Chapter 177 — Tribulation Over the Arena

CHAPTER 177

Tribulation Over the Arena

“Clear the platform,” Lu Yong ordered.

The attendant beside the entrance moved immediately. Shi Feng stepped through the passage with his sword lowered, leaving Gu Zhan at the centre beneath the gathering clouds.

The spear user looked annoyed enough to argue with the sky.

“Can we finish first?” Gu Zhan asked.

“No,” Lu Yong replied.

Gu Zhan sighed and planted the spear beside his foot.

Above him, the clouds darkened. The heavy pressure wasn't a technique released by a candidate. Gu Zhan's breakthrough had drawn the lightning tribulation that came with entering Golden Core.

People in the nearest rows scrambled back despite the protective pillars.

Lu Yong raised both hands and directed the arena protection toward the stands. The surrounding delegates helped clear the open aisles, ensuring nobody stood where a stray discharge could reach them.

They didn't place a shelter above Gu Zhan.

His tribulation belonged to him.

Nie Wufeng remained in his seat, watching with his arms folded. His disciple looked toward him once.

“Master?” Gu Zhan called.

“What?” Nie Wufeng asked.

“Will the match wait?” Gu Zhan asked.

The old man stared at him for a moment.

“Survive first,” Nie Wufeng replied.

Gu Zhan looked reassured, which wasn't the response most people would've expected.

The first bolt struck the centre of the platform.

Gu Zhan lifted the spear and drove his qi through it. White light swallowed his shoulders. The stone beneath his feet cracked, and a harsh sound tore through the arena.

When the light faded, he was still standing.

His robe smoked along one sleeve. His clear eye remained fixed on the clouds.

“Again!” Gu Zhan shouted.

Duan Yichen gripped the rail beside Shi Feng.

“He says that to everything,” Duan Yichen muttered.

Shi Feng watched the qi gathering near Gu Zhan's centre. The first bolt strengthened the condensation rather than destroying it. The spear user wasn't trying to avoid the change. He was driving through it with the same directness he brought to every fight.

That suited him.

The next lightning strike came harder.

Gu Zhan lowered his stance and met it with the spear shaft across both hands. The force drove him down to one knee. The platform cracked wider beneath the impact.

Several spectators cried out.

Nie Wufeng didn't move.

Gu Zhan rose through the fading light with blood at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away impatiently and shook his burned sleeve clear of the forward hand.

The injury was real. So was the force forming inside him.

Nobody offered a pill or sent a stronger cultivator onto the platform to take the next strike for him.

He would enter Golden Core by passing what heaven sent, or fail there under the clouds.

Shi Feng stood quietly beside the passage while the following strikes fell.

Inside his sleeve, the hairline crack along his golden left radius bone throbbed warmly as he circulated his qi through all three hundred and sixty-five meridians to knit the golden marrow. Once Gu Zhan crossed into early Golden Core, holding back would mean losing.

The crowd didn't know that.

They looked from the tribulation to Shi Feng with growing sympathy. A mid Foundation Establishment finalist now seemed destined to face an opponent an entire major realm above him.

Some already expected him to withdraw.

Sima Lan watched his calm expression and frowned.

“You don't look surprised,” Sima Lan said.

“He was at the threshold,” Shi Feng replied.

“That isn't what I meant,” Sima Lan said.

“I know,” Shi Feng replied.

She stopped asking. Whatever else he possessed, she wasn't going to extract it with a question beneath a thundercloud.

Duan Yichen leaned closer instead.

“You'll still fight?” Duan Yichen asked.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

The sabre user nodded once. He was worried, but he didn't begin explaining that surrender was sensible before Shi Feng even saw the changed spear.

That was appreciated.

The last strike drove Gu Zhan's spear point deep into the stone.

For a breath, nobody could see his body through the lightning. Then the white light broke apart and rose toward the thinning clouds.

Gu Zhan stood with one hand around the embedded shaft.

His breathing was rough. Burns marked the robe and skin beneath it. But the scattered qi around him slowly drew inward, settling around a stable centre.

Early Golden Core pressure spread across the platform.

The stands erupted.

“He passed!”

“A Golden Core before the final ends!”

“Lone Spear Peak has another expert!”

“What happens to the match?”

Gu Zhan was already pulling the spear from the stone when Lu Yong stepped onto the edge.

“Sit,” Lu Yong ordered.

“The clouds are gone,” Gu Zhan replied.

“Your qi isn't settled,” Lu Yong said.

Gu Zhan looked as though that was an unnecessarily slow concern. He sat anyway.

The official pause lasted until his new cultivation held steady. Gu Zhan used his own recovery medicine, guided the qi carefully, and stopped trying to stand every time an attendant passed.

More than an hour passed before the new qi stopped surging with every breath. The burns remained, but the worst of the pain eased beneath Gu Zhan's own medicine.

He wasn't entering the resumed match untouched. He also wasn't too injured to stand properly. Lu Yong made him walk the repaired edge and perform one controlled thrust before allowing another argument about starting early.

Gu Zhan obeyed, then looked toward Shi Feng again.

Lu Yong examined the result himself before addressing the arena.

“Eligibility was verified on entry,” Lu Yong announced. “A lawful breakthrough during the gathering does not cancel it. Both finalists may resume once the platform is safe.”

Workers cleared loose fragments from the centre. The protection around the stands remained active, but no tribulation cloud returned.

Gu Zhan rose at last and looked toward Shi Feng.

There was a little uncertainty beneath his usual eagerness.

“You'll still come?” Gu Zhan asked.

Shi Feng drew the sword and walked toward the entrance.

“I haven't left,” Shi Feng replied.

The spear user's grin returned immediately.

Lu Yong checked the repaired footing, looked at both candidates, and raised his hand again.