Mu Tianque gave a cold laugh. "Li Yun, do you really think I won’t be ready for you this time? Last time, you caught me off guard, and that was all it was. I won’t make the mistake of underestimating you again. Besides, I’m much stronger now than I was the last time we fought."
His eyes turned mocking. "But if you really think you can beat me like last time, you’re welcome to try."
The crowd behind Li Yun erupted. Nobody had expected the stir caused by Li Yun’s return to escalate so quickly. He had barely come back to the Celestial Prodigy Camp and had not even rested for a full day, yet he had already challenged the camp’s undisputed number one genius to a fight that only one of them would walk away from.
Mu Tianque had held first place for a long time, and no one had ever managed to shake his ranking. Not long ago, he had even saved up one hundred thousand camp points and traded them for a drop of Ancient Dragon Sacred Blood.
Li Yun, on the other hand, was the newcomer who had risen at a terrifying pace before suddenly vanishing, and now he had returned from the dead with even greater cultivation. Nobody knew which of them would win.
The news spread instantly.
"Old Lu, stop cultivating! Li Yun is alive, and he just challenged Mu Tianque to a life-and-death battle!"
"Brother Zhang, get to the Blood Oath Arena right now! Li Yun and Mu Tianque are about to fight. It’s basically a battle for the number one spot in the Celestial Prodigy Camp. If you miss this, you’ll regret it."
Communication artifacts lit up all over the camp, and within moments almost everyone knew.
Bai Yuchen smiled bitterly when he heard the news. "This junior brother really can’t keep quiet for even half a day."
He had barely finished feeling relieved that Li Yun was alive, and now Li Yun had already caused the biggest commotion the camp had seen in years.
Huang Tianze broke off his cultivation at once. "If Li Yun dared to issue that challenge, he must be confident. I can’t miss this fight."
Huang Tianlin followed him, and the top twenty geniuses began moving as well. Before long, almost every important member of the Celestial Prodigy Camp was heading for the Blood Oath Arena.
Li Yun and Mu Tianque soon stood facing each other on the platform. Hundreds of cultivators crowded around them, and more kept arriving every moment. Since the founding of the Celestial Prodigy Camp, no battle had ever drawn this much attention.
Mu Tianque stared at Li Yun. "Li Yun, today you’re going to die."
His expression grew more and more arrogant, and he laughed.
"After I got the Ancient Dragon Sacred Blood, I’d already decided not to stay in this camp much longer. Your death will just be the last thing I take care of before I go."
Then he suddenly shouted, "Break!"
His aura erupted violently with a boom, and essence qi poured out of his body like an ocean as the cultivation barrier he had deliberately been holding back shattered. He went from the perfection stage of the 3rd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm to the 4th level, and his aura kept climbing.
It did not stop at the initial stage, and it rose through intermediate accomplishment and major accomplishment until he had reached perfection. Mu Tianque had jumped straight to the perfection stage of the 4th level of Spirit Manifestation Realm.
"What?"
The spectators erupted.
"He broke through in the middle of the fight?"
"No, he clearly built up enough long ago. He was deliberately holding his cultivation back."
Mu Tianque laughed. "I stayed at the perfection stage of the 3rd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm for a long time, and I refined Ancient Dragon Sacred Blood as well. If all that accumulation couldn’t push me straight to the perfection stage of the 4th level, that would be truly pathetic."
His aura filled the arena.
"I meant to keep building up and try to reach the 5th level of Spirit Manifestation Realm in a single breakthrough." He looked at Li Yun. "But killing you is worth advancing a little early."
His voice boomed across the arena.
"Li Yun, today I can kill you with one hand."
He really did raise only one palm, and then he struck. The palm swelled rapidly in the air with a boom, and within moments it looked like a small mountain falling from the sky. Its pressure made the air heavy, and the atmosphere warped and then exploded.
The spectators’ expressions changed at once. Even before this breakthrough, Mu Tianque’s combat power had been far beyond his cultivation. Back when he was at the 3rd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm, he could already stand up to powerful cultivators around the perfection stage of the 4th level.
Now that he had personally reached the perfection stage of the 4th level, his real combat strength could almost certainly threaten experts at the perfection stage of the 5th level of Spirit Manifestation Realm.
Yet Li Yun’s expression did not change.
"Mu Tianque, the one who dies today is you."
His hand moved, and the Profound Origin Sword left its sheath. Then a thin line of brilliant sword light appeared. It was Horizon Sword Light.
For an instant, the whole arena seemed to light up. The sword light was so bright and so fast that many of the cultivators around the arena instinctively shut their eyes, and even experts around the 3rd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm struggled to follow its path.
Mu Tianque’s enormous palm came down, and the sword light met it. With a faint hiss, the massive palm projection split apart. There was no long collision and no struggle at all. Horizon Sword Light pierced through the attack as if it had found the exact weakness hidden inside the palm technique, and then it kept going.
Mu Tianque’s eyes went wide, because the sword light was already at his throat. A thin line appeared, and blood burst out.
Mu Tianque froze, and his raised hand stopped in midair. The huge palm projection above the arena collapsed completely.
"Ugh..."
He instinctively grabbed his throat, and blood poured through his fingers. He tried to seal the wound with essence qi, but it did nothing, because the Sword Intent in Li Yun’s attack kept destroying the injury from within. His life force drained away rapidly.
"I..."
Mu Tianque opened his mouth, desperate to say something, but nothing coherent came out. Disbelief filled his eyes, and then unwillingness, and then regret. His body fell to the ground with a thud.

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