Haodao grinned as Zhenhao charged. Even eting his opponent's cold, confident gaze only made Haodao's grin widen. Zhenhao noticed, but he didn't care.
His focus was solely on winning this fight. His eyes were locked on Haodao, and his sword began to move.
Zhenhao raised his sword slightly and slashed toward Haodao. In response, Haodao calmly extended his three fingers, intending to catch the wooden sword.
Seeing this, Zhenhao took a step to the right. It appeared he was trying to create so distance, but as Haodao followed easily, Zhenhao smiled faintly.
Instead of retreating, he suddenly stepped forward and slashed at Haodao's torso, hoping to land the decisive attack and he succeeded.
Haodao didn't move to defend. It was as if… he let it happen on purpose.
By the ti Zhenhao realized this, it was already too late. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself, his eyes lighting up with determination and excitent, but the mont the wooden sword struck Haodao's torso, it shattered.
Zhenhao's eyes widened in shock and disbelief. As the broken sword fell, Haodao's grin deepened. In that instant, Zhenhao understood.
Haodao's three fingers shot toward Zhenhao's neck.
Zhenhao's heart pounded violently. His blood surged. Fear crept in as mories of Yuexin and Liangyu flashed through his mind.
His body moved instinctively to dodge, his vision blurring with red. His eyes welled with blood tears.
He could still evade, he could take one more step back, but before he could do anything more, a loud voice rang out.
"Zhenhao, out. Group Five wins the match!"
At those words, Haodao froze mid motion, and Zhenhao collapsed to the ground. He gasped for air, panting heavily, coughing between breaths. His eyes, dyed crimson, shed streaks of blood, tears born of defeat… and the brutal toll of him overusing his Third awakened Sense, his sight.
"Hmph!" A loud snort echoed across the field. Zhenhao turned toward the sound, it was Haodao.
"You were lucky to dodge my attack," Haodao said coldly.
Without another glance, Haodao turned and walked back to where his teammates were waiting. Although they had won, none of them were smiling. Their expressions were dull, even a little gloomy.
This had been the first match to earn qualification for the Young Talent Tournant, and it had been an intense one, at least, Yuan thought so.
"Zhenhao… unexpected," Yuan mused to himself. Before the match, Zhenhao hadn't even caught his attention, but now, Yuan was impressed. After all, Zhenhao was only nine years old. What kind of growth could he achieve in ten more years?
But it wasn't just Zhenhao who left an impression, Haodao had as well.
Yuan was particularly surprised to see Haodao using the Dragon Hand Martial Technique, paired with the rare Three tal Dragon Body cultivation thod. These two arts were seldom seen.
He even rembered old man Longwei Feng demonstrating the technique to him once, recomnding he learn it.
Yuan had declined, saying he wasn't interested in learning a hand to hand martial art.
The Dragon Hand Martial Technique had three distinct stages, the Three Clawed Dragon, the Four Clawed Dragon and the Five Clawed Dragon
Each stage increased in power and required not only physical training, but a naturally large palm and exceptional innate strength. Without these, one couldn't unleash the true force of the technique.
At the first stage, the Three Clawed Dragon, a practitioner could leave imprints in wood, at the Four Clawed Dragon stage, their fingers could pierce stone and at the final Five Clawed Dragon stage, their grip beca as unyielding as iron.
But to truly unlock the full might of the technique, one had to cultivate the Three tal Dragon Body, a requirent few could et.
With the Three tal Dragon Body, one could harden their bones and when combined with the Dragon Hand Martial Technique, its power tripled. At the Three Clawed Dragon stage, breaking wood beca effortless.
At the Four Clawed Dragon stage, even stone could be shattered and at the Five Clawed Dragon stage, bending iron required little strength.
"Interesting… truly interesting," Yuan thought again, his gaze lingering on Haodao. While he pondered the Dragon Hand Martial Technique and the Three tal Dragon Body Cultivation Technique, a different reaction brewed beside him.
Haoran gritted his teeth, glaring at Haodao with a look that could kill.
"How dare he act so domineering! He really wants to bring sha to Father!" Haoran snapped, his voice laced with anger and irritation, but deep down, he knew he couldn't do anything about it right now.
"I just hope we don't end up fighting. But if we do, I'll beat him black and blue!"
Yuxin sighed. "Haa… Brother Ran, don't speak so harshly. He's still your brother and as the older one, you should take responsibility. be more like the founder, kind and understanding, you must first show and teach him how to do better, not curse him."
"Hmph," Haoran just snorted, refusing to reply further.
With that, the next match began.
This ti, it was Group One versus Group Three. But unlike the earlier match, this spar lacked the sa intensity or excitent. Group One and Group Three had always been evenly matched, and as the duel dragged on, both sides beca increasingly exhausted.
"Caocao, out! Group Three wins the match!" the teacher announced.
The match had ended without much fanfare. Group One had simply run out of stamina and could no longer continue, while Group Three won by enduring just a bit longer.
Now, only one match remained, Group Four versus Group Six.
"Okay, now Group Four against Group Six, please step onto the training ground. You have one minute to plan your strategy."With those words, the two groups walked to the center and began discussing their tactics.
"Brother Luanyuan, what should we do?" Yuxin asked, turning to Yuan directly. He responded with a relaxed smile.
"We'll just fight. There's no need for a special formation. Only Wangjun and Liwei know how to fight properly. The other three aren't that strong, rember, we've fought them before."
The group fell silent at his words until Haoran frowned and looked at Yuan.
"Is that really how we should treat the fight? Shouldn't we at least try a formation like the others?"
ilan nodded in agreent, and Tianyu followed shortly after. Only Yuxin remained quiet, her gaze shifting around uncertainly, unsure of what to say.
But Yuan's smile only grew.
"I think you're misunderstanding," he said calmly. "Right now, out of the thirty youths in the Loose Long Camp, only five have awakened their third sense. And two of them, Haoran and I, are in this group. Group Six has only reached the second sense."
He let that hang for a mont, then added with a grin, "And don't forget, I'm still here. I could take on all of you at once. Just think back to our spars from the last three months."
After a pause, the others slowly nodded, rembering those matches and understanding that Yuan wasn't bluffing.
"True, I forgot about that. Haha, it's already been a month since we last sparred with you, Brother Luanyuan. No wonder we forgot," Tianyu said, his expression turning sour as he recalled the many tis they had fought Yuan and lost.
Yuxin nodded several tis in agreent with Tianyu. ilan followed with a simple, silent nod, and even Haoran reluctantly dipped his head, his face noticeably pale. He had been beaten blue by Yuan more than once.
Now that he thought about it, those spars hadn't even been suggested by Yuan, they were the ones who had asked for them.
"Alright, now that we're all in agreent, we'll—"Before Yuan could finish, the teacher's voice rang out.
"Get ready," the teacher called. "The match is about to begin."
Yuan simply gave his teammates a small, reassuring smile. He walked then towards the wooden weapons and picked up a wooden sword and then after they all took their weapons in their hands.
With the others they standed on the training ground and starred at group six, waiting for their teacher to give the signal to start the spar, but they didn't smile, in fact, most of them looked downright dispirited, except for Wangjun and Liwei, whose eyes were sharp with an clear fighting spirit.
The teacher raised his hand... and dropped it.
"Begin!" he shouted, and the match comnced.
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