On the seventh day of the knock-on-the-door-of-Tao probation test. By this round, there were finally eight people left, that is, the top eight in this knock-on-the-door-of-Tao.
And of these eight people, they had actually already obtained the qualification of knock-on-the-door-of-Tao. Continuing to fight was to determine the specific ranking.
Because in addition to the qualification of knock-on-the-door-of-Tao, there were also some other rewards in this test; so from this round onwards, continuing to fight was mostly to test the rewards.
The specific matchups in this round were:
Lu Junxing and Tian Wenjin on Debate Platform No. 2;
Liu Baixuan and Qi Yuan on Debate Platform No. 4;
Li Shiyin and Yao Qingke on Debate Platform No. 6;
Dong Zhongyuan and Ximen Wushang on Debate Platform No. 8.
Among these eight people, Tian Wenjin and Ximen Wushang were the only two non-celestial arrogance disciples;
Tian Wenjin and Li Shiyin were the only two disciples in the Foundation Establishment Stage, while the other six people had already formed a core, and except for Ximen Wushang, they were all late-stage Gold Core cultivators;
Yao Qingke, Dong Zhongyuan and Ximen Wushang were the only three non-sword cultivators, and the other five were all sword cultivators. So the dominance of the new generation of sword cultivators in Daoxian Sect continued, and among these five people, only Qi Yuan practiced flying sword techniques.
Under Debate Platform No. 6, Long Qiqi hugged a pile of information and put it on Chasing the Wind's back, making the above summary.
Finally, she murmured:
"I really didn't expect Dong Zhongyuan to be so strong... I always thought his position on the Heavenly Pride Ranking was due to inside dealings."
"Didn't he give up a round before?" Chasing the Wind asked. Apparently he also felt that Dong Zhongyuan looked unserious, surely not that strong.
"Whether he gave up or not, but his opponent yesterday was very strong. It turned out that he is really not just for show." Long Qiqi shook her head.
"Then who do you think will win between Dong Zhongyuan and Ximen Wushang?"
"Should be Dong Zhongyuan..." Long Qiqi said, "Alright, stop talking, Shiyin and Qingke are about to start."
On the Debate Platform, Li Shiyin looked at Yao Qingke and silently unsheathed the Celestial Tipping Sword. She held up the Celestial Tipping Sword, pointed at Yao Qingke, and said coldly: "Today I will beat you until you surrender!"
On Yao Qingke's Debate Platform, vines grew out of the inside of the platform as if to surround her.
She sneered at Li Shiyin and asked, "Up for it?"
"I am up for it!" Li Shiyin answered solemnly.
As soon as she finished speaking, she disappeared.
Seeing Li Shiyin disappear, Yao Qingke laughed loudly, knowing that the other party wanted to get close, she taunted, "You really are stupid, trying to get close?"
Last time in the Executive Hall they clashed, Li Shiyin wanted to get close, then stepped into her absolute field of law, and was directly restrained.
Even today, Li Shiyin's starting move was still to get close.
"Seven-Seven said..."
Li Shiyin flashed and appeared behind Yao Qingke on her left. She stabbed at Yao Qingke with her sword.
The next second, suddenly seven or eight vines sprung out and rushed to bind her.
Li Shiyin charged forwards as if not seeing the vines at all, the sword in her hand still stabbing at Yao Qingke.
"You want to exchange injury for injury?!" Yao Qingke was happy to oblige. Her body suddenly had greenish magic light swirling around.
Li Shiyin's sword stabbed forward into Yao Qingke's shoulder!
At the same time, the vines also coiled around Li Shiyin.
But in the next moment, when the vines were about to continue coiling, a sharp purplish halo suddenly exploded outwards from Li Shiyin's eyes. The halo was extremely sharp, instantly cutting the vines entangled around her into pieces!
"Sword intent!?" Yao Qingke was full of disbelief.
At the same time, the greenness on her flashed, weaving outward from inside her body into a green vine armor. The vine armor staved off Li Shiyin's sword.
The tip of the Celestial Tipping Sword was unable to advance an inch into the vine armor!
Seeing this, Li Shiyin was unhurried. She secretly incanted: "Celestial Soaring Immortal!"
Dazzling stellar sword qi spurted out from the tip of the Celestial Tipping Sword, directly piercing through Yao Qingke's vine armor. She showed no mercy, using force to pull down, directly cutting off Yao Qingke's left arm.
This "Celestial Soaring Immortal" was Li Shiyin's new comprehension in the last two years. She made the sword qi more solid, incorporating her Stage Two comprehension of sword qi into Celestial Soaring Immortal, thus enabling flexible use of this Celestial Soaring Immortal move.
"Ah!"
A shriek of pain escaped Yao Qingke. Instantly, dense green vines burst out from within a one-zhang radius absolute field of law, all attacking Li Shiyin.
Li Shiyin intended to expand her advantage, but under the barrage she wasn't able to persist for long before being whipped out by a vine.
She steadied herself not far from Yao Qingke and continued what she hadn't finished saying earlier: "The more formidable your field of law, the better your defense, the more it shows the weakness of your essence."
Long Qiqi looked triumphantly at Qin Ran upon hearing this. See, your disciple still needs me to train.
The vines surrounding Yao Qingke parted, revealing her. She looked down at Long Qiqi sitting on Chasing the Wind's head, and said expressionlessly: "Seven-Seven is it?!"
Looking at the revealed Yao Qingke, Li Shiyin's eyebrows wrinkled. Because at Yao Qingke's arm, the wound had already clotted, fleshy buds swiftly interweaving. In just a few breaths, a new arm grew back before Li Shiyin's eyes.
Regrowing severed limbs!
"Her physique is so terrifying?!" Long Qiqi's eyes bulged, mouth gaping wide enough to fit an egg.
"That's not due to her physique's strength, but her astounding recovery capability." Qin Ran explained to her, "The vitality of her wood attribute mystic art is her strongest point."
Long Qiqi understood that strong vitality didn't equate to strong physique. But still...
"Then it'll be hard for Shiyin to win!" she lamented.
"My physique is indeed not strong..." Seeing Li Shiyin's change in expression, Yao Qingke suddenly smiled and said, "But..."
Her voice turned cold, "Do you think you'll get another chance to get close?"
"If I could get close once, I can do it a second time!" Li Shiyin declared. She prepared her sword again, channeling magic power, intending to use movement technique to get close.
But at this moment, she suddenly sensed movement underfoot. The intense sense of crisis forced her to dodge to the side!
"Bang!"
She had just dodged when a vine-like tendril whipped out from where she just stood, directly splitting open the Debate Platform.
Li Shiyin steadied herself at the new spot, but before she could even catch her breath, another green vine lashed out from under her feet.
Taking hits wasn't Li Shiyin's style. She immediately turned and struck at this newborn vine with stellar sword qi erupting from her sword.
But the previously invincible sharp sword qi suffered here. Though her slash left a small cut, her own body was sent flying from the vine's tremendous force!
When she stabilized herself again, more vines were already breaking out from the ground she was standing on.
"Why?" Li Shiyin's heart sank, though she still had to dodge. A horrifying guess surfaced in her mind, "Could it be that in this short period of time Yao Qingke has already filled the entire Debate Platform underground with vines?!"
In the following times whenever Li Shiyin stopped, vines would force her away. More and more vines burst from the rocky Debate Platform, slowly changing from bare stone into a verdant, dense forest. She gradually confirmed her earlier speculation.
"Hey! Look at the platform..." Qin Ran asked Long Qiqi, "Know what's going on??"
"Hmm?" Long Qiqi was startled, then it dawned upon her, "Those vines... aren't Yao Qingke's mystic art? No, did Yao Qingke plant vines beforehand?"
"If you guys can cheat, so can others." Qin Ran said.
"How did she know..."
"You only sold away the pattern yesterday." Qin Ran interrupted Long Qiqi.
"No, how can Lu Junxing and Yao Qingke be connected?" No matter how Long Qiqi looked at it, she didn't feel the styles of these two people matched at all.
"Look at that sword scar on Yao Qingke's face..." Qin Ran reminded Long Qiqi.
Long Qiqi gradually understood. How could Yao Qingke's terrifying vitality be unable to heal a facial sword scar?
"That sword scar was left behind by Lu Junxing?"
Li Shiyin didn't dare linger on the ground, directly flying high up.
“Did you really think you would be safe by flying up there?!” Yao Qingke stood on the ground, looking up at Li Shiyin in midair, and said sinisterly, “By flying into the air, you have made yourself a living target.”
As her words fell, the green vines on the ground grew wildly, and in the blink of an eye, they had grown to be several hundred meters long, whipping towards Li Shiyin like a group of demons dancing madly.
“Humph!” Li Shiyin looked at those hundreds of terrifying green vines in midair and let out a heavy sigh.
She couldn’t even cut through a single one of those vines, let alone these hundreds that were even thicker. How was she going to deal with them?
She opened her left hand towards those hundreds of vines.
“Dream Fantasy Nebula!”
Balls of purple stars condensed in her palm one by one, shooting out and exploding, bursting out countless fine sword rays.
These sword rays revolved around her under the restraint of the sword intent to protect, grinding those incoming vines into oblivion.
The vines were like giant pythons, the sword rays like a swarm of bees.
The vines lashed out, and the sword rays surrounded them, gradually grinding them away bit by bit.
After more than a dozen stars exploded, dense sword rays had surrounded Li Shiyin.
Yao Qingke had her so-called absolute domain of spells, and Li Shiyin had also forcibly created an absolute domain of sword rays.
"Celestial Soaring Immortal!"
As her own sword rays were wearing down the vines, they were also being depleted rapidly. Li Shiyin could not afford to drag this out. She exhibited Celestial Soaring Immortal once again.
And this time, the Celestial Soaring Immortal was different from the previous one. She pulled out a huge stellar sword ray, restrained by the sword intent to protect, revolving around her. Then her body followed the sword's movement, as if integrating with the sword, charging towards Yao Qingke.
This sword descended from the heavens, with dense minor sword rays escorting the gigantic sword towards Yao Qingke.
"How is this going to help?" Yao Qingke said disdainfully.
Even if Li Shiyin could break through those hundreds of vines, she was still in her absolute domain of spells. Even if Li Shiyin could break through her absolute domain, she still might not be able to injure her. Even if she did injure her, Yao Qingke could quickly recover.
The vines lashed out frantically, but Li Shiyin charged ahead relentlessly with all her power, aiming only for Yao Qingke.
When the sword rays transformed from “Dream Fantasy Nebula” were depleted, the enormous sword ray of “Celestial Soaring Immortal” brought her to the edge of Yao Qingke's absolute domain of spells.
When the absolute domain was split open by Celestial Soaring Immortal and the colossal sword ray was weakened, she appeared in front of Yao Qingke.
When the vine armor on Yao Qingke was pierced through by the remnants of Celestial Soaring Immortal, Celestial Soaring Immortal disappeared, and Li Shiyin was left holding the Qing Xing Sword in front of the completely undefended Yao Qingke.
"Yao Qingke, you have lost," said Li Shiyin. Her sword thrusted forward, piercing Yao Qingke's chest. She stared at Yao Qingke and said, "Now my sword is inside your body. With a single thought from me, the sword rays will explode and tear your body into mincemeat. I won't give you a chance to recover this time."
Yao Qingke was still calm and composed. She looked at Li Shiyin right in front of her and said, "You can certainly try..."
"You don't think I will?"
"If you don't make the sword rays explode now, you will be the one who loses," said Yao Qingke.
Li Shiyin closed her eyes. She could feel the vines behind her lashing towards her, the absolute domain of spells around her recovering... This was indeed her last chance.
She suddenly opened her eyes, and a flash of sword glow swept by.
Boom!
The stellar sword rays inside Yao Qingke's body exploded instantly!
"That's more like it..." Although there were sword rays wreaking havoc inside her body and Yao Qingke was in great pain, she still said with a laugh, "That's how a sword cultivator should be!"
It seemed that Yao Qingke was going to die. It seemed that she was about to lose.
But...when Li Shiyin looked back, she saw those hundreds of vines still lashing towards her without stopping. The absolute domain of spells around her had recovered, brimming with vibrant life force and vines growing inside.
She realized with dreadful horror that Yao Qingke was still alive, her life force still extremely vigorous!
A terrifying sense of crisis exploded in Li Shiyin's mind. She looked at Yao Qingke again and saw a sapling sprouting inside her body, growing rapidly as it absorbed Yao Qingke's blood. Its branches and vines were all extending towards Li Shiyin.
Li Shiyin was badly frightened. She hurriedly let go of the Qing Xing Sword and looked back again, only to see the thick vines right upon her...
She had reached a hopeless situation!
"A sword cultivator who has lost their sword no longer deserves to live," said Yao Qingke as she pulled out the Qing Xing Sword and held it in her own hand, pronouncing Li Shiyin's death sentence.
"No..." Li Shiyin suddenly called out, "My sword is still in my hand!"
Yao Qingke was startled. She looked towards Li Shiyin's hand and saw a sword taking shape there, a sword as dark as the night, as the stars, as the galaxy...
"Life sword?!" She couldn't believe her eyes. She glanced at the sword in her own hand, then back at Li Shiyin's. They had been fighting for so long and Li Shiyin had been pushed to the brink several times, yet she hadn't been using her life sword?
Swish!
The hundreds of vines behind were upon her and she could no longer fend them off. Li Shiyin chose to charge forward!
With the protection of the sword intent and stellar sword rays, her sword cleaved the sapling inside Yao Qingke's body. Then she dashed right through Yao Qingke's body.
After a few more flickers, she evaded the last thick vines.
Li Shiyin stopped at the edge of the Debate Platform, holding the Mu Ran Sword, looking at Yao Qingke split in half on the platform, looking at the dense vines withering away and drying up on the platform.
Then she flew back to Yao Qingke's side. Although she had been split in two, Yao Qingke was still not dead. The two halves of her body were held together by numerous intertwining tree branches and sprouts. Li Shiyin stabbed down with her sword again, nailing Yao Qingke to the ground through her throat.
Then she turned to look at the referee.
The referee examined Yao Qingke and confirmed that she was no longer able to fight. Only then did he announce the result: “Li Shiyin wins the assessment."