Chapter 5196 — The Snow Sword Sect's Unwillingness

The outcome surprised no one in the least: Lie Yingzu's hysterical, frantic counterattack brought him no reprieve at all—it merely let Leng Leng grow more fluent and assured, and made him lose all the faster for it.

The spectacle left Xin Yi'an and the rest of the Cangwu Sect disciples of North Island collectively speechless. Lie Yingzu was no dazzling prodigy, but he had always carried himself with a measure of steadiness, and wild, erratic lapses in form were rare with him. To perform utterly without merit from first to last, as he had today, was something that had never happened before. In full view of everyone, he had lost face beyond all saving.

Thud! Leng Leng kicked him flying once again. He struggled for a long while and could not rise. In his position, any normal person would long since have chosen to concede, and Lie Yingzu was not by nature the sort to fight stubbornly to the bitter end. It was only that he had been battered into a daze; apart from a few reflexive movements, the thought of surrender had been wiped clean from his mind.

Seeing him in such a state, Leng Leng could not help but knit her brows slightly. She bore this opponent neither old grudge nor fresh grievance, and naturally meant to stop at the point of contact; she had never intended to deal any ruthless blow. But so long as Lie Yingzu refused to yield, she could only keep striking—until he spoke his surrender, or simply was beaten unconscious.

Unexpectedly, just as Leng Leng was about to knock him out, her whole body suddenly stiffened, and the aura around her began to surge wildly. That inexplicable momentum made even the onlookers around her secretly apprehensive—and more than that, they felt they had seen this very scene before.

"You can't be serious?" Wei Zhao was the first to react. He was caught between laughter and tears—the girl was about to reenact that business of breaking through on the spot!

Soon everyone else present caught on as well. They exchanged glances, and someone blurted out in shock, "A breakthrough again? Didn't she just break through the day before yesterday? What in the world is going on?"

"A breakthrough every match? Truly?" Even Xue Jianming stared, dumbstruck. In her last match she had advanced from the late Foundation stage to its peak. If this one went smoothly, she would surge from the peak of the late Foundation stage straight to great perfection of the Foundation stage. That rate of advancement was absurd beyond all reason.

What they did not know was that during the months of secluded cultivation before this, Leng Leng had taken several of the finest Foundation-stage golden pills Wei Zhao had given her. They had not granted her an immediate breakthrough at the time, but they had left immense, undigested medicinal power stored within her body.

Had she been cultivating as usual, it might have taken several more months for that power to be fully released. Now, however, it happened to coincide with the grand trial tournament. Facing powerful opponents of her own tier, especially amid the tense atmosphere of competition, Leng Leng's spirit and vitality had been brought to their very peak. In such a state it was easy for the medicinal power to be released ahead of time—and a breakthrough on the spot became a matter of course.

Hence this legendary feat of a breakthrough with every match—two ranks gained within three days!

Wei Zhao knew this inside and out, but the others did not. They assumed it was purely because Leng Leng's aptitude was peerless. This was more than a genius—this was a genius among geniuses!

For a time, Leng Leng's standing in everyone's eyes soared. She had been merely a prodigy disciple of modest renown; now, all at once, she became the equal of Ling Tianyou and Qianren Qifei—one of the top figures leading the younger generation of the Ancient Little Jianghu.

The breaking-through process could be long or short. If it were a pure release of accumulated depth, it might be the work of a mere instant. But this was, after all, Leng Leng's second breakthrough in three days. No matter how much medicinal power was stored in her body, the whole process could hardly run smoothly.

As indeed it was now. Her aura was visibly unstable, and by the look of it, even if she succeeded in the end, it would take no small amount of time.

Yet no one showed the slightest dissatisfaction. To witness Leng Leng's legendary breakthrough with their own eyes was a rare experience in itself—the finest bragging material to boast of to others for years to come.

But as everyone waited, Lie Yingzu, still dazed at the side, finally came somewhat back to himself. Seeing Leng Leng just a short distance away, he instinctively struck out in counterattack—and set the whole crowd exclaiming in alarm.

"Insolent wretch!" Killing intent flashed in Wei Zhao's eyes. He was about to move and be done with this worthless fool who knew not whether he lived or died, but before he could act, Xin Yi'an had already shot first into the arena. Without hesitation he raised his hand and sent Lie Yingzu flying with a slap.

"Martial Uncle Xin, what are you doing?" Xue Jianming said in displeasure. He had been only too eager for Lie Yingzu to interrupt Leng Leng's breakthrough—then she would not only fail to advance, but would suffer severe backlash, and if her luck was foul, she might even lose her life. Such a stroke of fortune was exactly what he desired, and he had never imagined Xin Yi'an would ruin it just like that.

"As you see," Xin Yi'an said. His face was now extremely grim. If Lie Yingzu had merely disgraced the Cangwu Sect of North Island through lack of skill, that would have been one thing—at worst, a few mocking remarks about the decline of talent. But to do something so shameless as this was beyond all forbearance!

Had he not acted, and had Leng Leng's breakthrough truly been interrupted by Lie Yingzu, the entire Cangwu Sect of North Island would have been nailed to the pillar of shame and made a laughingstock despised by the whole Ancient Little Jianghu.

Nor was that all. It would also have gravely offended Wei Zhao. Xin Yi'an even seriously suspected that, had he not been the first to slap Lie Yingzu away, the creature would by now already be a corpse.

"Martial Uncle Xin, you may be the leading martial uncle of this delegation, but you are also the sole judge of the grand trial tournament. Is it proper for you to intervene in the course of a match so openly?" Xue Jianming said with a cold laugh. In his view, this was a ready-made handle handed to him on a platter.

Everyone turned to look at Xin Yi'an. As a judge, he was supposed to remain an absolutely impartial third party at all times. By all logic, so long as a duel had not ended, no one—Xin Yi'an the judge included—had any right to interfere in anything within the arena. Even if Lie Yingzu's sneak attack during Leng Leng's breakthrough was despicable beyond words, it was nonetheless permitted by the rules. What Xin Yi'an had done was indeed too arbitrary.

Xin Yi'an swept his gaze over the crowd, and at last fixed it on Lie Yingzu, who had been slapped senseless by him. He gave a cold snort. "Do not forget, this old man is not only the leading martial uncle and the tournament judge—he is also an elder of the Cangwu Sect of North Island. I was merely disciplining a disciple of my own sect. I have harmed no one's interests. What of it?"