Chapter 279: A Great Vengeance Fulfilled

The Old Man looked toward Xu Chengyi in the crowd. Coincidentally, Xu Chengyi raised his head to meet his gaze.

The two men, both nearing sixty, stared at each other across the distance, looking as though they had stepped twenty years into the past.

A few seconds of silence passed.

the Old Man spoke softly:

"Come up."

Xu Chengyi's lips moved. Then, taking in the strange gazes of the surrounding crowd, he suddenly glared, his eyes turning fierce:

"Fine, I'll come up! Some things need to be settled!!!"

He soared into the air, bounding up the Celestial Steps to where the Old Man stood.

How much of this was forced by the situation, and how much stemmed from his hatred for the Old Man, even he couldn't say for sure.

But it was time to end this.

Today.

On the ground, the crowd looked up at the two figures on the Celestial Steps, sighing in lament.

One was the Great Grandmaster with the most potential in recent years. The other was a Martial Arts Peak, a realm unseen for centuries.

Who could have imagined these two came from the same master?

And who could have imagined they would become mortal enemies?

Though the exact details of the past remained unclear, looking at them now, it was a feud that would only end in death.

"Do we fight first, or talk first?"

the Old Man asked flatly.

"Fight first."

Xu Chengyi said.

Just like in the past, whatever the issue, they would fight before talking.

"Alright."

The Old Man nodded.

Dark gold and black. Two monstrous tides of weird energy surged around them like massive waves.

Neither spoke another word.

They cupped their fists in a mutual salute, then instantly clashed!!!

There were no weapons, nor any flashy abilities. The Old Man unleashed a Fourth Tier Martial Body, while Xu Chengyi, as a body cultivator, activated his Fourth Tier Combat Body along with his Fifth Tier Divine Power. Fists, feet, and palms blurred as they traded countless blows in an instant.

The weird energy rippled outward like pitch-black waves, gently distorting the space around them.

To the crowd below, this scene appeared differently depending on the viewer. Those with higher cultivation saw it clearly, understanding the sheer peril of the exchange. Those with lower cultivation only saw brilliant, firework-like flashes of light and the blurring afterimages of the two fighters.

"Master Liu has the slight upper hand."

A highly cultivated Martial Instructor spoke up, informing the people around him of the situation.

The Old Man, sitting at the Fourth Tier, was actually holding the advantage against the Fifth Tier Xu Chengyi.

Eyes went wide across the crowd; everyone drew a sharp breath.

But a bystander with even more profound cultivation saw through it:

"Not a slight upper hand. Master Liu is holding back. Great Grandmaster Xu is already on the verge of losing."

!!!

These words sent turbulent waves of shock through the listeners.

The master of the man who had just spoken immediately smacked him on the back of the head.

"If you don't understand, shut up and get to the back! You're embarrassing yourself!"

The man rubbed his head aggrievedly, not daring to utter another word, while the Fifth Tier elder sighed.

"Master Liu has already figured Great Grandmaster Xu out completely. This match is nothing more than an old man toying with a child—"

Unable to describe their current feelings, the crowd simply tilted their heads up to stare at the sky.

Several minutes later, the Old Man and Xu Chengyi stopped as if by unspoken agreement.

Neither appeared to have any obvious injuries.

Xu Chengyi stepped back, making a gesture to pause, then sat cross-legged on the ground:

"What is that move called?"

"I don't know either."

the Old Man answered calmly.

"How much of your strength did you use?"

Xu Chengyi straightened his pure white robes.

"There are four stages in total. I reached the Second Stage."

the Old Man said flatly.

This exchange felt just like twenty years ago.

Back then, whenever they finished sparring, it was always like this. Xu Chengyi asked a lot of questions, and he answered even more.

Because Xu Chengyi knew he wouldn't lie.

And he knew that whatever Xu Chengyi answered wasn't necessarily true.

"Impressive."

Xu Chengyi nodded and laughed.

"To think that the worthless piece of trash who had nothing back then could actually reach this point today."

The Old Man fell silent.

He knew Xu Chengyi wasn't just insulting him with those words, but mocking him—implying that a large part of why he had reached this point today was owed to their master's sect.

"The Liu Fu of the past is already dead."

He said calmly, "And some debts have already been repaid in full."

"Heh, hehe."

Xu Chengyi sneered, dusting off his sleeves.

"Dead indeed, just not dead enough. Liu Fu, tell me... why in the world did you have to survive?!"

"Why didn't you just die completely?!!"

As he spoke, he looked up at the Old Man, his dark, sinister eyes filled with resentment.

"If you had died, I, Xu Chengyi, would be the Great Grandmaster with the most potential in the Third Lake Prefecture! The successor to the position of Vice Guildmaster of the Martial Guild! The current Martial Saint!!!"

"But you just had to come back!"

"Once I die, the Yiqi Martial Arts Gym will have no successor and will inevitably fall into ruin!!! That is the sect that raised you! The life's blood of the master who saved your life!! Who are you being fair to, Liu Fu? Search your conscience—who have you done right by?!!"

"Master never should have picked you up back then!!!"

He was practically roaring, the veins bulging on his neck.

The Old Man's face remained impassive.

"I won't lay a hand on him. The Yiqi Martial Arts Gym will also be spared."

His gaze was serene. "I, Liu Fu, have done right by myself."

...

Hearing the Old Man's words, Xu Chengyi fell silent for several dozen seconds.

Then, he began to sneer.

"You really have changed, Liu Fu. In the past, if I said these things, you'd probably be shedding tears by now, wouldn't you? Maybe you'd even let me off the hook."

"It seems you already know everything."

"You know that I was the one who leaked the secret of your hidden ailment back then. You also know that Master only took you in so you could challenge the other gyms. You know that from beginning to end, Master only ever valued me and my superior talent, looking down on a country bumpkin like you."

Xu Chengyi's voice wasn't quiet.

The crowd on the ground turned their eyes toward the figure with white hair and beard sitting in a wheelchair.

At this moment, the master of the two men sat in that wheelchair.

Hearing Xu Chengyi's words, a look of sheer terror filled his eyes. He shook his head desperately, using all his strength to speak.

"No... It wasn't... It wasn't like that... No..."

He was truly very old. His cultivation wasn't high, his martial realm had stalled at the Grandmaster Rank, and just speaking left him gasping for breath.

But the more he tried to explain, the more disdainful the gazes of those around him became.

No one had expected the highly respected guildmaster of the Yiqi Martial Arts Gym to be this kind of person.

"It wasn't... It wasn't me..."

The old master felt the piercing gazes from the crowd, sensing them like daggers stabbing into him until his flesh was completely mangled.

Throughout his entire life, the thing he valued most was his reputation.

But right now, there was nothing he could do. He could only wave his frail, aged hands in desperation.

Up on the Celestial Steps, Xu Chengyi kept talking.

"But there are still things you don't know, Liu Fu."

The corners of his mouth curled up.

"I wasn't the one who came up with the idea to leak your hidden ailment back then!"

He burst into laughter as he spoke, laughing until tears sprang from his eyes.

"Bet you didn't expect that, did you? The master you respected the most actually dropped hints to me time and time again to expose your weakness, all just to establish his gym! I had originally prepared something entirely different for you. I contacted a Great Grandmaster from the eighteenth gym to serve as your final battle."

"Even if you won the seventeenth match, there was absolutely no way you were surviving the eighteenth!!!"

Xu Chengyi's eyes were as vicious as a viper's. "So you should actually be thanking Master. If it weren't for him, how could you have survived?"

"However, the one who begged for mercy on your behalf back then really was me. I thought—haha—I thought that compared to outright executing you, having the tendons in your hands and feet severed would be far more agonizing for you..."

At this point, Xu Chengyi no longer had any reservations. He only wanted the satisfaction of spilling everything.

Because he was about to die.

In his exchange with the Old Man just now, he appeared uninjured on the surface, but in reality, every meridian in his body had been shattered into pieces. Just sitting upright was taking every ounce of strength he could muster.

If the Old Man didn't let him seek treatment, the only outcome was death.

He reached out, tugging at the hem of his pants, and laughed wildly.

"I, Xu Chengyi, have had better talent than you, Liu Fu, since we were children! If I hadn't grown lazy, how could it ever be your turn to take the Heavenly Gate Challenge! How could it! ...Cough, cough, cough." The Old Man's gaze was devoid of joy or sorrow:

"But you are going to die."

"This is the Third Lake Prefecture. No one remembers a dead man."

"They will only remember this battle between us, and that I won."

"..."

The Old Man's words finally punctured the last shred of Xu Chengyi's calm facade.

He suddenly flew into a blind rage. His pomaded hair scattered wildly, and the robes he had spent so long straightening fell into disarray. Looking utterly wretched, he roared at the Old Man:

"Damn you! Liu Fu! Damn you!!! I'll kill you—"

He reached out, trying to strangle the Old Man's neck, but he quickly and horrifically realized that he couldn't move a single muscle.

And so, he instantly adopted a new face, shifting expressions faster than turning the pages of a book:

"Save me, Senior Brother! Save me, I'm your junior brother! You can't just watch me die! I was wrong, I was really wrong, Senior Brother—"

He sobbed, snot and tears streaming down his face as his wrinkle-covered features contorted.

A Great Grandmaster, right now, in front of the entirety of the Third Lake Prefecture, was acting like a dog wagging its tail and begging for pity.

And the Old Man quietly watched him draw his last breath. Only when Xu Chengyi stopped moving entirely did he release a burst of weird energy, tearing open both of the corpse's sleeves.

"Clatter."

Two Single-Edged Swords dropped out from the sleeves. One glance was enough to tell they were laced with poison.

His eyes lowered, looking toward the old master in the wheelchair among the crowd.

With just one glance, his gaze trembled.

The old master was already dead, his head tipped back and his pupils dilated as he slumped in the wheelchair.

He had taken his own life.

The ugliest deeds of his entire life had been exposed by his beloved disciple, while the one left standing was the country bumpkin disciple he had personally pushed into the abyss.

The one he had always considered a stain on his legacy.

And now, that stain had climbed to heights he wouldn't even dare to dream of.

For a man who had valued his reputation above all else for his entire life, this left him with no way out but death.

"Is there anyone else who wishes to challenge?"

From atop the steps, the Old Man spoke.

On the ground, no one responded.

Until dozens of minutes later, when the Old Man nodded.

"Then Liu Fu has passed the Martial Heart Trial."

Shortly after his words fell, a beam of light shot out from the War-Quelling Drum, enveloping the Old Man on the Celestial Steps and transporting him to the end of the staircase, right in front of that door.

The Old Man looked up at the Old Man, who now stood far above him, and couldn't help but mutter:

"Could the legends be true?"

Rumor had it that anyone who successfully passed the Heavenly Gate Challenge could completely replace all of their existing cultivation abilities with those of Martial Cultivation.

Soon, waves of drumbeats sounded from the War-Quelling Drum.

The crowd on the ground felt an irresistible force erupt from the War-Quelling Drum, as if compelling them to cup their fists and bow toward the Old Man at the end of the Celestial Steps.

In an instant, everyone bent at the waist.

Seeing this, the Old Man seized the opportunity to announce:

"For thousands of years, Liu Fu is the first of us to successfully complete the Heavenly Gate Challenge! He accomplished such a grand feat by drawing upon the strengths of many,"

"dedicating himself wholly to martial arts, and striving ceaselessly for self-improvement."

"From this day forth, the practice of martial arts gyms hoarding their secrets is completely abolished! If any gym is found hiding their arts again, they will be severely punished without mercy!"

"Understood!!!"

The crowd of Martial Instructors cupped their fists and shouted in unison. None dared to object.

Even the few ancient figures hiding in the shadows had flickering gazes, too afraid to show themselves.

The Old Man's eyes were filled with joy as he looked toward the Old Man:

"Liu Fu, push the door!"

"Understood."

The Old Man gave a slight nod. Placing both hands on the ancient, unsophisticated Stone Door, he gave a hard push. In the next instant, his figure vanished from where he stood.

Paima County.

Beside Yan Jing's ear, the narrator's voice of the Ghoulish Life Role-playing Game sounded out.

[Security Officer's Loyalty Level is full]

[You may choose any one of his abilities to learn]