Chapter 1025: Second Grade! Second Grade! Second Grade!

Xu Gang had been toyed to death alive.

Fan Li felt not the slightest guilt over it. He even deliberately turned toward Master and raised one arm, clenching his fist as if asking Master to admire just how mighty and imposing he was.

At the same time, he lightly tugged with his other hand. The upper half of Xu Gang's corpse, fixed over his shoulder by those barbs, bobbed its head up and down as though sincerely nodding along in agreement.

Of course, with the hollows caved into Xu Gang's chest and the grotesque bulges jutting from his back, the whole pose looked profoundly wrong no matter how one examined it.

Fan Li did not seem to care about the wounds covering his own body.

Zheng Fan did not pay them much attention either.

The Blind Man had already "retrieved" the food and drink. The large iron cigarette case landed accurately in Zheng Fan's hand. Zheng Fan opened it, drew out a cigarette, but did not light it. He merely held it beneath his nose and inhaled the scent.

The sunflower seeds, peanuts, water skins, and the rest floated into A'Ming's, Xue San's, and Siniang's hands.

The Blind Man, meanwhile, now held two oranges.

They truly were not deliberately putting on airs or playing some elaborate tune to preserve their status.

After Zheng Fan finished talking with the Demon Kings, unified everyone's thinking, and forged a common understanding, he had intended to charge straight inside.

The ones determined to play games were the people in there.

They were probably so absurdly powerful that arrogance had come to them just as naturally.

Truthfully, after more than ten years commanding armies, Zheng Fan had never encountered opponents this stupid and conceited.

Even the Qian frontier armies of the earliest days, inept as they had been, still understood the basic laws of a battlefield: if you could not win, run; if you could win, surround the enemy and swallow him whole.

These people before him, by contrast... were simply baffling.

He had always mocked them as rats that could not show their faces outside a filthy sewer.

Yet when the moment finally arrived, Zheng Fan discovered that even after doing his best to despise the enemy strategically, he had still imagined them far too favorably.

Still... as the Blind Man had said earlier, if they were going to play, then they might as well enjoy themselves.

Since the other side was willing to provide the entertainment and actively cooperate, why refuse double, triple, or even greater happiness?

Come on.

Take it slowly.

Raise the stakes a little at a time.

And savor the sight of them falling, step by step, from the clouds into the mire.

...

"So what in the hell are they fighting? What is this supposed to be?!"

Huang Lang finally lost patience and let out a low roar.

One idiot ran outside the formation, made a show of his status, and indulged himself in some grand display of patriotism.

Fine. The other side did not appreciate it.

Fine. They fought.

Fine. Then he got tortured to death in that ridiculous fashion.

Not only had it struck their side squarely across the head... the truly embarrassing part was... the enemy still had not entered the formation!

They had originally intended to enter!

After all this nonsense, however, they were still standing outside.

More infuriating still, after three consecutive people inexplicably broke through into Third Grade, the two remaining Xu brothers, together with the two women originally positioned to cut off the retreat—one of whom was a Qi Refiner... had abruptly turned the situation into an even match.

"Wine Elder, Granny Qian, please ask someone to act. Do not let more complications arise. I am begging both of you."

Granny Qian looked somewhat displeased. She had been the one repeatedly insisting earlier that nothing could possibly go wrong, and now something very obviously had.

The Wine Elder looked helpless.

He was willing enough to listen to this "Master."

The problem was that this Master did not actually possess much authority inside the Gate.

True, everyone inside called him Master.

But in reality, the people there regarded him, together with the seven Demon Kings who should have appeared according to the prophecy, as their... walkers in the mortal world.

In other words, people one level lower, sent out into the open to handle affairs on their behalf.

Still, Xu Gang's death had achieved something.

Some of those watching had finally begun to feel the situation was absurd.

That made it easier to persuade the true "great figures" to move.

Granny Qian scooped up a handful of water and scattered it downward.

"Lady Yun, please act."

The Wine Elder lightly patted his wine flask, then leaned ingratiatingly toward its mouth.

"Elder Hu, you saw that, didn't you? The fellows below are making an utter disgrace of themselves. How about stretching your limbs a little?"

Years ago in Fengxin City, the Prince had liked drinking mutton soup with Old Yu. At the time, frustrated "talents" from all over regularly came to recommend themselves to the Prince Residence in hopes of finding a future there. Unfortunately, with the Blind Man guarding the gate, frauds trying to pass themselves off as pearls found it extraordinarily difficult to get inside.

That created a sizable population of men who considered themselves "unrecognized talents." Depressed, they would sit over bowls of mutton soup and bitterly declare that the mortal world was not worth enduring, that they intended to enter a monastery and seek inner peace.

Whenever the Prince heard such talk, he would laugh and tell Old Yu that there were always people in this world who imagined they could reach freedom and complete their escape from themselves simply by moving somewhere else or shaving their heads.

Naive beyond belief.

Enter a monastery because you want to escape the world, and once you are inside, you often discover that the tiny temple is crammed full of every single thing you were trying to flee.

Before, at least you could go around it, hide from it, avoid it.

After becoming a monk, it was practically pressed face-to-face against you.

Inside the Gate and outside the Gate were much the same.

The powerful figures within were divided into layers too.

The three Xu brothers, along with the two women who had awakened early by borrowing physical bodies and wandering outside, were actually the bottom layer inside the Gate.

That was why they had banded together.

Third Grade was merely the threshold.

Wine Elder and Granny Qian belonged roughly to the middle layer and possessed some organizational authority.

Higher still, the upper echelon had to be capable, at minimum, of opening Second Grade.

As for anything above that... that legendary realm... no one knew whether it truly existed.

Yet everyone inside the Gate understood in his heart that it probably did.

After all, no one seemed to belong to the first group ever to enter the Gate.

So who had built it?

And who had established its rules?

The moment Granny Qian and Wine Elder finished calling out, a piercing shriek erupted from the earth beneath the raised platform.

A red-haired woman rose into the air standing upon a brown centipede.

The Emperor of Chu looked thoughtful the instant he saw her.

More than a hundred and fifty years ago, one Emperor of Great Chu was said to have possessed a beloved consort who was herself one of the Shaman Rectors.

That relationship had violated one of Chu's greatest customary taboos.

The Xiong Clan governed the mundane world.

The Shaman Rectors governed its other side.

That was an understanding Great Chu had maintained since the founding of the state.

After all, neither Chu's aristocrats nor its shamans wished to see the Xiong Clan seize both men and gods in one hand, becoming not merely the Son of Heaven... but Heaven itself.

That Emperor ultimately died young.

According to popular legend, his Shaman Rector consort followed him into burial, producing one of the romantic love stories beloved by the common people of Chu.

The Emperor of Chu knew better.

That ancestor's death had been absurd.

Afterward, the Xiong Clan established the Shadows to guard Great Chu's imperial palace generation after generation.

And according to secret records, the consort had never followed her Emperor into the grave.

In fury, she dressed herself entirely in red, killed three Shaman Rectors, assassinated several great nobles, and then drifted away.

No one ever discovered where she went.

Lady Yun... by generation, the woman before him was probably some great-great... great-grandaunt of his.

The Elder Hu summoned by the Wine Elder leapt down from one of the towers within Dongming Stockade.

When he landed, packs of red wolves rose beneath him and carried him forward.

Those wolves radiated extraordinarily dense demon-beast auras.

Yet... they were not living creatures.

They were products of mechanism arts.

Elder Hu had been Pavilion Master of Tianji Pavilion in Jin more than a century earlier.

At the time, signs of the Three Families Dividing Jin had already appeared, but the Jin imperial house had not yet fully declined. Rumor had it that Elder Hu came into conflict with the head of the Helian Clan. The two sides eventually tore away all pretense of civility, and the affair concluded with the Helian Clan Head bedridden by serious illness and Tianji Pavilion changing Pavilion Masters.

After Yan destroyed Jin, the surviving remnants of Tianji Pavilion were handed by Tian Wujing to Zheng Fan.

The previous Pavilion Master and the current Pavilion Master both served Zheng Fan now.

The armor, workshops, and siege machinery developed for the eastern Jin army depended on Xue San's wild ideas... but they also depended upon those people of Tianji Pavilion adapting those ideas to practical conditions.

Now two true experts moved.

Bearing terrifying pressure, they stepped out of the formation.

Quite a few others who had previously been watching for amusement also chose to leave it.

Faced with this change...

Great Yan's Regent Prince remained as calm as ever.

After Xu Gang's death, his two sworn brothers had not rushed to avenge him. They had merely formed a standoff with Liang Cheng.

Fan Li silently stood behind Liang Cheng.

The Blind Man began peeling an orange.

As more and more powerful figures from inside the Gate emerged from the formation, everyone on Zheng Fan's side remained perfectly at ease.

"Yun greets the Regent Prince of Yan. I have long heard Your Highness's great name."

The woman in red stood upon her centipede, half-floating in the air.

Look closely and one could see several twisted, agonized faces appearing and vanishing around her body.

This was a Qi Refiner's method.

It was also a shamanic method.

And it had been fused with the Xiong Clan of Chu's beast-taming arts.

Lady Yun had reached an extraordinary level in several paths at once.

Zheng Fan found this sort of... forced civilized greeting... absurd.

Then again, these people were antiques who had slept for more than a century.

It would have been stranger if they were not pedantic.

But just as Zheng Fan prepared to answer...

Fan Li, who had grown bored of the new toy sitting on his shoulder, suddenly pointed excitedly at Lady Yun.

"Master! She clears the threshold! A married woman!"

Lady Yun's face instantly turned cold.

She had been an imperial consort of Great Chu.

How could she tolerate such humiliation?

The centipede beneath her lunged directly at Fan Li.

At the same time, Lady Yun formed a seal with one hand. A terrifying force was drawn down from the canopy of Heaven and poured into the centipede.

Fan Li had originally intended to take this "figurine" head-on.

But the moment he saw that Lady Yun was using the centipede the same way the Sword Saint had once used Longyuan to borrow Second Grade power, Fan Li immediately chose to dodge.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The centipede pursued from behind.

Fan Li ran in front.

Lady Yun floated above and watched her centipede repeatedly fail to bite down on the big fool, missing him by barely a fraction each time.

Thought flashed through her eyes.

Then she realized that although the fool's footwork looked utterly chaotic, profound principles were hidden within it.

The Sword Saint had once seen similar footwork used by his disciple Sword Maid.

Sword Maid had called it... the Yu Steps.

"Master, save me! Master, save me!"

Fan Li was already wounded.

Now he was being chased by something wielding borrowed Second Grade power.

He kept dodging, but looked spectacularly miserable.

Zheng Fan chose to ignore him.

Who had told the idiot to run his mouth?

A'Ming, standing nearby, laughed without the slightest mercy.

"The dumb bastard deliberately pulled aggro onto himself. Serves him right."

Then A'Ming walked in front of Zheng Fan.

He had not yet managed to kneel when a chorus of wolf howls erupted behind them.

Elder Hu appeared at the rear surrounded by his pack of mechanism wolves.

After all, Zheng Fan and the others still had not entered the formation.

So the people inside could only continue adding strength to block their retreat.

The Blind Man finished peeling his orange and held a segment toward A'Ming's mouth.

A'Ming pretended not to see it.

The Blind Man said:

"Eat it, and I won't compete with you."

A'Ming opened his mouth.

The Blind Man put the orange inside.

Then the Blind Man smiled, satisfied.

He was already Third Grade.

With him standing here, how could he possibly have failed to notice the mechanism master's attempt to circle behind them?

But whether he noticed had never mattered.

No one here intended to retreat.

Since they had already come, they were obviously going to enjoy themselves properly.

This tempo was rather nice.

Everyone liked the atmosphere.

"The former Pavilion Master of Tianji Pavilion greets the Regent Prince of Great Yan.

"This old man has heard that Tianji Pavilion is presently in Your Highness's hands?"

"It is," Zheng Fan answered. "Want to come back? They've all been promoted."

"My remaining lifespan is too short. I cannot return." Elder Hu sighed. "Since Your Highness protected Tianji Pavilion's inheritance for us, after Your Highness is gone, this old man will protect your wife and children to some extent. Call it repayment of a favor."

"You won't have the opportunity."

Zheng Fan looked toward Siniang, who had been standing beside him all along.

"Feel like playing?"

Siniang smiled and nodded.

"I do."

At that moment, Fan Li was finally bitten once by the pursuing centipede.

His entire body was flung away and crashed into the ground.

However, when the centipede's skeletal plating struck the spikes covering Fan Li, blood began seeping out there too.

Clearly, this centipede had undergone immense sacrificial refinement to possess such "divinity."

No matter how filthy their bones might be, Qi Refiners at least liked maintaining the outward appearance of immortal elegance.

Shamans were different.

They inherited the most primitive breath of the savage ancient world, and their methods frequently recognized no taboo whatsoever.

Which meant... to A'Ming, the blood spilling from the centipede was practically an aged vintage.

The scent alone intoxicated him.

A'Ming actually reached out without thinking, pinched Zheng Fan's sleeve, and tugged.

For an aristocratic vampire to make such a gesture... his attention was obviously fixed entirely upon that delicious scent.

He had forgotten everything else.

Behind them, the red wolves connected to Elder Hu's ten fingers by threads began roaring in perfect unison.

Their auras linked together.

They could spring forward and kill at any moment.

This former Pavilion Master of Tianji Pavilion looked more like a shepherd now, trying to herd Zheng Fan and his flock into the formation.

"Blind Man, they seem extremely eager to drive us inside," Zheng Fan said.

"Yes, Master. If this subordinate has guessed correctly, they should have arranged something in Yanjing at the same time. They're gambling that Master cannot borrow Great Yan's national fortune. Once we enter the Four Directions Grand Formation, we'll be completely suppressed while every possibility of retreat is severed. Only then will they truly feel secure."

"What do you think?"

"Hm?"

The Blind Man froze for a moment, then laughed.

"How could we possibly fail to borrow it? At the decisive moment, when has that Emperor ever hesitated?"

"I thought you were still holding on to some expectations."

"I'm tired. Let it all burn.

"No more expectations. None.

"I only have expectations for the next generation now."

After all, Great Yan's Crown Prince was at most Tian Tian's childhood companion.

As for Zheng Lin... what damned friendship did he have with the Ji house?

Yes.

Even at a moment like this, the Blind Man remained devoted to his great enterprise of rebellion.

His dream was pure.

And the Blind Man had remained faithful to it.

"Then we keep dangling them?" Zheng Fan asked. "Give everyone a turn on stage?"

"Sounds good, doesn't it, Master? It gives us pacing and buildup, and saves our own people from fighting over turns."

Zheng Fan looked ahead, then behind.

"Third Grade experts can already walk sideways through the jianghu. I only just entered Third Grade myself, yet after coming here it really does feel like 'Third Grades are as common as dogs, Second Grades walk every street.'"

"Master, that isn't quite fair. There aren't actually that many of them. Besides, they're accumulated antiques from more than a century ago. This subordinate can sense that there are major problems with their auras.

"Even among those capable of opening Second Grade, the Sword Saint isn't here today. If he were, one of him could fight two of these people.

"The confidence and foundation of the true experts of this age are far stronger than these half-starved rats."

"What a pity we didn't bring Old Yu. Old Yu is still angry with me."

"Our own family doesn't have enough enemies to divide among us. Where would there be a share for Yu Huaping?"

At that moment, Fan Li was bitten again.

A hole was torn through his right arm.

The centipede's mouth bled even more.

"Hss..."

A'Ming stared at the blood dripping from its jaws with such heartache that he could barely breathe.

Behind them, Elder Hu spoke.

"Your Highness, why not enter the stockade for a cup of watered wine? Let both sides preserve one final shred of dignity. What do you say?"

...

On the raised platform, Huang Lang finally sat back down and released a long breath.

Granny Qian and Wine Elder also recovered their calm.

Only the Emperor of Chu wore an even deeper, more playful smile.

He did not know the reason.

But instinct told him... this was going to become extremely interesting.

And extremely entertaining.

"I suspect those subordinates the Regent Prince brought all used some special secret art to lower their apparent cultivation before coming here. They wanted to catch us unprepared," Granny Qian said.

Wine Elder nodded.

"That should be it. A very profound method. Even those Great Qi Refiners failed to detect it in advance. It would be worth learning.

"Still, that is all.

"Third Grade before Second Grade...

"Look. Another one knelt. Heh. Are we doing this again?"

"As expected. That Princess Consort was also concealing Third Grade cultivation.

"That sickly-looking fellow too."

"Even that ghost infant is Third Grade. A Third Grade spirit... it might already rival Great Chu's damaged Fire Phoenix."

"A treasure. A true treasure!"

"I want that one!"

A low roar came from deep inside Dongming Stockade.

"Why should it belong to you? I want it too!"

A woman's sharp voice answered from elsewhere inside, immediately competing with the first.

Granny Qian and Wine Elder exchanged glances.

They did not dare involve themselves in the argument between those two.

But now... their hearts had finally settled completely.

They admitted that the Regent Prince had hidden his strength with remarkable mastery.

But ultimately... the Regent Prince had underestimated the power gathered inside the Gate.

...

A'Ming and Siniang both knelt on one knee.

Zheng Fan placed Wuya upon A'Ming's shoulder.

Then lifted it away.

A'Ming's aura erupted.

Zheng Fan did not use the saber on Siniang.

He reached out and gently caressed the side of her face instead.

In the next instant, Siniang's aura erupted as well.

Yet even after their cultivation rose into Third Grade, neither Siniang nor A'Ming stood.

They remained kneeling.

Zheng Fan raised the Demon Child.

Its aura erupted too.

The Demon Child... entered Third Grade!

The next moment, the infant formed from the red stone flew free and merged directly into Zheng Fan's body.

Father and son had not fused together for a very long time.

The reason was simple.

Zheng Fan encountered danger less and less often.

Things capable of threatening him had become rarer still.

This time... they were picking up one of the earliest memories again.

An icy chill rapidly spread through Zheng Fan's limbs and bones.

At the same time, violent emotions instinctively began filling his heart.

Fortunately... the Demon Child had matured considerably.

And the father was no longer the inexperienced man he had once been.

So from beginning to end...

Zheng Fan remained steadily standing where he was.

When Zheng Fan opened his eyes again... the aura around him had crossed one thin line beyond Second Grade!

It was probably the most fraudulent Second Grade realm in history.

You could hardly say he had opened Second Grade.

He had not.

At that moment, Zheng Fan's head was swimming so badly he barely dared raise it.

Other people opened Second Grade by borrowing power down from Heaven.

He was genuinely afraid that if he accidentally looked upward, Heaven might answer by dropping a thunderbolt directly onto his head.

And compared with swallowing pills... this method of forcibly raising one's realm was countless times more hollow.

Countless times more shameless too.

At least other people swallowed pills.

He... had swallowed his son.

But none of that mattered.

At the very least... he had gone up.

Set actual strength aside.

He could probably barely fight at all in this condition.

But Zheng Fan's task as Master, as the existence who normally dragged everyone else down... was only to walk at the very front.

As long as you stood in front... who cared whether you were standing, lying down, sprawled on your belly, or twisted into some utterly disgraceful posture?

"Mm..."

His body felt as though it weighed ten thousand jun.

Zheng Fan struggled to raise his right arm.

Wuya, held in that hand, settled upon A'Ming's shoulder.

His left hand trembled as it rose.

Once more... it touched Siniang's face.

With immense difficulty, Zheng Fan forced several words from his mouth:

"Rise..."

A'Ming slowly stood.

His hair began turning red.

His body gradually floated into the air.

One ancient, mysterious vampiric rune after another appeared around him, radiating the breath of vast and forgotten ages.

"Hahahahahahaha... hahahahahahaha..."

A'Ming opened his mouth.

A wildly exaggerated laugh poured out.

His greedy gaze swept across everyone around him.

Then even deeper... toward the depths of Dongming Stockade inside the formation.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Every one of you is my wine.

Every one of you is my finest vintage.

Be good.

One at a time.

Don't run.

And don't imagine you can run.

My wine cup... will be the final resting place of this life of yours.

Siniang slowly stood as well.

In the end, she was a woman who had become a mother.

Steady.

Grounded.

Nothing like A'Ming, who had immediately become so pleased with himself he nearly forgot his own name.

Siniang looked toward the old man from Tianji Pavilion standing behind them.

Then she casually flicked two threads from her fingertips.

The two halves of the "toy" Fan Li had tossed onto the ground were stitched together at an inconceivably terrifying speed.

Then came something even more inconceivable.

The stitched corpse... slowly stood.

Xu Gang... already dead... opened his eyes again.

His gaze was pure white and empty.

Yet as his fists gradually clenched... the aura flowing from him... was unmistakably that of a Third Grade Martial Artist!

Xu Gang opened his mouth.

He began to "speak."

"The real game... has only just begun."

[End of Chapter 1025]