SSS-Rank 10x Reward System: Accepting Disciples to Live Forever-Chapter 171: What if don’t?
"Hmmm... so you must be the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo Master."
Ning Qi’s voice was cold enough to freeze blood. Her gaze settled on Wang Chen like a blade pressed gently against skin—testing, measuring, already imagining the cut.
"So that’s how it is," she continued, lips curling faintly. "With you backing him, it finally makes sense why that good-for-nothing Lin Huang dared to be so arrogant."
The pressure around Lin Huang did not lessen in the slightest. If anything, it tightened—coiling around him like a venomous serpent, squeezing until the air itself screamed.
There was killing intent in Ning Qi’s eyes now. Not concealed. Not restrained.
To her, Wang Chen’s sudden appearance explained everything. This was no reckless junior acting on his own. This was a calculated humiliation, orchestrated by a hidden hand. By him.
Murong Sichen still wore his easy smile, but if one looked closely, they would have noticed the subtle twitch at the corner of his lips.
Wang Chen’s arrival had disrupted his plans.
It shouldn’t have mattered. On the surface, Wang Chen’s cultivation was only at the Golden Core realm—nothing worth noting. Yet something about him made Murong Sichen’s instincts prickle. It was not power in the conventional sense. It was something deeper, more unsettling. A quiet wrongness, as if the world itself was slightly misaligned around this man.
Murong Sichen could not identify it.
And that disturbed him.
Ying Yue’s gaze was locked onto Wang Chen as well, her eyes narrowing slightly.
So this is him...
The legendary master of the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo.
His name had spread through the Seven Cloud Convergence World like wildfire—defeater of Original Demons, slayer of calamities. The reputation was impressive, certainly. But reputations were just that.
After revival, Original Demon was weak.
Anyone could kill it.
That did not mean Wang Chen could do whatever he pleased.
Ning Qi’s words echoed in the arena, dripping with contempt.
At that moment, the faint smile on Wang Chen’s face vanished.
It did not fade.
It froze.
"Hm," he said softly, his voice suddenly devoid of warmth. "So even after knowing who I am, you still haven’t withdrawn your pressure."
His eyes lowered slightly, glancing at Lin Huang’s trembling form.
Then they rose again—locking onto Ning Qi.
"Tell me, little girl," Wang Chen continued calmly, each word cutting cleanly, "are you tired of living?"
The temperature of the entire arena dropped.
This time, Wang Chen was not hiding it.
He was furious.
The Grand Ascension pressure was still crushing Lin Huang’s body, grinding him down relentlessly. Ning Qi had not shown the slightest intention of stopping. In her eyes, Wang Chen was nothing more than a loud dog standing behind his disciple.
For a brief moment, something dark surged inside Wang Chen’s chest.
A wild, uncontrollable urge.
To erase her.
To wipe her out completely.
Not just her body—but her existence.
Ning Qi sensed the shift and sneered, her anger flaring in response.
"With a teacher like you," she spat, "no wonder that trash Lin Huang learned to bark so loudly. It seems you failed to teach him manners."
Her eyes gleamed with cruelty.
"Fine. Then let me do your job for you."
That was enough.
Wang Chen did not raise his voice.
He did not shout.
He did not argue.
"Just shut up," he said quietly.
The world exploded.
A terrifying sonic boom tore through the arena as space itself seemed to collapse inward. Before anyone—could react, Wang Chen vanished from where he stood.
Not movement.
Not speed.
Erasure.
One moment he was beside Lin Huang.
The next—
He was directly in front of Ning Qi.
His hands closed around her neck like iron pincers.
No warning
No hesitation.
No mercy in his actions.
The sound of shattered air followed a heartbeat too late.
Gasps froze in the spectators’ throats. Murong Sichen’s smile finally vanished. Ying Yue’s pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Ning Qi’s eyes widened in disbelief as her body was lifted off the ground. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
Only then did she seem to realize something.
Smoke and dust rolled outward in violent waves.
The space behind Ning Qi had been completely erased—flattened into a crater of shattered stone and twisted earth, as if a heavenly tribulation had struck and moved on without explanation. Cracks spider-webbed across the arena floor, glowing faintly with residual heat. Even the air screamed, struggling to mend itself.
After his Golden Core breakthrough, even Wang Chen himself was no longer certain of the limits of his strength.
Cultivation was not merely about realms. It was comprehension. It was will. It was spiritual power refined through time, suffering, and madness. And in those aspects, Wang Chen had long surpassed what this world could measure.
His grip tightened around Ning Qi’s throat.
He lifted her higher until they were eye to eye.
"Little girl," Wang Chen said calmly, his voice soft yet cutting through the ruins like a blade through silk, "I didn’t quite catch what you said earlier."
His lips curved slightly.
"Would you mind repeating it?"
Ning Qi’s face had turned a deep, unhealthy crimson. Her eyes bulged, veins crawling across her temples as she thrashed uselessly in midair, legs kicking like a fish dragged out of water. Her hands clawed at Wang Chen’s wrist, but it was like trying to pry open a mountain.
This was a Grand Ascension Realm cultivator.
Yet at this moment, she looked no different from a mortal on the verge of suffocation.
The faint smile on Wang Chen’s face did nothing to soften the terror pouring from his eyes. His killing intent was thick, suffocating—an invisible tide forged through tens of thousands of years slaughtering resentment ghosts in silence and darkness. Weak cultivators in the crowd felt their thoughts shatter, their minds blanking under the pressure.
Wang Chen’s gaze shifted briefly.
Just a passing glance.
Ying Yue met his eyes for less than a heartbeat.
Her pupils shrank.
And she collapsed.
Her body crumpled to the ground without a sound, consciousness extinguished by nothing more than the weight of his presence.
Wang Chen looked at her unmoving form and let out a faint, disdainful sigh.
"So this is the one who stole a Dao Bone," he muttered flatly. "Disappointing."
Silence.
Absolute, crushing silence descended upon the arena.
No one dared to breathe too loudly. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, afraid that the slightest movement might provoke the man standing at the center of devastation.
Lin Huang stood frozen, mouth slightly open.
He had always known his Master was terrifyingly strong. Yet every single time he witnessed Wang Chen act, the ceiling he thought existed was obliterated. This... this was beyond anything he had imagined.
Zhao Yunfei’s eyes sparkled like stars.
This was it.
This was the figure she wanted to chase, no matter how impossible the path.
"Haha..."
A carefree laugh broke the suffocating stillness.
Murong Sichen stepped forward, clapping his hands lightly, his expression openly impressed.
"Truly remarkable, Fellow Daoist," he said with a genial smile. "To suppress a Grand Ascension cultivator so effortlessly... that is no small feat."
His gaze flicked briefly to Ning Qi’s struggling form.
"May I ask you to give me some face," Murong Sichen continued pleasantly, "and spare this ignorant junior?"
Outwardly, he appeared relaxed.
Inwardly, Murong Sichen was on full alert.
When Wang Chen had moved earlier, Murong Sichen had felt it—just for an instant. A faint resonance. A distortion that did not belong to this realm.
Authority.
That sensation could not be faked.
No matter how monstrous a genius was, no mortal cultivator could ever touch Authority.
Which meant only one thing.
He is an Immortal.
Just like him.
Wang Chen slowly turned his head, eyebrows lifting slightly as he looked at Murong Sichen.
His expression was calm.
Indifferent.
Almost bored.
"What if I don’t?" he asked simply.
The temperature dropped another degree.
Murong Sichen’s smile stiffened—just a little.
And for the first time since descending into the Lower Realm, he felt something dangerously close to unease.
