In the VIP seats, White Bone Stockade's Patriarch Li Mang sat in his chair like a dried-out skeleton.
For days now, he had barely slept.
The moment he closed his eyes, the staggering temptation of the Black Bone King's Rank 5 inheritance would surge through his mind in relentless, maddening spirals.
And today — today was the perfect opportunity to stride openly into the heart of Black Blood Stockade and harvest that fruit.
Li Mang's ghost-fire eyes swept downward over the roaring, festive martial arena with cold, hollow indifference.
Who won or lost this so-called "friendly youth tournament" held not even a fraction of his interest.
Every thread of his attention was concentrated beneath his wide sleeve — on that pale, claw-like hand gripping the Bone Scepter with white-knuckled force.
To root out the person hidden somewhere in this crowd — the one who carried another core piece of the inheritance — Li Mang had already descended into a fixation that left no room for anything else.
He didn't even bother to consider whether his brazen Primeval Essence probing might draw the attention and fury of the newly advanced Rank 4 Patriarch beside him, Lin Cang.
At the center of the martial arena, the younger generations of both stockades had already taken their positions on opposite sides, the divide between them sharp and clear.
In ordinary times, Lin Feng, Lin Xue, Lin Yan, and the rest of Black Blood Stockade's inner circle clashed with each other constantly — bitter, relentless, and without mercy.
But faced with an outside threat, these clan elites understood instinctively the law of survival: when the nest falls, no egg is left unbroken. They fell into formation with seamless, unspoken unity.
As the undisputed core and standard-bearer, Lin Feng — who had just broken through to Rank 2 middle stage — stepped to the front of the line without hesitation.
Clad in white, his bearing imposing and assured, he made no effort to conceal the Red Iron Primeval Essence fluctuations rolling off him in waves — fluctuations that far surpassed anyone else his age.
Behind him, Lin Xue, Lin Yan, and the others stood with cold, sharp eyes.
Under Lin Feng's lead, Black Blood Stockade's formation carried an arrogance that could not be understated — like a blade drawn from its scabbard, aimed directly at the opposition.
On the visiting side, White Bone Stockade's young lord Li Huang stood with his striking white hair and a complexion so dark it looked ready to drip.
He stared at the radiant Lin Feng across the arena, his back molars grinding together.
There had been a time when his cultivation and Lin Feng's were neck and neck — when he could even claim a slight edge.
But this was the coldest, most merciless truth of the Gu Master's world.
Cultivation demanded more than the vague, intangible thing called talent. Opportunity and resources — neither could be absent.
The Lin Feng standing before him now had become a towering mountain that Li Huang could only look up at through gritted teeth.
"So this is what a difference in foundation looks like..."
Li Huang's chest was full of suffocated resentment, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Past the taut, charged arena to a relatively unremarkable corner of the spectator stands, half-shrouded in shadow.
Lin Mu sat there with both hands tucked into his wide sleeves, Lin Wuxie beside him.
Lin Wuxie, whose frail frame had once seemed barely capable of holding itself upright, now carried within it a terrifying qi and blood pressure that had settled firmly at peak Rank 1.
More importantly, ever since Lin Mu — his "Shadow Sect Senior Brother" — had begun providing him with regular doses of the antidote, he had not suffered a single episode of that life-destroying backlash.
Lin Wuxie now sat quietly at Lin Mu's side, like a wild dog that had been completely tamed.
The way he looked at Lin Mu held nothing but burning devotion to the sect and absolute, unquestioning trust in this Senior Brother.
Lin Mu, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes slightly against the glare of the midday sun and watched Li Mang on the high platform in the distance with cold, unblinking focus.
Even with the Sparse Shadow Gu planted inside him as a shield, Lin Mu's heartbeat still skipped an involuntary half-beat. A faint slick of cold sweat seeped into his palm.
But he did not lower his head. He did not retreat.
He understood clearly — avoidance never solved anything. He was here today, and he would face it head-on.
"Only by clearing every trace of suspicion today will I ever have open skies ahead of me."
Lin Mu bit down hard on the thought, forcing himself to hold that distant gaze from the high platform without flinching.
On the arena floor, the referee had finished reading the rules aloud.
Faced with Lin Feng — a mountain that currently seemed impossible to surmount — White Bone Stockade had no choice but to pull back across the board, adopting a deeply conservative, conflict-avoidant defensive posture.
The format of this exchange tournament was the brutal "Arena Lord System" — a structure that tests endurance and raw strength to their limits.
The winner held the stage; the loser stepped down.
Whoever won stayed on, basking in the crowd's cheers while waiting to face an endless rotation of the opponent's challengers, one after another, until their Primeval Essence ran dry and they were knocked off the platform.
To demonstrate the grace befitting a major clan, Black Blood Stockade had naturally arranged for their strongest — Lin Feng — to appear last, as the anchor and final trump card.
"Black Blood Stockade — Lin Yan — I ask for your guidance!"
With a roar like a beast unleashed, the first to leap onto the arena on behalf of Black Blood Stockade was that long-suppressed "Fire Lion."
The injuries Lin Yan had sustained before had long since healed completely.
His qi and blood surged with barely contained violence, his battle hunger at a fever pitch, roaring flames already wreathing both fists.
Faced with Lin Yan's blazing, ferocious charge, White Bone Stockade responded with deliberate precision — sending up a powerfully built fighter who specialized in the dual defensive arts of Earth Path and Bone Path.
Boom.
Primeval Essence erupted across the arena in an instant.
Fire and pale bone fragments and shattered earth flew in all directions. The dull, meaty impacts of blow after blow drew wave after wave of cries from the crowd below.
Yet as every spectator's blood ran hot with the spectacle on the arena floor —
Li Mang, seated on the high platform above, let his dead-fish eyes linger on the fight for not even half a second.
His gaze moved like a cold serpent through the grass, tongue flickering.
Guided by the faint, almost imperceptible tremor of the Bone Scepter beneath his sleeve, Li Mang's line of sight cut abruptly past the arena and swept directly over Lin Yan — currently carving through his opponent with brutal efficiency.
An invisible ripple enveloped Lin Yan from head to toe.
One breath passed.
The corners of Li Mang's withered mouth pulled downward slightly. A flash of disappointment and irritation crossed the depths of his eyes.
"Not this one..."