Even among cultivators- who were rarely small men- Li Qingyu looked like a mountain that had decided to walk.
He stood multiple heads taller than Jin Huang, shoulders broad enough to eclipse the sunlight spilling into the arena. His simple robes strained across a body built like tempered iron.
And the aura pouring from him... was heavy.
Violent... blazing... and heavy.
Like the pressure at the bottom of the ocean.
Li Qingyu's eyes were locked onto Jin Huang, who had not yet moved.
However, his posture had changed, his shoulders no longer loose.
His feet had shifted, balanced. Ready.
He could feel it from the moment Li Qingyu landed. The arena air had thickened, and his instincts- those same instincts that had let him walk through Wu Shen's storm without being touched- were screaming quietly now.
Li Qingyu was different.
The towering first-year's voice rumbled out like distant thunder. "I hope, after that fight, you've warmed up enough."
The crowd had gone silent again.
Over the course of the last few months, most of the seniors had come to know Li Qingyu. The giant of Class 1-4.
He had never fought publicly, but still his strength was spoken about in whispers. Numerous third and fourth years had seen him in the practice courtyards, practicing a form of cultivation that puzzled them to no end.
Despite the fact that there was nothing conventional about his training, there was a pressure Li Qingyu exerted without trying- a pressure that only increased as he cultivated.
Even some fifth-years had developed an interest in him, and had originally showed up today to see him fight for the first time.
Li Qingyu felt their gazes on him, and rolled his neck, the motion cracking like grinding stone.
"You fought well," Li Qingyu continued calmly. "But Wu Shen was never your real opponent."
His aura rolled outward slowly, the pressure deepening. Those closest to the arena edge felt it first, a suffocating weight pressing against their chests.
Xu Ye's brows furrowed. Hei Shisan's faint smile sharpened.
And above in the stands, Lu Chen leaned forward.
"It can't be..." he murmured.
"It is," Nagira grinned. As his cultivation teacher, he was already privy to some of the secrets of Li Qingyu's body.
Li Qingyu stepped forward and the stone floor caved under the casual motion.
Jin Huang inhaled slowly. Now that Li Qingyu was coming closer, he could feel it clearly. Beneath Li Qingyu's cultivated energy was something older... still asleep.
Instantly, his mind revisited every memory of the Old Ones, and he gulped, wondering why Li Qingyu's aura reminded him so much of theirs.
Wondering why, within Li Qingyu's body, his instincts were alerting him to something massive.
The aura wasn't sharp like Wu Shen's dragons, but impossibly vast and ancient.
Like an ocean holding its breath.
Jin Huang's eyes narrowed slightly. He recalled the evaluation of Li Qingyu that he had once heard Mr. Nagira give.
A Divine Beast's bloodline. The Black Tortoise.
Not fully awakened yet, he hoped, but the pressure was unmistakable.
Li Qingyu stopped several paces away. Even standing still, he looked immovable.
"Fight me," he said simply.
Jin Huang's lips curled, his every instinct warning him of the threat that was Li Qingyu. He battered the nerves, his fists tight.
"Finally. A real challenge."
In excited anticipation, the crowd actually cheered once they heard that, roaring and goading them both on.
Jin Huang rolled his shoulders once, golden energy flickering faintly in his eyes as his Inner Core stirred.
For the first time today, his aura surged as he braced himself.
"Inner Core?" Nagira's eyes widened, "How did he manage to do it? How, when every other method failed?"
Cho Yanshi sucked her teeth, "Look deeper. His aura... I detect demonic energy."
Lu Chen snickered, "It's not just his aura. It's present throughout his body. Almost as if he-"
Nagira and Cho Yanshi gasped at the same time, "He ate it!"
Lu Chen shook his head, "At least he lives up to the title of Glutton."
Across the arena from Jin Huanh, Li Qingyu's eyes gleamed, a deep, dark blue haze settling in his pupils.
The air between them grew heavier, and everyone watching could feel it.
This fight… would be nothing like the last one.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The arena seemed to shrink around them.
Jin Huang could hear the crowd breathing, yhousands of students leaning forward- the wind scraping across broken stone.
Somewhere, a formation hummed quietly, reinforcing the arena walls in preparation for what it sensed coming.
Then...
Li Qingyu stepped.
The arena floor collapsed under his foot, the sheer force behind the step sending a tremor through the stone platform, cracks racing outward like lightning.
The pressure behind the giant's fist followed an instant later, a downward hammer aimed directly at Jin Huang's head.
Jin Huang moved, yhe punch striking the arena floor instead.
BOOM!
Stone exploded upward in a violent spray, the shockwave blasting dust across the arena stands, forcing the nearest students to throw up their arms.
Jin Huang slid across the fractured tiles, boots carving grooves in the stone.
"He's even stronger than Shisan," he muttered, incredulously.
Li Qingyu's fist rose slowly from the crater it had made, then he charged, every step shaking the arena further.
His shoulders lowered slightly, arms sweeping forward in a brutal series of strikes that came like falling walls. Each punch was simple, direct, and crushing.
Jin Huang slipped past the first, blocked the second- but the third almost caught his forearm.
The sound cracked like splitting iron. Shen Wuyou's teeth clenched, he had glimpsed a future where his tickets were no longer his in that moment, and panic set in.
Thankfully, that did not count as a direct hit.
Jin Huang's feet skidded backward three meters before he twisted away, golden energy surging through his limbs to absorb the residual force.
A grin flickered across his face, "Oh, this is good."
Li Qingyu didn't smile, nor did he make a sound. His next strike just came faster- a backhand.
Jin Huang ducked beneath it and drove a punch into Li Qingyu's ribs, the impact thundering through the arena.
Li Qingyu, however, didn't budge. The giant's elbow dropped toward Jin Huang's spine, causing him go twist sideways.
The attack missed him by inches before smashing into the stone again.
Another crater.
Dust clouds rolled across the arena floor as the two men clashed again and again.
Punches. Elbows. Shoulder checks. Each collision sent shockwaves rippling through the arena.
Students throughout the Academy began to feel it.
In distant courtyards, cultivation rooms, and lecture halls, heads lifted in confusion as the ground trembled beneath their feet.
"What the hell is happening?"
"That's coming from the first-year arena, isn't it?"
"But this kind of strength... What would Dao Integration stage cultivators be doing in the first-year arena?"
Back inside the arena, the truth would shock them to their cores if they were there to witness it.
Two first-years were tearing the place apart, both clearly exhibiting the energy of the Inner Core realm, yet possessing strength equivalent to that of someone at the Dao Integration stage.
It was mindblowing, and all those present who were below that level of strength suffered a significant blow to their egos.
Jin Huang slid under another crushing punch, countering with a palm strike aimed at Li Qingyu's sternum. This time the giant took half a step back.
The crowd gasped.
Li Qingyu's eyes narrowed. Jin Huang could feel it now, the truth of the fight.
In terms of pure strength, they were almost even.
Li Qingyu's body was monstrous, every movement carrying immense physical power reinforced by that oceanic bloodline lurking beneath his skin.
But Jin Huang's own body… was something else entirely.
Their fists collided again, the impact blasting the air outward in a circular shockwave, the stone beneath them shattering.
For a brief instant, they stood chest to chest, arms locked.
Jin Huang grinned. "You're a beast, Li Qingyu."
Li Qingyu scoffed in amusement, "If that's true, then what are you?"
Li Qingyu did not wait for a response from Jin Huang, instead trying to crush his skull with a headbutt.
Jin Huang slipped aside, grabbed the giant's arm, and pivoted around his shoulder.
Li Qingyu twisted with impossible balance, his free hand slamming toward Jin Huang's ribs.
Jin Huang blocked it, but the impact rattled through his bones.
They separated again, both skidding across broken stone.
High in the stands, Nagira whistled. "Those little monsters."
Lu Chen's eyes gleamed with fascination, "Jin Huang... he's still holding back."
Li Qingyu attacked again, this time faster.
The pressure around him deepened as the dormant bloodline inside his body stirred faintly. His aura thickened, the deep ocean weight pressing down across the arena.
His punch grazed Jin Huang's sleeve, the rest of the fabric shredding away.
The crowd roared.
Jin Huang's instincts screamed as he ducked beneath a sweeping kick.
"Okay," he said as he weaved incessantly. Something else was becoming clear.
Li Qingyu's attacks were powerful, and relentless...
But the energy behind them was beginning to lessen, as if his own body was resisting his continued usage of it.
Though he fought on, Jin Huang's sharp instincts caught on to that.
Jin Huang weaved through the openings between those strikes, which had become more numerous.
Li Qingyu lunged, and Jin Huang slipped past the attack.
Palm strike. Elbow. Knee.
Three impacts slammed into Li Qingyu's body in rapid succession, sending him staggering back a step.
Jin Huang spun away before the counterattack arrived, and the crowd erupted.
"He pushed Li Qingyu back!"
"Did you see that!?"
"I thought they were evenly matched, but my mind's changed after that."
"Jin Huang, I take it back! My GOAT is not washed!"
Jin Huang rolled his shoulders again, breathing steady. The fight had, indeed, been tough.
The pure strength difference between them was minimal, but his body's instincts, and the quality of his energy, were giving him the edge.
Golden energy mixed faintly with the residual demonic currents inside his meridians, absorbing and melting them away before flowing smoothly through his body.
Li Qingyu could feel it too. He straightened slowly, dust drifting from his shoulders.
His eyes glowed faintly now, that deep ocean blue intensifying.
For the first time, he smiled. "It seems I was wrong."
Jin Huang cracked his knuckles, "Oh yeah? What about?"
As his body relaxed, waves of intensifying exhaustion took Li Qingyu, his vision blurring.
"You definitely have... the strength to back up... your words..."
Li Qingyu fell onto his back, swiftly passing out.
Silence gripped the spectators for the space of three breaths, then endless cheers erupted, shaking the Academy.
"He's done it!"
"Jin Huang's defeated that beast, Li Qingyu!"
"Just who is this kid? I thought he was some kind of country bumpkin?"
"Jin Huang!"
"Jin Huang!"