"To think that Sanshan's city-guarding treasure, the Mountain-Shaking Hammer, was passed down to this little girl." Up on the viewing stand, Wei Quji narrowed his eyes.
Lin Zhengren's battle system was built around Dao arts of the water and wood elements — wood feeding water in turn, a whole that proved far greater than the sum of its parts.
Yet under Sun Xiaoman's two great hammers, it collapsed at the first touch.
The Entangling Wall of Vine-Snakes burst apart, and that long whip named the Jade Python was knocked back into its artifact form, sent flying far off.
The waves surged up beneath Lin Zhengren's feet, bearing him clear of Sun Xiaoman's hammer-strokes.
This was his second instantaneous Dao art — what Lin Zhengren had engraved was the triple surge.
Even as his hidden cards ran out, and even the family heirloom artifact was sent spinning from his hands, Lin Zhengren neither panicked nor lost his composure.
"Isn't this the Three-City Dao Debate?" He smiled lightly. "How is it that Miss Sun of Sanshan City's Dao Academy fights like a mere martial artist? Could it be that with Chu Ping dead, Sanshan City has altogether lost its orthodox line?"
He attacked, in a manner light as clouds and wind, the very legitimacy of Sun Xiaoman's participation.
From the stand, Dong A said calmly: "The Zhuang state reveres the Dao, but does not belittle other schools. On the field of combat, let strength be the only judge."
Just then there came a sudden crack — a thunderclap from the level ground.
It was Zhang Linchuan, who with a lightning Dao art had easily felled Sanshan City's opponent, as if setting down a footnote to Dong A's words.
Nearby, the other fifth-year bout between Wangjiang City and Fenglin City was still locked in combat, the fight already grown intense.
Once battle begins, only victory and defeat matter.
Lin Zhengren, of course, did not believe that a martial-arist identity alone could make Sun Xiaoman forfeit without a fight — otherwise the bout need not have begun at all.
He was merely testing whether this little girl's spirit was truly so unyielding, so immovable.
Did the death of the Eldest Senior Brother of Sanshan City's Dao Academy not move anyone to sorrow?
Sun Xiaoman's great hammers came.
She swung the hammers, each as tall as she was, yet she wielded them as lightly and deftly as one dancing before a lantern flame.
Still, Chu Ping's death had left its mark on her.
Her hammer's momentum ran too heavy.
That detail was tiny almost to the point of nothing — yet Lin Zhengren could not possibly fail to notice it.
The waves carried his feet, letting him leap with ease.
The triple surge, sending him again and again, brought Lin Zhengren soaring above the Mountain-Shaking Hammer.
His toe lightly planted upon the hammer.
That touch of force would have meant nothing to Sun Xiaoman — she was a martial expert who wielded great hammers, with strength enough in her two hands to shoulder a thousand catties.
But at that very instant, centered on Lin Zhengren, all the primal qi in the air burst into chaos.
Behind him, in the void, a gateway seemed to coalesce — the reflection of the physical body.
Between heaven and earth there is a gate, and man is the gate of heaven and earth.
As if a great sound rang out, and yet as though it were utterly silent.
The gate flung open!
Then the primal qi submitted, and heaven and earth were joined.
He could have opened the Heaven-Earth Gate long ago, yet such was his confidence that he chose to open it at this very moment.
It showed that he commanded the entirety of the battle, that the Heaven-Earth Gate had long ceased to be any obstacle to him. He had probably simply grown used to keeping his fangs sheathed — a tiger dissembling as a pig.
He had connected heaven and earth, bound himself to the world. He had no need to seek power without; he himself already possessed greatness.
He was already of the Sixth-Rank Dragon-Rising Realm — a power of the middle three grades!
One foot pressed down, and the Mountain-Shaking Hammer smote the ground beyond recall, shattering the floor tiles and sinking into the earth.
Sun Xiaoman still had not let go — though that hammer, plunging into the ground, dragged her whole body tilting down, she only borrowed the force to roll over, and her other hammer followed with a backlash, roaring at Lin Zhengren in an attempt to drive him back.
Yet the gap between a middle-grade master and a beginning-rank cultivator was tremendous.
Lin Zhengren's fingers shifted ever so slightly, and then he snapped them open.
From his palm, a small dragon coalesced from water-element primal qi, roaring out.
Roar!
The water dragon drank in primal qi and swelled as it went, dashing straight against the great hammer, then pressing it onward to slam into Sun Xiaoman, hurling girl and hammer together flying.
An A-Class low-grade Dao art — Water Dragon Wave.
Of the two Mountain-Shaking Hammers, one had been knocked from her hand and lay buried in the earth. The other pressed down upon Sun Xiaoman, driving her to a state beyond life and death.
In the very next moment, the great hammer atop the barefoot girl stirred. She drew in a deep breath, shifted the hammer off herself, and abruptly stood.
Jiang Wang thought he could vaguely understand why Yang Xingyong and Zhao Tiehe had fought so desperately.
Their third-years and fifth-years were not strong — one could even call them weak. That little fatty, to be sure, was nearly undefeatable in defense within his own grade, but he was far too young, his accumulation nowhere near enough.
The first-year bout was likely their only chance to take the crown — their only chance to show off Sanshan City's future promise. The Sanshan City Dao Academy had lost ten cultivators along with its Eldest Senior Brother Chu Ping, all of them experts among the students; talent could already be called thinning at the roots. That was why Sun Xiaoman, a girl trained purely in martial arts, had to step forward and lead. That was why Sun Xiaoyan, a thirteen-year-old little fatty, had been coaxed and wheedled into coming along with his mother's tacit consent.
For no other reason than that Sanshan City, at this moment, was desperate for resources! The Three-City Dao Debate, which governed the Royal Court of Zhuang's resource distribution, meant everything to them.
And now Sanshan City's other fifth-year had already been defeated by Zhang Linchuan besides. All the pressure rested on this barefoot girl.
So she stood.
Even with her breastbone plainly collapsed. Even with an opponent who had already revealed Sixth-Rank strength.
Her small, delicate figure swayed — but would not yield.
Lin Zhengren beckoned, and the Jade Python whip, knocked away at the start of the fight, flew back into his hand.
This whip could amplify the might of his wood-element Dao arts.
He hesitated not a whit, nor was there the smallest wavering.
Almost mechanically, and with extreme speed, he formed his seals again.
A great green python burst from the ground and coiled Sun Xiaoman round and round.
In a single loop, the barefoot girl's figure had quite vanished from sight. Girl and hammer alike were sealed within the great python's coiling body.
An A-Class low-grade Dao art — the Green Python Coil.
He was this strong!
Already this strong, and still this steady. Steady almost to the point of leaving no trick untried.
A cultivator such as Lin Zhengren was the most terrible kind of opponent — one who never gave an enemy an opening.
"Sister!"
Outside the field, Sun Xiaoyan had nearly broken into sobs.
A single hand closed around the neck of the great green python. Set against the python's bulk, that hand looked very small.
But it was very strong.
It was Dong A's hand.
He gave a casual shake, and the entire great python silently crumbled to pieces, revealing the coiled Sun Xiaoman.
She slumped down.
Her consciousness had long since fallen unconscious, yet her hand still clutched tight to the single Mountain-Shaking Hammer that remained.
"You have won." Dong A said to Lin Zhengren.
Lin Zhengren inclined his body, his courtesy impeccably perfect: "Dong, your pains have been great."
Only then did the referee come over to move Sun Xiaoman off the field. This referee, sent from the commandery seat, had himself only just managed to push open the Heaven-Earth Gate; to the fight that had just ended, he had been too slow to intervene.
Dong A waved a hand, signaling that the next round might begin.
Watching Dong A drift back to his seat upon the stand, Wei Quji's lips did not move, but a voice arose: "The Mountain-Shaking Hammer has already acknowledged its master. This girl will be formidable in years to come. Why not simply have Lin Zhengren do away with her?"
"Her husband dead these few years past, and now her daughter dead too. The one atop Sanshan will go mad."
"Tigress that she is, the feud's with Wangjiang City. What has that to do with my Fenglin City? If this little girl lives, who of her own age is a match for her? In time she will only block the road of Fenglin's children."
Dong A did not look at him, but a faint voice passed back to his ear: "The children of Sanshan, the children of Fenglin — all are the children of our Zhuang state."
Wei Quji spoke no more, and neither agreed nor demurred.