Chapter 869: Ke Yin VS Arrogant Young Master - The Rematch (Patreon)

“Hmm, I see that you are still standing.” Cao Yu snapped his fan shut and pointed it at my nose. “Are your ears stuffed with mud? Do you not know who I am?”

I knew very well who he was, but I let him continue so that I could prepare for this impromptu battle by activating Hawk Eye Rune while he yapped on.

“This young master is Cao Yu, the third son of the Grand Elder of the Celestial Heavens Sect! My bloodline runs seventeen generations back to our founding patriarch. A peasant such as yourself should be grateful that someone of my status will beat you personally. I usually leave it to the servants, but something about your face rubs this young master the wrong way.”

My eyes narrowed as my vision sharpened.

As over the top and ridiculous his words were, I knew better than to underestimate him, especially since any injury suffered would be real. When I first entered this world, I made a promise to myself to not get crippled by an arrogant young master, and getting crippled by a simulation of one would be even worse. How was I supposed to explain to anyone that I was bedridden for a month because a fake young master with a fan snapped my legs? Now that would be pure humiliation.

“Silent? Good, at least you know your place,” he said, golden qi flooding to his legs. “Since you refuse to kneel, this young master will help you down! Sovereign Dragon Steps!”

As he vanished, the tile under his boots burst into gravel, and the next moment, he was in front of me with his right arm drawn back, wrapped in golden qi that thickened into a spectral claw with five talons.

“Sovereign Dragon Claw!”

To avoid the talons that were each as long as my forearm, I triggered the Blink Step to reappear thirty metres back at the edge of the stage, and was I glad I did because the talons tore four trenches through ten metres of stone before the qi faded.

But my relief turned to worry when a sting on my cheek made me touch it, and when I looked back at my fingers, they were red. Even though I had dodged the claw, the pressure trailing behind it had still split my skin.

“Running? Is that what they teach in your backwater sect?” Cao Yu sniffed, flicking his fan open to fan himself. “In the Celestial Heavens Sect, we receive our beatings with dignity. Now hold still, so this young master can teach you how to take a good bea—”

His words were cut off as I appeared in front of him in a burst of Shockstep.

The shockwave triggered, causing the air between us to burst outward with a deep boom. The arrogance on his face faltered as he was thrown back into the air. Before he got the chance to orient himself, I activated Titan’s Crest and slammed a Phantom Strike into the centre of his chest.

Unfortunately, it was still a Qi Condensation technique, so half of the Stellar Realm energy I forced through it leaked out, but what remained could still cave in a boulder, and could do decent damage to an unsuspecting opponent.

“Dragon Vein Body Reinforcement!”

A frown formed on my face as golden lines lit up beneath the young master’s skin, and my palm landed on something that was definitely not unsuspecting or vulnerable at all.

The clash shot Cao Yu through the air, but he adjusted himself mid-fall and landed on his feet like a cat. He looked down at his purple silk robe, which now had a palm-sized hole, revealing skin that glowed gold.

“How could you…” His hand trembled as a look of horror crossed his face. “Do you know how much this robe costs? These silkworms were raised on the dew of our sect’s spirit peaks! How…how dare you strike me?”

I couldn’t believe it, I had hit him with the best my old techniques had to offer, and the only thing he cared about was his robe. And instead of inflicting any damage on him, I was the one with two knuckles split open. What the hell was that technique?

“You have pushed this young master’s patience too far,” he whispered. “I will now show you why my family stands above the heavens.”

The pale blue sky turned gold as nine stars ignited overhead.

Threads of golden light joined them into a dragon-shaped constellation that stretched across the entire sky with its jaws open. Below it, phantom mountains rose out of the stands and curled around the arena into the coiled body of a dragon, with rivers of golden qi running along their ridges.

“This is my Golden Dragon’s Imperial Territory,” he smirked as though expecting me to rain down compliments on him. “I will give you a few moments to bathe in my glory.”

My eyes narrowed because this was the domain of a Peak Stellar Realm cultivator, and I would be a fool to fight inside it. So, to even out the playing field, a few scribbles using the air as my canvas and blue sun energy as my paint, caused the Thornveil Labyrinth to tear out of the stone and seal every path between us.

From what I could tell, Cao Yu was a close-range fighter, which meant a domain that was designed to hack away from afar was the counter for him. And like that blue met gold. For a few seconds, there was a stalemate as my vines attacked him from every direction while he punched through them with righteous anger.

It was pretty impressive that my Rank 4 Lightweaver Domain was actually holding back a Peak Stellar Realm expert, but that didn’t last long as he roared, “Sovereign Dragon Pressure!”

Golden qi poured down from the rivers in the mountains into my maze as the constellation flared above. The qi blackened everything it touched, causing my vines to wither and crumble away. My labyrinth shrank metre by metre as his domain began to devour mine.

“Did you really think a few weeds could cage a dragon?” Cao Yu laughed as a spectral golden tail swept through the labyrinth to flatten walls of vines. “Golden Dragon Tail Sweep!”

Even though I blink stepped upwards, the tip clipped my right shoulder, which caused me to spin through the air. I was able to land on my feet, but my shoulder had gone numb, I allowed the Woodweave Seal to get to work immediately.

However, I didn’t get the chance to counter with razor sharp projectiles courtesy of my Leaf Storm Rune because the arrogant young master proudly proclaimed, “Five Stars Dragon Breath!”

Light gathered in the constellation’s open jaw and shot a blast of golden qi down like a cannon that was way too wide for Blink Step to save me from it.

So instead of running, I thrust out my left arm.

Immediately, silver-brown bark that had glowing silver veins running through it swallowed my forearm to spread out into a wall of branches and leaves that covered the entirety of my body just as the dragon breath landed.

The Partial Transformation of the Realm Stabilising Branch split the stream into two, which ended up melting the stands on either side into glowing slag. But I couldn’t be too pleased with it because it took up a lot of Stellar Realm qi to fight off a Peak Stellar Realm attack.

Just as I was worried that the branch wouldn’t be enough, the breath ended, allowing the bark to retreat back into my inner world, but leaving the skin underneath red, blistered and smoking. Dammit, I would have to wait for my qi to recover because I could use that technique again.

“You blocked the Five Stars Dragon Breath with a log?” Cao Yu sniffed. “Hmph. Let’s see how you deal with this. Imperial Dragon Currents!”

It was as if he had become the centre of gravity, my body was lifted off the ground against my will and began to shoot towards him despite having driven vines into the stone to anchor myself. But they snapped one after another. I tried to activate Shockstep Rune, but his technique was somehow interfering with my runes.

“Imperial Dragon Fist!”

If I didn’t do something, I would slam straight into his punch, and having seen the power he could release, that would probably be lights out for me. Not having any luck with my offensive runes, I decided to activate Aegis Mark, and even though Cao Yu’s pressure tried to put it out, a barrier of interlocking hexagons managed to flash up a moment before his fist struck.

A dragon-shaped shockwave burst from his knuckles, the barrier cracked, and even with it absorbing most of the force, the rest hurled me across the stage.

“Is this all?” Cao Yu called out, wiping invisible dust from his torn robes. “Weeds, a slap and hopping about? My father’s stable boys fight better than this. Tell me, peasant, which ditch did your master pull you out of? Did he teach you anything, or did he hand you a broom and wish you luck?”

I spat blood on the floor, my hand holding my side. I was pretty sure a rib or two was broken.

But what frustrated me was that not only was his cultivation higher than mine, every technique I had was either a Qi Condensation technique stuffed with energy it couldn’t hold or a two sun technique built on Rank 4 energy that his qi was eating alive.

If he had been an early or mid Stellar Realm cultivator, I could have beaten him, or at least forced a draw. But the gap between the early and peak stages came down to how many celestial bodies a cultivator could draw from, and every punch he threw had nine behind it.

I had been told many times by the people around me about the downsides of breaking through too fast, I was now seeing the truth of it before my very eyes and I didn’t like it. As much as I loved breaking through, I definitely needed to focus more on my techniques going forward, because I didn’t want to experience this again.

Realising that my little tricks wouldn’t be enough to do any real damage, I knew that I needed to resort to the Golden Sun energy if I wanted a chance to win this. Gritting my teeth, I allowed the golden light to burst out my body in the form of a thirty-feet avatar since I didn’t have the energy capacity for anything greater than that. My Dharma Vessel appeared, wearing my face but with a bark-scaled scorpion tail curling over its shoulder and its right hand covered from wrist to fingertips in a massive Titan’s Crest rune that glowed red-gold.

“Yes, this is it,” Lin Youran whispered. “Don’t hold back.”

The elder’s eyes were wide open, and there wasn’t a shred of sleep within them, which told me how seriously he was taking this. What he didn’t know was that if I truly went all out, I would without a doubt win the battle, but I would probably be stuck as a hundred feet tree. And I didn’t care enough about winning to risk something that foolish.

So instead, my Dharma Vessel towered over Cao Yu. The last time a single golden hand had sent him to his knees, but this time, he tilted his head and scoffed.

“Is that supposed to frighten me?” He snapped his fan open. “A peasant made of golden light is still a peasant. A big copy of yourself with a tail? How original. Allow this young master to show you a true sovereign. Sovereign Dragon Descends!”

The constellation peeled off the sky and came down around him to form a colossal golden dragon over fifty metres long, with scales the size of doors and eyes the same green as his own.

My avatar swung its fist into the dragon’s jaw.

The aura from my strike was enough to split the stage from one end to the other, but the dragon barely flinched as it coiled around the massive fist, and then quickly around its body.

Bound, my avatar’s tail stabbed at its eye in an attempt to free itself, but the dragon caught it between its teeth and bit through, causing it to shatter into golden sparks. It then squeezed its entire body as hard as it could, which made cracks spread across my avatar’s chest before it burst apart.

The backlash threw me through the air over the ruined stage, and I crashed into the stands, tumbling across broken benches until I stopped on my back. Blood filled my mouth, my ears were ringing, and I couldn’t feel my left arm.

Footsteps crunched through the rubble, making me look up to see a smirking Cao Yu.

“Remember this day, peasant,” he said. “When you tell your grandchildren how you lost, make sure you introduce me properly. I am Cao Yu, third son of the Grand Elder of the Celestial Heavens Sect.”

I had lost many fights in the past, but that was to opponents that surpassed me by multiple cultivation ranks, so losing to them had never mattered to me. It had been expected. This was the first time I had ever lost to someone that was in the same realm as me, albeit someone at the peak of that realm, and worse, to an arrogant young master.

But what I knew for certain, if I didn’t make the most of these 140 days, the old man, Elder Gong Ru, would humiliate me a hundred times worse than this.

A/N

I know that readers don't like seeing the MC lose, but I think this one was a long time coming. As Ke Yin has now accepted, breaking through is one thing, having appropriate techniques is a different matter altogether. And his mastery over the Golden Sun techniques is just too low and his capacity to small to keep up with someone at the Peak of Stellar Realm.

Lmk what you think below :)

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