CHAPTER 1362: CHAPTER 1314: FAILED PROMOTION

"Did my ears deceive me..." Mi Zhen curiously scanned around.

"I don’t think so, I heard it too." Li Yuan said with a strange expression.

"So, that guy in black is on our side too?" Xu Ning said excitedly and immediately started shouting, "Black-clothed man, defeat that guy~"

Then a large cheer erupted behind Chen Xi, it seemed that having another woman in the army made the people behind overly excited.

"Something’s not quite right, if Lyu Qiling is already at Inner Qi Manifestation, why go to such lengths?" Chen Xi asked Liu Bei with a puzzled look.

"I should be asking you, you’re the one who told me she was at Inner Qi Manifestation," Liu Bei said, turning his head to look at Chen Xi. How would he know?

"It shouldn’t be the case, Diao Chan already wields Inner Qi Manifestation power, as the only daughter of the current Marquis Wenn, he wouldn’t neglect her," Chen Xi retorted, confused.

"Who said she’s Marquis Wenn’s daughter, how do you know that?" Liu Bei asked with a sidelong smile.

"Uh?" Chen Xi was taken aback. That made sense. Whether she is Lyu Qiling is indeed debatable. Maybe there are other skilled girls in Jiuyuan too. Okay, that was nonsense; Zhang Liao doesn’t have a sister, nor does Gao Shun.

At this moment, the two on the field suddenly charged at each other. Li Tiao’s Great Spear, with a touch of cold, dark green, thrust towards Lyu Qiling without any superfluous flourish—it was a direct thrust.

Lyu Qiling’s Sky Piercer similarly aimed a simple slash at Li Tiao. Both of them abandoned complex moves, using basic techniques to test each other!

"Boom!" The impact where the two clashed shattered the ground underfoot on both sides. Li Tiao, relying on slightly superior strength, had a marginal advantage, but his horse’s front legs suddenly buckled, causing it to kneel forward.

At the same time, Lyu Qiling’s Sky Piercer became a deadly strike, the halberd blade carrying unstoppable force, poised to slice Li Tiao in half in a single move.

In the blink of an eye, Li Tiao, who was slightly ahead, was about to be cleaved in two, but he didn’t panic at all. At that moment, he felt as if he was back on the battlefield, the sense of battle amidst a rain of weapons once again descended upon him.

Without any thought, Li Tiao’s Long Spear swung down sharply, streaks of dark green Inner Qi oozed from his body, unaware.

"Clang!" Li Tiao’s Long Spear hammered fiercely onto Lyu Qiling’s halberd shaft, the force rebounding onto Lyu Qiling, causing her heart and lungs to jolt sharply.

Nevertheless, Lyu Qiling didn’t relinquish the Sky Piercer; instead, she thrust forward with even greater ferocity!

At this moment, Li Tiao’s decade-long combat instincts fully resurged. The blue-black Inner Qi on his left hand formed a claw-like shape, slamming harshly onto Lyu Qiling’s Sky Piercer, albeit not fully evading her slash, it did create distance between them.

His right hand dragged the spear along, using its end to barely hold off the Sky Piercer’s small blade. The immense impact and explosion of Inner Qi caused Li Tiao’s right arm to burst with countless black blood, yet it didn’t completely stop Lyu Qiling’s slash.

Fortunately, the successive blocks made Lyu Qiling’s attack insufficient to kill Li Tiao. With a savage slash, Li Tiao’s soft armor was torn, and his chest burst into blood, revealing a bone-deep, hideous wound among the numerous scars on his chest.

Having dodged a lethal blow, Li Tiao couldn’t care less whether the opponent was male or female; years of battlefield savagery surged in his heart. The battlefield’s rule was if the opponent’s major attack didn’t kill him, then it was time to kill the opponent.

Immediately, Li Tiao gripped his Long Spear and charged forward. As for the wound on his chest, he’d suffered worse. Defeating the opponent in front of him was more important than treatment.

"Clang!" As Li Tiao’s fiercely thrust Long Spear advanced, it carried some traits of Inner Qi Separation, but it was suddenly blocked by Zhao Yun. When blocked by Zhao Yun, Li Tiao’s instinctual Long Spear lunged fiercely, with the dark green Inner Qi rapidly extending from the spear.

Zhao Yun had no choice but to brace his spear and used Soft Force to repel Li Tiao. He also saw Li Tiao’s blood-red, ferociously intense eyes. This was reminiscent of the Yellow Turbans’ slaughterous days.

After Zhao Yun’s blow pushed him back, Li Tiao finally composed himself, trying to suppress the murderous intent in his heart since this was no longer a battlefield.

However, after the bloodlust receded, the Inner Qi that had been continuously seeping from Li Tiao’s body gradually stopped. The bone-deep wound on his chest clearly stung, and the black blood erupted from the influx of Inner Qi made his whole body feel sore.

"Puh..." Lyu Qiling tore off the black scarf on her face and spat out blood. Though not directly hit, the strength Li Tiao unleashed at the end still heavily injured her, resulting in mutual destruction.

"Medics, quickly take both of them for treatment." Zhao Yun immediately commanded. The most severe injury since the beginning of the arms competition had finally appeared.

In previous matches, it wasn’t that participants didn’t go at each other mercilessly, but under the main examiner Zhao Yun’s watchful eyes, mere Qi Refining to Gang attacks could be intercepted by Zhao Yun at any time.

However, the danger of this particular match far exceeded all the previous ones. Lyu Qiling’s final slash, following the stumble of Li Tiao’s horse, no longer represented a mere Qi Refining to Gang battle.

At that moment, due to countless near-death experiences, Li Tiao had unreservedly mobilized all his strength in the face of death, and he himself already held traits of Inner Qi Manifestation, once again reaching the heights of Inner Qi Manifestation in his all-out burst.

"Such aptitude..." Hann Qiong was dumbfounded at this moment. Over the years, this was the most lacking aptitude he had seen. Just at the threshold, or rather, he had already kicked open the door to Inner Qi Manifestation, even stepped into the hall, yet he ended up being squeezed out as the door closed.

"Didn’t I see it wrong? Li Tiao was emitting Inner Qi from his body and had even started to externalize it." Chen Xi turned to look at Hann Qiong with a face of delight, but why did the breakthrough appear so unimpressive?

"Indeed, he had already accomplished that earlier, but then he fell back down. His aptitude is too poor; no wonder I found this guy strange. If it were a normal person at this moment, it should have been achieved smoothly." Hann Qiong said with a bitter smile.

In theory, with such a situation appearing, a person at Qi Refining to Gang should enter Inner Qi Manifestation steadily, yet Li Tiao managed to enter only to fall back out.

"Even the process of using Heaven and Earth Essence to wash the body and engrave Spiritual Will memory onto the body can stop?" Zhao Yun looked incredulously at the direction Li Tiao was leaving. The occurrence of such an event seemed utterly inhumane.