Beating Li Tianshuo instantly!
"Good! You little brat! You've got guts!"
"Wait right here. I'm calling my brother, and he's going to break both your arms for what you did to mine!"
The Sky Tiger Gang member hauled himself up off the ground, still grumbling. He moved too fast, pulling at the wound, and broke into a cold sweat from the pain.
Zhang Lingxiao snorted and watched him stumble away, a cold sneer on his lips.
"Senior Brother Zhang Lingxiao, let's go. You're not actually planning to wait here for Li Tianshuo, are you?"
Li Ruoxi had watched Zhang Lingxiao walk out of the Spiritual Tool Pavilion and plant himself just outside it, clearly in no hurry to leave. She said it carefully, worrying creeping into her voice.
She knew how strong he was, strong enough that even Ouyang Shishi, that little devil, couldn't touch him. But this time he was up against Li Tianshuo, ranked 38th among the Inner Sect Disciples. A genuine Body Cultivator, built more solid than an average demonic ape, and that was before you accounted for his cultivation realm.
"Junior Sister Li, don't worry. He's just an Inner Sect Disciple, thirty-eighth rank. Nothing to be afraid of," Zhang Lingxiao said.
"Sigh." Li Ruoxi let it out slowly.
Privately, she thought he was far too dismissive of the Sky Tiger Gang. But two days of watching him had taught her that arguing wouldn't get her anywhere, so instead she stepped aside, pulled out a sound transmission talisman, and sent word to Ouyang Shishi. Better to have backup on the way. And it wouldn't hurt to give the two of them a reason to grow closer.
Ouyang Shishi got the message and was in the air within moments, driving the Xuan leaf forward at full speed.
"Zhang Lingxiao, you'd better not do anything reckless. You're the first Supreme Alchemist Qingyun Mountain has produced since the sect's founding!"
She pushed the leaf faster, worry gnawing at her. She didn't stop to ask herself why it felt like more than worry.
Not long after, Li Tianshuo arrived with a pack of Sky Tiger Gang members trailing behind him.
Zhang Lingxiao was sitting on a boulder outside the Spiritual Tool Pavilion, bored, turning a massive black sword over in his hands. Nearly as tall as he was.
He'd pulled it out of the Nine Netherworld Demon Palace, and there was something off about it. Half a zhang long, a chi wide, black as ink from tip to hilt, with not a single rune carved into it. The tip was blunt. The edge had never been sharpened more than a slab of half-forged metal than an actual blade. No trace of spiritual energy in it either, like it was nothing but scrap.
That was exactly why he'd brought it.
The sect banned Martial Skills and Spiritual Artifacts outside the dueling platform and the life-and-death arena. A sword embryo with zero spiritual fluctuation didn't count as either. Perfect for knocking some sense into a few useless gang members without breaking a single rule.
The young man whose arm Zhang Lingxiao had crippled had already burned some points on a healing pill. His arm had knit back together, and now his face was pure disdain.
"Second Brother, that's him! He crippled my arm. You have to make him pay! I want him to lose both of them!"
Li Tianshuo looked up and found Zhang Lingxiao across the courtyard. Young, but already a Martial Artist at the Middle Stage of the Spiritual Martial Realm, strong enough to cripple a grown man's arm on pure physical strength alone. Not someone to underestimate. As the Sky Tiger Gang's second-in-command, Li Tianshuo thought before he acted, unlike his brother.
"Junior Brother, why are you sitting all the way up there? Come down and talk," he called out, loud enough to carry.
Everyone respects real talent, and Li Tianshuo respected this enough that some part of him wanted to recruit the kid into the gang.
"Junior Brother?"
Zhang Lingxiao looked down at him, heavy sword resting on one shoulder, and let his eyes drift lazily over the group below.
"You're shouting up at me and calling me Junior Brother? Can't you see the Core Disciple robes I'm wearing? Shouldn't that make me Senior Brother to you?" His tone stayed light, almost teasing.
"Heh. Junior Brother, you may wear Core Disciple robes and I only Inner Sect, but you're stuck at Middle Stage Spiritual Martial Realm while I've already reached Late Stage Spiritual Martial Realm. I'm older than you, too. Nothing wrong with me calling you Junior Brother and you'd do well to call me Senior in return." Li Tianshuo laughed, though the edge in his voice said he wasn't entirely joking.
The kid had promise. Promise that clearly needed discipline.
"So Junior Brother is happy staying an Inner Sect Disciple forever, is that it?"
"Or is it the sect's rules you have a problem with?" Zhang Lingxiao's words landed sharply.
Something in Li Tianshuo's face went rigid. Turning twenty-five without reaching Middle Stage and earning his Core Disciple robes, that failure sat in him like a splinter he'd never managed to dig out. And now Zhang Lingxiao had just dragged it into the open for everyone to see. Li Tianshuo's temper snapped.
"Watch your mouth! Do you have any idea who you're talking to? That's my brother, second leader of the Sky Tiger Gang!"
The younger brother got the words out before Li Tianshuo could speak.
"You don't get a say here," Zhang Lingxiao said from the rock, voice gone cold.
The sword came down with the words, a slab of black iron crashing straight into the boy who'd shouted.
A crack split the air. The gang member's body caved in on one side, crumpled and broken, ugly enough that no one wanted to look twice.
"Ahhh !"
"You brat! You attacked me again! Second Brother, kill him now!"
The boy's scream cut through the courtyard.
"You're the one asking to die."
"Attack my brother right in front of me? I don't care if the Sect Master himself walks out here; you're dead." Li Tianshuo's curse came out cold and final. He planted one foot, launched off the ground, and closed the distance toward the boulder in a single motion.
"Tch. You really don't know when to quit."
Zhang Lingxiao rose off the rock unhurried, watched Li Tianshuo close in, and snapped a kick out to meet him.
Crack.
Foot met fist mid-air, and the impact rolled out like thunder.
Li Tianshuo's expression cracked along with it. A Body Cultivator, and this kid's raw physical strength had just matched his? He yanked his fist back and twisted in the air, trying to break away.
"Not so fast."
Zhang Lingxiao pressed forward and kicked again.
Another crack, and Li Tianshuo's body shot backward like a cannonball, slamming into the ground in a burst of dust.
A slim, fast-moving figure landed a beat later, one foot planted squarely on the hunched shape below.
"The great second leader of the Sky Tiger Gang. The one who swore he'd break both my arms. Look at you now."
"Pathetic."
Zhang Lingxiao ground his heel down, and Li Tianshuo let out a strangled cry.
"You're a dead man."
Fury lit up behind Li Tianshuo's eyes.