“You want to challenge Ghost Dragon?” gaped Leng Che, Azureclad and the others. Ghost Dragon also turned to Lu Yun with surprise.
“Are you crazy, Champion Duke? He’s the strongest of us three and you think he’s easy to bully?!” Leng Che repeated with incredulity.
“So you’re the strongest.” Lu Yun gravely took his measure of his opponent. “Since it’s a challenge, I’m going to challenge the strongest. Otherwise, people will think that the Champion Duke only picks on weaklings.”
The crowd didn’t know how to react to this astonishing about-face. He’d just said that Ghost Dragon looked easy to bully, but now wanted nothing less than the strongest?
“What do you think, Ghost Dragon?” asked the Dragonfeather King. Though Ghost Dragon was an exceedingly strong cultivator who rivaled a titled duke, only Leng Che had a title out of the three of them.
Titled dukes were different from titled kings since the latter was bestowed by the Hongmeng Tower. Meanwhile, titled dukes meant public acknowledgement and acceptance of the half step king’s strength.
Those who gave themselves a title without validation by others were treated as jokes. It was why so many had intensely disliked Lu Yun when he first appeared in Cloudexit City.
There were four publicly acknowledged titled dukes in the Hongmeng—the Azureclad, Purpleclad, Bloodclad, and Crimsonclad Dukes. Though others like the Poisondragon Duke also bore titles, he wasn’t as renowned as the first four.
Although Qing Ting was stronger than her brother, she still lacked a title. It wasn’t that she didn’t want one, but that her strength hadn’t been validated by the realm. While she bickered and smacked her brother regularly, she would never defeat him in public and humiliate him in such a way.
……
“Since this Champion Duke wishes to take my spot, I will naturally step forward to defend it.” Ghost Dragon responded shyly, as if he was a young and innocent boy. However, a chilly hint sparkled in his eyes. He pushed off the balls of his feet and landed in the center of the sparring ring.
“If I defeat this Champion Duke, might I have a title of my own?” He suddenly looked hopefully at the Dragonfeather King.
“If you emerge victorious, I will bestow you with the title of Ghostdragon Duke,” chuckled Dragonfeather. As a sixth step king, he absolutely had the right to give a title to a half step king.
“My thanks to Your Majesty Dragonfeather!” Absolutely delighted, Ghost Dragon turned back around and regarded Lu Yun with excitement. “I’ve always wanted a title of my own. Who would’ve thought that you’d be my chance to get one!
“The Ghostdragon Duke, hehehe!!” He looked merrily at his opponent.
Lu Yun furrowed his brows. Though Ghost Dragon brimmed with happiness, it seemed only skin deep. The emotion was just camouflage for the true feelings in the depths of his heart. Ghost Dragon gave him an unfathomable feeling, like he was an ancient well whose depths could not be plumbed.
“Let’s fight!”
Whoosh!
A long spear appeared in Ghost Dragon’s hands, one that was black throughout like a snarling black dragon. The air hummed with strange pulses when the spear vibrated. It wasn’t any kind of legendary treasure, just a very ordinary spear. The combat art that Ghost Dragon imbued it with instilled uncanny qualities into the spear.
Strong cultivators could project their combat arts onto their treasures and turn anything into a weapon. Ghost Dragon had plainly reached this level.
Lu Yun summoned the ordinary flying sword he’d used in the Army Pagoda with a wave of his hand. Waves of cerulean sword radiance blossomed from the sword, shrouding the void.
“Are you not using your Stellar Sword, Champion Duke?” Azureclad raised a brow.
“Aren’t you the one who doesn’t want me to use it?” Lu Yun complained. “Relying on the keenness of a treasure… Ghost Dragon… Duke won’t accept my superiority if that’s how I beat him.”
He enunciated “duke” with particular clarity.
Azureclad shrugged and fell silent, whereas Qing Ting was very confident in Lu Yun. In her eyes, Lu Yun almost rivaled her and could stand toe-to-toe with a second step king. He wouldn’t even break a sweat against Ghost Dragon.
“Let us begin.” The Dragonfeather King gestured for the fight to commence.
……
Ghost Dragon didn’t waste time with words. He brandished his spear, transforming it into a black dragon with a hum and sending it at Lu Yun’s chest.
Lu Yun struck out as well, deploying Dragonrise. The meaning behind the stroke was an interweaving of thousands of combat arts. It was both a technique of his sword dao and the entire significance of his sword dao. If this had been a fight before his stint in the Army Pagoda, he would’ve melded all of his combat arts into this move.
But now, he’d comprehended the true way of the sword. In the chaos and world of immortals, the meaning of sword dao was to “wield dao through the sword”. In his current rendition of understanding, he’d excavated a deeper level of connotations.
Swords had their own dao! It wasn’t to wield the great dao through the sword, but to wield sword dao through the sword!
One stroke of Dragonrise was thousands of swords striking out with Dragonrise!
A cerulean dragon figure condensed in the air—one with its head slowly rising upward. Lu Yun raised his sword upright within the dragon’s head, rays of sword light circulating around him and becoming flying swords themselves. They flew through the air in every possible direction, blasting apart Ghost Dragon’s forward motion.
The spear swept away everything in front of it with indomitable momentum. When it encountered Dragonrise, it was forcibly brought to a halt and couldn’t proceed even a centimeter further.
Lu Yun’s ten thousand swords smashed brutally onto the black spear, then followed it back to Ghost Dragon.
He suddenly let go of this weapon and materialized a second spear that was equally pitch black, as if a coiled black dragon. Stabbing forward with it, Ghost Dragon had only one target in his sights—Lu Yun’s chest!
He’d discovered that this was the flaw of the Dragonrise move.
“Die!!” Ghost Dragon roared, stepping forward and flinging the spear at Lu Yun’s chest. A third spear appeared in his hands and he stabbed it into the same spot!
Lu Yun’s chest!
The flaw of the Dragonrise move!
“Forward!” Lu Yun advanced three steps in the face of two spears bearing down on him, striking out with his sword each time he took a step. Every stroke was a very ordinary stroke, but each ordinary stroke also contained a terrifyingly keen light.
Ghost Dragon’s spears splintered to pieces when they encountered the sword light. Taken aback, he swiftly backed away and barely evaded the three sharp rays.
Shocked gasps rose and fell through the crowd. No one had anticipated that the Champion Duke would immediately gain the upper hand in their fight and break Ghost Dragon’s weapons! Given the audience’s skill level, they could naturally tell that the Champion Duke had used his own sword dao to destroy Ghost Dragon’s weapons. He hadn’t surreptitiously taken out his Stellar Sword.
“The flaw of your chest is a trap. You revealed it on purpose.” Ghost Dragon stared at the offending spot with a mix of emotions. His right hand grasped at empty air and came back with another long black spear.
It was immensely different from the ones before—this was a king grade spear with three dao rules inside.
