Chapter Thirty-Nine: Defeated with One Move

  The second phase of Mugen no Kanata, one of the forty wooden corridors.

  Gu Chao waved his hand and cut it down, and a wooden man collapsed to the ground.

  Each of Gu Chao's knives was accurate, but no matter which wooden man fell, it did not extinguish Gu Chao's fighting spirit.

  After a non-stop swing of the long knife in his hand, an intersection appeared ahead. This was the intersection where forty wooden alleys converged into twenty.

  The last intersection, the opponent I met was Murong Ying. So at this intersection, who will be the opponent I meet?

  Gu Chao put the sword back in its scabbard, grasped the hilt tightly, and strode towards the intersection with a fierce determination. Even Murong Ying had encountered him once; who could stop himself now?

  Gu Chao walked to the intersection, and at the intersection, there was a young man standing. The young man's face was somewhat round, but the impression wasn't very deep. When he saw Gu Chao, he couldn't help but laugh: "Oh, isn't this Gu Chao? My luck is pretty good, I actually ran into 59th-ranked Gu Chao." This round-faced young man was called Wang Yun, and in the previous month's small test, he had ranked 48th.

  The forty-eighth person was not particularly powerful.

  He was also extremely lucky, when the first eighty wooden people converged into forty wooden people, he happened to be one of the lucky ones who got through - eighty wooden people had sixty people entering, nineteen were empty, so when eighty wooden people merged into forty wooden people, there would be a certain number of people who got through.

  And this young man named Wang Yun was one of those who had been left out.

  At the intersection of the 40th wooden alley and the 20th wooden alley, Wang Yun ran into Gu Chao.

  Wang Yun burst out laughing: "It seems that this time I, Wang Yun, am going to have a stroke of good luck. Eighty advancing to forty is a rotation, and forty entering the twenty wooden people's alley encountered a figure ranked fifty-nine. What great luck! If he had encountered someone else, he might not have won, but encountering Gu Chao, who was nothing special, he could easily take care of him. Wang Yun's strength was never good, and originally thought that this year-end exam would be ranked very low, but with the arrival of good fortune, even a city wall couldn't stop it. Heh heh, this time it seems I'll get a pretty good test score back home, what glory, face, etc., all recovered."

  Wang Yun drew out a crimson copper long knife and slashed it straight at Gu Chao, which was the "Fierce Tiger's Swift Pounce" of the 72 Routes of Knife Techniques.

  Gu Chao also drew out a long red copper knife, neat and nimble, the knife light cleverly dodged Wang Yun's knife light.

  Two people drew their swords at the same time.

  The blades flashed and intersected in mid-air.

  In an instant, Gu Chao's crimson long knife was already horizontal at Wang Yun's throat, just one inch away. If he stretched forward another inch, Wang Yun's life would be ended. Gu Chao said calmly: "You lost."

  Originally, Gu Chao's fighting style wasn't so overbearing and tyrannical. Everyone was fellow disciples, exchanging a few polite moves before letting the opponent lose. But this time, after being defeated by Murong Ying, an enormous will to fight surged up from the bottom of his heart. Now, Gu Chao only had one thought: Fight! Fight! Fight!

  It was precisely because of this that the battle was resolved cleanly and neatly.

  His opponent Wang Yun was only at the fourth layer of the Post-Heaven Realm, and his knife skills were quite ordinary. That one move, Fierce Tiger Swift Pounce, in Gu Chao's eyes, was simply full of openings.

  So, Gu Chao can easily defeat Wang Yun with one move.

  Wang Yun was also stunned!

  One move! He was actually defeated by Gu Chao in one move, Gu Chao ranked 59th in the small test at the end of the month, and he himself ranked 48th, eleven places higher than Gu Chao. He should be stronger than Gu Chao, but somehow he lost inexplicably. Wang Yun was very puzzled in his heart. In the battle between Gu Chao and Feng Pinghuo, Wang Yun went down the mountain for some reason, and when he came back up, the excitement of the seventh and thirteenth dormitories' battle had already faded away, and no one was discussing it anymore. Everyone was talking about the four strongest masters of Xue Shan Villa - Mu Rongying, Fang Yin, Lin Yuan, and Zhang Tao. That's why Wang Yun didn't know about this battle at all.

  A man in black leapt down from a crossbeam high up in the wooden corridor.

  This man in black is a member of the Tai Shan Sect, under the leadership of Nan Gong Yuan. The so-called members are outer door disciples who have not yet converted to inner door disciples, and their future development will be towards becoming members. The identity of a member is naturally far inferior to that of an elder.

  These vassals have many responsibilities, including external conquests and internal defenses.

  At the same time, the Taishan Gang stipulates that an ordinary elder can bring up to twenty followers.

  There were twenty followers who had been following Nan Gongyuan for many years, and this black-clad man was one of the twenty followers. The responsibilities of the black-clad followers here were: first, to send intelligence on each disciple to Elder Nan Gongyuan; second, to avoid casualties; third, to eliminate people.

  He followed Nan Gongyuan, so during the first outer disciple recruitment, he was also in the Wooden Dummy Alley at that time. He saw Gu Chao's performance back then.

  This time in Mu Ren Xiang's year-end exam, he also saw Gu Chao's performance.

  It was precisely because he had seen it twice that he was even more shocked by Gu Chao's progress.

  I remember when I first met him, Gu Chao was only at the second layer of the Post-Heaven Realm, his knife skills were basically on a level with someone who had never learned before, and he couldn't even knock down a wooden dummy, truly an exceptionally weak person back then.

  And this time they met, only seven months apart, Gu Chao was already at the level of Post-Heaven Realm Fifth Layer. The realm of his knife skills couldn't be seen for a while, but it should be extremely deep. He could knock down wooden men with a casual swing of his hand, and he could block three moves under Murong Ying's hands and only fall into a disadvantage. He could defeat Wang Yun, ranked forty-eighth, in just one move.

  The progress of Gu Chao is unimaginable.

  In comparison, the black-clothed man couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration for Gu Chao's immense potential in martial arts! Coupled with the blue-clothed youth's display of intelligence, calmness and observational skills during the outer sect disciple recruitment, this blue-clothed youth truly has great hopes of breaking into the inner sect disciples and becoming a leading figure among them.

  Men in black were extremely amazed when they fell!

  The black-clad man floated down and looked at Wang Yun: "You have already failed, been eliminated." This mid-year exam was so cruel, as long as you fail once, you will be eliminated. As for the last five people, they were also the first five to be eliminated. Wang Yun was among them because many people had been eliminated early on.

  ……

  After defeating Wang Yun with one move, Gu Chao's will to fight did not diminish in the slightest.

  For Gu Chao, the battle just now didn't even count as a warm-up.

  Gu Chao is now in the third stage of Mugongyuan, which is also the area of the 20th wooden puppet alley.

  One by one, the wooden men were drawn out of their sheaths and knocked down with a casual swing of Gu Chao's sword. After a while, all the wooden men in front had been cleared, and they finally arrived at another intersection. This intersection was where the 20-wooden-men alley met the 10-wooden-men alley. Gu Chao wondered who his next opponent would be, and he couldn't help but feel a little excited.

  At the next intersection, a figure slowly emerged, it was a young man.

  (Um, there was a bit of a snag in yesterday's plot, but it's been resolved now. I'll be updating three chapters today to make up for yesterday's missed update.)