The single word—"Next"—dropped into the suffocating quiet of the Central Sun-Moon Arena like a slab of cold iron falling onto glass.
Railin did not raise his voice. He did not flare his spiritual energy, nor did he strike a dramatic posture. He simply stood beside the withered, dried-up husk of Mo Ji, holding the blood-stained silk handkerchief in his pale fingers, his pitch-black eyes fixed directly on Grand Elder Shu-Lin perched high in the spectator pavilion.
For three long seconds, no one in the forty-thousand-strong crowd even breathed.
Then, the arena exploded.
"HE... HE KILLED MO JI!" a core disciple from the Heavenly Sword Peak shrieked, half-rising from his seat, his face utterly drained of color. "That was Mo Ji! The first-ranked Direct Disciple of Shadow Moon Peak! A Stage Five powerhouse with a mid-tier Earth artifact!"
"He didn't just kill him!" another disciple stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as he pointed a trembling finger at the stage. "Look at the corpse! Lu Chen was drained, but Mo Ji... Mo Ji looks like he was buried three hundred years ago! Every drop of his blood, his cultivation, his dantian core... gone! Completely erased!"
"What kind of taboo art is that?! Is he even human?!"
High atop the grand spectator pavilion, the atmospheric pressure reached a violent, catastrophic boiling point.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Grand Elder Shu-Lin's withered hands clenched so violently around the carved ebony armrests of her throne that the ancient, spell-reinforced timber shattered into microscopic splinters! Her pale, wrinkled face contorted into a terrifying mask of pure, demonic rage, her bloodshot eyes bulging as her Stage Six Foundation cultivation base flared out in an uncontrollable, chaotic storm of crimson blood-qi!
"DEMON!" Shu-Lin's raspy, screeching voice shattered the sky above the arena like thunder! "YOU EVIL, DEVOURING MONSTER! YOU DARE SLAUGHTER MY DIRECT DISCIPLES AND CONSUME THEIR FOUNDATIONS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT?!"
BOOM!
The heavy ebony throne beneath her instantly disintegrated into fine grey dust under her sheer, unfiltered malice! Shu-Lin stepped forward onto the open air, her dark purple robes whipping violently around her frame as a seventy-foot phantom of a crimson blood-moon materialized directly behind her back!
"Enforcement Elders!" Shu-Lin screamed, her voice echoing across the entire mountain valley. "This worm is practicing a forbidden, evil devouring technique! He is an enemy of the academy, a parasite sent to destroy our foundation! Execute him on the spot! Flay his skin, tear his meridians, and burn his soul in the Black-Stone Abyss for ten thousand years!"
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Instantly, six high-tier Enforcement Stewards wearing iron-plated elder robes leaped down from the surrounding observation towers! Their heavy Stage Four and Stage Five spiritual pressures erupted simultaneously as they drawn their golden enforcement broadswords, forming a lethal, restrictive array mid-air as they charged straight toward the shattered stage to execute Railin!
Railin did not move a single inch.
He stood in the center of the ring, casually dropping the blood-stained silk handkerchief onto Mo Ji's shriveled chest. His pitch-black pupils remained locked on Shu-Lin, a dark, barely visible smile lingering at the corner of his pale lips.
However, before the six Enforcement Stewards could cross the perimeter of the stage, an absolute, freezing arctic aura swept down from the highest platform of the spectator pavilion!
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The ambient temperature inside the colossal arena plummeted by forty degrees in a fraction of a second! A sheet of pure, translucent blue ice materialized out of thin air, instantly freezing the air, the wind, and the stone floor!
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The six charging Enforcement Stewards frozen mid-air as massive pillars of arctic ice encased their bodies from the waist down, slamming them violently onto the granite floor around the stage, completely immobilizing their movement!
"Stand down," a cold, melodic voice sounded, cutting through Shu-Lin's hysterical screams like an icy blade passing through thin silk.
Peak Master Bing Lian slowly rose from her frost-carved throne. Her translucent white veil fluttered gently in the freezing wind generated by her presence. Her azure eyes were completely calm, yet filled with an ancient, terrifying weight that instantly suppressed the chaotic energy raging across the pavilion.
"Grand Elder Shu-Lin," Bing Lian said flatly, her voice echoing clearly in every spectator's ear despite the chaos. "The Top Four Championship rules were established by the Founding Ancestors of the Sun-Moon Academy over a thousand years ago. The Life-and-Death Stage Covenant was signed by Mo Ji of his own free will before he stepped onto that stone. The covenant explicitly states that all methods, secret techniques, and lethal force are fully permitted until one combatant dies or forfeits."
"HE USED A DEMONIC DEVOURING ART!" Shu-Lin roared, turning her bloodshot eyes toward Bing Lian, her Stage Six aura threatening to clash directly against Bing Lian's frost domain. "He drained Mo Ji's dantian dry! You saw it! Everyone saw it! This is not academy cultivation—this is heresy!"
"I saw an inner sect disciple utilizing a supreme, primordial body-refinement art to absorb his opponent's volatile spiritual pressure during life-and-death combat," Bing Lian replied smoothly, her voice utterly unbothered by Shu-Lin's fury. "Unless the Grand Enforcement Council finds concrete evidence of forbidden external pill consumption or illegal array interference from outside the ring, the victory is absolute. If Shadow Moon Peak cannot afford to lose its precious disciples on the Life-and-Death stage, you should not have permitted them to sign the covenant."
High above the central ring, the senior Grand Referee from the Enforcement Hall wiped a thick bead of cold sweat from his forehead. He looked at the shattered stage, then at Mo Ji's shriveled corpse, and finally at Railin, who stood waiting with his hands tucked casually back into his wide sleeves.
The Grand Referee cleared his throat, injecting a heavy thread of spiritual energy into his voice to suppress his own trembling tone.
"THE... THE SEMI-FINAL MATCH TWO IS OFFICIALLY CONCLUDED!" the referee announced, his voice booming across the stunned audience. "VICTOR: RAILIN OF THE ICE MYSTIC PEAK! RAILIN ADVANCES TO THE FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!"
A quiet, collective gasp rippled through the forty-thousand-strong crowd once again. No one cheered. No one celebrated. The violent, decisive ruthlessness Railin had displayed had completely terrified the entire inner sect. The disciples sat in silence, looking at the quiet young man in navy-blue robes with pure, instinctual horror.
Railin turned his back to the high pavilion, stepping off the shattered stage toward the dark subterranean preparation corridors without uttering another word.
Inside the dark, stone-paved contestant corridor, the atmosphere was thick, heavy, and suffocating.
As Railin walked toward Waiting Chamber 01, he met the gaze of Senior Brother Zhao Ling of the Heavenly Sword Peak—the victor of the first semi-final match, who was standing near the entrance of his own preparation room.
Zhao Ling was a tall, broad-shouldered young man carrying a massive, unpolished iron broadsword across his broad back. Known throughout the academy for his unyielding sword heart and righteous demeanor, Zhao Ling's face was currently extremely dark and solemn.
His right hand rested heavily on the hilt of his broadsword as his sharp eyes locked onto Railin.
"That art you used on stage..." Zhao Ling said, his deep voice echoing in the quiet stone corridor. "It is not an ice-attribute cultivation technique. It is a path of pure consumption."
Railin stopped his footfalls, turning his head slightly to look at Zhao Ling over his shoulder. His pitch-black pupils were completely calm, showing no emotion whatsoever.
"Does it matter what path it is?" Railin asked neutrally. "A blade cuts because it is sharp, not because of the color of the steel."
Zhao Ling's eyes narrowed slightly, his grip on his sword hilt tightening until his knuckles turned pale white. "Mo Ji was an arrogant, ruthless bully who deserved his fall, but what you did to him went far beyond victory. You erased his foundation, his vitality, and his future in a single breath. In the final match, I will not hold back. My Heavenly Sword Intent does not tolerate dark, devouring paths."
Railin looked at Zhao Ling for a long moment, a faint, dark smile curving the corner of his pale lips.
"Then bring your absolute best, Senior Brother," Railin whispered softly, his tone laced with a chilling, predatory hunger that made Zhao Ling's sword intent shudder. "My core is still quite thirsty."
Without waiting for Zhao Ling's response, Railin stepped into Waiting Chamber 01, and the heavy bronze doors slammed shut behind him.
CLICK. THUD.
The moment the isolation runes sealed the chamber, cutting off all external sounds and spiritual monitoring arrays, Railin walked directly over to the center white-jade meditation mat and sat down cross-legged.
BOOM—!
The second he relaxed his internal suppression, his lower dantian erupted into a roaring, chaotic storm of dark, pitch-black void energy!
The Stage Five Foundation core he had forcibly ripped out of Mo Ji was massive—far larger and immensely more volatile than Lu Chen's Stage Four reserves. Although the Ashen Devouring Technique had instantly crushed Mo Ji's spiritual base during the extraction, the sheer volume of high-density Stage Five qi was currently crashing against Railin's internal meridian walls like a raging tidal wave!
CRACKLE! SZZZZ!
Inside his inner world, the pitch-black void vortex in his lower dantian was spinning at a dizzying, terrifying speed. The newly absorbed Stage Five essence was being forcibly broken down, its dark crimson shadow attributes stripped away and converted into pure, unblemished, primordial void qi!
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Railin's chest heaved slightly as his newly expanded Stage Three foundation began to absorb the refined essence. His internal meridian channels, which had already transformed into a dark-jade texture, expanded further, their walls thickening to withstand the immense pressure of his growing power!
"Stage Three Foundation... Peak Mid-Stage," Railin murmured inwardly, monitoring his internal state with absolute precision.
The Stage Five core extracted from Mo Ji was so vast that it didn't merely solidify his Stage Three realm—it pushed his cultivation base straight to the peak of the Mid-Stage Three Foundation Establishment in a single hour!
Deep within his upper dantian, his three Soul-Piercing Needles absorbed the residual mental energy stripped from Mo Ji's soul. The dark obsidian spikes shrank further, becoming paper-thin, microscopic threads of condensed void force that hovered silently around his spiritual core, far sharper and infinitely more lethal than before.
Railin opened his eyes, a brief, blinding flash of bottomless void light flickered across his dark pupils before vanishing back into calm darkness.
He raised his right hand, flexing his pale fingers. He could feel the dense, metallic weight of his void qi humming beneath his skin.
"Zhao Ling's Heavenly Sword Intent..." Railin whispered into the quiet, dim room, his pale face illuminated by the soft light of the array plate. "A pure, unyielding sword core forged through decades of rigid discipline. It will make a fine main dish to complete my Stage Three consolidation before the grand finals conclude."
He closed his eyes once more, entering a deep state of meditative consolidation, quietly waiting for the final horn of the assembly to sound.
The inner chamber remained submerged in absolute stillness, save for the rhythmic, metallic hum of the void vortex rotating within Railin's lower dantian. Outside, the subterranean stone walls subtly vibrated as forty thousand spectators shifted in their seats, waiting for the final match of the Inner Sect Grand Assembly to be called.
Railin sat motionless upon the white-jade mat. His pale skin, which had flared with dark crimson threads during the violent extraction of Mo Ji's blood qi, had returned to its natural, pristine state. Every breath he drew pulled the dense, pure ambient qi of the high-tier array chamber directly into his body, where it was instantly devoured, purified, and locked into his newly expanded meridians.
Having pushed his cultivation base to the absolute peak of Mid-Stage Three Foundation Establishment, Railin did not immediately attempt a forced breakthrough into Late-Stage Three. A hasty push using raw, unrefined energy would create microscopic instability in his void foundation—an unpardonable flaw that could compromise his long-term ascension.
Instead, he turned his internal focus toward his upper dantian.
There, floating in the quiet sea of his consciousness, were the spoils stripped from Mo Ji's dying soul.
The Abyssal Soul-Chaining Sword—which Railin had stored inside his spatial ring—had left behind a dense, dark residue of spiritual intent. Mo Ji had spent over six years refining that Earth-tier blade, binding its soul-shredding properties directly to his own mental sea. When Railin severed Mo Ji's soul connection using his Soul-Piercing Needles, a significant fragment of that refined soul-shredding intent had been dragged along with the extracted energy.
Railin's lips curved into a dark, cold arc.
"Refining raw spirit energy strengthens the core," Railin thought, his mental voice echoing in the darkness of his upper dantian. "But refining another cultivator's forged intent... that sharpens the soul."
The Ashen Devouring Technique—Soul Refinement!
SZZZZZ!
In the dark expanse of his upper dantian, a pitch-black void fire erupted, engulfing the lingering crimson soul-shredding fragments left by Mo Ji! The residual, weeping screams of the phantom spirits trapped within Mo Ji's former intent resonated silently, attempting to resist the void's consumption.
Railin didn't even blink. He directed his three microscopic, obsidian Soul-Piercing Needles straight into the center of the void fire!
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The three void needles, now as thin as hair and completely invisible to ordinary spiritual senses, began to absorb the dark, soul-shredding properties of the Earth-tier sword. The obsidian surface of the needles shuddered, their black color deepening until they seemed to absorb the light of his very consciousness!
After thirty minutes of intense, quiet forging, the three needles stabilized. They no longer merely possessed physical piercing capability and pure mental impact—they now carried a subtle, terrifying layer of Abyssal Soul-Slicing Intent.
Should these needles strike an opponent's upper dantian, they would not just pierce their mental barrier; they would slice their soul essence into fragmented memories, just as Mo Ji had arrogantly promised to do to Railin.
Railin opened his eyes. The pitch-black pupils flared briefly with a sharp, crimson-tinted void light before settling back into a calm, emotionless abyss.
CLANK!
Suddenly, the heavy bronze doors of Waiting Chamber 01 shuddered as a low, echoing bell tone resonated through the subterranean stone corridor.
The rest period was over.
A soft, melodic knock sounded on the stone door, followed by the quiet, trembling voice of an outer venue steward.
"S-Senior Brother Railin... The Grand Referee requests your presence on the Central Arena stage. The Final Championship Match against Senior Brother Zhao Ling of Heavenly Sword Peak... is about to commence."
Railin smoothly stood up from the jade mat. He smoothed out the non-existent creases on his dark navy-blue robes, his hands casually slipping back into his wide sleeves. His breathing was completely steady, his Stage Three aura fully concealed, making him look like a quiet, harmless shadow walking through the halls of power.
"Let us go then," Railin murmured softly as the bronze doors rolled open. "It is time to finish the assembly.
See you in next chapter....