Chapter 587: 540 Warm-up

Gui Rong shouted this question, focusing everyone's gaze on Tang Zhao.

At this moment, a large portion of the people noticed this young man who had been standing in the shed, silently watching the competition.

When people looked toward that direction, they naturally noticed him, and would never mistake him again.

At this time, a thought flashed through many people's minds:

Sword Heroes, as expected, are not ordinary people!

At this moment, Tang Zhao smiled slightly, slowly walked out from his own team, and said, "It is me. Lord Gui Rong, I have waited for you for a long time."

Gui Rong scrutinized Tang Zhao and said, "You—not bad, clean and bright, youthful and sunny. It is truly good; seeing you is like seeing the rising sun... It is too good!"

He was in Wangliang Mountain, yet he used the sun as a metaphor; the crowd felt it was slightly strange.

He immediately laughed loudly, "It is too good, I have long wanted to try it!"

"Try shooting the sun with my own hands!"

"Wangliang Mountain has no sun, yet you want to walk into hell! If I kill you, I will shoot down a tomorrow with my own hands, and destroy a hope with my own hands! Killing a young man like you will surely make those who love you, respect you, and count on you fall into despair and weep bitterly, right? Isn't that a wonderful thing?"

Wei Se, who had been silent and watching the battle from the corner, suddenly raised his head upon hearing this. His eyes were filled with an unprecedented, violent, and fierce look, and the killing intent that had gradually become docile over time boiled over once again.

Kill him!

Inside and outside the shed, he was not the only one who revealed that kind of expression.

Tang Zhao himself looked at him very calmly, at most revealing a hint of... pity.

Amidst the wild laughter, Gui Rong pointed at Tang Zhao and said, "Come up, you and I shall fight on the peaks! You wouldn't want to follow the wishes of a group of mere rats and perform monkey tricks on the stage they have set up, would you? Come here to me, ascend high to look far, wither at the highest point, and take a magnificent final bow! Even if you die, you will not fail the name of a Sword Hero!"

Tang Zhao stepped forward and leaped lightly, jumping up. He did not perform any fancy tricks; a Sword Hero's body, having undergone two rebirths, only needed one jump to reach the top of the heads of the Wangliang warriors, who were dozens of zhang tall.

He casually found a Wangliang warrior with a suitable head to stand on. This position was exactly opposite Gui Rong, separated by the distance of one head, allowing him to clearly see Gui Rong's features.

Gui Rong's physique was indeed tall and large, almost reaching the limit of a normal person. His arms and waist were knotted with muscles, and at a glance, one could see that explosive power was hidden within. His skin, even in this black-and-white world, could be seen to be as rough as granite, having endured years of wind and rain.

But if one looked closely, his facial features were actually not of the rugged type; the curves could even be called rounded. If the distance were greater, coupled with the blurry, black-and-white, filter-like texture of Wangliang Mountain, one could even call him delicate. There were at least two long scars on his face, one on his forehead and one by his ear, which added a bit of ferocity, but he still did not appear overly vicious.

In Tang Zhao's mind, the eight characters "delicate features and a sturdy build" popped up for some reason. His gaze paused slightly, and he saw an object hanging from Gui Rong's waist.

His heart tightened, his gaze shifted away, and he met Gui Rong's eyes again, the pity in his expression growing deeper.

Gui Rong was originally standing proudly on high, looking down on all living things. Because of his height, he could look down on Tang Zhao, but upon seeing Tang Zhao's expression, he felt a thud in his heart. He instinctively found it very disgusting; it seemed that even when facing some arrogant and cruel slave owners, he had not necessarily felt as disgusted as he did with this handsome youth.

"You... what is that expression?" He asked it after all.

Tang Zhao sighed and said, "I imagine you must have had a very bitter life all these years."

This sentence was very sincere, and it left Gui Rong stunned.

Tang Zhao sighed, "From your words just now, I know that no one loves you, no one respects you, and even fewer people count on you. All friendly, intimate, and trusting relationships have no connection to you; they all loathe you, despise you, and look down on you. You are all alone, like a lonely ghost, a person no one needs. Because of this, you resent others and want to destroy all of these things, using shouting and yelling to cover up your own emptiness and loneliness. You hate me—envy born from admiration, hatred born from envy; admiration, envy, and hatred—I know, this is also human nature for you."

The more Gui Rong heard, the more it tasted wrong. He gradually began to tremble all over, and the scars on his face twisted like centipedes.

Jiang Shenyi had originally been filled with rage upon hearing Gui Rong's wild words, but at this moment, his expression was somewhat strange. He said to Xing Qi, who was disguised as Wei Zhangle, "Is he trying to kill the person and destroy their heart? His mouth is quite poisonous."

Wei Zhangle's expression was very complex. He gave a hum and said, "Except for the range of the sweep being a bit too wide, there are no other problems."

If Tang Zhao said these words outside, it would only occasionally affect three or five innocent bystanders, but this was Wangliang Mountain, a place where there were only slave owners or slaves. Orphans were everywhere, and everyone lived in a nightmare. Every single White-haired Swordsman on the field was heavily strafed by these heart-destroying words; even the expressions of Xing Wu and the others in the shed were not right.

Above, Tang Zhao did not stop, continuing in a sincere tone, "I am different from you. No, I was almost the same. At twelve years old, I was almost sold to Wangliang Mountain. If I had arrived on the mountain, wouldn't I be the same as you? But good fortune favored me; halfway there, a kind person saved me. He introduced me to learn arts at my sect, and thanks to my master's favor and patient teaching, my progress was rapid. I spent a few years on the mountain without worries, focusing on my studies. I dare not say I was wealthy, but I had food and clothing. Now, having foolishly grown to seventeen, starting as a Knight-Errant, I was promoted to Loose Practitioner, then Sword Guest, and finally cultivated into a Sword Hero. My teachers, fellow disciples, and friends are happy for me..."

Gui Rong could endure the heart-destroying words from before, but the more he heard, the angrier he became. His anger turned into resentment, and he could no longer bear it. He shouted, "Little thief—you are courting death!"

Sword Qi left the sheath, and he and his sword turned into a streak of brilliant light, driving straight in!

So fast!

Not to mention ordinary people, even the Sword Guests, upon seeing this sword, only had these two words flash through their minds. In the blink of an eye, the Sword Qi had already reached Tang Zhao.

However, when it reached a few zhang away from Tang Zhao, the brilliant light became thinner and thinner. Fragments of light kept scattering like fallen leaves blown by the wind. Every time a piece of the brilliant light scattered, it shaved off a layer, until finally, the brilliant light dimmed, revealing Gui Rong's true form.

His true form was unaffected, still maintaining the momentum of his forward charge, and he stabbed fiercely with both man and sword!

Tang Zhao remained in place and crossed his sword to meet it.

Clang—

The two swords crossed, and the outcome was immediately decided. Tang Zhao, along with his sword, flew backward, flying off the top of the warrior's head and landing on the head of the next warrior. His body did not land steadily; he rolled once and only stood firm on the shoulder of yet another warrior.

Gui Rong stood in place, his long sword pointing far at Tang Zhao, and sneered, "Your strength isn't great, but your mouth is truly hard."

"Good!" The stands erupted in cheers, especially the Sword Guests who had been stimulated by Tang Zhao's showing off; they could not help but shout and cheer. In the shed on the Changfa Manor side, everyone revealed worried expressions.

However, they were not too worried. Everyone with experience could see that no matter how impressive the momentum of this sword was, it was nothing more than a small probe; it didn't even count as a warm-up.

It was merely a test of strength; what did that count for in a battle at the Sword Hero level?

If it counted as a small warm-up program, then Gui Rong won this small program, but Tang Zhao won the previous small program of exchanging verbal barbs. One to one, everyone considered it a draw.

Gui Rong had knocked Tang Zhao away and felt a bit better. He said, "I don't understand, what were you doing just now? You weakened my Sword Light, but you didn't weaken my Sword Qi. What, you just can't stand to see Sword Light?"

Tang Zhao stood firm, his expression unchanged, and said, "That is exactly right! In front of me, I do not allow others to shine."

As he spoke, his Sword Qi condensed and suddenly lit up, like a torch. This ray of light shot into the sky, brilliant and vast. Compared to this pillar of light, the Sword Light from when Gui Rong charged over just now was like a firefly.

The sky of Wangliang Mountain suddenly lit up with light, dazzling people so they turned their eyes away. However, this light had no color; it was pure white light, which was the radiance released by Sword Essence. Even if this kind of light had color itself, Wangliang Mountain would have to fade the color into black and white; there were no exceptions.

After all, it was not real Sunlight.

"It's not Sunlight," Jin Wu whispered softly.

Beside him, Jiang Shenyi said, "Yes, it should be a feint. It is not yet time to release the Sword Image. After all, the opponent hasn't revealed anything yet; how could one show their trump card first?"

Gui Rong had just displayed immense strength far exceeding Tang Zhao's, yet this could not explain that his Sword Intent was related to strength; this could be some kind of Sword Art that increased strength, or perhaps his Sword Essence was simply abundant and he was born with Divine Power. If one drew conclusions randomly based on this, it would interfere with one's own judgment.

Just as Tang Zhao had not released Sunlight at all, he had randomly condensed Sword Essence into Sword Light, which could be said to be deliberately disrupting the opponent's train of thought, and would also make some onlookers mock him for wasting Sword Essence for no reason.

Gui Rong watched Tang Zhao's performance with cold eyes and naturally would not easily draw conclusions. He said directly, "Stop your performance. Sword against sword, let us fight to our heart's content."

Tang Zhao stomped on the big guy under his feet and said, "The arena is chosen to be on the heads of these giants? Does the body count?"

He was currently on the shoulder of a Wangliang warrior; if the battlefield only counted the tops of the giants' heads, he was already out of bounds. But since no rules were stated before the clash, naturally, one could not judge the winner based on this.

Gui Rong said calmly, "Head? Body? That doesn't matter. Then let it be the entire bodies of all the Wangliang warriors. The entire bodies of these ten Wangliang warriors will be our arena. Floating is not counted; whenever you land, you must land on a warrior."

There were slight boos from below. Although using Wangliang warriors as an arena was novel, the audience below needed to look up to watch the Sword Fighting, which was not friendly to their necks.

However, although the rules were listed in the booklet earlier, the final right of interpretation for this round belongs to the Sword Hero, and the Sword Hero is not managed by the manor. Those who are not Sword Heroes have no room to interject. Unless the Abyss Envoys object, but so far, the Abyss Envoys have only been busy watching the excitement, even pointing and gesturing with great interest.

Tang Zhao said, "Oh, so those who fall off the strongman count as losing?"

Gui Rong pondered and said, "Fine, then let's add this rule. Those who fall off can just commit suicide."

Tang Zhao raised an eyebrow and said, "Suicide?"

Gui Rong grinned, his tone exactly the same as when he spoke of destroying a hope earlier: "Of course, this battle has only two outcomes: you die or I die. The person who lives wins, and the person who dies loses!"