Bai Shan forcibly halted his spear's momentum, abandoning his defense, and violently ignited his Dantian.
"Silver Serpent's Wrath!" Bai Shan roared, unleashing the peak Xuan Class technique borderline to Di Class he had specifically been saving to impress the elders.
The blue lightning surrounding him didn't just crackle; it violently exploded, transforming into a dense, blinding aura of liquid electricity. The sheer voltage shattered the stone tiles in a ten-foot radius around him.
Before Kuo's glowing, gravity-infused fist could connect with his chestplate, Bai Shan blurred. He moved with a terrifying, instantaneous burst of speed that entirely bypassed Kuo's kinetic vision.
The heavy fist struck empty air, creating a sonic boom that echoed across the arena, but the target was already gone.
"Too slow, trash!" Bai Shan's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
He reappeared directly at Kuo's flank, floating half a foot off the ground, his silver spear now a localized bolt of highly compressed lightning. He thrust the weapon forward in a chaotic, blinding barrage.
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
Kuo desperately threw up his thick arms, channeling the absolute limits of his earth Dou Qi to shield his body, but it was entirely futile. The speed disparity had grown too massive. The spear tip blurred into dozens of afterimages, slipping past Kuo's heavy, earthen guard with surgical precision.
The silver blade sliced across Kuo's shoulders, thighs, and biceps. Blood sprayed into the air, instantly vaporized by the trailing lightning into a red mist.
"Guh!" Kuo grunted, his face contorting in agony as the paralyzing shock of the lightning finally managed to bypass his grounding technique, locking his muscles in place.
Seeing his opponent freeze, Bai Shan sneered. He spun the spear in his hands, using the heavy, blunt shaft of the weapon to deliver a devastating horizontal sweep directly into Kuo's unprotected gut.
BAM!
The sickening sound of ribs cracking echoed through the silent crowd. The sheer kinetic force of the 9-Star strike lifted Kuo entirely off his feet, sending his heavy, broad-shouldered body flying through the air. He crashed violently into the stone arena twenty feet away, bouncing twice before skidding to a halt near the edge of the ring.
Bai Shan paused, dropping into an elegant, relaxed posture. He rested the crackling silver spear over his shoulder, a sadistic, satisfied smirk playing on his handsome face. He enjoyed the silence of the crowd. This was the absolute dominance he was meant to project.
For several long, agonizing seconds, Kuo didn't move. He lay face down on the shattered stone, surrounded by a small, expanding pool of his own blood.
Down in the crowd, a few female students gasped, while others looked away in pity. The beating was simply too brutal.
But then, a trembling hand reached out, its fingers digging into the cracks of the arena floor.
Slowly, agonizingly, Kuo pushed himself up. Blood dripped from his chin, and his brown training uniform was shredded and scorched, but his eyes burned with an unyielding, bedrock-solid resolve. He staggered to his feet, his broad chest heaving heavily as he gasped for air.
Bai Shan's smirk twitched, a flash of genuine annoyance crossing his aristocratic features. He vanished again, a blur of blue lightning.
He reappeared directly in front of Kuo and delivered a spinning back-kick coated in electricity, burying his heel into Kuo's jaw.
Kuo fell hard, the back of his head bouncing against the stone.
Yet, before Bai Shan could even turn his back to claim victory, he heard the scraping of boots against the floor.
Kuo was standing up again. His legs were shaking violently, and his left eye was swollen shut, but he raised his bare fists in a crude, desperate boxing stance.
"Surrender, Kuo," Bai Shan commanded, his voice dripping with icy condescension. "You have fought enough, and you fought hard. But it is a pity; you will never be able to compare to me. You are nothing but a pebble in my path."
Kuo spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the pristine boots of the 9-Star genius.
Bai Shan's eyes narrowed dangerously, the blue lightning around his spear flaring with volatile, murderous intent.
"Do you not understand basic logic?" Bai Shan continued, shaking his head as if lecturing a fool. "My Dou Qi reserves are vastly superior to yours, and my Qi Method allows me to recover rapidly. My techniques require a fraction of the energy your desperate defenses consume. I have enough energy left that even if I play with you all day, I wouldn't be tired. But you... you will just die from exhaustion."
It was a harsh, objective truth. The crowd knew it.
But Kuo simply gritted his bloody teeth, his one good eye locking onto the arrogant genius.
"I will... not yield," Kuo rasped, his voice rough and heavy like grinding stones. "You are strong... but your heart is weak. I will break your... arrogance."
"You?!" Bai Shan laughed, a sharp, hateful sound. "You break me?!"
Before Kuo could even finish drawing his next breath, Bai Shan lashed out. He delivered a brutal, lightning-infused front kick directly into Kuo's sternum.
Kuo's breath left him in a violent rush. He stumbled backward, clutching his chest. His knees finally buckled, and he dropped heavily onto one knee. He tried to force himself back up, his hands pressing against the stone, but his muscles had completely betrayed him. He was entirely trapped in his own exhausted, paralyzed body.
Bai Shan walked over to the kneeling youth, his handsome face completely twisted by wounded pride and venomous rage. This nobody, this former thug, had dared to insult his Dao heart in front of Gu Xun'er and the entire academy.
"Fine," Bai Shan said coldly, raising his silver spear high above his head, the tip crackling with a concentrated, lethal sphere of blue lightning. "Then I will grant your wish. If you love the earth so much, you can spend the rest of your life crawling on it. Be ready to be a cripple!"
He aimed the tip of his spear directly at Kuo's lower abdomen—the exact location of his Dantian. A strike with that much voltage would instantly shatter the Dou Cyclone, destroying Kuo's cultivation permanently and reducing him to a bedridden invalid.
Down by the edge of the arena, the Outer Academy Instructor's eyes widened in absolute horror.
"Stop! The match is over!" the Instructor roared, instantly exploding with his Da Dou Shi aura.
But it was entirely too late. The Instructor was stationed fifty feet away at the perimeter of the sprawling arena. In the microsecond it took to register the lethal intent and launch himself forward, Bai Shan had already thrust the spear downward with his full, 9-Star speed. There were no other teachers nearby to intervene.
A collective gasp echoed through the crowd. Several students squeezed their eyes shut, unable to watch the brutal crippling of a fellow disciple.
Kuo didn't close his eyes. He didn't beg. He just braced for the agonizing, life-ending impact, his jaw set like stone.
The silver spear descended like a bolt of heavenly judgment.
But it never reached its target.
CLANG!
A sharp, deafening sound of metal impacting solid, unyielding density rang out across the arena, sending a violent shockwave of displaced air tearing through the crowd.