Chapter 140: The Matchup

"Kid, what did you just say?" Hearing Huo Ye's words, Shangguan Qingcai's expression instantly turned cold.

Huo Ye raised an eyebrow. "Old man, I don't think I need to repeat myself. To be completely honest with you, I still don't know what I'm feeling right now. When all is said and done, my greatest strength is fighting. So, why not use a fight to settle this once and for all? Do me the trouble of indulging me in a match."

At that moment, Eddie leaned his chair back, propped his legs up on the dining table, and said nonchalantly, "Not bad, that's not a bad proposal. Old man, as elders, our role is at most to facilitate, never to force. Children and grandchildren have their own fortunes. Since you arbitrarily decided to trade the second half of two kids' lives for a divine weapon, you should be prepared to face resistance. A single match to decide the outcome, settle your own thoughts, and leave the rest to the youngsters."

"Humph!"

———————————————————

Half an hour later, Huo Ye stepped into the Shangguan family's arena while the others seated themselves in the stands.

Shangguan Hong turned to Eddie and asked, "Eddie, you understand both my father's and Xiao Ye's levels. Who would you say has the better winning chance?"

"Old man Shangguan," Eddie stated bluntly. "The old guy has decades of martial arts under his belt, and he's a Tier S Esper in his own right. If he weren't, how could he possibly forge the strongest divine weapons in the world? Furthermore, his combat strength goes far beyond that. An innocent man treasuring a jade ring becomes a criminal because of it. Back then, how many people coveted his craftsmanship? Some wanted to recruit him, some wanted to wipe him out. Countless people tried to hunt him down, but not a single attempt ever succeeded. After all, he possesses an entire arsenal of protective weapons, every single one forged with his own hands."

Shangguan Hong naturally knew Shangguan Qingcai's combat prowess inside and out. Back in the day, Eddie and Shangguan Qingcai had fought side by side against hordes of enemies during an assassination attempt, which was the very foundation of their current friendship.

However, did Huo Ye truly have zero chance of winning?

Alice was tapping her feet anxiously against the floor. In any other situation, she would have already stood up and cheered loudly for Huo Ye. But under these circumstances, if Huo Ye won, there would be no engagement. If she cheered him on, what would happen to Xiao Yu? On one side was her brother, on the other was her sister—whose side was she supposed to take?!

Shangguan Yudie's mind was completely blank. What on earth was happening? Why had things turned out this way? What kind of thought process led Xiao Ye-ge to think of using physical force to resolve matters of the heart?!

Meanwhile, Huo Ye stood calmly in the center of the arena, holding the Ghost Slayer, waiting for Shangguan Qingcai to enter.

He knew what he was doing, and he knew the significance of this battle. The wager was set to prevent Shangguan Qingcai from meddling in the affair between him and Shangguan Yudie, but that wasn't the whole story.

The conditions of the wager were also a trap he had set for himself.

Huo Ye wanted to know his true state of mind at the exact moment the victor was decided. If he won, would he feel a sense of loss or a wave of relief? If he lost, how would he feel? The emotional reaction he displayed the instant the outcome was decided would surely be his most genuine emotional exposure. Only then would he know whether his deep inner self truly desired to be with Shangguan Yudie.

That's right, winning or losing didn't matter. Getting the divine weapon of the Copper-Armed Ghost didn't matter either. What he wanted was to sort out his own feelings.

The door on the opposite side of the arena opened, and the Copper-Armed Ghost slowly walked out. He was stripped to the waist, muscles coiled and knotted across his frame, exuding an astonishing aura—yet his hands were completely empty.

Huo Ye called out, "Old man, do you plan on going easy on me by not using a weapon?"

Shangguan Qingcai narrowed his eyes and said indifferently, "Just attack me however you like. Old man won't hold back even an ounce!"

Huo Ye smiled. "Alright, old man, then I won't... hold back!" The moment his words finished, his entire figure lunged forward.

Second form: Slash Reversing the Setting Sun.

Huo Ye wrapped his twin blades in dark flames and slashed toward Shangguan Qingcai. Shangguan Qingcai merely raised his eyelids, thrust out both hands, and clamped down tightly onto the blades' edges.

The color of Huo Ye's flames gave no indication of their actual temperature, but given the amount of esper energy Huo Ye had currently infused into them, the temperature easily reached thousands of degrees. Yet Shangguan Qingcai caught Huo Ye's seemingly unstoppable twin blades firmly in his grip—and emerged completely unscathed.

Huo Ye gritted his teeth, attempting to pull his long blades back from Shangguan Qingcai's grasp, but not only was Shangguan Qingcai extraordinarily strong, his palms possessed a suction force that anchored the blades and prevented him from withdrawing them.

So that's how it is!

Huo Ye instantly figured out Shangguan Qingcai's trick and decisively changed his stance. Eighth form: Endless Entanglement.

In the blink of an eye, the flames transformed into fiery serpents, winding their way up Shangguan Qingcai's arms, threatening to burn away the pristine white beard he had spent God knows how many years cultivating.

Shangguan Qingcai made a split-second decision, releasing his grip and kicking Huo Ye away to avert the disaster of having his meticulously maintained beard burned off.

Huo Ye, however, chuckled. "Crystal battle armor: thin as paper, colorless and transparent, capable of changing size to match the user's physique and fitting like a second skin, with peerless defense across the world. I'd only ever heard my old man mention it, never expected to see the real thing today."

Seeing Huo Ye acting so carefree made Shangguan Qingcai's blood boil. What he didn't know was that this was simply how Huo Ye fought; unless provoked to anger the way Kaki had been in the past, he always maintained a casual attitude toward any combat, no matter how grave his inner thoughts might be.

Since it was a defensive esper artifact, it was time for a defense-piercing move. Sixth form: Blood-Shattering Stab!

Huo Ye's figure turned into a blur as he thrust toward Shangguan Qingcai's chest. Shangguan Qingcai neither dodged nor parried. Sure enough, the attack failed to penetrate entirely, even emitting a metallic clanging sound when the blades struck his body.

"Hah! Do you really dare compare the craftsmanship of Qi Shenqiao to this old man's?"

Not yet finished, Huo Ye unleashed his esper energy to its maximum, and dark, transparent ice crystals suddenly began spreading outward from the blade tips, freezing Shangguan Qingcai's torso and arms at a visible speed.

Shangguan Qingcai was right: when it came to forging esper weapons, he was the unprecedented number one in the profession since its inception, and likely the last.

Qi Shenqiao and Master Artisan Huo were indeed the dual deities of the post-Shangguan Qingcai forging world, and the weapons they crafted were rare treasures in this world. But if one were to truly bring up Shangguan Qingcai, the Copper-Armed Ghost, people in the modern forging world would likely describe it with a single phrase:

In an era lacking heroes, mere upstarts make a name for themselves.

Trying to brute-force a breakthrough past Shangguan Qingcai's defense was virtually impossible. This was the precious artifact he had used to preserve his life before his retirement; if a single youngster could casually shatter it, that would be sheer fantasy.

Therefore, the objective was to restrict Shangguan Qingcai's movements, something the ice-attribute esper ability excelled at.

When Eddie originally developed the Thirteen Blood Blades, he intended for them to be learnable and usable by everyone, so he hadn't focused heavily on dark-attribute lethality.

Each of these thirteen techniques was compatible with all attributes of esper arts. However, mastering them was extremely difficult—after all, they were Eddie's signature techniques, so how could they be learned casually? By accounting for attribute versatility, he had inadvertently made high-intensity esper arts synonymous with high difficulty.

Yet for Huo Ye, these thirteen techniques were a perfect fit. His dark-attribute compatibility allowed him to unleash maximum destructive power through these attribute-independent esper arts.

Through years of relentless practice since childhood, rather than intensely cultivating hyper-destructive esper arts across various attribute domains, he had dedicated himself entirely to studying these thirteen techniques and developing exclusive esper arts unique to his dark compatibility. Huo Ye didn't command a vast arsenal of esper arts—only around twenty or so. For a Tier S Esper, that could even be considered a relatively sparse repertoire.

Yet those twenty-odd techniques represented the accumulation of Huo Ye's past dozen years, the ultimate crystallization of his martial prowess to date!

Shangguan Qingcai clearly hadn't expected Huo Ye to employ ice-attribute espers. After all, apart from Huo Ye, no human possessed more than one attribute, which had conditioned Shangguan Qingcai into a cognitive bias. In truth, this was everyone's cognitive bias.

Consequently, Shangguan Qingcai's reactive counter-strategy failed to keep pace with Huo Ye's sudden shift in tactics. That single move had successfully pinned down his arms.

Even so, this was only enough to cause Shangguan Qingcai a fleeting moment of surprise. Forget facing an esper compatible with seven major attributes; he had even witnessed sieges by seven different espers of distinct attributes before.