Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

Although everyone was already prepared for it, hearing Long Chen’s voice still greatly shocked everyone. He had actually issued a life and death challenge to a peak mid Tendon Transformation expert.

This was no ordinary challenge. Unless one party backed out, one of them had to die today.

An icy smile appeared on Wu Qi’s face. Long Chen was powerful, but in his eyes, Long Chen had never been an actual match for him.

If it weren’t for the monastery restricting him, he would have long since killed Long Chen. The fact that Long Chen would just send himself to be killed by him like this was a nice surprise.

“You have to think this through Long Chen. Once the life and death challenge is issued, one party will die. This isn’t a game. If you feel you have received injustice or unfair treatment, you can make a complaint to me,” solemnly warned Ling Yun-zi.

A life and death challenge was something that was only to be issued when the differences had reached an irreconcilable level. Unless the hatred between the two parties had reached an extremely high level, no one would issue such a challenge.

Ling Yun-zi was worried. Although he was sure Long Chen was a Divergent, a legendary existence that would only die beneath the Heavenly Daos, those were just legends. A Divergent had not appeared in who knew how many tens of thousands of years. And even if one had appeared, no one would know about them.

Only when those people were destroyed under a world-eradicating divine punishment would people realize that they had been a Divergent.

But in all the recorded history, there had only ever been three definite Divergents. Furthermore, they had existed so long ago that those recordings were very vague.

And so no one could be sure of any exact details about Divergents, and the legends could not be entirely trusted. Although Long Chen was powerful, in front of a peak mid Tendon Transformation expert, he would definitely lose.

And so that was why Ling Yun-zi gave Long Chen this option to simply give him his complaints about any injustices. If Wu Qi really had abused his authority against him, he would get justice for Long Chen.

“Reporting to sect leader, what happened was-” Tang Wan-er quickly walked out and was about to explain what had happened.

But Long Chen waved his hand, “Great sect leader, in this world where only strength is respected, there is never any fairness or justice. Complaints of unfairness are just the excuses of the weak, only confirming their own incompetence and foolishness. And since the world has no fairness, then we should use strength to speak. Please help me out great sect leader.”

“Long Chen!” Tang Wan-er’s expression changed. He was clearly on the righteous side, but he refused to explain himself, stubbornly issuing this life and death challenge!

That Wu Qi was a peak mid Tendon Transformation expert, and Long Chen was definitely not his match! He was just sending himself to death.

Tang Wan-er grumbled inside. Why was Long Chen sometimes so smart that people felt he was a sage, yet sometimes so foolish that nothing could save him?

“Faction leader, don’t try to persuade him. I understand the boss; he wants to personally revenge his enmity and not want to rely on the monastery’s power to punish Wu Qi,” said Guo Ran.

Having been with Long Chen for this long, Guo Ran had a great understanding of Long Chen’s character. Long Chen wouldn’t easily become angry, but once he did, that meant that something had touched upon his taboos.

Furthermore, he was not entirely free from fault in this matter. First of all, Little Snow couldn’t formally be considered his housepet since he hadn’t placed a spiritual imprint on him. There was no way to definitively prove they knew this was Long Chen’s Magical Beast.

Wu Qi could easily make an excuse for himself by saying he had accidentally stumbled upon a Magical Beast in the wilderness and wanted to subdue it.

An ownerless Magical Beast was something anyone had the right to subdue for their own. Even killing them was no problem.

If Wu Qi simply said he didn’t know this was Long Chen’s Magical Beast, there wasn’t much they could do. Little Snow had no markings on him that showed he was Long Chen’s. And with no spiritual imprint, he definitely had a leg to stand on.

Even the sect leader would not be able to prove the truth. And it was only because Wu Qi had known that that he had been so brazen as to capture Little Snow.

With Long Chen’s intelligence, how could he not realize Wu Qi was sure of his own safety? So there was no way to get revenge through that route. And so Long Chen was disinclined to explain himself, directly forcing the life and death challenge.

Tu Fang’s expression changed slightly, as he could easily tell that Long Chen had no chance of defeating Wu Qi.

But in accordance to the monastery’s rules, not even the sect leader could change what was happening. He could only be worried inside. Long Chen was really too stubborn, not even knowing when to retreat! Tu Fang could only helplessly sigh.

“You have to think this though. Once the challenge is issued, there’s no way to change it,” once more warned Ling Yun-zi.

“Many thanks for the warning sect leader. Disciple is sure.” Long Chen cupped his hands to Ling Yun-zi, knowing he was looking out for him. But he had to do this.

Seeing Little Snow’s condition gave him so much fury he felt he might explode. If he couldn’t personally kill Wu Qi, living would be a complete disgrace to him.

Although he had no guarantee against a peak mid Tendon Transformation expert, he no longer cared.

This time it wasn’t that will in the back of his head that was forcing him, but his own will. No one would hurt those close to him without paying a price.

“Wu Qi, do you accept the challenge?” Ling Yun-zi turned to glance at Wu Qi lightly.

Wu Qi immediately felt as if all his thoughts were laid bare before Ling Yun-zi. It was as if Ling Yun-zi’s indifferent gaze could see completely through him, causing him to sweat.

“Disciple… accepts the challenge.” Wu Qi lowered his head, not even daring to look at Ling Yun-zi in the eyes.

If he didn’t accept the challenge, he would be expelled from the monastery. That was the harshest part of the life and death challenge.

If you accepted the challenge, you theoretically had a fifty percent of death. If you didn’t accept the challenge, you would immediately have to scram. That was also why most similar situations were to be mediated differently. With this method, the monastery would lose one disciple no matter what.

Everyone was silent. Their hearts sunk now that Wu Qi had accepted the challenge. This was an extremely unequal fight.

But it was initiated by Long Chen. Those disciples watching couldn’t help feeling dissatisfied with this, as they were all members of the new generation. Anyone in Long Chen’s position would be feeling endless humiliation.

If they were Long Chen, they would definitely have just endured it. They wouldn’t go and issue a life and death challenge against someone they clearly knew they couldn’t defeat.

This was complete folly. But this kind of foolishness was also not something that just anyone had the courage to do.

“Fine, follow me.” Ling Yun-zi sighed and waved his hand. Their vision changed and they felt their bodies jolt, reappearing at an open space in the rear mountains of the monastery.

This completely open space was hundreds of miles wide. But within that wide open space was an enormous iron cage with a huge monolith inside.

The monolith was completely square and hundreds of meters high. None of the disciples knew why it was locked within this iron cage.

“This is the death-deciding stage,” sighed Tu Fang. Now that the situation had developed to this point, there was no longer any retreat.

He took out a spirit stone and placed onto a stele in front of the death-deciding stage. The stele had a groove just for that spirit stone.

The stele lit up when the spirit stone was placed on it. The land began to shake intensely, giving everyone a fright.

They were awed to see that the huge monolith inside the cage was rising up. Who knew just how heavy it was for it to be able to shake this land like it was.

When it rose over thirty meters, it revealed a martial arena below it. People were startled to see a strange thing on top the martial arena. It seemed like a drawing.

“It’s two people!” exclaimed someone. The ‘drawing’ seemed to be of two people, but they had been crushed into a flat paste.

They were horrified to see these corpses. Then when they then looked at the huge monolith that was hundreds of meters thick, they immediately realized how they had died.

Suddenly, a breeze blew by, and that ‘drawing’ blew away. Due to how many years it had been, those corpses had long since turned to ashes. With just a burst of wind, the martial arena returned to its normal state.

People’s scalps turned numb. No wonder this was called the death-deciding stage.

“The death-deciding stage will only be open for two hours. If neither of you is able to kill the other in that time, the rebirth monolith will fall.

“You can all see how heavy the rebirth monolith is. If it were to fall, not even someone at the Elder level would be able to survive. Do your best to kill your opponent before the time is up, or you’ll end up like the last two,” solemnly warned Tu Fang.

An iron gate opened onto the arena. This small opening of the huge iron cage looked just like the mouth of a savage beast.

Long Chen nodded and gestured at Tang Wan-er and them to be at ease before just calmly walking onto the death-deciding stage.

“Little Wilde, this brother of yours isn’t bad. He’s got guts. This old man likes that style.” The old man looked at Long Chen brightly with a bit of admiration. “But are you not worried for him?”

“What do I need to be worried about? My brother Long is super strong; no one can beat him!” Wilde shook his head. He was practically blindly confident in Long Chen.

Of everyone present, Wilde was the only one who wasn’t worried for Long Chen. In his eyes, Long Chen was an undefeatable god.

Even if Long Chen were to fight Ling Yun-zi, Wilde would still think Long Chen would win. 

That old man couldn’t help shaking his head. With his eyesight, he naturally managed to see through Long Chen’s cultivation base. He was at the peak of Blood Condensation, his blood and qi were surging, and his fighting power was definitely strong.

But his physical body was still quite a bit weaker than Wilde’s, and that saber tooth bone blade he had wasn’t a true weapon, so its power was also not great.

And so Long Chen essentially had no chance of defeating Wu Qi. If Long Chen could even manage to keep surviving until the rebirth monolith fell, that would already be amazing to him.

“If he can survive, then I’ll personally go make him a weapon,” muttered the old man.

“Old man, you should go back now,” said Wilde.

“Why?”

“My brother Long will definitely win. If you start making the weapon now, you can save some more time. What are you wasting time here for?” Wilde said simple-mindedly as if Long Chen’s victory was already set in stone.

That old man actually laughed. He knew Wilde’s temperament, so he didn’t say anymore, turning back to look at the death-deciding stage. At this point, Wu Qi also walked in.

After Wu Qi entered, the gate immediately shut. A groove in the rebirth monolith lit up, and people saw that it was already starting to slowly descend.

This death-deciding battle had begun.