Chapter 240: Signing Death — The Path Ahead
Upon entering the hall, Su Tianhao's eyes narrowed as he got a closer look at the elder seated on the raised dais. Sharp eyes. Stern features. A neatly trimmed goatee that gave him the particular appearance of someone who had spent decades making uncomfortable decisions and had long since stopped losing sleep over them.
Gu Lie.
The recognition arrived quietly, without surprise.
"Elder Gu Lie." Jin Aoshi stepped forward wearing a flattering smile. "I hope you are well. I've come to register a death match."
"Oh?"
A glint passed through Gu Lie's eyes. His smile curved just slightly as his gaze moved to Su Tianhao. "Is that so?"
Su Tianhao met the look and nodded once. Calm. Serene.
"Hmph." Gu Lie's snort carried the weight of someone who had already formed an opinion and found it confirmed. "Who would have thought you'd be foolish enough to pick a fight with one of our star disciples—and not just any fight, a death match. I commend the bravery, if nothing else." His laugh arrived sharp and mocking. "I'd intended to deal with you eventually. It seems providence has spared me the effort."
Jin Aoshi beat his chest with righteous energy. "Don't worry, Elder Gu Lie. I've heard of this disciple's disrespect toward you and his cruelty toward my cousin. I intend to settle accounts on behalf of both."
"Good." Gu Lie stroked his goatee with visible satisfaction.
With a flick of his wrist, a small scroll materialized from thin air—wrapped in a faint crimson aura that carried unmistakable killing intent. It drifted toward Su Tianhao and unfurled with the slow, deliberate movement of something that understood its own purpose. It hovered just below his chest, marked at its center by a single word pressed deep into the parchment.
DEATH.
Su Tianhao's brows drew together slightly.
"No backing out now," Gu Lie said, his Martial Master aura descending without warning—a deliberate pressure, heavy and suffocating, designed to remind a Peak-stage Martial Adept exactly where he stood.
Su Tianhao blinked.
Then he rolled his shoulders slowly, joints cracking with quiet satisfaction—a gesture so unhurried and deliberate that Gu Lie's expression twitched despite himself.
"You haven't given me anything to write with," Su Tianhao said coolly. "What exactly do you expect me to do with this?"
"Tch."
A click of the tongue. Gu Lie waved his hand and produced a black feather brush coated in hydra ink—an ink of legendary regeneration, every stroke permanent enough to outlast the person who made it.
"Sign."
The brush drifted toward him. Su Tianhao took it without ceremony. His fingers moved with unhurried precision, the brush gliding across the scroll in clean, deliberate strokes—his signature rendered as a dragon ascending into open sky.
"A tiny lizard who thinks he can become a dragon," Jin Aoshi sneered from the side.
The scroll and brush drifted to him next. He signed quickly—a single character that carried the weight of his family name. Jin.
"It is done." Gu Lie's smile didn't reach his eyes. The items returned to him and vanished into his spatial ring. "You may go."
"Yes, Disciplinary Elder."
Jin Aoshi offered a curt bow. Su Tianhao simply nodded and turned toward the exit. Jin Aoshi moved to follow—
"Not you."
Gu Lie's voice arrived like a door closing. Jin Aoshi stopped mid-step.
"Wait outside, Su Tianhao. I have words for my Jadeclaw Peak disciple. Privately."
Su Tianhao's mind turned over the implications in the space of a breath. He didn't comment. He smiled slightly—the quiet smile of someone who already knows what's being planned behind the door—and walked out without looking back.
---
"Can you do it?" Gu Lie asked the moment the hall was clear.
"Do what?" Jin Aoshi raised an eyebrow.
"Kill Su Tianhao."
Jin Aoshi's expression settled into something carefully measured. "I'm afraid I genuinely cannot."
"I thought as much."
"That's not what I mean," Jin Aoshi said, unhurried, his pride pulling slightly at the words. "In terms of pure strength, I can overwhelm him without difficulty. He is Peak-stage Martial Adept while I am 5th Level Martial Core Realm expert. The gap is not close. But Lord Huo Changfeng favors him. The sect would not permit such talent to be publicly eliminated—not even under a death match agreement. There would be intervention."
Gu Lie hummed slowly, his voice settling through the room like smoke finding the corners of a sealed space. "You are correct. Su Tianhao is the most talented disciple this sect has accepted since its founding. No one in authority will watch that go to waste."
"Exactly." Jin Aoshi nodded. "So I have no intention of killing him outright."
Gu Lie leaned forward. "Then what are you planning?"
"I ran a background check." Jin Aoshi's smug smile returned with interest. "Su Tianhao is an orphan—adopted by the Su family. And by all accounts, he is very close with Su Mei. The Echoing Blade of the Silverblade Peak."
Gu Lie's eyes widened slightly. "You don't mean—"
"Senior Brother Zhu Yong has pursued Su Mei for a long time. He has even approached the Su family formally, declared her his woman. And yet she has refused him—repeatedly, stubbornly, without compromise." Jin Aoshi's fists tightened. "That is about to change. One month from now, I will crush Su Tianhao in that arena. And if Su Mei's bond with him is even half of what the rumors suggest, she will have no choice but to step forward and accept exactly what Zhu Yong wants—to save her brother. In front of everyone."
Gu Lie's expression brightened with a cold, genuine appreciation. "By forcing her to choose between her brother's life and accepting Zhu Yong's proposal publicly, you put her in a difficult situation. The sect itself would apply the pressure. They would push her to comply—preserving Su Tianhao's life while keeping the death match agreement intact. Elegant."
"As expected of Elder Gu Lie," Jin Aoshi said. "You understand quickly."
A pause. "But why? What does helping Zhu Yong gain you?"
"Senior Brother Zhu Yong is a good friend of mine," Jin Aoshi said, feigning mild offense—then letting the performance drop entirely. "And who says it doesn't benefit me?" His voice took on its true edge. "By agreeing to deliver this result to Senior Brother Zhu Yong, I secure his full backing for one month. Reaching 7th Level Martial Core Realm is not out of reach with his resources behind me."
He let that settle, then continued.
"And with the Jade Finger Art of my Goldcrest Jin family—I won't simply defeat Su Tianhao, I will dismantle him. I will place concealed damage throughout his meridians and Qi pathways. Not enough to cripple him outright—the sect would notice that. But enough to corrupt his foundation. His cultivation base will regress. His talent will dim. Let's see how the so-called anomaly performs without the foundation that makes him extraordinary."
The cold glint in his green eyes sharpened. "Once that is done, Su Tianhao becomes average. His reputation—gone. His halo—gone. Killing him after that would be no different from swatting an annoying fly."
Gu Lie stared at him in silence, completely speechless.
Then, slowly, he recovered his composure—and regarded Jin Aoshi with something that hadn't been in his expression before.
"I never took you for a snake," he said. His tone made it a compliment.
Jin Aoshi smiled with open satisfaction.
"Here." Gu Lie produced a pill bottle from his spatial ring and directed it across the desk.
Jin Aoshi's eyes lit up the moment he caught it—golden-orange pills gleaming against the dark of the hall.
"Peak-grade Golden Core Pills!"
"Correct." Gu Lie's expression warmed with the particular pleasure of someone watching a tool respond to proper maintenance. "Peak Grade Four. They will purify your spiritual energy, consolidate your foundation, and accelerate your cultivation without placing undue strain on your Martial Core. Cultivate freely."
"Thank you—thank you sincerely!"
"Don't thank me yet." Gu Lie cut across the gratitude smoothly. "Complete what you've planned without error. Do that—and there will be more waiting for you."
Jin Aoshi straightened immediately, excitement reined back under deliberate composure—though his breathing had grown noticeably quicker. "Understood, Elder Gu Lie. I, Jin Aoshi, will not fail."
---
Outside the hall, Su Tianhao was waiting with the composed, unhurried expression of someone admiring the weather rather than a person who had just signed his name to a death agreement.
A cold, confident smile tugged at Jin Aoshi's lips as he emerged.
Su Tianhao caught it. He didn't comment.
Together they made their way back to the Silverblade Peak.
The Silverblade Peak's Disciplinary Elder proved to be a man of entirely different character—broad-shouldered and direct, with the weathered bearing of someone who had spent more years in the field than behind a desk. His eyes assessed Su Tianhao the moment he entered and didn't stop assessing him for the entirety of their exchange. He issued no flattery and offered no indulgence—only clear, blunt counsel delivered with the weight of someone who genuinely meant it. He warned Su Tianhao twice. He provided every avenue available under sect rules to avoid the agreement. He made his position plain.
Su Tianhao signed anyway.
Jin Aoshi accepted with barely concealed delight.
The news spread through the Outer Court before they had fully descended the Peak's stairs. Su Tianhao—first-place new recruit, King of the Stonehaven Grove, the anomaly who had shattered the Aptitude Rating Stele—had accepted a death match against Jin Aoshi, one of the Jadeclaw Peak's top-ranking disciples and an Azure Cloud Ranking cultivator at 5th Level Martial Core Realm. The gap in cultivation was not subtle. Opinions divided immediately: some called it the boldest move a new disciple had ever made, others called it a death wish dressed up in confidence, and a handful—those who had been present at the entrance examination, who had watched the Aptitude Stele fail to measure what stood before it—said nothing at all, and simply waited to see what would happen.
---
Meanwhile, the man who had become the Outer Court's most discussed topic in a single morning was standing alone outside the Sect gate.
The mountain breeze moved through the space around him—lifting his long black hair so that it drifted behind him like banners carried into a wind that had already decided its direction. His sword-like brows held no turmoil. Only resolve. His golden eyes carried that particular clarity that arrives after a long confusion has finally resolved itself—bright, deep, and utterly unhurried, as though the future were something he had already considered and found acceptable. His silver-trimmed blue robes moved around him in the mountain air like water finding its natural shape around stone.
In his palm rested a folded file—the mission details Elder Kui had handed him in the Mission Hall that now felt like it belonged to an earlier part of the same long day.
The path ahead was clear. Clearer than it had ever been.
"Time to begin." His voice arrived low and certain, carrying the particular weight of a decision that had been made at the level of the bones rather than the mind. "Grow stronger while I'm at it. Live up to what I actually am."
A beat of quiet.
"No more holding back."
The conviction behind those words carried no noise, no performance, no announcement. Just the unmistakable quality of something that would not break—not under pressure, not under failure, not under the weight of the heavens themselves if it came to that.
He stepped forward.
The gate fell behind him.
And the road ahead opened wide.
---
Hello guys, we have officially come to the end of Volume 2. This is not the end, but we are going to pause here. As you might have already known, the book's contract application got rejected and I am currently working on a new novel. Thank you for your support throughout this journey, I promise to start publishing the new novel before the end of next month. Thank you once more for your support! And I hope that you would continue to support me.
—DaoistOrji