"Very small, almost nonexistent." replied Rose.
She thought for a moment and added, "Saya is naive, foolish, impulsive, cowardly, and, well, kind. He possesses almost none of the qualities of a family patriarch. He's more suited to being an idle, good-for-nothing young master. He can only be a spoiled brat. Compared to you, he's far inferior."
Wells laughed heartily upon hearing Rose's assessment of Saya.
"You're right. Even you think Saya has almost no chance of becoming the heir. Do you think the Whitemoon'ro family wouldn't see that? Besides," Wells casually said, holding his wine glass, "this family's influence is several star regions away from us. Even if it would really get carried away and bet heavily on Saya, we would have nothing to fear..."
Wells glanced around the banquet hall and smiled, "See these people? More than 80% of them support me. Even if Saya stayed safely within the family, and I didn't do anything, he might not be able to take this position. The elders aren't senile yet. How could they entrust the fate of the entire family to a useless good-for-nothing! Just because he's the first heir? Putting aside bloodline and status, in every aspect, I, Wells, am a hundred times better than him! The leader of the Lyresas family can only be me!"
"Crack"
Wells crushed the wine glass in his hand. Crimson wine, like blood, trickled down his fingers, attracting the attention of those around him. Wells, however, had already regained his composure, smiling and returning the glances of those who were watching.
"Of course, everyone at this banquet knows you're a hundred times better than him. You're more suited to this position." Rose quickly and gently reassured him, her eyes turning icy as she spoke. "Don't worry, Saya can't always escape so easily. I'll find a way to find him and then take care of him completely for you."
"Mm."
Wells took the white handkerchief Rose offered and gently wiped his hands, nodding casually. Just as he finished wiping his palms and picked up a new wine glass, his gaze swept across the layers of people at the banquet, landing on the entrance in the distance.
Three people were walking in. The one in the lead was a beautifully dressed girl with blue hair and black eyes. With a composed demeanor, she possessed an innate, noble air of authority. Following the girl was a grotesque figure, seemingly constructed from countless blocks of black granite. The other was a handsome young man, similarly dressed in opulent attire. This handsome young man appeared calm, but a closer look revealed a tension hidden beneath his feigned composure.
Upon seeing the young man's appearance, Wells's gaze froze. Soon, a smile slowly spread across his face as he spoke softly, "No need to bother searching anymore, Rose. Our esteemed young master... has personally delivered himself to our door."
She followed Wells's gaze, her eyes quickly turning icy.
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"Myriad Shapes. Bone Silent Slash!"
Haji Dao uttered a cold shout, his bone longsword unleashing countless chilling, gray-white blades of light in an instant. Each of these blades carried a thick, decaying aura. Even the void itself was corroded, revealing large patches of black and white mottled patterns.
The attacks of a martial arts master who has grasped the power of laws cannot be measured by mere instances of breaking limits. Under the power of laws, energy without the support of those laws is like brittle paper, easily pierced and torn apart. This is the power of a level 13 martial artist.
Of course. There are exceptions.
Right now, like a celestial deity, Lu Sheng's long, platinum-gold hair fluttered slightly. He didn't use any weapon. He simply reached out with his bare hands.
"Clang, clang—"
The gray-white blades collided with his palm, producing a crisp, metallic sound. Sheng's five fingers gleamed, and with a gentle grasp, he shattered each blade of light into pieces.
"Monster!"
Haiji Dao gritted his teeth, his eyes and face filled with shock and astonishment. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, who could believe it? A mere martial artist who had just entered level 12 could actually shatter the law-based sword light of a level 13 expert with his bare hands?
It was simply outrageous. Lu Sheng's martial body and martial energy were too powerful. The former was like the most solid cosmic crystal, the latter had an astonishingly high purity.
Terrifying white-gold flames. Haiji Dao could clearly sense that it didn't contain any power belonging to any law, yet he still dared not touch it easily. The extreme heat was more than a hundred times stronger than entering the core of a star. Even from a distance, Haiji Dao could feel the hairs on his skin curling slightly from the heat. It was too exaggerated.
Haiji Dao no longer wanted to continue this pointless battle. He'd save Lu Sheng, a monstrous talent like he had never seen in his life, for the other monstrous talents at the Celestial Throne academy. He himself was just an ordinary level 13 martial artist. If this battle continued, who knew who would be training whom?
But before Haji Dao could call a halt, Lu Sheng, fueled by his long-simmering battle intent, caught that fleeting opportunity. In an instant, a fierce gleam ignited in his gray pupils. He struck without hesitation. Aiming at Haiji Dao, he slowly thrust out his fist.
"Fifth-Season Fist Punch!"
In an instant, it felt as though ten thousand suns had suddenly risen within this vast space.
"Boom!"
The fifth season of the ancient starry sky had arrived. Thousands upon thousands of golden crows burst forth from Sheng's body. A terrifying heatwave swept across the vast room, scorching and burning everything. As though planets after planets ignited, burned, and disappeared, and the entire universe was plunged into a scorching hell.
In that instant, the hairs on Haiji Dao's body stood on end. A strong sense of alarm rose within him, a profound sense of impending doom rising from the depths of his heart, causing his brow and temples to throb violently.
With almost no hesitation, he let out a low roar. His entire body suddenly erupted with unparalleled gray-white light. Endless, decaying, and stagnant energy gathered on his bone long blade. This was a annihilation strike capable of wiping out all life on a planet. It was the manifestation of the power of laws pushed to their limits. He gripped the sword with both hands, and slashed fiercely at the figure before him, so brightly lit that he could barely discern its outline. At the same time, he roared—
"Stop!"
"Boom!"
A massive, greyish-white blade of light collided with an intensely bright fist. A deafening roar resounded. Terrifying energy swept and raged outwards like a celestial storm.
Anon Turing, a spectator, pushed his strength to its limit in utter horror, then frantically retreated. As he retreated, he saw the floor in front of him being torn up, shattered, and annihilated layer by layer.
It seemed that if he had slowed down even slightly, he would have met the same fate as the floor of this self-healing alloy room. And this was merely the aftershock of the energy! How terrifying must the center of the collision have been?! Anon Turing could hardly imagine it.
After an unknown amount of time, the raging aftershocks of energy finally subsided. The light of the platinum flames also faded. When Anon Turing finally saw the scene before him, he couldn't help but gasp. The room, supposedly capable of withstanding the energy attacks of a level 13 martial artist, now looked as if it had been ravaged by some terrible cataclysmic disaster.
A scene of utter devastation. From the center of the battle, a vast area around it was almost unrecognizable. Even this super alloy with memory capabilities would likely never be able to recreate its original form. If the room hadn't been embedded within the spaceship using space-folding technology, Anon Turing even suspected that the battle might have pierced and destroyed the whole ship.
He followed the traces of the battlefield. When his gaze reached the center of the battle, his pupils contracted sharply, as if witnessing something utterly unbelievable. He couldn't help but subconsciously exclaim, "How is this possible?!"
At the very center of the energy eruption, two figures stood silently. One of them, with white hair and dressed in black, held a knife in both hands, his face filled with shock and disbelief. Not far in front of him, another figure remained in a punching stance, eyes closed, as if contemplating something.
However, what truly shocked Anon Turing and Haiji Dao… was that the bone longsword in his hand was still a considerable distance from Lu Sheng's fist. In other words, the terrifying energy shockwave that just erupted was actually caused by the two of them attacking each other without their strikes fully colliding. Lu Sheng's punch… had ultimately stopped; it hadn't been fully unleashed.
"Even with restraint, it's like this; what if he hadn't restrained his strength?" Anon Turing murmured softly, his expression dazed.
At this moment, he truly felt the immense gap between himself and Lu Sheng. This gap… was far, far greater than he had originally anticipated.
Haiji Dao's feelings were equally complex and indescribable.
"He actually stopped."
Looking at the bone longsword in his hand, Haiji Dao muttered to himself with an incredibly complicated expression, "Is he really afraid of killing me on the spot with one punch? Ha—"
A self-deprecating and helpless smile appeared on his face. He only realized now. The strike he had just fought back with all his might. It seemed that it wasn't even as genuine as the "Stop" he had shouted. It was truly ironic.
"He didn't even use his true trump card, the power of the Thunder Law."
Haiji Dao looked at Lu Sheng, who was meditating in the distance, shook his head, sheathed his longsword, and remained silent. At this moment, Sheng also quietly opened his eyes. After opening them, a hint of regret appeared on Lu Sheng's face.
"What a pity. Just a little bit short again."
Lu Sheng was once again just a little short of breaking through to the sixth realm of his fist technique. This was the second time.
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Translation notes by dhoo
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Myriad Shapes. Bone Silent Slash
This is quite a literal translation of 萬象.骨寂殺, where bone 骨 isn't the character as skeleton 骸 in Haij Dao's name 骸极刀. The first part 萬象 is also a compound word meaning "all things; all the universe; every manifestation of nature". Both parts of this attack's name appear only once in this story.
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The self-repairing ore room aka the self-healing alloy room, the superalloy room, the cultivation chamber, the sparring room, or the self-repairing room, the self-healing room
See chapter #588
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Fifth-Season Fist Punch, aka Fifth-Season-of-the-Ancient-Starry-Sky Fist Punch
拳推五季, quán tuī wǔ jì: 拳 fist 推 advance, push, etc. 五 five 季 season
拳推上古星空第五季, quán tuī shànggǔ xīngkōng dì wǔ jì
上古星空, shànggǔ xīngkōng: 上古 ancient 星空 starry sky
第五, dì wǔ: fifth