Martial World (Web Novel)
chapter-264

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‘It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Lin Ming’s talent is even comparable to Qianyu’s. If he was placed within Divine Phoenix Island, he would undoubtedly be a top tier talent. Such a genius like this is worth me coming here; it would even be worthwhile for an elder to personally make a visit here.’

As Mu Qinghong thought this, she was in a very good mood. Even if she didn’t achieve her other goal, just coming and and personally gaining insights into Lin Ming’s talent was worth the while.

‘If the turmoil within the South Sea realm doesn’t reach here… then maybe after 100 years, or even 200 years when Lin Ming grows up, he may become a pivotal existence within the entire Southern Region.’

Thinking of the situation within the South Horizon Region, Mu Qinghong became extremely concerned. The chaos within the South Sea would directly affect the fate of Divine Phoenix Island.

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As the matches on the martial stage continued, there were no important or famous figures that appeared. Of course, that was only relatively speaking. Even the weakest of these were much stronger than someone like Bi Tinghua.

After three matches, Zhang Yanzhao went on stage. He was up against the Sword Faction disciple, Liu Yan.

Liu Yan wasn’t a weakling. During the last Total Faction Martial Meeting, he was ranked 20; this result wasn’t too far from Zhang Yanzhao.

Now that all of the Seven Profound Valleys’ disciples knew the phenomenon known as Lin Ming, none of them dared to underestimate the martial artists from beyond the Seven Profound Valleys. Especially Zhang Yanzhao, who was placed onto the gambling house list as a potential champion candidate with a 1:35 compensation rate.

Liu Yan was also on this list, and his compensation rate was similar to Zhang Yanzhao’s.

Most people assumed that this would be a close battle, however, the match didn’t go as most people expected…

At first, Zhang Yanzhao and Liu Yan were evenly matched blow for blow.

However, after 20 moves had passed, Zhang Yanzhao took out a crimson four foot long treasure saber from his spatial ring. With this saber in his hand, he put forth a dreadfully vigorous martial skill that was like a wave of monstrous blood was surging forwards, overflowing with murderous intention from all around. Liu Yan had lost almost immediately afterwards, and was even heavily injured.

The audience was shocked silly, just where had Zhang Yanzhao been hiding this strength? What was that saber? It didn’t look like a normal treasure. When had the 36 countries and 16 martial families become so fierce? They had actually come out with two martial artists that were most likely able to reach the top 10.

As if Lin Ming wasn’t enough, a wild Zhang Yanzhao suddenly appeared!

“That blood saber is too bizarre, I can’t see what grade it is. It’s likely not some common high-grade human-step treasure.”

“Maybe it’s an Earth-step treasure…”

“How is that possible? Why would a martial family have an Earth-step treasure? Not even many of our faction’s elders have an Earth-step treasure. In any case, even if the Zhang Family had something so valuable, there was no way that they would give it to a young man in order to show off at a tournament.”

“This truly is an Earth-step treasure; it’s the family heirloom of the Zhang Family.” As a few disciples were discussing, a deep voice suddenly broke in. Everyone turned to look, and quickly bowed, paying their respects.

“Greetings, Senior-apprentice Brother Liang.”

This Senior-apprentice Brother Liang had a cultivation at the peak of Houtian realm. Not only that, but he had just reached 30 years of age, his future glories were endless. He had recently been given a Heaven Opening Pill, and had an extreme possibility of reaching the Xiantian realm. Once he reached the legendary Xiantian realm, he would be an elder, therefore these disciples had to be very respectful towards this man.

Senior-apprentice Brother Liang said, “The first Patriarch of the Zhang Family was a Revolving Core master, that blood saber was the weapon that this Patriarch used. Once it is paired with the first Patriarch’s self-invented saber skill, its power is overwhelming!”

“The first Patriarch of the Zhang Family was a Revolving Core master? I thought that was just an exaggerated rumor…”

“Revolving Core master… that’s just too much to believe. If that were true, then why would the Zhang Family be reduced to their current state?”

Many disciples felt that this was just too unbelievable. Then Senior-apprentice Brother Liang said, “Time changes many things. Three thousand years ago, the Zhang Family was a monstrous titan that ruled over several countries and took their resources; they were just a bit better than the weakest third-grade sect. However, after the first Patriarch died of old age, the Zhang Family wasn’t able to produce a new Revolving Core master to lead the family. Because their family had accumulated a massive amount of wealth and resources that many others coveted, ultimately a bloody calamity descended upon them. Their family went through a bloodbath with most being slain or conquered, and only a minor few direct descendants were able to squirrel away some of the wealth and run away somewhere else, concealing their identities. After 1000 years passed, so did their enemies. They did not recover to their previous status, and slowly evolved into the current Zhang Family. Of course, you cannot look down on the heritage and legacies of the Zhang Family! Even our elders have to be respectful towards their Zhang Family Patriarch.”

Senior-apprentice Brother Liang sighed with a heart full of emotion. If a family lost strength that matched their wealth and resources, they could only wait for their inevitable demise.

The first reason that the current Zhang Family hadn’t been completely destroyed by the Seven Profound Valleys was that they had turned in a massive amount of resources to the Seven Profound Valleys, and their family Patriarch had personally come to negotiate. The second reason was that most of the Zhang Family’s heritage and legacies were related to the saber. Since there was no Saber Faction within the Seven Profound Valleys, no one decided to care about them.

The Zhang Family had remained low key for many years; no one had thought that Zhang Yanzhao would display the weapon that the Zhang Family ancestor had wielded during this Total Faction Martial Meeting. It seemed that the Zhang Family finally believed that their family had the strength to match their wealth, and were prepared to expand the influence of their family. The Zhang Family truly had been laying low for too long.

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As Senior-apprentice Brother Liang spoke, Jiang Baoyun was also looking at Zhang Yanzhao.

Zhang Yanzhao looked a bit on the older side, it wouldn’t be too strange if someone said he were 25 or 26 years old. With his saber by his side, he exuded a faint domineering aura. However, Zhang Yanzhao’s breath was deep and his steps were calm, and he didn’t seem to naturally emit an overwhelming momentum.

“The saber energy is restrained; this is the state of returning to one’s origins. What a good realm! I had looked down on him, but it seems that the Zhang Family gave the Blood Wave Saber to Zhang Yanzhao, wanting him to astonish the world with a single brilliant feat at this Total Faction Martial Meeting. With the Blood Wave Saber being used together with the Zhang Family ancestor’s self-created Blood King’s Triple Murder. Even though there are so many geniuses present, there are only a few that could actually defend against such a powerful technique!”

“This Martial Meeting is getting more and more interesting! The top ten is no longer the world of the direct disciples, but rather the battleground of proud heroes!”

The seventh and eight matches were won by Huan Xiaodie and Qin Wuxin, the proud beautiful pair of this generation. Although their opponents were not weak and they had decent results in the last Martial Meeting, they were still helpless against Huan Xiaodie and Qin Wuxin, quickly defeated in several moves.

When these two proud and exquisite women fought onstage, waves of cheering voices came from the audience. But as for Lin Ming, he turned a deaf ear to all this, immersed in the ethereal martial state so that he could quickly recover his strength.

The second round had come to an end!

Besides the unfortunate Fang Qi, all the other direct disciples hadn’t met a tough opponent. They swept away all opposition.

As the third round started, Lin Ming was finally restored to his top condition, and the compression of true essence within the Heretical God Force was completed. He had been sitting in meditation for a while longer, adjusting his mental state, and finally opened his eyes. At this time, he saw Fang Qi standing in the center of the martial stage.

‘Mm? The first match is Fang Qi… he was injured last round, but he actually was able to recover so quickly. The healing medicines of the Seven Profound Valleys are truly miraculous. As long as it’s not a soul wound, one can be healed in half an hour. I wonder who Fang Qi’s opponent is…’

As Lin Ming was thinking this, he suddenly heard a strange and peculiar ‘Jejeje’ laughing sound. A fellow that had a long face and extremely wrinkled skin walked onstage. He was covered in bandages, looking completely like a mummy. As this weird fellow walked onstage, he carried a strange looking bag on his back. He was thinner than a stick, and wore the most outlandishly eccentric clothing. He was like a corpse that had been buried within a coffin and had finally began to rot, but then came back to life in a pile of bandages and rags.

As Fang Qi saw this strange mummy fellow walk onstage, his face drained of all blood.

‘What absolute sh*t luck I have, were all my last 8 generations blood cursed or something? First I meet that freak Lin Ming in the second round, and now I meet this Puppet Faction dried corpse in the third round.’

Even though his opponent was a direct disciple, he still looked like this. Fang Qi felt like he wanted to throw up.

Lin Ming was shocked. ‘This mummy fellow is probably the direct disciple of the Puppet Faction, Mugu Buyu; Fang Qi is also a direct disciple. I thought that the direct disciples wouldn’t meet until the final rounds… is it because Fang Qi lost to me, thus he lost his qualifications to be a seeded player?’

Lin Ming thought this was also natural. After all, the reason that the seven direct disciples were saved for the last matches was in order to increase the competitive nature of the tournament, not to take care of these direct disciples. If a direct disciple didn’t have the strength, they would be eliminated early.

“Match, start!”

The referee elder said the words that Fang Qi was dreading the most. He would rather face off against Jiang Baoyun than this Mugu Buyu. This fellow’s strength was too weird, Fang Qi suspected that maybe even Jiang Baoyun might not be his match.

Not only that, but in a minute this mummy fellow would pull out puppets made of corpses, tools made of human skin, and even corpse lanterns lit with corpse oil. This creepy and macabre person really made one’s scalp tingle with squeamishness.

And what was worse was that Fang Qi’s Golden Light Array Flag’s golden runes had all be used up. He had to temporarily borrow a second-rate treasure from his faction that had less than a third of the power of the Golden Light Array Flag. He was already expecting an extremely miserable ending when facing off against this Mugu Buyu.

“Jejeje! Array Faction’s baby boy, are you prepared to admit defeat?” Mugu Buyu strangely smiled. Although it was clear that he wasn’t much older, he still spoke in a very old manner and hadn’t even placed Fang Qi in his eyes.

Fang Qi paled. He really had been thinking of immediately admitting defeat a moment ago, but now that he heard Mugu Buyu say such outrageous things, there was no way he could admit defeat now. Otherwise, he really would become a turtle. For better or worse, he was still a direct disciple. If he went down without a fight, and also had to swallow the insults of his opponent, then he would just lose too much face.

This wasn’t just his face he would be losing, but he would also lose face for the entire Array Faction. If he retreated at this point, he would never be able to hold his head up around the other Array Faction disciples again.

Fang Qi braced himself for the worst and said, “If you want to fight, then let’s fight! Shut your filthy trap!”

“Hehe, you have courage! Unfortunately, the more you talk, the more you need strength to back it up, otherwise you will only end up looking like the fool.” As Mugu Buyu said this, he shook the bag on his back, and a spider-like puppet jumped out.

This puppet had the upper body of a human, but the lower body of a giant spider. The upper body was actually quite beautiful, but as soon as Fang Qi saw that it was a puppet stitched together from corpses, he began to feel nauseous.