"Come on!"
Zhao Feng kept throwing punches from both his right and left fists in rapid succession until the two of them were fully locked in close combat, trading blow after blow at a pace that left little room for either of them to think beyond the next exchange. Every punch Zhao Feng threw, Mo Xuan met with runes rather than his blade, deflecting each strike at the last possible instant. Occasionally, a chain of runes would sprout directly from the ground beneath Zhao Feng's feet, interrupting his charge just long enough to throw off his rhythm before he powered through and reset again.
Each collision between them sent a fresh surge of energy rippling out across the platform, and the crowd's blood climbed steadily hotter with every exchange, the earlier scattered applause giving way to something closer to a roar.
Somewhere in the stands, a cluster of girls muttered under their breath about the whole display being nothing more than crude, brutish posturing. A different group of visibly enamoured spectators shot back without missing a beat. "What do they know? This is exactly how a man should be."
Zhao Feng created space between himself and Mo Xuan, clearly done with trading punches and ready to go all out. He shouted again, dropping into the stance of a bull, one foot dragging back across the stone as he gathered momentum. "Bronze Bull Manifestation — charge!" A bronze bull silhouette swallowed him whole, and the entire mass barrelled toward Mo Xuan with the ground itself trembling under its stride.
Mo Xuan formed a hand seal, and a Body Enhancing Rune bloomed larger and larger before sinking into him, hardening his body to something close to steel for a full minute.
He braced himself, dropping into a defensive stance as the bull slammed into him head-on, and the platform groaned beneath the impact.
He caught it by the horns.
The bull pushed him back, step by grinding step, its full weight bearing down against his palms, but Mo Xuan planted his foot hard against the stone and, with a sharp shout of his own, hoisted the entire bull upward and slammed it back down onto the platform.
By the time the dust settled, Zhao Feng had reverted to his human form, flat on his back, with Mo Xuan's knee pinning him firmly in place.
Zhao Feng lay there stunned for a moment, then let out a long breath, straightened up as best he could beneath Mo Xuan's hold, and laughed. "I yield, Junior Brother. What a good fight."
Mo Xuan released him and offered a hand to help him back to his feet. Once standing, Zhao Feng cupped his hands toward him, genuine curiosity replacing the last of his competitive fire. "How is your body that strong? Have you tempered it before?"
Mo Xuan nodded in confirmation, and Zhao Feng's eyes lit up immediately. "I'll be looking to spar with you again sometime. I haven't mastered my technique fully yet — once I do, my entire body should be able to turn full bronze, and my strength will climb exponentially past this." He grinned, clapping a hand briefly against his own chest. "Remember my name — Zhao Feng. But you can call me Feng from now on." Still laughing, he made his way off the platform, and with that, the first day of challenges came to a close.
By the time the sun rose on the second day, word had already spread through every corner of the Inner Court, and the crowd gathering around the Martial Duelling grounds had grown noticeably larger than the day before. Disciples who'd dismissed the whole event as another one of Jin Bao's schemes now found themselves squeezed shoulder to shoulder among the spectators, unwilling to miss whatever came next. Jin Bao, naturally, continued charging admission for the day's viewing as well, insisting with a perfectly straight face that yesterday was yesterday, today was a new day, and a new day meant a new gate fee.
Elder Kui took his seat with the same unhurried indifference as the previous morning. However, this time he didn't bother closing his eyes at all, settling instead into a posture of mild, expectant curiosity. Jin Bao arrived close behind him, wearing a wide, satisfied grin that suggested the previous day's earnings had exceeded even his own optimistic expectations.
Mo Xuan arrived at his usual measured pace, sat at the centre of the platform, and waited.
The second day brought three more challengers, all level 40 Soul King realms. Each tested him in ways the first three hadn't.
A wiry young woman summoned a Cosmic Soul shaped like a coiling viper, striking from impossible angles with a flexibility that made her nearly impossible to pin down. Mo Xuan eventually read the pattern in her strikes and turned her own momentum against her.
A stocky disciple with a Cosmic Soul built around a towering stone golem tried to out-endure him, trading blow for blow in a war of attrition that stretched far longer than any match the day before — until Mo Xuan ended it with a single precise strike.
The third and final challenger of the day, a broad-shouldered disciple wielding twin hammers empowered by a Cosmic Soul shaped like a thunder drum, brought raw destructive force to the platform, cracking the stone with every swing — but for all his power, he lacked the patience to wait for an opening. Mo Xuan gave him none, wearing him down through a dozen runes and arrays to hinder his movement, before forcing his surrender.
By the end of the second day, Mo Xuan hadn't lost a single exchange, and the tone in the stands had shifted from curious scepticism to something closer to reverence. Elder Kui, for his part, had taken to nodding approvingly after nearly every match, no longer bothering to hide his satisfaction behind halfhearted grumbling.
The third day arrived with the largest crowd yet, disciples packed shoulder to shoulder around every available vantage point, several having climbed onto nearby rooftops to catch a glimpse. Word of the previous two days had travelled well beyond the Inner Court itself, and even a handful of curious elders with no obvious reason to attend found themselves lingering near the edge of the grounds.
Two more challengers came and went early in the day. One wielded a Cosmic Soul shaped like a burrowing mole-beast, attempting to collapse the stone beneath Mo Xuan's feet and strike from underground — a clever approach that held promise but was still defeated.
The other summoned a Cosmic Soul in the form of a pair of scissoring mantis blades, fast and precise, forcing Mo Xuan into his most demanding speed exchange yet — though ultimately, the challenger came up short. Both yielded within a handful of minutes of each other, and the crowd, sensing the day building toward something bigger, grew steadily more restless with anticipation.
Then the ninth and final challenger stepped onto the platform, and something about the way he moved settled the crowd into an unusually attentive silence.
He was older than the others by several years, likely already deep into his time as a proper Inner Court member, his robes plain and unadorned aside from a single sword worn at his hip in a scabbard so worn it had clearly seen more use than ceremony. He drew the blade partway as he walked, resting it lightly across one shoulder, and bowed.
"Lu Ming," he said. "Level 40, Soul King realm. My Cosmic Soul is the Twin-Edge Heron." Behind him, a phantom took shape — unlike the wide-winged crane Su Yao had summoned two days prior, this was leaner and more severe, a heron rendered almost entirely in blade-edges, its long neck curving into a shape that mirrored the sword resting on Lu Ming's shoulder, its wings folding into twin crescents sharp enough to cut the air itself.
A faint murmur rippled through the older Inner Court disciples.
"Lu Ming..."
"He is actually here."
Even those who'd been chatting moments earlier straightened unconsciously.
Mo Xuan studied him for a moment longer than he had any of the previous challengers, his instinct telling him this opponent was different from the rest. "Mo Xuan. Level 39, Soul Master. Rune-Sword Cosmic Soul."
"Start," Elder Kui said, and leaned forward for the first time in three days.
Lu Ming didn't rush. He drew his sword the rest of the way with the same unhurried care he'd shown walking onto the platform, and the heron phantom behind him mirrored the motion exactly, its twin crescent wings angling forward as though sighting down the length of the blade. He advanced in a straight, measured line, closing the distance with a single step, and struck.
The first exchange rang out clean and simple — steel against steel, a single testing strike that Mo Xuan met without difficulty, both of them settling back a half-step to read the other's stance in the silence that followed. Neither seemed inclined to hurry. Whatever conversation existed between the two of them was happening entirely in the space between their blades, each subsequent clash a question and an answer, sword against sword, unhurried and deliberate, the crowd falling almost completely silent as they watched two cultivators speak a language neither of them needed words for.
Lu Ming struck again, and this time the heron phantom behind him moved with him, one crescent wing sweeping low in perfect mirror to his blade's arc. Mo Xuan turned the strike aside with a small rotation of his wrist, then answered in kind, his blade angling toward Lu Ming's flank. Lu Ming's sword was already waiting.
Neither gained the upper hand.
Behind Lu Ming, the Twin-Edge Heron's crescent wings slowly unfolded.
Mo Xuan's Rune Sword Soul stirred behind him, black-and-white energy gathering faintly at his back.