The day of the quarter-finals dawned with a sky the color of a fresh bruise, threatening rain. The atmosphere in the outer sect training grounds was electric, thick with a tension that the previous rounds had lacked. The clown show was over. The remaining eight disciples were the real contenders, and the matches promised genuine, brutal cultivation combat. All eyes were on two fights: the clash of titans between Wei Tiezhu and the Enforcement Division brute, and the philosophical showdown between the Umbrella Savant and the Sword Theorist.
Wei Tiezhu's match was first. His opponent, a hulking young man named Kang who seemed to be constructed entirely of granite and rage, cracked his knuckles with sounds like falling rocks. Kang's reputation preceded him; he was known for ending fights quickly, often with broken limbs.
The bell rang.
Kang didn't bother with testing strikes. He launched himself across the ring like a catapult stone, his fist, enveloped in crushing earth Qi, aimed directly at Tiezhu's head. It was a blow meant to splatter a lesser cultivator against the barrier.
Tiezhu did not dodge. He did not block. He met the charge.
He sank into the deepest roots of the Unmoving Mountain stance, but he did not remain passive. As Yun Lian had taught him, he was not just a rock to be weathered; he was the mountain that accepted the avalanche and made it part of itself. He channeled the force of Kang's charge down through his legs and into the stone of the platform. The ground beneath his feet cracked, spider-webbing outwards, but Tiezhu did not yield an inch.
Kang's eyes widened in surprise. No one had ever stood firm against his full-force charge.
The two became locked in a brutal, grinding stalemate. Kang hammered at Tiezhu with blows that could shatter iron, each impact sending shudders through the ring. Tiezhu weathered the storm, his body ringing like a great bell, his face a mask of concentrated endurance. He was using Kang's own overwhelming force to temper his body, to compress his spiritual energy, to pound the impurities from his foundation.
The crowd watched, mesmerized. It was not a flashy duel of techniques, but a primal contest of will and fortitude. The relentless hammer against the unbreakable anvil.
After what felt like an eternity, Kang began to slow. His spiritual energy was depleting, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. The river of his attacks was weakening.
Tiezhu, sensing the shift, made his move. He didn't strike back. He simply took a single, heavy step forward. Then another. He was no longer a mountain being struck; he was a glacier advancing. With each step, he pushed Kang back, the sheer, implacable weight of his presence becoming an offensive force.
Kang, exhausted and mentally broken by this immovable object, tripped over his own feet and fell onto his backside, staring up at Tiezhu in stunned disbelief.
The referee declared Wei Tiezhu the winner.
The applause was thunderous, filled with genuine respect. "YOUNG MASTER BOULDER!" the chants came. He had not just won; he had earned a new level of awe. He was now a semi-finalist.
As he stepped out of the ring, bleeding from his nose and with one eye swollen shut, he caught Xiao'ou's gaze. His cousin gave him a slow, deliberate nod. It was the first unambiguously proud look Tiezhu had ever received from him. In that moment, every ounce of pain was worth it.
—
Now, all attention turned to the main event.
Wei Xiao'ou and Jian Sorrow entered the ring from opposite sides. The contrast was stark. Jian Sorrow moved with a precise, economical grace, every step a measured statement. His gaze was fixed on Xiao'ou with the intensity of a scholar who had found a fascinating, heretical text.
Xiao'ou, as usual, looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. He dragged his feet, his umbrella slung over his shoulder, his expression one of profound boredom. But beneath the surface, his mind was whirring. Jian Sorrow was a problem. A logic bomb. He couldn't be defeated by chaos because he worshipped order. He couldn't be tricked because he saw the universe as a series of solvable equations.
The elder overseeing the match gave the signal.
Jian Sorrow did not immediately attack. He stood, his hand resting on the hilt of his simple, unadorned longsword.
"The umbrella," Jian Sorrow began, his voice cutting through the anticipatory silence. "Length: three chi, two cun. Material: Ironwood core, unknown alloy ferrule, cloth of… spirit-beast hide? Patched in seven places. It is a poorly maintained, low-grade spiritual tool. Logically, it should have shattered in your first match."
Xiao'ou leaned on the umbrella. "It's sentimental."
"Sentiment does not block fire. Sentiment does not break wrists." Jian Sorrow's eyes narrowed. "Therefore, the tool is a decoy. The power comes from you. You are using a form of resonant redirection, channeling your opponent's force back at them through the umbrella as a medium. It is a primitive but effective application of the 'Unmoving Mountain' principle, similar to your cousin, but refined through a conduit."
The crowd murmured. He had dissected Xiao'ou's entire "style" in three sentences.
"Therefore," Jian Sorrow continued, "to defeat you, I must not give you any force to redirect. I will use the 'Sword of Unbeing.' A technique of pure intent. It cuts not the body, but the connection between will and action. It will make your own spiritual energy rebel against you. Your umbrella will become a dead stick in your hand."
He drew his sword. There was no flash of light, no surge of power. The blade was dull grey. But as he held it, the air around it seemed to… waver, as if reality itself was unsure of what it was looking at.
Xiao'ou felt a prickle of genuine interest. This was new. This wasn't brute force; it was a conceptual attack. The Sword of Unbeing aimed to sever the "why" from the "how." It was a direct assault on the philosophy behind his lazy genius.
Jian Sorrow moved. It wasn't a lunge or a slash. He simply took a step and thrust his sword forward. There was no physical speed to it. It was a slow, inevitable motion, like the passage of time.
But in the spiritual realm, it was a lightning bolt of negation. A wave of silent, cutting intent flowed towards Xiao'ou, aimed not at his body, but at the space around his umbrella, at the connection between his hand and the tool, at his very intention to defend.
This was it. The perfect attack to expose him. If he did nothing, the Sword of Unbeing would sever his control. He would drop the umbrella and lose, cleanly and logically. His plan for intentional failure would finally succeed.
But as that wave of unbearing intent approached, something within Wei Xiao'ou rebelled. It was the part of him that was the reincarnator, the one who had asked the Thirteenth Question. The part that found boring, rigid logic to be the ultimate insult.
Let this pedant win? Let this walking textbook use his dry, soulless "Sword of Unbeing" to dismiss the beautiful, chaotic, laughing truth of the universe?
No.
The decision was made in a femtosecond. He would not lose to this.
But he couldn't win by revealing his true power either.
He had to win within the constraints of his own joke. He had to use the "Umbrella Savant" persona to defeat the Sword of Unbeing.
As the wave of negation hit, he didn't try to resist it. He accepted it.
He let the Sword of Unbeing sever his conscious intention to hold the umbrella.
His hand went limp. The umbrella began to fall.
Jian Sorrow allowed himself a thin, satisfied smile. His theory was correct. The fight was over.
But as the umbrella fell, Xiao'ou's body moved. It was not a movement of conscious will. It was a spasm, a twitch, a perfectly timed, utterly reflexive stumble. His foot shot out, not to regain balance, but to kick the falling umbrella just below the handle.
The umbrella spun vertically, a wobbly, unstable top.
The Sword of Unbeing, having severed the conscious connection, now had nothing to target. The umbrella was no longer being "held." It was just an object following the laws of physics.
The rusty, spinning cloth of the umbrella intersected the path of Jian Sorrow's slowly advancing physical sword.
Scraaape.
The sound was hideous, a nail-scratching-on-stone screech that set everyone's teeth on edge.
Jian Sorrow's perfect, logical expression shattered into confusion. His Sword of Unbeing should have made the umbrella inert. It should have passed through it like a ghost. But the umbrella was still there, a physical object, and his very real, very physical sword was scraping against its rusty edge.
In that moment of confusion, the conceptual framework of his attack collapsed. The "Sword of Unbeing" required absolute focus, absolute belief in its own immateriality. The physical resistance of the umbrella was a paradox his mind couldn't process.
Xiao'ou, still in his "stumble," let his momentum carry him forward. His shoulder bumped the still-spinning umbrella.
The handle, now a weighted lever, swung around in a wide, clumsy arc.
Thwack.
It hit Jian Sorrow squarely on the temple.
It wasn't a powerful blow. It was the kind of knock that would stun a man for a second, no more.
But for Jian Sorrow, whose entire world was built on the lattice of his own unshakeable focus, it was a cataclysm. His concentration shattered. The Sword of Unbeing flickered and died. He blinked, dazed, his sword arm dropping.
Xiao'ou, seemingly by accident, reached out a flailing hand to "steady himself" and grabbed the now-still umbrella. He "tripped" again, and the tip of the umbrella poked Jian Sorrow gently in the chest.
It was a tap. A nothing. A feather-light touch.
But it was enough. The referee, seeing the dazed theorist poked after his ultimate technique had failed, made the call.
"Wei Xiao'ou… wins."
The silence was absolute. Then, it broke into a wave of laughter, cheers, and bewildered shouts. He had done it again. He had defeated the undefeatable technique not by overpowering it, but by tripping over it.
Jian Sorrow stood in the ring, touching the spot on his chest where the umbrella had tapped him. He wasn't angry. He was… enlightened.
"He didn't draw his sword," Jian Sorrow murmured, his eyes wide with revelation. "He didn't have to. The sword… was never in the sheath. The sword was the lack of a sword. The ultimate technique… is no technique. The final sword… is the one you don't swing."
He looked at Xiao'ou with something akin to religious fervor, bowed deeply, and walked out of the ring, already lost in a new, world-shattering theoretical paradigm.
Wei Xiao'ou had not only won the match; he had created a new cult.
—
The aftermath of the quarter-finals was seismic. Wei Tiezhu was now a bona fide outer sect hero. But Wei Xiao'ou was something else entirely. He was a phenomenon. A paradox. A joke that had somehow become profound.
In the elders' pavilion, the reactions were mixed.
"Preposterous!" one elder snorted. "He is a clown! He advances by insulting the very principles of cultivation!"
"Does he?" Elder Guo asked quietly. "He has defeated a direct elemental attack, a beast companion, and now a conceptual sword intent. He has done so without displaying any measurable spiritual power beyond the third layer of Essence Condensation. If it is an insult, it is a devastatingly effective one."
"What is his realm, truly?" another elder mused. "He must be hiding it."
"Perhaps," Elder Guo said. "Or perhaps he has discovered a different path. One where realm is less important than… understanding."
The notion was heresy, but it hung in the air, unsettling and potent.
Long Aotian watched from a distance, his handsome face a mask of cold fury. The clown was now in the semi-finals. He was one step away from potentially facing him in the final. The thought of sharing a ring with that… that jester was an intolerable stain on his honor. He vowed to himself that if Xiao'ou made it to the final, he would not just defeat him; he would annihilate him, publicly and utterly.
Shen Bing said nothing. She had seen the truth that Jian Sorrow had only glimpsed. Xiao'ou hadn't won by accident. He had won by operating on a level of reality Jian Sorrow couldn't perceive. He hadn't countered the Sword of Unbeing; he had simply stepped around it, into a space where its rules didn't apply. The fracture in her heart was now a chasm, and through it, she could see a terrifying, brilliant new world.
That night, the underground business of "Xiao'ou & Chubby" was booming. They now sold "Sword-of-Unbeing-Deflection Tassels" to tie to your weapon, and "Philosophical Paradox" pamphlets allegedly written by Jian Sorrow himself. Murong Chubby was in heaven.
But Wei Xiao'ou was not in his dormitory celebrating. He was in the herb garden, but he wasn't sleeping. He was standing at the center of his Silver-Moon Petals, a rare frown on his face.
He had been forced to try. Not with his true power, but with his mind. He had been forced to engage with the "game" on a level he found distasteful. Jian Sorrow's rigid logic had been a challenge to his entire philosophy, and his pride, the deep, ancient pride of the one who had asked the Thirteenth Question, would not allow him to lose.
He had won the battle but felt he was losing the war. The spotlight was getting brighter. The waves were getting bigger.
He looked up at the peaks of the inner sect, where the real power of the Heavenly Sword Peak resided. He had come here to hide, to use the sect as a shield. But he was starting to realize that you couldn't hide in the belly of a beast; eventually, you either got digested, or you had to tame it.
A soft sound made him turn. Yun Lian stood there, having arrived from Fragrant Rice Village with a supply caravan. She had heard the tales.
"You're causing quite the stir," she said, her violet eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
"It's becoming a bother," Xiao'ou grumbled. "All this effort. I need a vacation."
"You're in the semi-finals of a major sect's tournament. Most people would call that a success."
"Success is a prison with comfortable pillows," he retorted. "I prefer the freedom of mediocrity." He looked at her. "Any news from home?"
"The village is safe. Quiet. Brother Melon is an astonishingly good turnip farmer. The Crows have not returned." She paused. "The silence is… concerning. They are not the type to give up."
"I know," Xiao'ou said. "They're waiting for the shield to drop." He gestured around at the sect. "This… all of this… is just a temporary reprieve. The game with the Crows is still on. This tournament is a distracting side-quest."
"A side-quest you are accidentally winning."
"The worst kind." He sighed. "My next opponent is the wind-affinity girl who floats. How am I supposed to lose to someone who floats? It's undignified."
Yun Lian smiled. "I'm sure you'll think of something. You always do."
She left him there, standing amidst his moonlit garden. The semi-finals were tomorrow. He was one of the last four disciples standing. The path of least resistance was rapidly becoming a vertical cliff.
He looked down at his umbrella, the Heaven-Sundering Genesis Lance in its most humble disguise.
"The sword that was not there," he murmured, repeating Jian Sorrow's final revelation. "Maybe that's the point. Maybe the greatest power isn't in being the strongest, but in being the one that nobody can quite see, even when you're standing right in front of them."
He tapped the umbrella on the ground, and a single, perfect Silver-Moon Petal detached from its stem and floated down, landing perfectly on the tip.
He smiled. It was a small thing, a meaningless bit of beauty. But in that moment, it felt like the only thing that made sense.
The semi-finals awaited. The spotlight was blinding. And Wei Xiao'ou, the Laughing Void Sovereign, decided that if he couldn't escape the light, he would have to blind everyone looking at him.
It was time to put on a show they would never forget, and never quite understand.