cost them victory. Wu Jian saw this as poetic justice. They had used the disaster that befell the Yuan Peninsula to prevent the Heavenly Sword Sect from intervening and tried to invade the Shang Kingdom. He felt no pity for them. In either event, their strongest cultivator had only been at the sixth subrealm of the Human Limit Realm. They hadn’t stood a chance.

There were three teams they needed to watch out for. He had named them Team Sui, Team Tang, and Team Ten, based on the nations they had come from. Team Sui was from the Sui Kingdom, Team Tang was from the Tang Dynasty, and Team Ten hailed from the Ten Kingdom’s Alliance.

Team Ten had Da Feiyu, who had proven during his bout that he was a force to be reckoned with. They had fought againt the Northern Jin Kingdom, a land located far to the north, with cultivators who were known for their incredibly powerful yin chi and yin-based techniques. Da Feiyu was likely a second subrealm Deva Realm cultivator. Wu Jian couldn’t sense his power, but he had been learning to figure out how powerful an individual was from subtle clues like what techniques they used and how much chi they could release.

What made Team Ten so formidable was not just Da Feiyu’s power as an individual. It was how he directed the others. His team had managed to defeat the cultivators from the Northern Jin Kingdom using nothing but team work and basic techniques, and in doing so, he ensured that none of the competitors knew anything about what sort of powers he and his companions had. Wu Jian didn’t know what sort of cultivation method they used, what kind of techniques they relied on as individuals, or even what their individual cultivation levels were. All he knew was that each member was at the Deva Realm, which he only knew because he could not detect their cultivation.

Team Tang the last group that he believed they had to be wary of. They hailed from the Southern Tang Dynasty, a peaceful country ruled by the man known as “The Wisest Emperor.” It was a country of scholars. This well-known country had many sects that placed a heavy emphasis on scholarly pursuits and research to deepen their understanding of the cultivation arts. Many of the techniques used by people around the world originated from this country.

It was also the country where Supreme Ocean Palace was based out of, though saying they were “based out of” this country was a misnomer since, like the other two Celestial Sects, they were housed inside of their own dimension.

Team Tang’s five members were all relatively strong, but it was their leader who made him the wariest. Her name was Tang Tiantian. She was the daughter of Emperor Tang Bailin, the man known throughout the Xaio Continent for his wisdom. Her weapon of choice was called a gun. Known as The Grandfather of all Weapons, the gun was a long staff and one of the four major weapons alongside the qiang, dao, and jian. The one she used was actually the chang gun, a variation of the traditional gun which was longer than average by about a dozen chih.

The other country that won was the Ming Province, which had fought against the Han Dynasty, a nation known for their artisans.

Once all of the battles had concluded, Huǒ Huangdi stood up to give a speech.

“Congratulations to all the teams who won. You have proven your might and earned glory for your nation. The next round of matches will start tomorrow. We will be rotating your teams to allow you to fight another team. This will continue until each team has fought against each other. Teams who win will earn a point. The more points you accumulate, the higher your ranking will be. At the end of the team tournament, we will select five teams with the most points to take part in the individual tournament. The first day has now come to an end. I once more congratulate you all on a good showing.”

Huǒ Huangdi concluded his speech and left the arena alongside Huǒ Yulie, who glanced in his direction before vanishing with her father and elders. The three people from the Three Celestial Sects also left with their members in tow. Wu Jian stared after the veiled woman as she disappeared alongside the Heavenly Sword Sect’s sect master.

That has to be Wu Meiying. She’s really here. Will we get the chance to meet? And what will I do if we meet? I don’t know yet.

Wu Jian had yet to reach a decision about what he should do in regards to Wu Meiying. It was a bridge he wouldn’t be able to cross until he reached it, he supposed.

He and Mei Xilan met back up with Hua Xue and Yu Chenguang and headed to their hotel. They had dinner and discussed the competitors for the tournament. Hua Xue, with her incredible inside, told them which cultivators they should be wariest of, though she did not tell them what their cultivation was at. She wanted them to go in without that knowledge, claiming there would be times when they would have to fight for their lives blind.

Dinner reached an end, and they all parted ways. Wu Jian walked into his room and shut the door. He planned on cleaning himself off, but he paused in the middle of his room and stiffened. There was a presence he hadn’t noticed until just now. A trickle of sweat ran down his face as he felt the presence at his back. Who was it?

“It… has been a long time… Jian…”

That voice…

Wu Jian turned around, scarcely able to breath. A woman stood before him, more beautiful than a painting, more perfect than a glass doll. She looked no different now than she had when they parted ways. Her small nose was cute, her almond eyes held the same beauty and wisdom, and her full lips remained the same. If he had to say what was different, it would be the uncertainty on her face and the sorrow in her eyes.

She was dressed in a black and gray ruqun hanfu, a somber outfit that fit her current expression. Long hair, like midnight given form, was tied into a half-bun. The remaining threads of hair trailed down like threads of silk. Cultivators never needed makeup to look beautiful, though some still wore it. She wore no makeup. She didn’t need it.

Standing there like a vision turned real, a dream come to life, was Wu Meiying.