Phoenix's Requiem

Chapter 144: The Dueling Arena

“Who do you think I am?” Li Mo leaned forward until his nose was just touching Yun Ruoyan’s face.

Yun Ruoyan could only see a misshapen face suddenly become larger in her field of vision. Its nose, eyes, and mouth seemed to be made of a few overlapping shadows, resulting in a strange and unusually humorous combination. She reached out with her other hand and prodded Li Mo’s nose, laughing, “You’re an ugly bastard, haha.”

Li Mo grabbed ahold of her other wrist and murmured by her ear, “You look to be very drunk. Do you want something to clear your head up?”

Yun Ruoyan shook her head, trying to break out of his grasp and mumbling somewhat incoherently, “Le-let go of me, I have, I have to leave before I, I get caught.”

Li Mo raised his brows as he brought Yun Ruoyan back into the corridor, ignoring her struggles. “Stay still. If you fall down and hurt yourself, don’t blame me.”

A green sword aura flashed underneath him before the two of them soared into the skies.

“Ah!” Although Yun Ruoyan was very drunk, she was still able to sense fear. So scared was she that she immediately grabbed Li Mo’s waist and held on tightly. They flew so quickly through the skies that Yun Ruoyan could feel gusts of cold wind by her ears.

It was nearing the start of autumn, and dawn and dusk were both getting chillier by the day. Yun Ruoyan felt weak and cold all over. Instinctively, she snuggled into Li Mo’s robes for warmth. Li Mo lowered his head to see the girl curled up in his lap like a kitten, a small smile on his face.

Slowly, the wind dissipated Yun Ruoyan’s drunken haze. She leaned up to see Li Mo’s distinguished features. “Li Mo, where are you bringing me?”

“Oh, you’ve finally recognized me?” Li Mo’s inky hair danced in the air, as did his robes.

“Yes.” Yun Ruoyan nodded. “Where are we headed?”

“To help you clear your head.” Li Mo’s flight became even faster. If those on land were to look up, all they would see was a shooting star wreathed in green.

Yun Ruoyan clutched Li Mo’s waist more and more tightly. She didn’t have much experience with swordflight—twice with Li Mo, and most recently with Yun Moxiao.

This was the first time she had experienced such a rapid flight.

Yun Ruoyan’s heart was thumping so loudly she felt it would burst out of her chest at any moment. She wanted to scream out loud but didn’t want to lose face in front of Li Mo, so she could only bear with her anxiety stoically.

“Alright, we’re here.” Finally, they began to slow down.

Yun Ruoyan opened her eyes to see a lofty mountain in front of her eyes. In the dark, it looked like a sword slicing open the heavens. By the peak were smaller mountains, an almost never-ending chain, none of which could contest the majesty of the tallest.

“In northern Ming lies a seemingly endless mountain range, the Kongming Mountains,” Yun Ruoyan began to recite.

“Overlooking them all is an unconquered peak, the Kongming Summit,” Li Mo finished. “And the Kongming Academy lies at the peak of this summit.”

Yun Ruoyan looked up, but the cloud cover was so thick that she could only see halfway up. She had gone to the Kongming Mountains before when entering the imperial territory, but that was only a trek up one of the larger mountains in the range, not the peak.

Now, however, Li Mo had brought her directly to the foot of the Kongming Summit.

The Kongming Academy, the dream of all cultivators on the Chenyuan continent… and to think that she would be a student at the academy in no more than ten days.

She was about to walk out of the Yun family, to conquer her nightmares, to enter a new world! Yun Ruoyan’s passions reached a climax as she stretched her fingers toward the sky. “I will conquer even the skies!”

Her clear voice reverberated through the mountains. It was only an errant thought from her drunken mind, but the person behind her replied coolly, “That’s easy. Hold on tight.”

Before Yun Ruoyan could react, his sword aura had launched them straight up into the skies, breaking through the cloud cover.

Back in the Yuelu Villa, Yun Moxiao had followed Li Luo to a nondescript entrance guarded by two masked guards. Those who weren’t in the know would undoubtedly think this an entrance to an underground gambling den, and this was indeed Yun Moxiao’s initial thought.

He knew that following a woman like this was unseemly, and that she would surely think of him as a hooligan if he were caught. But he was very curious about her identity, and also didn’t want to see a woman like her get hurt.

As a result, Yun Moxiao hid behind a pillar as he watched Li Luo head toward the entrance. Li Luo showed one of the guards an identification of some sort, and the guard handed her a mask. Li Luo put on the mask and walked in through the entrance.

A few breaths later, Yun Moxiao emerged from behind the pillar and headed toward the entrance.

“Hold,” the guard with the demon-head mask commanded. “Who introduced you to this place?”

Yun Moxiao had no idea what this place was, nor that such a place required an introduction to enter. Revealing none of his confusion, he replied smoothly, “The eldest son of Chengnan’s General Chu, Chu Jing.”

Chu Jing was a comrade-in-arms to Yun Moxiao, and he was the one who had told him about the goings-on at the Yuelu Villa. Yun Moxiao tried his luck with his friend’s name and was pleasantly surprised to find that his gambit paid off.

“And who are you? Do you have identification?” the masked guard continued asking.

Yun Moxiao pulled out a jade tablet and handed it to the masked guard. The jade tablet was his army identification, and could be used to direct his troops during a battle.

“Alright.” The masked guard handed the tablet back to Yun Moxiao and motioned to his neighbor, who handed him a black-ghost mask to put on.

After Yun Moxiao put on the mask, the guard motioned for him to enter.

The entrance was a rather short tunnel, the other end of which was bursting with noise and commotion. Yun Moxiao walked straight into the crowd, all of whom were wearing masks like him. Some had a similar black-ghost mask, whereas others had ones in green and red.

Yun Moxiao started searching for those in white, since he had seen Li Luo put on a white mask.

“Go for it, kill him! Slaughter him!”

“That’s right, bite his neck! Feast on his blood!”

“This bastard… he really got bitten to death like that?”

“Haha, I’ve won again!”

A few exclamations and curses filtered into Yun Moxiao’s ears as he surveyed the crowd, and only then did he realize that there was a fenced-off arena not too far ahead of him.

Yun Moxiao walked toward the arena. With his height, he could easily discern a tall, adult man standing inside. His face and body were covered with scratches and lacerations, with a deep wound on his chest. Fresh, red blood continued to pour out of his wound, and his feet lay in a puddle of blood.

Opposite the man was a lion-type beast even larger than the man himself. It hadn’t yet died and was continuing to spasm, the fur on its neck torn to pieces, blood gushing out of an uneven slit by its throat.

The man spat out the fur in his mouth, then stooped down and dabbed a layer of fine dust on the ground on his wound. Yun Moxiao knew that this was a method of reducing bleeding during extreme circumstances, but it wouldn’t be enough for the severe wound on the man’s chest.

“Not bad, not bad! These beastkin brutes are really wilder than wild beasts themselves!” An excited cheer rang out from the crowd.

“See? You’ll never lose if you bet on beastkin.”

“That’s not for sure. There are weaklings even among beastkin, but this one seems like an unusually ferocious type.”

As he listened to the crowd, it became clear to him that this was the duelling arena that he’d heard Chu Jing mention.

There was a dais overlooking the duelling arena where the manager was seated. In front of him was a woman in a white-ghost mask, none other than Li Luo.

Li Luo was looking at the man in the arena, her posture exuding her anxiety.

With Li Mo’s assistance, she had finally found her senior brother in her old sect, Duan Tianyun. Upon finding out that he had been sold to the duelling arena in the Yuelu Villa, she had begged Li Mo to help save him.

That night, Li Luo had followed Li Mo to the Yuelu Villa in order to purchase his slave contract.

However, right after entering the duelling arena, Li Mo had suddenly given her his identification and left, leaving Li Luo to save her senior brother himself.

But no matter how she insisted, the manager refused to let Duan Tianyun out of the arena even after seeing the Slaughtering King’s identification.

“He’s already fought two matches in a row, so why aren’t you letting him go?!”

“There are three matches scheduled, Miss. The Slaughtering King is an honored guest, and we’re certainly willing to release the beastkin. However, the Yuelu Villa has rules of its own, and having fewer than three matches today won’t be acceptable.”

“You want him to fight even when he’s this injured?!” Li Luo slammed a palm on the table. “The Slaughtering King will be back shortly. If the man he’s interested in dies, how will you answer to him?”

The manager’s expression shifted slightly. “I don’t have a choice either, Miss. This rule of the duelling arena has been set in stone. If I break it, the next one in that arena will be me.”

“Then, will he be freed after this last match?” Li Luo asked, exasperated.

The manager naturally didn’t dare to tell her that, when beastkin were slated to fight, they would fight beast after beast until they finally succumbed to their wounds and died.

“Naturally,” the manager smiled and answered. He stood up and waved a small, red flag from the stand, causing someone below to proclaim loudly, “The third match is beginning!”

Two doors on the opposite end of the arena opened at once, revealing two lion-type beasts each as large as the carcass in front of the wounded man.

Just one beast had already injured the beastkin man severely, so how could he handle two at once? Did the manager intend for this to be a bloodbath?

“You underhanded bastard!” Li Luo turned in rage as she glared at the manager.