The Crimson Heaven Sect's challenge stages stood on Feiyan Peak, under the Spirit Martial Pavilion's administration.
Challenge stages blanketed nearly the whole of the mountain's waist.
At the very center rose the most eye-catching platform of all: the life-and-death stage.
And right now.
On a challenge stage at the southernmost edge.
Shi Xunyang stood with his sword cradled in his arms, eyes half closed.
Below the stage.
Crimson Heaven Sect disciples pressed in around it, layer upon uncountable layer.
Inner sect, outer sect...
In the front row stood no fewer than several direct disciples.
On an ordinary day, every stage on this slope would be booked solid; today was conspicuously different.
As if by unspoken accord, every disciple in the sect had decided today was for spectating. No one else was sparring at all.
"The appointed time is almost here. Where is Senior Brother Shi's opponent?"
"Who knows? Maybe he got scared?"
"Surely not. Word is the challenge letter came from his side. Who'd throw a challenge without confidence to back it?"
"Don't be so sure. I hear the challenger is a Xueyang Peak direct disciple. The peak's a ruin of its former self, but it still trades on that direct-disciple title.
He knows he can't beat Senior Brother Shi — so he throws a challenge for the attention, then invents some excuse not to show. Who could touch him for it?"
"That shameless? Honestly, it's not fair. Some people probably have worse aptitude and lower cultivation than us, and they get to be direct disciples."
"Not fair barely covers it. You may not know — Xueyang Peak has always run differently from the other six.
Even their share of sect resources... allegedly beats every other peak's.
Special privileges besides. It's why the sect never once intervened, all these years they refused to compete."
"On what grounds?! If they were genuine geniuses, fine. But at this point... I'd wager our inner-sect disciples could beat those Xueyang Peak 'direct disciples' anyway..."
"..."
On the other side, below the stage.
Li Yu — flanked protectively by two senior brothers, there to watch the match — listened to the mockery rolling around her, and the corner of her mouth curled up all on its own.
Her ever-gentle Third Senior Brother patted her head, tone indulgent:
"The match is about to start and Pei Jingyu still hasn't shown. It seems I overestimated him after all.
Second Senior Brother said it best: if that Xueyang Peak lot had real strength, they'd hardly have spent all these years dodging every competition."
The words had barely settled when the Fifth Senior Brother, standing on Li Yu's other side, sneered:
"I said it from the start — Third Senior Brother worries too much. That Xueyang Peak crowd is coasting on yesterday's name, nothing more.
Give it a little time and Liu Yun may not even hold her Peak Lord's seat.
The way I hear it, plenty of elders in the sect already consider Xueyang Peak's existence pointless."
Li Yu's eyes kindled at his final words. "If Liu Yun isn't a Peak Lord anymore — then that murdering little bitch stops being a direct disciple too, doesn't she?"
Third Senior Brother chuckled and nodded. "Naturally. Though direct disciple or not — she crossed our Little Sister. So she dies."
Fifth Senior Brother's lip curled. "Heh. And not just her. That short-lived mother of hers deserved death every bit as much.
Uncle Li never loved the woman. If she didn't have the grace to step aside for true love, then dying was exactly what she deserved."
...
And just as the entire crowd had grown restless — just as everyone concluded that Xueyang Peak's fourth disciple had fled his own challenge —
a flying spirit artifact, a Scarlet Feather Kite, finally materialized in the sky.
The Kite settled. Pei Jingyu — red-robed and startlingly, unfairly beautiful — sauntered toward the challenge stage with all the urgency of a man on an evening stroll.
Ning Ruan, who had ridden in with him, followed as far as the foot of the stage.
Then, without warning, called up at the platform:
"Fourth Senior Brother! Are you sure about betting your entire fortune on this?"
Pei Jingyu, having just taken his place on the stage, glowed with confidence. "Of course. I am a disciple of Invincible Peak — losing is not physically possible. Obviously everything goes on me to win."
Shi Xunyang's half-lidded eyes had come fully open, and a mocking smile spread across his cold face:
"Heh. So you did dare show up."
Pei Jingyu slid him a sidelong glance. "Why wouldn't I dare? We of Invincible Peak were born invincible."
Shi Xunyang very nearly laughed aloud.
So this was how far Xueyang Peak had fallen.
A blindly arrogant, terminally stupid peacock — and this got to call itself a peak's direct disciple?
"Very well. In that case, I'll stake a thousand mid-grade spirit stones — on you to lose."
While the two of them traded words up top,
Ning Ruan had already trotted off to one side.
And, before a wall of disbelieving stares, upended her storage space over the Spirit Martial Pavilion's betting table, burying it in a small mountain of low- and mid-grade spirit stones.
"All of it. On my Fourth Senior Brother to win."
The disciple manning the betting table — dressed in the inner sect's distinctive green — gaped at the heap of stones on the counter.
One sweep of divine sense told him the pile held six thousand low-grade spirit stones.
And two thousand mid-grade...
For context: an inner-sect disciple's monthly stipend was four mid-grade spirit stones. The equivalent of four hundred low-grade.
Gods. How many years would they have to save to match this?
Li Yuan swallowed hard and pointed a trembling finger at the mound:
"You're... really betting all of it???"
Ning Ruan arched a brow. "Of course. Our Invincible Peak cannot lose — my senior brother is unbelievably strong."
Li Yuan: ...
If you hadn't said that last part, I might have rated your senior brother a little higher.
As it stood... this was plainly a family of egos inflated past all salvation, marching hand in hand toward a beating.
No wonder they'd dared challenge the Blazing Sword Shi Xunyang — one of the sect's Ten Great Prodigies.
Even the other members of the Ten, all direct disciples themselves, didn't treat Shi Xunyang this lightly.
Inner commentary aside, Li Yuan recorded Ning Ruan's wager with brisk efficiency.
Then handed over a small jade tally:
"Registered. If Senior Brother Pei wins, redeem this at the Spirit Martial Pavilion for your payout."
Not that winning was remotely on the table, of course.
The thought settled it for him.
The moment Ning Ruan turned back toward the challenge stage,
Li Yuan quietly drew out the thirty mid-grade spirit stones he had scrimped together over years — and, teeth gritted, bet every one of them on Shi Xunyang.
A match with a predetermined winner? He'd need his head examined not to buy in.
Where Li Yuan led, a swarm of disciples followed, piling on fresh wagers...
Even Li Yu produced a hundred mid-grade spirit stones and pushed them straight onto Shi Xunyang.
Up on the challenge stage.
A skin of pale light rose with a shimmer, sealing the platform whole.
The match had begun!