Li Xin's blow shook the entire arena, but it once again passed harmlessly through Zhang Lie's 'body'. Clone, clone, clone after clone! Li Xin's face distorted, and he suddenly realized that he had fallen into an intricately planned trap.

"What? Li Xin must be a fool to be chasing after these clones so persistently!"

"Aren't you the fool? Can't you see that all Zhang Lie can do is hide? I thought he was supposed to be a strong hunter, but now it feels like he just got lucky!"

The clash between the two combatants caused the audience to favor Li Xin—but after Li Xin had struck with all his strength,  exposing his weak points, Zhang Lie, who had been hiding and manipulating him the entire fight, finally made his move.

A wolf's howl shook the air, and Li Xin felt a sudden, malicious chill by his back. A blood-colored wolfman walked out from behind Li Xin. As he punched forward, a blood-red pillar of genetic energy rose from where he stood, and a dragon of blood coiled around his body.

A mysterious aura emanated from his body, causing the crackling lightning to still and go faint. Ripples spread out with Zhang Lie at the epicenter, quelling everything they touched. A serpent in black and red soared through the skies, blanketing the arena in night.

It was the middle of the day, but a radiant moon and the starry night sky covered up the sun. The moment this moon began to glow, Li Xin felt the genetic energy being drained from his body.

Zhang Lie's eyes gleamed as he held up Venombane, a storm of genetic energy exploding around him as a bloody dragon coiled around the blade. He left afterimages behind him as he swung his blade, but to the onlookers, his actions seemed unusually slow, as though time had been locally dilated around him.

"Die!" The blood moon glowed, the serpent shrieked, and an ancient authority seemed to descend on the arena.

"This—Dragonwolf!"

"Is this the power of the Eclipse Sage?"

"Could Zhang Lie really be this strong? This is on the level of a third-realm hunter!"

"No, no—how could Zhang Lie have become so strong?!"

The guests felt a sudden fear clawing through their hearts. They were only spectators—but they too were frightened by the attack that all but decimated the arena.

"Li Xin!" Li Mo called out from the stands, his face a book of dread. Zhang Lie's blow had exceeded his expectations, as well as Li Xin's tolerance.

Li Mo tried to rush toward the stage, but a man blocked him as soon as he stood up.

"Clan Head Li, surely you aren't trying to disrupt the match, are you?" Lin Xiu smiled at him. Li Mo opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything in defense. His face warping in rage, he sat back down.

As the dust and smoke cleared from the arena, amidst a faintly red mist, only a lone figure remained standing: Zhang Lie. Li Xin had vanished entirely; not even his corpse was left behind.

The guests were all stunned, as was Lin Xiu. After all, none of them thought that Zhang Lie would dare to kill Li Mo's beloved, talented son right before his eyes. Not only that, they were shocked by the power that Zhang Lie had demonstrated during the match. 

Zhang Lie was only a first-realm hunter! The fact that he was able to kill a three-star black-tipped scarab, comparable to a peak second-realm hunter, had been chalked up to luck; that should have been the limit of his strength to date. In other words, he certainly shouldn't have been able to exceed that level of strength, at least in the short term.

Under ordinary circumstances, no matter how lucky he was, a peak first-realm hunter could boast of his strength just by surviving a few blows against a third-realm hunter, let alone defeating one. The disparity in strength between the two hunters would be far too large to be overcome—not by framework, techniques, or soulshards. However, not only had the Dragonwolf Zhang Lie been able to fight against a third-realm hunter, he had even vaporized him in a single blow. 

Lin Xiu felt that he now understood why Su Feng had sent him to guard this lad.

"So this is the bloody dragon for whom the Dragonwolf was named! It's far more impressive in person!"

"Li Xin's a third-realm hunter, but Zhang Lie annihilated him that easily?"

"Poor Li Mo—his darling son died just like that!"

"Who's to blame? After all, Zhang Lie was the one who was against the challenge from the very beginning!"

"Maybe so, but isn't Zhang Lie way too strong? Just what kind of monster is he?"

"Isn't that so? Who else do you know who could defeat an opponent two realms higher and annihilate him in a single blow? He's peerless!"

"Dragonwolf Zhang Lie!"

"Dragonwolf Zhang Lie!"

"Dragonwolf Zhang Lie!"

The crowd roared in approval of the skill that Zhang Lie had demonstrated, but Zhang Lie raised an arm, quelling the chant.

"I apologize, Clan Head Li, for failing to restrain myself adequately."

"Zhang Lie, you—" Li Mo clutched his armrests until his knuckles turned white, but that was the only word he could force out. Thinking back to what Zhang Lie had repeatedly asked before the match, it seemed as though he had planned all this out.

When they cajoled Zhang Lie into taking a challenge, they had fallen into his trap. Zhang Lie knew that they were going to target him, and he had devised a plan to counteract theirs.

Qin Zongming and Wang Han, by Li Mo's side, were shocked by the strength that Zhang Lie had displayed, an overwhelming strength that threatened even them.

"I do apologize, Clan Head Li. I know how upset you must feel, but I truly didn't do it intentionally," Zhang Lie emphasized again, his face despondent.

Li Mo spasmed as he watched Zhang Lie's act, so enraged he barely avoided spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"Y-You!" In the end, flecks of bloody spittle nevertheless came out with his last exclamation. He sprang out of his seat, unable to bear the thought of staying any longer.

"Please stay, Clan Head Li! I've prepared a sumptuous feast for you!"

Li Mo choked as he turned to leave, his face intermittently flushing white and red. Li Xin, genius of the Li clan in his generation, would forever rest in the Zenith Dojo.

The Qin, Wang, and Li clans had gone mute. Wang Han and Qin Zongming found themselves somewhat relieved that Li Mo had proposed the plan of sending a hunter to fight against Zhang Lie, and that it was Li Xin who had gone up to challenge him. Otherwise, the annihilated hunter would have been a member of their clans.

By that point, they were truly afraid of Zhang Lie, an existence who could overwhelm a hunter two realms above him. They crouched down in their seats, trying not to draw attention to themselves, as the ceremony concluded.

In truth, if they were to continue to pressure him into more challenges now, Zhang Lie would have been hard-pressed to deal with them—by now, he was nothing more than an empty shell, drained of his reserves.

Killing an opponent two realms higher was a ridiculously taxing process, one that no one else would have been able to handle. That single blow had consumed all of Zhang Lie's genetic energy, and was the strongest blow that he had been able to launch to date.

With that single victory, the Zenith Dojo's name and popularity immediately rose to the top tier of dojos in China. Zhang Lie's opponents cowered before his strength, as well as the power that he had now begun to amass.

"Did you all note down the blow that Zhang Lie used in that last fight?" Zhou Ruo asked.

Zhang Lie's strength was far beyond what they had expected, and it shook even them. That last attack had been a frightening combination of techniques, each of which they had to be wary of. In addition, they had to carefully consider whether they really wanted Zhang Lie as an enemy.

On the other hand, Zhang Quan, seated nearby, was staring at Zhang Lie hard enough that it seemed as though he was dissecting Zhang Lie in his head. The domain of [Eclipse], something that should have belonged to the Liao branch of the ministry of ruins—that was, to him—had now become part of Zhang Lie's repertoire.

He had paid careful attention to Zhang Lie's fight, and he was certain that, without [Eclipse] draining Li Xin's genetic energy, Zhang Lie would hardly have been able to defeat him in one blow.

How could Zhang Quan bear having such a wondrous treasure of a technique be stolen from him? But what could he do now? Compared to some of the other guests in the audience, he barely had any right to speak.

Meanwhile, the Chu and Yun delegations were rather despondent. The strength that Zhang Lie had displayed shocked both the Chu and Yun clan heads. Who would have expected that a first-realm hunter could boast such strength?

Not only that, Zhang Lie had had a superb understanding of the big picture, and it seemed as though the events of the opening ceremony had gone exactly as he had planned. Within a few days, he had managed to establish connections with the Blackwind Fort, and had even obtained a sage-level bodyguard from the military. His resourcefulness overwhelmed the two clan heads.

"It looks like we should have considered this matter more carefully," Chu Lin murmured, a serious expression on his face. He criticized himself for not having listened more to Chu Feng's pleas and for falling prey to his pride.

He had lost an excellent opportunity to develop a relationship with Zhang Lie, and seeing his performance today, Chu Lin could hardly imagine just how far Zhang Lie would be able to go.

"And I should have listened to Yun Bing!  At the very least, we haven't soured relationships between us and Zhang Lie. Given our choice to remain neutral, it's not suitable for us to meddle in the younger generation's affairs with regards to Zhang Lie. We had better leave it  for Yun Bing and Chu Feng to handle on their own," Yun Long surmised.

Chu Feng and Yun Bing sighed. Zhang Lie's performance had shocked them both, and they were once again dismayed by their clans' respective decisions. They had been in a position to help Zhang Lie greatly, but their elders had denied them that opportunity.

From today onwards, they were certain that Zhang Lie would distance himself from their clans, as well as them.

The guests all around them were discussing the exciting challenges they had witnessed today, both with regards to Lin Xiu, one of the four sages from the Fenglin Volcano, and Zhang Lie, who had stepped forth at the very end.

Of particular note was Zhang Lie's final blow against Li Xin.

"Alright, there aren't any other challengers, are there?" Zhang Lie asked, glancing all around them. His smile left the audience shivering; many of the younger hunters didn't dare to meet his eyes.

The arena was silent. The wolfman's last attack had been deeply imprinted in everyone's mind, and no one dared test Zhang Lie any further.

When the audience remained silent for a few long moments, Zhang Lie finally relented. "In that case, I declare the challenges over!"