Under the gaze of the crowd, Arbuluo's fist slammed into Lu Ye's chest, and Walnut almost didn't dare look directly.

She had long heard how strong Arbuluo was. Under this punch, could Lu Ye really withstand it?

But in the next instant she relaxed, because Lu Ye had held on. She vaguely saw something flash and vanish in front of Lu Ye's chest just before Arbuluo's fist power reached him.

"Spirit runes?" Walnut cried out in surprise. It wasn't that she was ignorant; on the contrary, after so many years in the Asura Field, her knowledge was far broader than that of ordinary Moon Jade cultivators. It was just that the construction speed of that spirit rune was simply too fast, wasn't it? And judging from the result, that spirit rune was probably used for defense, otherwise Lu Ye could not possibly be unscathed.

At this moment Lu Ye was not nearly as calm as he appeared on the surface. Arbuluo's fist was very hard— even though he had blessed himself with over a dozen layers of Sacred Guard, his chest still churned with surging blood Qi from that punch. And this was after the force had already been weakened; one could well imagine what his end would have been if not for Sacred Guard.

His body shuddered slightly, then returned to normal, and another saber strike came cleaving down.

Arbuluo's eyes flickered. Between dodging this strike and forcibly blocking it, he hesitated briefly, then immediately chose the former.

Because he didn't have much time. With the secret technique's blessing, he couldn't hold on for long, so he had to go for a swift battle and quick decision. In terms of physique, he was confident he did not lose to any Moon Jade cultivator. Even though he sensed that Lu Ye had the means of spirit runes to resist his attacks, he still believed that the one who could endure to the end would be himself.

Trade injuries for injuries! See who can't hold on first!

As the Boulder Mountain Saber fell, it once again shook violently in small, rapid oscillations.

Back when he fought Lion Heart, Lu Ye had suffered from something similar. That guy had tempered his physique to be far too tenacious, and with Mana protecting him, Lu Ye had actually found it hard to break through the opponent's fleshly body.

If not for that, Lion Heart wouldn't have been able to escape into All Phenomena Island; he would have been chopped down by Lu Ye back in Zixuan.

So ever since that battle, Lu Ye had been pondering a question: what should he do if he encountered another opponent like Lion Heart in the future?

The Boulder Mountain Saber was indeed sharp enough, and with the Divine Sharp Edge Spirit Runes it became even sharper, but in this world there would always be some defenses he couldn't break.

All this time he hadn't come up with a good solution, until one day he suddenly thought of an object from the mundane world.

That was a wood saw used for felling trees.

If you used a wood saw to hack at a tree, even a small sapling might not be cut down. But what if you sawed back and forth with it? Even a towering giant of a tree could not withstand a single small wood saw.

With the idea in place, the rest was easier to handle.

In the past half year from setting out from All Phenomena Ocean to arriving in the Asura stellar territory, Lu Ye had spent half his time experimenting. He had thought this was just a simple little combat trick, so it wouldn't be difficult to refine. But as his exploration deepened, Lu Ye discovered that accomplishing it was not easy.

When crossing swords with the strong, the instant when the Boulder Mountain Saber fell and made contact with the enemy's body was extremely limited. If he wanted to break through the fleshly defense, he had to complete his idea in that instant.

For this, Lu Ye put in a lot of thought, went through many attempts, and only barely managed to complete it before arriving in the Asura stellar territory.

This was no longer some simple little combat trick; strictly speaking, it counted as a type of saber skill.

Lu Ye named it Vibrating Saber.

From the very first exchange with Arbuluo, Lu Ye had realized that this guy's physique was only stronger, not weaker, than Lion Heart's, so ordinary methods could not possibly break through his fleshly defense.

Only Vibrating Saber held any hope!

And upon trying it, he was pleasantly surprised: even a physique as strong as Arbuluo's could not withstand the attacks of Vibrating Saber.

For him, as long as he could injure the enemy, the outcome was basically decided.

Arbuluo's strategy of trading injuries for injuries was exactly to his liking.

The battle suddenly grew ferocious. Two figures flipped and darted about in the combat field, saber and fists clashing.

After the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, Arbuluo suddenly leapt back and raised his hand, shouting loudly, "I'm done fighting!" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Lu Ye, who had been about to pursue, halted his movement and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. In such an intense clash, he had also suffered some internal injuries, but nothing serious; mainly his blood Qi was surging and hard to suppress.

By contrast, Arbuluo's body was covered with who knew how many wounds, his whole person a terrifying, blood-soaked sight.

At this moment, the corners of Arbuluo's eyes were twitching violently. The reason he'd dared to trade injuries with Lu Ye was simply because he relied on his physique being stronger than Lu Ye's, his recovery much faster. With his powerful body, a few flesh wounds shouldn't have posed any problem at all and should have healed in the blink of an eye.

What puzzled him, however, was that there was no sign of the injuries on his body recovering. On careful sensing, he could even detect a strange power at the wounds; it was precisely this power that was hindering their recovery.

Admittedly, these injuries looked miserable, but they didn't affect him much.

But he could no longer hold on. The duration of the secret technique was about to end; when that time came, without the blessing of Savage Beast 5th Transformation, his strength would drop significantly, and he would no longer be a match for Lu Ye.

Retreating at the right moment was his only choice now.

In the stands, Sky Inkstone wore a face full of gloating—this damn mutt had just been using him as a joke, now he'd finally tasted the bitter fruit, hadn't he? He'd experienced it first-hand, he knew exactly what kind of consequences came from being cut by Lu Ye's long saber.

"I concede!" Arbuluo shouted, and as his voice fell, his figure vanished.

After a brief moment of dazed silence, the cultivators in the stands suddenly erupted in exclamations, and Walnut even jumped three feet high.

Victory! And the profits from this win would definitely dwarf all the previous ones, because there were just too many cultivators watching this bout. Even if only a small portion of them placed bets, how many of them—like her and her master—had wagered everything on Lu Ye?

Arbuluo lost. That Arbuluo who'd been butting heads with Gu Sheng over the top of the Moon Jade Ranking all year, who'd had no opponents besides Gu Sheng, had actually been beaten by some random combat cultivator who'd popped out of nowhere!

And before this, almost no one had ever seen this human race combat cultivator. The shock of it left all the spectating cultivators unable to recover for a long time.

Right after that, they thought of something even more thrilling: that human race combat cultivator had now defeated Arbuluo and risen to second on the Moon Jade Ranking—would he keep going and challenge Gu Sheng? Could he beat him?

If he could, wouldn't that mean the true top of the Moon Jade Ranking was about to be born? From then on, no one would be able to shake his position!

Countless cultivators scrambled to send messages, trying to dig up intel on that human race combat cultivator. Unfortunately, because Lu Ye had hidden his name and origin in the combat field, no one knew where he came from or what he was called.

On the field, as Arbuluo's figure disappeared, Lu Ye's figure also quickly faded and he returned to his own cave residence.

On the other side, inside Gu Sheng's cave residence, Arbuluo abruptly appeared.

Gu Sheng was still lying there in big shorts, and when he sensed Arbuluo's aura, he said with some dissatisfaction, "What took you so long? Did Sky Inkstone get stronger?"

He knew exactly how strong Sky Inkstone was, because sometimes when Sky Inkstone was ranked second, he would come challenge him.

Logically speaking, Arbuluo shouldn't have needed that long to deal with Sky Inkstone—unless Sky Inkstone had gotten a lot stronger. That wasn't impossible either; in this Asura Field, cases of suddenly getting a fortuitous encounter and having your strength soar were all too common.

"Uh… uh…" Arbuluo didn't quite know how to start. When he'd received the challenge earlier, he'd said he'd be right back, but he'd gone and gotten brutally beaten instead.

Gu Sheng suddenly felt something was off, because with Arbuluo's return, the cave residence was suddenly filled with a thick stench of blood.

He turned his head to look, and his eyes immediately went wide. He slowly got up, sized Arbuluo up from top to bottom, and was utterly stunned: "Sky Inkstone's that strong now? How'd he beat you into this state?"

At this moment, Arbuluo's aura had become somewhat feeble; that was without a doubt the side effect of using a secret technique. And his entire body was covered in wounds, strips of flesh turned up at the edges of those cuts, blood flowing out as if it couldn't be stopped. He looked absolutely miserable.

"Sky Inkstone's not worth shit!" Arbuluo curled his lip.

"It wasn't Sky Inkstone?" Gu Sheng froze for a moment, then came to his senses. "Right, Sky Inkstone doesn't use weapons. These injuries really aren't his handiwork."

He hurriedly took out his Asura Authority Token to check, then raised his head in astonishment. "You lost?"

Gu Sheng was shocked!

When he'd first seen Arbuluo's injuries, he'd actually been gloating a bit, since he'd never seen the guy in that kind of state before. But after he checked the Moon Jade Ranking, he was astonished to find Arbuluo had actually dropped to third place, replaced by some guy he'd never seen before.

"Who is this person?" Gu Sheng asked.

Arbuluo scratched his face. "No idea where he popped out from."

"You got beaten up like this and you don't even know his name?"

"We were too into the fight and I forgot to ask." Arbuluo looked a bit embarrassed, then waved a big hand. "I got hurt, but he's not much better off! These iron fists of mine hammered him so hard he coughed up three liters of blood—seriously injured, couldn't get back up. If my secret technique hadn't timed out, there's no way I'd have lost to him."

Gu Sheng gave him a sideways look. "So right now he's dragging his seriously injured body over here to challenge me without taking so much as a breath to rest?"

"He challenged you?" Arbuluo asked in surprise.

Gu Sheng nodded.

He was currently first on the Moon Jade Ranking, so the only one who could challenge him was the one ranked second.

Arbuluo's eyes spun a couple of times, then he started egging him on. "Don't panic. Yeah, he's strong, but after going all-out with your grandpa here, he's got maybe a tenth of his strength left. You go finish him off, I'll wait here to celebrate your victory!"

Gu Sheng frowned at him. He felt Arbuluo was exaggerating a bit, but he knew what Arbuluo was capable of. If someone at the Moon Jade level could take Arbuluo down without so much as a scratch, he definitely wouldn't believe it. So the other guy being injured was real; he just didn't know how much strength the man had left.

Just right—he himself was seriously injured too. Neither of them would have any real advantage.

And as the rank-one, if someone challenged him, there was no reason not to respond.

He nodded at once. "Then I'll be right back!" As he spoke, he put on his clothes, accepted the challenge, and disappeared.

Arbuluo stood where he was, sniffing and baring his teeth in pain.