The morning sun hung bright over the central square of Aurora City, casting long shadows across the massive stone arena.
Spectators packed the stands three tiers deep, their roars and bets filling the air with deafening clamor.
At the elevated central pavilion, trumpets sounded as two imposing figures took their seats.
The City Lord and the visiting Kingdom Official had arrived in grand fashion, their presence commanding absolute silence.
Both powerhouses radiated the heavy, suffocating pressure of the 3rd level of the Blood Quenching Realm—a pinnacle of strength rarely seen in this remote border city.
Below the main pavilion, the younger generations of Aurora City’s prominent clans lined up on the waiting platform.
Representing the Lewis Clan stood Gregory Lewis alongside his elder brother, Glenn Lewis.
Glenn was widely regarded as the vanguard talent of the Lewis family, standing firmly at the second level of the Bone Forging Realm—the exact equal to the eldest grandson of the David family.
Across from them sat the core disciples of the David Clan: Reiner, Rovman, Isabella, and Reaser.
Lucien Novar was not among the combatants.
To his grandfather Lucas, his mother Leona, and the entire family, Lucien was merely a youth who had miraculously awakened his foundation and reached the 2nd level of the Body Tempering Realm a few days ago.
To place a boy with two temperings onto an arena of bone-shattering violence was unthinkable.
Lucien stood quietly among the non-combatant family members, watching the arena with calm, fathomless blue eyes.
“Let the Annual Martial Competition begin!” the arena magistrate’s voice boomed across the square.
The tournament commenced with explosive energy.
As prescribed by kingdom law, each duel carried a formal wager between competing families—lucrative mining permits, medicinal stalls, and merchant routes changed hands with every clash.
Match after match concluded as anticipated.
Then, the herald raised his scroll for the main event.
“Next bout: Reiner David versus Glenn Lewis!”
The crowd surged with excitement.
Reiner and Glenn were long-standing rivals, both perched at the 2nd level of Bone Forging.
Because the match was practically dead-even, common sense dictated modest, calculated wagers to test the waters.
Yet, when the betting ledger was presented, Patriarch Lewis stepped forward with a cruel sneer, slamming down documents that shocked the entire arena.
The Lewis Clan was wagering half of their primary spirit-vein mines and three central commercial streets—an astronomical fortune that bordered on madness.
“Has the Lewis family lost their minds?” whispers rippled through the spectators.
“Staking half their foundation on an even coin toss?”
Inside the David Clan’s booth, Patriarch Lucas frowned deeply, suspecting a venomous trap.
Yet kingdom rules forbade a clan from backing down from a direct challenge without forfeiting equivalent face and status.
Reiner cracked his knuckles, preparing to step onto the stone arena.
Right as both fighters were called, Patriarch Lewis raised his hand toward the Kingdom Official with a mocking bow.
“Report to the Magistrate! My son, Glenn Lewis, suffered a sudden physical ailment this morning and is unfit to duel,” Patriarch Lewis announced, his voice dripping with venomous amusement.
“Under the Kingdom’s martial charter, our Lewis Clan exercises the right to dispatch our registered guest representative: Young Master Neil Patrick!”
The arena fell dead silent.
None of the local clans in Aurora City had ever heard the name Neil Patrick. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
But the moment a young man in his twenties strode onto the sand, an overwhelming, suffocating pressure erupted across the stone platform.
Boom!
Spiritual energy swirled around him like a howling gale, kicking up dust across the arena tiles.
9th level of the Bone Forging Realm!
Gasp after gasp of utter horror tore through the crowd.
In a frontier border town where younger talents celebrated reaching the 2nd layer of Bone Forging, a peak 9th-level monster was an untouchable, invincible titan!
The faces of the David Clan turned completely pale.
“Shameless!” Eldest Uncle John slammed his fist into the wooden railing, splintering the banister.
“A peak Bone Forging expert against an eighteen-year-old? This is outright slaughter!”
Reiner’s fists clenched, his knuckles turning stark white.
He was brave, but against a 9th-level powerhouse, he wouldn’t merely lose—he would be maimed, his cultivation permanently ruined, while the David family lost astronomical territory to the wager.
Despair hung heavy over the clan.
In the midst of that suffocating tension, a slender, white-haired youth stepped forward from the rear of the pavilion.
“Stop,” Lucien’s calm, clear voice cut through the noise.
“The David family will also switch contestants.”
He walked past the railing, his piercing blue eyes fixed on the arena.
“I’ll fight instead of Reiner.”
The David Clan froze in sheer disbelief.
“Lucien! What are you doing?!” Uncle Miller gasped.
“Have you lost your mind, boy?!” Reiner reached out frantically, trying to haul him back.
“This isn’t a game in the training yard! That man is a peak Bone Forging demon! He will kill you with a flick of his finger!”
Lucien did not argue with his cousins or uncles.
Instead, he stopped directly before Patriarch Lucas David, looking straight into his grandfather’s dark, weathered eyes.
“Trust me, Grandfather,” Lucien said softly.
His voice did not carry a shred of childish recklessness; it carried the unyielding, ancient resolve of a mountain that refused to bow to heaven.
Lucas stared into those brilliant blue eyes.
For a split second, the veteran patriarch felt an inexplicable chill—the look in his grandson’s eyes was not the gaze of a fragile sheep marching to the slaughter, but the terrifying calm of an apex predator.
Slowly, Lucas offered a firm, solemn nod.
“Go.”
Lucien exchanged places with Reiner at the arena steps.
As they brushed shoulders, Reiner gripped Lucien’s arm with trembling force, his voice cracking: “Be careful, little brother!”
Lucien gave him a reassuring glance and stepped lightly onto the center of the ring.
Across the stone tiles, Neil Patrick’s eyes flashed with venomous delight.
Neil sneered inwardly, his arrogance swelling.
He had been sent to this backwater border town specifically to crush the pride of Leona’s bloodline.
If he thoroughly dismantled her crippled son before the entire city, his reward from his patron would be ten times greater.
Neil crossed his arms, raising his chin as he prepared to deliver a mocking, humiliating speech.
“Puny bra—”
BOOM!
The stone beneath Lucien’s boots did not merely crack; it vaporized into fine dust.
Like a flash of crimson lightning, Lucien crossed twenty paces in a fraction of a millisecond.
Before the syllable could even fully leave Neil’s tongue, Lucien’s fist shattered the sound barrier, slamming directly into Neil Patrick’s arrogant mouth with the raw, terrifying kinetic density of sixty-three stellar temperings.
CRACK!
Teeth, jawbone, and blood exploded into the air.
The kinetic shockwave was so devastating that Neil didn’t even have time to scream.
His body folded like broken firewood, hurtling across the square like a cannonball, crashing through the heavy wooden arena barriers and smashing straight into the bedrock wall fifty paces away.
Thud.
Neil slumped into the rubble, his eyes rolled back, knocked unconscious in a single microsecond.
The entire square froze.
The City Lord choked on his wine.
Patriarch Lewis’s smug smile shattered into a frozen mask of pure, unadulterated horror.
Thousands of spectators sat in paralyzed, breathless silence, unable to comprehend what their eyes had just witnessed.
Lucien casually lowered his right arm, flicking a drop of blood from his knuckles.
“I have no time for your nonsense monologue,” he murmured coldly.
With a single punch, the invincible peak Bone Forging genius was discarded like trash.
The duel was over.
The wager belonged to the David Clan.
Before the stunned magistrate could even stutter the declaration of victory, a sudden, authoritative pressure swept over the arena.
The Kingdom Official stood up from his ornate high seat.
His sharp eyes bore down upon Lucien with intense, undisguised interest before sweeping across the gathered thousands.
“Quiet!” the official’s voice roared, reinforced by 3rd-level Blood Quenching Qi.
The crowd instantly fell dead silent.
“By royal decree of His Majesty, this year’s tournament shall conclude under a special mandate,” the official declared, unrolling a golden silk edict stamped with the Triad Kingdom’s royal crest.
“Three months ago, imperial scouts discovered an ancient, unmapped Secret Realm within our borders. By natural array laws, no master exceeding the Blood Quenching Realm may cross its threshold. As decreed by the King, every city’s victorious young genius shall gather at the Triad Capital one month from today!”
The official paused, his gaze burning with grim gravity.
“From the Royal Capital, our kingdom’s finest youths shall enter the realm together. Be warned: the gates border hostile territory. Geniuses from all our neighboring rival kingdoms shall be entering this realm as well. Return to your clans, forge your weapons, and prepare your best—so you may carve glory and make the Triad Kingdom proud!”