Chapter 854 – Admitting Defeat … … … On the sheared and shattered mountain peak, Situ Luosha knelt on the ground. His entire body was covered in blood and he was barely supporting himself with his black long spear. He looked up, his stubborn eyes locked onto Lin Ming. Even though he had been severely wounded, his eyes were still burning with a brilliant and fiery fighting spirit, unwilling to concede. Or perhaps it was because conceding was also insignificant. Because… this was a life or death struggle! Lin Ming waved his long spear and pointed the top towards Situ Luosha’s forehead. Although he had a decent impression of this Situ Luosha and they had no previous enmity, in this life or death battle, Lin Ming had no intention of showing empathy or compassion to his enemies. As a martial artist of the Asura Divine Kingdom, Situ Luosha was already destined to be his enemy. To show benevolence to the enemy was to be cruel to himself. If Situ Luosha had won this fight, then Lin Ming’s fate would have been to suffer a life worse than death. Spear light surged. A faint trace of pale gold thunder sizzled on Lin Ming’s spearpoint. Situ Luosha also stood up. Behind him, over 30% of the thousands of Blood Drinking Seals broke apart, covering his entire body in a blood fog once again. This was likely to be their last clash. But, the victor of this match was already clear at a glance! “Situ Luosha will certainly lose.” “No kidding! The disparity is too great!” At this point, even a Xiantian realm martial could see where the direction of this battle was leading. Lin Ming obviously had a great deal of strength left over but Situ Luosha was now spent, a bow with no more arrows. With these two completely inverse conditions, the gap was obvious. “Stop!” As Situ Luosha was preparing to burn his Ancient Profound Hawk blood essence and risk his life once more, Situ Haotian’s cold voice suddenly shouted out. This shout was like billowing thunder. Some of the martial artists flying in the air were nearly knocked unconscious from the shock. “We admit defeat in this match! Luosha, withdraw!” With a distortion of black light, the black-robed Situ Haotian appeared in the skies above the battlefield. His calm and indifferent pupils overlooked the fierce battle between Lin Ming and Situ Luosha without any emotion at all. But from his eyes, one could sense an indescribable dignity, as if the words he spoke were the commands of heaven. However, Lin Ming didn’t feel the slightest bit of pressure in front of these eyes with their inviolable majesty. Instead, his mouth curved in a satire-filled smirk. “Withdraw? This is a life or death struggle! For every two people on this arena stage, only one is allowed to leave alive. Now that Situ Luosha has lost he can withdraw, but if I were to lose, then I should let you do with me as you please? What sort of reasoning is this!?” Facing Situ Haotian’s pressure, Lin Ming was still able to loudly retort to a Divine Sea Supreme Elder. This courage left all the heroic young elites present ashamed at their own inferiority. This was not a question of just being psychologically frightened. The key issue was that a Divine Sea Supreme Elder held an aura within them that naturally formed a force field. Just looking at them could scare someone witless! Shwa! A white shadow instantly appeared in the distant arena skies, directly confronting Situ Haotian. This was Shibai. “Since we set a life or death struggle, you must understand the rules of a life or death struggle. If you wish to change your mind now and say that this is a simple friendly spar, then that is also fine! Little Brother Lin will not kill your people but you can forget about taking away Little Brother Lin!” Shibai was also worried about the background of the Asura Divine Kingdom. Even if Lin Ming seemed outrageously powerful at the moment, he still didn’t dare to have 100% confidence that Lin Ming would be the one to finally emerge victorious. Thus, he put forth these conditions to ensure his absolute safety. But how could Situ Haotian possibly agree with Shibai’s suggestion. If he cancelled this life or death battle then that meant admitting defeat ahead of time. Everything he had done before now would all have been in vain. “One million spirit essence stones or equivalent heavenly materials!” Situ Haotian was unambiguous as he directly spoke out this sky high price. But, his intentions were clear. He intended to trade this price for Situ Luosha’s life. “Your Majesty…” Situ Luosha’s heart twitched. At this moment, he felt nothing but the greatest shame and humiliation of his life. As a sixth stage Life Destruction martial artist, he had been completely suppressed by a mere first stage Life Destruction junior! Even after combusting his blood essence, he still wasn’t able to injure his opponent! Finally, he had to depend on His Majesty the Divine Emperor to lay down his pride and redeem his life with spirit essence stones. Situ Luosha had never felt this utterly incompetent. To someone like him who was almost insufferably arrogant, this would undoubtedly be a significant setback to his future martial path. “One million spirit essence stones to buy the life of a future Divine Sea powerhouse, your plan is quite good!” Shibai taunted. Back in the confrontation at the Realmheart Great Hall, Shibai had feared that Situ Haotian would become mad and lose all reasoning. But now, Shibai didn’t fear Situ Haotian at all. A massive number of influences had tried to win over Lin Ming in these past few days, including the Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom, Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom, Holy Land sects and family clans and many others, all of them sending gifts in great heaps. Of course, Shibai didn’t expect that these influences would help the Forsaken God Clan if the Asura Divine Kingdom were to wage war against them. But, what Shibai could affirm was that they wouldn’t join the side of the Asura Divine Kingdom in a war. Also, the Death Reaper Curse that the Asura Divine Kingdom had used to track Lin Ming had been eliminated from his body. Even if a great war were to break out, them wishing to kill Lin Ming would not be easy at all. Those influences would not do something so thankless in exchange for fatally offending the future highest under the heavens. As long as those other influences didn’t help the Asura Divine Kingdom, then by relying on the absolute defenses of this dimensional realm, the Asura Divine Kingdom would have to continuously weigh over just whether or not they should try to invade this land. After all, they didn’t have a top level super master like the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom’s Highest Divine Emperor. “1.5 million, that is my bottom line!” Situ Haotian said with finality, his expression extremely gloomy. “And if we don’t agree?” Shibai asked back. “Then use your spear!” Situ Haotian coldly said, his eyes filled with a murderous intent. Although a Divine Sea powerhouse’s value far surpassed 1.5 million spirit essence stones, he was still a proud and lofty Divine Emperor. Just because he was willing to yield once didn’t mean he would be coerced into making endless concessions forever. “Good, then I agree!” The one who spoke was Lin Ming. The Asura Divine Emperor appearing had already been showing sufficient face, and he had also made enough concessions. In any case, killing Situ Luosha and enraging this Asura Divine Emperor to the point where he might do something crazy was of no benefit to him. Moreover, Situ Luosha’s attitude wasn’t too bad. Lin Ming had neither injustice nor enmity with Situ Luosha. And most importantly of all, Situ Luosha had already been surpassed by Lin Ming; in the future, it was impossible for him to ever be his match again. And 1.5 million spirit essence stones’ worth of materials was also enough to move Lin Ming’s heart. It could be called a pie falling from the sky. “The Asura Divine Emperor has lowered his head…” “Yah. To Situ Haotian, yielding in front of the eyes of everyone here is probably worse than paying 1.5 million spirit essence stones. This is a Divine Sea Supreme Elder lowering his head to a first stage Life Destruction junior. This sort of thing has probably never happened in the entire 10,000 year plus history of the Asura Divine Kingdom!” “This Lin Lanjian is too horrifying! When he reaches the Divine Sea in the future he will be like a dragon ascending to the heavens! He will rule the entire Sky Spill Continent for 10,000 years!” “Hey, that’s not necessarily true. This type of character might ascend upwards, just like Emperor Shakya did in the past.” It was unknown just who said these words, but it left all of the heroic young elites excited. To them, the elusive Realm of the Gods was a land filled with infinite appeal. All of them wished to go to the legendary Realm of the Gods described in the ancient texts to broaden their horizons. But that was actually impossible for them. Ascending into the Realm of the Gods was far too difficult. The 22nd match ended once more with Lin Ming’s victory! But this time, Situ Luosha wasn’t without achievement. He had forced Lin Ming to use the power of the Thunder Dominion here twice in a row, and he also used the main form of the Nine Heavens Thunder Soul as well as the explosive power of thunderfire with Chasing Sun. In such an intense battle, it was inevitable that Lin Ming would have consumed some energy. “What a good seedling. A dual Thunder and Fire Law explosion, those two Concepts were perfectly combined together. That should have been a martial skill that he created himself.” Old Man Good Fortune praised without hesitation. Normally, a martial artist only had a single attribute physique, skilled in just a single one of the five elements. It was extremely rare to see a dual attribute physique. And as for someone like Lin Ming. who had an extremely high talent in both aspects of thunder and fire, this was the first time that Old Man Good Fortune had seen something like this. “Thunder and fire… those aren’t part of the domain that I’m skilled at.” Old Man Good Fortune stroked his beard, slightly shaking his head. “Oh?” Fairy Snow Gale’s heart stirred as she heard this. “Listening to Senior Good Fortune’s meaning, are you planning on accepting him as a disciple? Although Senior may not be proficient in the Concepts of Thunder and Fire, you understand the Concepts of Space and Time. In that alone, you are absolutely the number one master in the entire Sky Spill Continent! And Lin Lanjian also has excellent achievements in the Concepts of Space and Time. If he can obtain your guidance, that would be an amazingly extraordinary lucky chance!” As for Old Man Good Fortune’s name and birth, perhaps no one knew besides him. People only knew of his title. In the superstitions and beliefs of the world, good fortune had always represented the Great Dao, represented the boundless universe. The axis of space, the eons that passed since ancient times, the universe was the fusion of space and time. It was said Old Man Good Fortune’s nickname had come from this. In terms of the Concepts of Space and Time, no one was able to reach him. It was exactly because of his deep understanding towards these mysterious and elusive Concepts that Old Man Good Fortune was considered someone close to being the highest under the heavens. Rumors said that he once even fought the Nine Furnace Highest Divine Emperor in fierce combat until they reached a standstill. Although the Nine Furnace Highest Divine Emperor did not have the strength of the highest under the heavens, he could actually be called the one that possessed the most authority under the heavens. He had the unreserved support of an entire Divine Kingdom at his back, and yet he still wasn’t able to defeat a wild and free-spirited crane like Old Man Good Fortune, someone who didn’t even come from a sect. From this alone it could be seen just how powerful Old Man Good Fortune was. “Accept him as a disciple? Haha…” Old Man Good Fortune chuckled as he shook his head, “Useless old me already has a foot half into the coffin, so how could I teach such an eternally rare talent? When he steps into the Divine Sea, or perhaps even before he steps into the Divine Sea, his strength will already surpass mine! What use is there in me teaching him anything?” “Surpass Senior in strength before the Divine Sea? That’s impossible!” Fairy Snow Gale’s eyes widened like saucers. She didn’t speak out of respect to Old Man Good Fortune, but because she sincerely believed in her words. Old Man Good Fortune was a late Divine Sea powerhouse, and with his achievements in the Concepts of Space and Time, he could be called unrivalled within the world! Fairy Snow Gale could also barely accept if Lin Ming became the highest under the heavens after breaking through to the Divine Sea, but for him to do so before that, even she felt this was far too overstated! “The disparity between Life Destruction and the Divine Sea is enormous. Aren’t Senior Good Fortune’s words a bit too exaggerated?” If it wasn’t for these words having come out of Old Man Good Fortune’s mouth, then Fairy Snow Gale would have only snorted in contempt. “There is no exaggeration. Little Snow, you must remember that an Emperor powerhouse is not the same as a Divine Sea powerhouse. A Divine Sea martial artist is an Emperor level powerhouse, but an Emperor level powerhouse isn’t necessarily a Divine Sea martial artist…” Early access Patreon chapters