Ye Jing's Reverse Challenge — One Sword

"The application's already in, and they've already accepted," Lu Yuan said with a helpless smile. "I'm not taking it back."

Even if he did end up running into one of Xia Zhi's admirers, Lu Yuan wasn't particularly worried. His current strength should be more than enough to handle it.

"Then let's wait here for a bit," Yeye said.

The three of them chatted idly in the plaza.

It wasn't long before a massive black eagle swept into view, descending onto the plaza with a surge of powerful, barely-contained aura.

The many scouts scattered around the plaza frowned slightly, eyeing the newcomer's direction with wary curiosity. Combat was strictly forbidden in White Cloud City, and yet this person's aura was seeping out freely — as though they were spoiling for a fight. Strange.

The three of them felt the pressure immediately.

A flicker of surprise crossed Small White's eyes. Yeye's gaze sharpened, and she turned toward the source.

When she saw the Cat-kin dismounting from the black eagle's back, Small White said quietly, "Your Highness — that's Prince Ye Jing."

Yeye gave a small nod. "Mm."

Lu Yuan, catching the exchange, stared at the Cat-kin who had just landed and blinked. "A prince? Yeye, is that your brother?"

"He's my imperial brother," Yeye replied softly. Then, after a brief pause: "My half-brother. Same father, different mother."

"Don't tell me he heard you were here and came looking for you?" Lu Yuan smiled. "Though from the look on his face, he seems a little wound up."

Yeye's brow knit slightly. "My imperial brother and I don't get along. He wouldn't come looking for me."

Lu Yuan blinked and glanced sideways at her.

Small White offered a quiet explanation: "It's because Her Highness has greater talent and has always been more favored by the Ancestor and the Emperor. Prince Ye Jing... is jealous of her."

Lu Yuan absorbed that. It occurred to him that rivalries between royal siblings really did seem to invite all manner of complications.

Even in the Red Maple Empire, Si Tingfeng and Si Tinglei weren't exactly warm with each other — both similarly talented, both convinced the other wasn't worth their time. Meanwhile, Si Tingxue and Si Tingyu got along perfectly well, but that made sense: they were full sisters from the same mother.

Of course, you'd only see this kind of friction among the genuinely gifted. If a royal child lacked talent, nobody bothered competing with them at all.

Still, the dynasties of this world were nothing like those of Lu Yuan's previous life. Imperial authority wasn't absolute — for the truly strong, personal cultivation mattered far more than any throne. Even among royal geniuses, not everyone actually wanted to be emperor.

There was also the matter of longevity. A Battle Sovereign-level expert measured their lifespan in tens of thousands of years. The Red Maple Emperor was a Battle Sovereign — who knew how many more years he'd be sitting on that throne? If Si Tingfeng and Si Tinglei were unlucky enough to never break through to his level, there was every chance their father would still be reigning long after they were gone — the white-haired burying the black.

Given that, Lu Yuan suspected the real root of these royal spats was something far more mundane: the distribution of family resources. And it wasn't just royalty. Every great clan had the same problem.

Small White's explanation earned her a sharp look from Yeye. "Small White!"

Yeye rarely lost her composure, but the moment she did, Small White immediately lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."

Yeye shook her head and let the matter drop.

After landing, Ye Jing swept his gaze across the plaza and quickly located Yeye — and the human standing beside her.

His eyes darkened. *So she really is with him.*

A cold snort, and he strode toward them.

As Ye Jing advanced, several more mounts came swooping in from the distance, touching down one after another. Xia Zhi, Keli, and the others.

Xia Zhi glanced at Ye Jing, then shifted her gaze toward Yeye and Lu Yuan — the direction he was heading. When her eyes landed on Lu Yuan, they narrowed slightly, a flicker of interest curling across her expression. She had files on him, but this was her first time seeing him in person.

Keli and the others, by contrast, hadn't been paying Lu Yuan any attention. Their eyes had gone straight to Yeye.

And once they saw her, more than a few of them let their gaze linger.

"Is that her? Yeye, rank 22 on the Prodigy Rankings?"

Yeye's looks were every bit as striking as Xia Zhi's — different in bearing, perhaps, but in raw talent, she left Xia Zhi far behind. As for the Tianming Empire's standing, it was home to a Saint-tier expert; it wasn't exactly beneath the Nightshade Race. A woman like that was bound to draw attention.

"Looks like Ye Jing's going after Yeye," Keli observed with a smile.

"Ha — I've always heard those two don't get along. Guess it's true." A Kaman genius laughed. "He finally cracked?"

"Just sit back and watch. Ye Jing can't actually do anything to Yeye — but that human standing next to her? He's in trouble."

The trio had already noticed Ye Jing heading their way.

Lu Yuan's guess was that this had something to do with Yeye. If it came to blows, he'd take her side without hesitation — whoever this Ye Jing was, trying to push Yeye around wasn't going to fly.

That said, this was family business. He didn't plan to jump in immediately. He'd see how things unfolded first.

Ye Jing reached them — and to Lu Yuan's genuine surprise, he didn't address Yeye at all. He turned, fixed his gaze on Lu Yuan, and said coldly:

"You're Lu Yuan?"

Lu Yuan stared. His mind was a wall of question marks.

*This is aimed at me? That can't be right. I don't even know this guy.*

He raised an eyebrow. "That's me."

Ye Jing's lip curled. "You dare challenge Miss Xia Zhi? You want to climb the Prodigy Rankings so badly? Fine. I'm ranked 58. I'm challenging you — death mode. Do you dare accept?"

Lu Yuan: *???*

The moment he heard Xia Zhi's name, it clicked.

*This guy is one of her suitors?*

*He found out Lu Yuan issued a challenge and came rushing over to cause trouble?*

*No wonder Small White warned him. But this quickly?*

And of all people, this turned out to be Yeye's imperial brother. The man had completely lost his head over this.

For the Prodigy Rankings, the standard flow was simple: lower-ranked challenges higher-ranked, and you couldn't skip more than five spots at a time. But there was an alternative. If a higher-ranked contestant chose to challenge someone below them, and the lower-ranked accepted, the gap between them didn't matter — any distance was fair game.

To prevent people from gaming the system with phony matches, every arena battle had to be fought in earnest. The will of the Land of Origin was more than capable of detecting whether a fight was genuine.

Pull your punches, and both fighters faced the consequences: disqualification from the Prodigy Rankings, revocation of challenge rights, and death out of the Land of Origin.

Under those rules, high-ranked competitors almost never challenged those below them.

The math was brutally simple. Win and you gain nothing. Lose and you drop in the standings. Nobody with any sense would walk into that.

And yet here was Ye Jing — not only challenging someone ranked far below him, but insisting on death mode.

In death mode, the arena's usual safety net vanished. The loser died out of the Land of Origin.

Lu Yuan's expression did something complicated.

Ye Jing was clearly here to cause problems. But rank 58... *he was genuinely tempted.*

Under normal circumstances, how many challenges would it take to climb that high? Seven or eight, at least. And if any of those opponents chose to drag out the wait time, the whole thing could eat up a considerable stretch.

One step. Just like that.

But then — death mode. He hesitated.

After all, this was Yeye's imperial brother. Killing him felt a bit much.

At Battle Venerable cultivation, dying out of the Land of Origin meant half a year — maybe a full year — locked outside.

Lu Yuan turned to look at Yeye.

Yeye's expression had gone cool. She faced Ye Jing and said evenly, "Challenging is fine. But not death mode."

Ye Jing snorted and opened his mouth to respond.

"Imperial brother," Yeye continued, before he could get a word in, "if you want death mode that badly, why not fight me instead?"

Ye Jing's expression froze.

After a moment, he turned a cold gaze on Lu Yuan. "Could it be this human is your intended? Father won't approve of that."

A faint flush rose on Yeye's otherwise composed face. She met Ye Jing's eyes steadily. "Does Imperial brother want to fight me? Then let's go back to the real world. We'll settle it in front of the Ancestor."

Ye Jing's eyes sharpened. He looked away from Yeye and turned back to Lu Yuan with a cold smirk.

"Since Yeye's put it that way, I'll give her that much. No death mode. Do you dare fight me or not?"

Lu Yuan had been waiting for exactly this. He nodded eagerly, breaking into a grin. "Absolutely! Prince Ye Jing, should we start right now?"

His opinion of Ye Jing had skyrocketed.

*Selfless, generous, practically delivering gifts straight to someone's door — this kind of person was genuinely rare.*

The naked excitement on Lu Yuan's face made Ye Jing pause. Then he snorted, telling himself it was all bravado.

His plan was straightforward: once Lu Yuan lost this challenge, he'd forfeit his remaining time in the Land of Origin and be unable to issue any further challenges — including the one against Xia Zhi.

It was a shame the death mode was off the table. That would have kept this human locked out of the Land of Origin for half a year. But with Yeye standing right there, he had no choice.

"Begin," he said flatly.

Their exchange hadn't been quiet enough to miss, and everyone in the plaza had more than enough cultivation to have caught every word. The moment it became clear Lu Yuan and Ye Jing were actually going to fight, eyes lit up across the crowd.

The arena materialized quickly. Lu Yuan and Ye Jing stepped up, and the deep, resonant voice of the Land of Origin rang out, calling for them to make ready.

Ye Jing's entire body was encased in pitch-black battle armor — helmet included, its visor sculpted into a pair of vicious curling horns — giving him the look of a death knight carved from shadow itself. In his hands, a heavy black sword.

"Human." His voice cut through the grim helmet with cold finality. "You'll understand soon enough just how wide the gap between us really is. That smile of yours won't last."

He genuinely could not fathom it. Lu Yuan had been grinning like an idiot from the moment they met. Did fighting in this arena actually strike the man as *amusing*??

The anger smoldering inside Ye Jing grew hotter.

Lu Yuan, catching himself, realized he probably had been smiling this entire time. That was a bit rude, wasn't it?

He cleared his throat and tried to arrange his face into something neutral. But he was just too pleased with this turn of events, and a faint smile kept slipping through no matter what he did.

*Can't really help it. The man walked up and handed himself over. I can't exactly look miserable about it.*

He pressed his lips together and did his best.

Watching Lu Yuan's painfully strained attempt to hide his grin, Ye Jing's expression went dark. He let out a furious snort, sorely wishing he could just kill this man where he stood.

Then the preparation timer ran out.

Black light blazed across Ye Jing's body. With a roar, a colossal dark phantom erupted into existence behind him — a mirror of Ye Jing himself, gripping a heavy sword hundreds of meters long. It was an overwhelming, almost absurd sight.

Lu Yuan felt the full weight of that presence and couldn't help a silent flicker of genuine admiration. *Rank 58 — this is a different world. He's on a completely different level from Malz.*

Ye Jing launched forward. His heavy sword swept down from hundreds of meters away. The dark phantom moved in perfect unison, its own enormous blade descending in kind.

Howling winds screamed around hundreds of meters of black steel as it came crashing down toward Lu Yuan.

And then Lu Yuan was simply gone.

The blade slammed into the arena floor with a thunderous crack, carving a long, jagged furrow through the surface.

Lu Yuan had already reappeared behind Ye Jing. His greatsword swung.

The presence that erupted at his back hit Ye Jing like a wall. Behind the helmet, his eyes went wide — shock seized him, cold and absolute.

He tried to spin and block. There was no time.

He roared and threw up a black barrier around his entire body.

Lu Yuan's greatsword struck it.

**Boom!**

The barrier held for a single heartbeat — then shattered.

The greatsword came down hard on Ye Jing's black battle armor. The armor split. The blade swept through him, and blood burst outward in a violent spray. His body toppled slowly to the ground, then dissolved into white light, depositing him back at the edge of the stage.

Ye Jing stepped off without his Gene Armament. His face was drained of color. His eyes still carried the trembling aftershock of something his mind hadn't fully caught up to yet.

Across the plaza, Xia Zhi, Keli, and the others stood wide-eyed.

"What — one sword? He went down in *one sword*?!"

Keli could not believe what he'd just seen.

He sparred with Ye Jing regularly. He knew Ye Jing's strength better than almost anyone. Their power levels were nearly equal.

And Ye Jing — a powerhouse like that — hadn't survived a single exchange??

*Which means I wouldn't either.*

Ice shot down Keli's spine.

He had been planning to teach Lu Yuan a lesson himself.

If even Keli was shaken to the core, the other geniuses were left completely speechless.

Only Xia Zhi kept watching Lu Yuan, her eyes alive with a slow, undisguised interest.

Among the Nightshade, prospective partners were chosen from the strongest. The stronger, the better. Lu Yuan had more than cleared her threshold.

The one slightly complicated factor was...

Her gaze drifted to Yeye. Her files on Lu Yuan had noted close relationships with several women. The most formidable among them was undeniably the princess standing right there now.

Even Xia Zhi had to admit — quietly, reluctantly — that Yeye's talent and strength edged past her own.

*I'll make contact with him first. See where things go from there.*

Around the plaza, the other observers processed what they'd just witnessed — Lu Yuan taking down another opponent in a single strike — and found themselves caught somewhere between shock and a strange creeping sense of inevitability.

The shock: that had been rank 58. Still just one hit.

The inevitability: because no matter who stepped up, Lu Yuan always seemed to end it with one sword.

One thing was certain. Lu Yuan's presence was going to shake White Cloud City.