Chapter 94: The Challenge with Lingyin City’s representatives (Part-9)

Fang Tian exploded forward again.

This time, there was no feint, no probing, no holding back. The air itself seemed to scream as he closed the distance in three heartbeats. At exactly three meters, his right leg snapped up like a whip cracking through the night.

“Flying Thunder Kick!”

The name tore from his throat in a guttural roar.

A high-grade Sky-rank martial art unleashed at full power.

The kick looked deceptively simple—straight, direct, no flourish—but the momentum it carried was apocalyptic.

Invisible pressure waves rolled outward from the descending leg, pressing down on every chest in the arena. To stand in its path felt like facing the open maw of hell itself: suffocating dread, bone-deep fear, the certainty that something unstoppable was coming to end you.

The entire grandstand went deathly still.

“Here it comes…” someone whispered.

Far below in the participant area, Fan Wei’s body jerked as though struck. His hands clenched so hard his nails drew blood from his palms.

He knew this move intimately.

He had lost to it.

As a three-star Upper Elite, he had poured everything into resisting—and still been crushed like dry grass under a boot. Even now, the memory of that descending foot, the way the world had narrowed to a single point of crushing pain, still sent icy fingers crawling up his spine.

And now Fang Tian was using it again.

Against Ryan.

But Ryan…

Ryan hadn’t moved.

He stood exactly where he was, feet planted, hands loose at his sides, watching the kick descend with the same calm, almost bored expression he’d worn since stepping onto the ring.

Fan Wei’s heart plummeted.

It’s over.

He didn’t believe Ryan was stronger than him. He didn’t believe anyone could simply stand and take a high-grade Sky-rank martial art head-on. In his mind, the result was already carved in stone: Ryan would either be sent flying in pieces or left broken on the stone, ribs caved in, meridians ruptured.

Not dodging wasn’t bravery.

It was suicide.

Fan Wei cursed inwardly, jaw tight.

“Li Wei is going to meet it head-on again!” a voice cried from the stands.

“What? Against Flying Thunder Kick?!”

“That’s insane—we just got hope back!”

“He didn’t dodge the first charge either, and Fan Wei barely survived that one. But this… this is Fang Tian’s real killing technique!”

“Too reckless. Way too reckless.”

“I hope he can block it… But this is his choice. Win or lose, it’s on him now.”

Sweat glistened on thousands of palms. Breaths came shallow and quick. The people of Fengyue City felt the danger in their bones, a cold weight pressing on their chests. Yet no one could look away.

This was Ryan’s fight.

His gamble.

His moment.

As the thunderous leg reached its apex and began its final, devastating descent, Ryan finally moved.

He stepped forward—just half a pace.

Then he punched.

One simple, straight punch.

No wind-up that could be seen.

No surging qi aura to dazzle the eyes.

No shouted technique name echoed across the arena.

Just a fist.

Ordinary-looking punch meeting a high-grade Sky-rank martial art head-on.

To the vast majority watching, it looked like a moth flying straight into a bonfire.

Some people couldn’t bear it. They covered their eyes with trembling hands.

Others let out long, defeated sighs, already mourning the fragile hope that had flickered to life only moments ago.

A few younger girls in the Li Clan section began to cry quietly, shoulders shaking.

Across the ring, the Lingyin City candidates sneered openly. Their eyes dripped with contempt, lips curled in cruel anticipation.

They waited for the inevitable.

And then—

BOOM!!!

The collision was cataclysmic.

A shockwave erupted outward in a visible ring of dust and compressed air, blasting banners sideways and forcing weaker spectators to stagger in their seats. The stone beneath the two fighters cracked in a spiderweb pattern radiating from the point of impact.

But the body that flew backward this time…

It wasn’t Fang Tian’s opponent.

It was Fang Tian’s.

The rebound force was monstrous—far greater than the momentum he had put into the kick. It was as if he had slammed his leg straight into an immovable mountain.

His entire body folded unnaturally at the waist, arms flailing, face contorted in shock and agony. He was hurled backward like a broken marionette, traveling even farther than before—clear across the ring, past the boundary line, and crashing heavily onto the hard-packed earth outside the arena proper.

The impact raised a cloud of dust.

When it settled, Fang Tian lay sprawled on his back, right leg twisted at an unnatural angle. The bone was visibly broken, the lower half jutting slightly sideways. Blood seeped from between clenched teeth. His chest heaved in ragged, pained gasps.

Silence.

Absolute, suffocating silence.

No one could find words.

Everything had happened too quickly. One moment, the kick was descending like judgment from heaven; the next, Fang Tian was outside the ring, broken.

No one had clearly seen the exchange.

Only the result.

The one lying motionless in the dirt wasn’t Ryan.

It was Fang Tian—the same Fang Tian who had crushed Yuan Qiong with a single punch, humiliated Li Wujie, toyed with Mu Xianling, and utterly demolished Fan Wei.

Now he was the one defeated.

And Ryan?

He stood calmly in the center of the ring with his hands lowered and expression unchanged.

Two referees and three medical disciples scrambled over the barrier. They knelt beside Fang Tian, fingers pressing carefully against his neck, his wrist, then gently probing the ruined leg. One of them looked up toward the high platform and nodded once.

“He’s alive. Severe fracture in the right tibia and fibula. Internal injuries. But not life-threatening.”

The head referee stepped forward slowly. His voice, when it finally came, sounded almost disbelieving.

“Fengyue City—Li Wei wins by knockout!”

The words hung in the air for half a heartbeat.

Then the arena detonated.

The sound that erupted was primal—joy, relief, vindication, fury, everything all at once. People leapt to their feet. Fists punched the sky. Voices cracked from screaming.

“LI WEI!!!”

“HE DID IT! HE ACTUALLY DID IT!!!”

“That monster from Lingyin is down! Down!”

“We’re not humiliated! We’re not finished!”

“Smash them all, Brother Wei! Smash every last one!”

The Li Clan section became a riot of jumping, hugging, shouting figures. Tears streamed openly down faces that had been pale with dread only minutes earlier.

On the high platform, even Wang Zongyao’s usually impassive face showed the faintest trace of astonishment before smoothing over again.

Ryan simply exhaled once, long and slow.

Then he turned and walked toward the edge of the ring.

He didn’t look back at the broken figure in the dirt even once, just like how Fang Tian treated the others so far.

The cheers came like a breaking dam.

A single, ragged shout from somewhere in the middle rows—”LI WEI!!!”—and then the entire Wushuang Square erupted.

Thousands of voices rose together in a raw, roaring wave that shook the stone benches and rattled the banners overhead.

People leapt to their feet so fast seats toppled backward.

Strangers grabbed each other by the shoulders, laughing and crying at the same time.

Tears streamed freely down weathered faces that had been tight with humiliation only minutes earlier. Young girls screamed until their voices cracked, hands cupped around their mouths, eyes shining.

After so long being suppressed—after watching their best get humiliated, after swallowing insult after insult from smug outsiders—someone had finally stood up.

And he hadn’t just stood.

He had crushed the competition.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep