As the golden names on the large screen finally settled, the atmosphere in the arena—wound unbearably tight from the previous life-or-death battles with their flying flesh and blood—miraculously eased in this moment.
"Oh? A showdown between two beauties?"
"Haha, what a treat! Finally something easy on the eyes!"
"Ladies, take it easy! Don't hurt those pretty faces—it'd break my heart!"
Below the stage, the male disciples whose nerves had been stretched taut immediately ignited like lit fuses, hooting and hollering. Some even shamelessly let out frivolous whistles.
In their minds, two delicate girls fighting would amount to nothing more than hair-pulling and energy blasts. If a bit of clothing happened to tear—well, that would be a bonus worth watching.
Lin Mu remained hidden in the crowd below, lacking the seriousness he'd shown while observing Lin Feng's battle.
He folded his arms with interest, a relaxed smile playing at his lips.
After all, "watching beautiful girls fight" was a universal human pleasure.
However, this wave of frivolity didn't last long.
On the stage, Lin Xue ascended gracefully in a white dress. Her features were cold and refined, like a snow lotus blooming atop a frozen peak.
Facing the vulgar catcalls from below, she paid them no mind.
She merely turned her head slightly, sweeping an ice-cold, razor-sharp gaze across the front rows of hecklers—like a bone-scraping steel blade.
That "big sister" aura, accumulated from her position atop the Medicine Hall where everyone revolved around her like stars around the moon, poured forth in an instant.
The disciples in the front row who had been shouting loudest felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over their heads in the dead of winter.
They shuddered involuntarily, swallowing the second half of their crude remarks and shrinking their necks in embarrassment.
Then her opponent, inner disciple Lin Lan, took the stage.
The moment Lin Lan appeared, the entire venue drew a collective sharp breath.
She was a petite, loli-type girl with a timid, adorable round face, barely reaching Lin Xue's shoulder in height.
Yet beneath this dainty, endearing frame, her hands dragged a grotesquely oversized octagonal iron war hammer—taller than her entire body, with a head the size of a water vat!
The heavy hammerhead scraped across the blue-steel rock of the arena, sending up a trail of glaring sparks and producing a teeth-grating screech.
The visual contrast was staggering!
The two appeared to be on friendly terms.
Lin Lan, dragging that terrifying hammer, gave Lin Xue a timid bow, her voice soft and sweet: "Hello, Senior Sister Xue. Please go easy on me later."
Lin Xue looked at the petite junior before her, not a trace of contempt in her eyes. Her tone was flat but utterly serious:
"Don't hold back. Use your full strength. Once we're on this stage, there are no senior or junior sisters—only victory and defeat."
"Mm!"
Lin Lan nodded firmly.
"Begin!"
The referee's arm swung down sharply.
In that instant, every trace of timidity vanished from Lin Lan!
"Hah!"
She let out a sharp cry.
Deep within her aperture, two common Rank 1 Gu worms blazed with blinding light simultaneously—the Strength Path Savage Bull Gu and the Earth Path Heavy Rock Gu!
Savage Bull Gu provided terrifying burst strength, while Heavy Rock Gu could double an object's weight upon contact!
The moment battle commenced, Lin Lan swung that horrifying hammer and launched into a ferocious assault like a tiger descending the mountain.
At first, Lin Xue relied on her Wind Treading Gu's agility to dodge and weave across the modest arena with apparent ease, seemingly planning to win with the same old trick from the first round—extreme speed for an instant kill.
But soon, Lin Xue realized she was wrong.
Lin Lan wasn't swinging wildly like some brainless brute.
She abruptly stopped, planted herself as an axis, powered through her core, and began spinning the Heavy Rock Gu-enhanced hammer in a frenzied rotation across the arena!
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—!
This wasn't random spinning.
Under the Savage Bull Gu's monstrous strength, the hammer's initial velocity was maximized, and through rotation, massive inertia converted kinetic energy into terrifying potential energy!
A miniature hurricane was literally being whipped up on the arena!
Lin Lan had transformed into something possessed by a savage bull—a berserk, mindless little human T-Rex.
The hammer's attack range expanded with each rotation, the sharp gusts it generated even stinging Lin Xue's cold, refined cheeks.
Relying solely on Wind Treading Gu's speed, Lin Xue was alarmed to find she could barely evade this impenetrable "hammer storm."
Her white dress had already been torn in several places by the gusts—danger closing in from all sides.
Meanwhile, the spectators below had gone slack-jawed.
They'd expected two delicate girls trading techniques. Instead, this apocalyptic commotion was scraping layers off the stone floor!
This wasn't some pretty-girl catfight—this was freaking Godzilla versus Kong!
Facing this unreasonable, inescapable AOE attack, Lin Xue showed no panic. In those once-cold eyes, an extremely calm—even cold-blooded—rationality blazed to life.
"I must break her momentum."
Lin Xue's mind raced like lightning. She finally stopped hiding.
Deep within her aperture, a green Gu worm radiating dense life force roared to activation!
Rank 1 Spring Revival Gu!
This was originally a premium healing Gu. When activated, it would secrete large amounts of vibrant green fibers into the Gu Master's body.
These fibers could interweave and bind across wounds like the toughest suturing thread, forcibly sealing ruptured blood vessels and stopping bleeding, allowing a Gu Master to maintain combat capability even with bone-deep injuries.
But Lin Xue wielded this life-saving medical Gu to achieve a terrifying martial effect!
"Lock!"
Lin Xue wasn't injured, yet she forced those green fibers to pierce into her own muscles and nerve endings!
This was an extremely effective potential release.
By forcibly stimulating her nerves, Spring Revival Gu briefly numbed Lin Xue's pain receptors while driving her muscles into a highly active "excited" state.
Adrenaline surged wildly in that moment; blood flow instantly multiplied several times over—as if a potent stimulant had been injected straight into her heart!
Muscle reaction speed, nerve conduction speed—in this moment, they forcibly broke through the human body's normal limits!
Simultaneously, the vigorous vitality from Spring Revival Gu could instantly repair the micro-tears caused by such extreme exertion, granting her terrifying combat endurance.
Medicine and martial arts combined—rational madness!
Below the stage, Lin Mu's gaze sharpened. He keenly caught the flash of green light across Lin Xue's body and her instantly surging blood energy.
"Finally playing her trump card... Using a healing Gu as a stimulant. This woman is harder on herself than on her enemies."
"Looks like this little T-Rex Lin Lan really pushed her to the edge."
On the arena.
Lin Xue understood perfectly the fatal weakness of Lin Lan's "windmill" combo—once she started spinning, the hammer dragged the person along.
That terrifying momentum made it impossible for Lin Lan to forcibly stop, let alone defend against close-quarters attacks.
This was the key to breaking the deadlock!
Dancing on the blade's edge!
Under the dual enhancement of Spring Revival Gu's extreme reflexes and Wind Treading Gu's ultimate speed, Lin Xue became a weightless white phantom.
In the infinitesimally brief gap as the howling hammer swept past her nose, trailing a gust of death—
Lin Xue advanced instead of retreating!
She executed a move that made the entire audience's scalps tingle—at the exact instant the hammer reached its lowest point with minimal speed, she raised her jade foot and stepped precisely onto the rapidly rotating hammer shaft!
"What?!"
Lin Lan caught this scene through the spinning blur, her pupils contracting sharply.
Borrowing the hammer's terrifying rotational force, Lin Xue leaped lightly, her entire form tracing a graceful parabola through the air, easily vaulting over that deadly defensive zone to land instantly behind Lin Lan!
Swish!
A cold blue-black gleam pressed steadily against Lin Lan's pale, vulnerable nape.
Iron Leaf Gu!
Lin Lan couldn't stop the hammer in her hands—it had become a runaway wild horse.
Feeling the bone-chilling cold at her neck and the faint blood seeping through, she knew perfectly well: if her senior sister behind her pushed just slightly forward, her head would be departing her body.
"Aiyah! I'm done, I'm done! I surrender!"
Lin Lan immediately released her grip on the hammer with great self-awareness and shouted loudly.
BOOM—!
The uncontrolled octagonal hammer shot out like a meteor, slamming into the protective Gu formation at the arena's edge, creating a massive rippling display, before crashing heavily to the ground and shaking the entire stage.
"Fourth match—Lin Xue wins!"
With the referee's declaration, this battle of contrasts filled with violence and thrills finally came to a close.
The battle over, there was no killing intent lingering on the stage.
Lin Xue withdrew her Iron Leaf Gu. The mad rationality in her eyes quickly faded, and she returned to her cold, aloof demeanor.
Looking at the still-shaken Lin Lan, a rare, faint smile appeared at the corner of her lips.
She stepped forward on her own initiative and gently embraced the junior sister who had nearly pushed her to the brink.
Lin Lan also dropped her fierce, claws-out posture and returned the hug with a blush.
Off-stage erupted into the most passionate and purest cheers and whistles of the day.
Irrelevant to life and death, solely for this absolutely wonderful battle and that final eye-pleasing touch of warmth.
With this, the Top 32 battles completely concluded.
The list of the sixteen most top-tier geniuses of Black Blood Stockade was officially finalized.
According to the conventions of the clan Grand Competition, this cruel elimination tournament proceeded round after round. The next "Top 16 to Top 8" matches should logically be held in three days.
Everyone was anticipating the upcoming fierce dragon-tiger struggles with boiling blood.
Just then.
Rank 4 Patriarch Lin Cang, who had been sitting upright in the main seat of the core viewing platform all along, slowly stood up.
With his standing, the noise of the entire venue seemed instantly snuffed out by an invisible large hand. Thousands of gazes unanimously converged on him.
Lin Cang's deep gaze swept over the vigorous clan youths below, finally landing on the Punishment Hall seed in the preparation area—Lin Yan, who had just finished bandaging his wounds, his face pale as paper.
"In today's battles, the disciples of my Black Blood Stockade all displayed a bloodlust fearless of death. This Patriarch is very gratified."
Lin Cang's voice was low, spreading through the entire venue via the Amplification Gu. His tone actually revealed a rare "grief" and "care":
"However, martial arts sparring has no eyes on blades and swords. Today, Lin Yan and a group of clan elites sustained excessively heavy injuries on the arena."
"If they are forced to continue fighting in three days, I fear it will damage their aperture foundations and ruin the future pillars of my Lin family."
He paused, waved his large hand, and threw out a decision no one expected:
"The Grand Competition is to select talents, not destroy them! For the long-term consideration of the clan disciples, this Patriarch specially approves: The next round of 'Top 16 to Top 8' matches shall be delayed until a week from now! Allowing all injured disciples ample time to heal and reorganize!"
As soon as these words came out, the entire venue first froze, then erupted into earth-shattering cheers!
"Patriarch is wise!"
"Patriarch is benevolent! This is truly considering the future of the clan!"
Amidst these tsunami-like sounds of gratitude, Lin Cang nodded slightly, revealing a fatherly smile on his face.
However.
Standing in the corner off-stage, hidden in the cheering crowd, Lin Mu looked at Lin Cang on the high platform, a deep cold sneer flashing in the depths of his eyes.
"Benevolence? Compassion?"
Lin Mu sighed secretly in his heart. "Nothing but a method of performance."
Lin Mu pressed down the brim of his hat, turning to walk in the direction of the External Affairs Hall.
"This technique of managing subordinates is truly superior."