Chapter 497

Yu Tian’s heroes assembly has run for half a month, and it has narrowed to two rival forces: Liu tribe under Liu Wen Wu and Hei tribe under Hei Lou Lan. On the battle stage, Liu tribe’s Fire Prodigal Chai Ming corners Water Demon Hao Ji Liu with a basket sized dark flame that shatters his water wall in a delayed blast; spectators judge the explosion nears the power of a rank five Gu, a killer move Chai Ming has kept concealed until now. Chai Ming plants his foot on the steaming body beneath him and demands whether Hao Ji Liu ever thought this day would come, for killing his father years before, but a water blade suddenly bursts from his heart. The body under his foot dissolves into a pool of water: it was a rank four water image Gu, and the real Hao Ji Liu has stabbed him from behind. Chai Ming calls the trick despicable with his last breath and dies, and the sight draws cries of sorrow from the crowd and tears from Chai tribe’s own leader. ^{ch. 497}

Hei Lou Lan toasts the surviving Hao Ji Liu and rewards him with wine, while at his table sits Yan Cui Er, eldest daughter of Yan tribe and Liu Wen Wu’s fiancee, kidnapped by Hao Ji Liu and handed to Hei Lou Lan as a gift. Hei Lou Lan offers to return her if Liu Wen Wu concedes the contest; Liu Wen Wu waves her off instead, quoting the Northern Plains saying that women are like clothes while brothers are like hands and feet. The narration names Giant Sun Immortal Venerable as the saying’s source, and credits the bloodlines he passed on, collectively called the Huang Jin family, with supreme authority across Northern Plains. ^{ch. 497}

Stung by the show of indifference, Hei Lou Lan goads Liu Wen Wu into another match. Liu Wen Wu has won only three of nine earlier bouts and lost many of his own experts, Chai Ming among the latest, but refusing would brand him a coward in Northern Plains eyes, so he cannot decline. His sworn brother Mo Shi Kuang steps up instead: an inkman, formed where Book Mountain’s Ink Waterfall crashes onto the Literature Spring and spatters ink onto the rocks around it. Hei Lou Lan dismisses him as an insignificant variant man and sends Viper Prince to answer him. Mo Shi Kuang, a rank four peak stage Qi path Gu Master, claps once and crushes Viper Prince into minced meat, ending the match in a single move. ^{ch. 497}