Volume XII: Invitation to Hell Chapter Forty-Four: I'm Hitting You Specifically

Along the way back, everyone looked at Yaoguang with gazes of absolute awe. After all, the temptation of a flood dragon was simply too immense for any practitioner. Yaoguang ignored these looks, though she could hear the endless chatter buzzing around her, all of it discussing Jin Lin, and some even debating whether Yaoguang truly possessed any real ability.

This was only natural. To outsiders, the victory in that match was entirely Jin Lin's credit. Was she expected to go around explaining that she was actually a revered deity? What a joke.

An hour of precious time was ticking away. For humans, the most economical, accessible, and practical way to restore spirit and mind was to sleep, but when faced with an abnormal entity like Yaoguang, any practitioner would surely be driven mad.

When Yaoguang returned to her quarters, they were actually discussing where they should go to eat hot pot once they got out. As for how to handle the next match, not a single one of these people mentioned it at all. During this time, Three-Hands even paid a visit, and upon seeing Yaoguang's nonchalant expression, he felt rather perplexed.

One had to bear in mind that Du Ping was considered a top-tier expert among the evil practitioners, and evil practitioners excelled above all at ambushing their opponents. For Yaoguang to be completely unconcerned was truly incredible.

An hour later, Yaoguang and Du Ping went once again to sign the second dueling consent form, and by afternoon, they met once more in the dueling arena.

This time, Thousand-Hands and Old Man Bai presided as supervisors once again, but the difference was that a man in black stepped up to announce the rules: only one's native cultivation arts and spells could be employed, while everything else was strictly forbidden. The use of magical artifacts and external objects was prohibited, and the only permitted items were talismans crafted from one's own internal cultivation.

This meant that external empowerment techniques, such as the Upper, Middle, and Lower Maoshan arts, were also unusable.

Strictly speaking, the offensive spells potent enough to target humans were limited to the Five Elements arts, curses, soul-control arts, and the like. Only these involved foundational, innate power.

Standing in the arena, Du Ping looked at Yaoguang and said, "Phoenix, I stated my stakes earlier, but you have yet to promise yours."

"If I lose, I'll marry you," Yaoguang replied crisply, looking right at him.

"You said it yourself, don't regret it." Greed filled Du Ping's eyes.

Yaoguang frowned slightly, then arched an eyebrow. "Let's see if you even have the capability first. There are oceans of people wanting to marry me—who do you think you are?"

True to form, this remark heavily provoked Du Ping. He raised his voice and said, "Phoenix, major spells are difficult to control and possess terrifying destructive power. When the time comes, life and death are up to fate. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Du Ping was trying to pressure Yaoguang; if she grew scared, he would at least win without fighting. In the eyes of the onlookers, Yaoguang was merely someone who had achieved victory by relying on a flood dragon.

Yaoguang replied in a deep voice, "You talk too much." Just as her words trailed off, Old Man Bai let out a "hehe" chuckle and remarked, "This Phoenix is no simple character."

Yaoguang ignored him, lowering her gaze to look at her own hands instead. She muttered something that nearly made the people watching from below faint away: "I'll need to change the color when we get out; I'm sick of looking at this one."

Across the arena, Du Ping cast a strange, smiling glance at Yaoguang, then began pacing out the stellar footsteps of the Bu-gang ritual. Although his footwork had slight differences from standard forms, Yaoguang recognized it at a glance: it was the Thunder-Summoning Technique.

Du Ping was actually capable of executing the falling thunder spell without relying on Maoshan empowerment.

This left Yaoguang somewhat surprised. She had to admit that, to a certain extent, Du Ping was a genius. It was a pity he had strayed from the righteous path.

It seemed he had calculatedly chosen to engage her in a direct clash of thunder and lightning, betting on who would break first. However, what Du Ping did not know was that the thunder-summoning spell was merely a child's game that Yaoguang had long since grown tired of playing.

Yaoguang simply stood there quietly, watching him pace out the ritual steps. Once one began the Bu-gang steps, one immediately entered a state of meditative visualization. This was a skill every true Daoist should possess, and while in this meditative state, no external interference was permitted or registered. Thus, Du Ping had no inkling of what was happening on Yaoguang's end.

In truth, Yaoguang made no movement whatsoever, simply crossing her arms as she watched him. The spectators below could not fathom what was going on in her mind.

Du Ping stepped through the ritual pace by pace, for mistakes were forbidden in the Bu-gang. When he completed the final step, communing with the heavens above and channeling the power of the stars, Yaoguang was still standing right there.

Immersed in his meditative state, he remained unaware of Yaoguang's situation. If he had possessed even a shred of awareness, it would undoubtedly have caused him to vomit blood anew: clearly, he was the one exerting himself to execute the ritual paces, so why did she look completely unfazed?

Having finished his footwork, Du Ping began to chant the incantation, and heavy dark clouds immediately gathered across the sky. Lightning rolled and churned within the gloom. Yaoguang raised her eyes for a fleeting look, still refusing to move.

With a deafening crash, a terrifying bolt of thunder split the sky, summoned down by Du Ping. A crafty smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he guided the lightning straight toward Yaoguang. Lightning traveled with immense speed, yet when Yaoguang saw the bolt—which was thinner than a pair of chopsticks—she almost burst out laughing.

What on earth was this? Was that lightning or a vermicelli noodle? Should she gather them up and make a bowl of kelp and vermicelli soup?

The instant the lightning struck toward her, Yaoguang swiftly formed a hand seal and flicked her arm, instantly causing the bolt to dissipate into nothingness.

"What kind of martial art is that? Heavenly lightning... just neutralized like that?!" The crowd below erupted once again. None of them had even seen how Yaoguang moved her hands before that bolt of lightning vanished into thin air.

Du Ping's face turned pale instantly, and he hastily chanted the incantation once more.

Crash! A second bolt of lightning was summoned down. This time, it was as thick as a chopstick, and Yaoguang could no longer hold back: "Are you calling down divine thunder or noodles?"

"Go to hell!" Du Ping guided the lightning, fiercely hurling it toward Yaoguang.

Yaoguang was utterly speechless. Every single bolt of heavenly thunder she had endured in her life was at least twice as thick as a grown adult's arm; what on earth was this pathetic thing?

Forming another hand seal, she pushed out against the incoming bolt. A ray of light shot from her fingertips and collided with the lightning, creating a shower of sparks that resembled a small firework. Once again, Yaoguang dissolved the attack with ease.

The crowd below was in an uproar, every single person staring with jaws dropped open.

"Du Ping, your spells are no different from children playing house. How about this? Let me show you what real lightning looks like. I'll use your own trick." As she spoke, Yaoguang rapidly stepped out the Bu-gang ritual paces. The onlookers could only perceive her figure blurring.

Was she pacing out a Daoist ritual or dancing the waltz? How could she possibly move so fast?

Before the crowd's dazzled eyes could adjust, Yaoguang came to a halt, swiftly forming hand seals and chanting an incantation.

Rumble! Golden light began to pulse amidst the even thicker, darker clouds above. In a single heartbeat, a bolt of golden lightning as thick as an adult's arm was summoned down by Yaoguang. She simply held her hand aloft, guiding the golden thunder without letting it strike down, while looking at Du Ping with amused interest. "If this bolt of golden thunder were to land on you, would you be able to withstand it?"

"Golden thunder? The girl actually summoned golden thunder?" The crowd below boiled over once again.

"You... you actually invoked golden thunder?" Du Ping's face had turned completely drained of color.

"All those little tricks of yours are things your deity here played with ages ago, Du Ping. Surely you didn't think I was still that little girl from back then? I won't strike you with this lightning, because scum like you aren't worthy." Yaoguang chuckled, flicking her wrist. Cradled by the golden light at her fingertips, the bolt of divine thunder smoothly returned to the clouds.

The spectators were on the verge of losing their minds. They had heard of people summoning heavenly thunder, but this was the first time anyone had ever witnessed summoned lightning being sent back up into the heavens! Such an operation ought to trigger a karmic backlash, yet the girl before them remained completely unharmed—it was as casual as taking a knife from one's kitchen to chop vegetables, deciding not to cook after all, and simply putting the blade back.

"Du Ping, if you wanted to become a ghost cultivator, so be it. But what have you done all these years? Swindling, plundering, committing countless atrocities. Since this is a life-or-death gamble today, it's time you paid back the lives lost to your hands." With those words, Yaoguang began pacing the ritual steps once more. The next moment, everyone felt the oppressive weight of celestial might bearing down. Accompanied by her incantation, Yaoguang began forming intricate hand seals.

A dragon made of fire pierced through the clouds, hurtling downward toward her. The surrounding temperature soared instantly, making everyone feel as though they had been cast straight into a blazing desert.

At this moment, everyone was immersed in sheer shock. Not every practitioner possessed profound internal strength, and this legendary art of summoning heavenly fire was something that usually required elders of the older generation to execute successfully. Never had they imagined it would be performed so effortlessly by Yaoguang.

When the fire dragon landed, fueled by the condensed power of the Five Elements fire, the flames blazed with terrifying ferocity, roaring fiercely the moment they touched the earth. The true difficulty of the fire-summoning technique lay in guiding the heavenly fire toward its designated target, for fire lacked the cohesive focus of lightning. This was the ultimate test of true mastery.

Just as Yaoguang's fire dragon touched down, Du Ping was still frantically forming his thunder seals. Raindrops—one, two—began to fall from the sky.

Yet Yaoguang felt not a shred of anxiety over the rain; those droplets were utterly incapable of extinguishing such violent heavenly fire. Across the arena, the silence was first broken by Old Man Bai, who muttered under his breath, "We can't win... we can't beat this."

Old Man Bai had already perceived the true extent of Yaoguang's terrifying might.

Controlling heavenly fire was notoriously difficult, even harder than mastering thunder seals.

The rain began to pour in sheets. While guiding the fire dragon with one hand, Yaoguang flicked her other hand toward Xuan Chen and the others. A protective barrier materialized instantly above their heads, deflecting the raindrops so that they cascaded down around the perimeter. The group stood comfortably beneath this natural umbrella.

"Thank you, Master!" Jiang Yun cheered happily.

Yaoguang turned her head to look at Jiang Yun, her face filled with doting fondness.

"Hey, let me in there too!" Three-Hands scurried over looking thoroughly miserable, trying to squeeze under the barrier, but he simply bounced off. With a casual wave of Yaoguang's hand, Three-Hands felt a gentle push of energy ushering him inside. Beaming broadly, he said, "Many thanks to you!"

"I'll treat you to chicken drumsticks later," Yaoguang smiled.

"You got it, thanks a lot!" Three-Hands cupped his fists in a salute toward her.

The next moment, guiding the fire dragon, Yaoguang watched as the flames miraculously surged forward upon impact, blazing a straight trail of destruction directly toward Du Ping.

Before the roaring flames could reach him, Du Ping's next wave of the thunder-summoning spell remained incomplete. After all, executing the technique without any external aids was simply too exhausting.

Yaoguang exercised precise control over the heavenly fire, halting it a mere meter away from Du Ping. He must have felt the scorching, blistering heat radiate against him.

For reasons unknown at that moment, Yaoguang chose not to burn Du Ping to ashes on the spot. Deep within her heart, perhaps she simply could not bring herself to incinerate a living person in such a brutal manner.

Therefore, Yaoguang said to him, "Du Ping, the outcome has been decided." Yet Du Ping merely opened his eyes to give her a calm look before resuming the manipulation of his thunder seals.

Fat raindrops pelted down from the sky, contrasting sharply with the roaring sea of fire on the ground. An ineffable feeling stirred within Yaoguang, and she spoke once more: "Du Ping, the outcome is decided!"

From outside the arena, the spectators were also shouting, "Du Ping, you've lost!"

Even the match supervisors, Old Man Bai and Thousand-Hands, stepped forward and shouted, "The outcome is decided!"

Yet Du Ping refused to stop forming his seals. Amidst the shouting of the officials from both organizations, he finally completed his thunder incantation!

With a sharp crack, a flash of lightning tore across the sky, and two seconds later, a bolt of heavenly thunder plunged straight toward Yaoguang!

Yaoguang could no longer hold back. With the slightest loosening of her restraint, the heavenly fire surged forward to swallow Du Ping whole!

She could not describe the fury raging inside her heart; she had offered Du Ping a way out, yet he insisted on driving her to her doom.

In that fleeting instant, that single thought filled Yaoguang's entire mind as she poured her heart and soul into controlling the fire.

With a thunderous crash, the bolt of heavenly thunder finally struck—all of this having transpired in the span of a few breaths. Yet, bizarrely enough, the lightning never hit Yaoguang at all. Instead, it struck the ground right beside her, blasting a deep crater into the earth.

Incredulous, Yaoguang looked over at Du Ping, only to receive a desolate, miserable smile from him in return.

*Forget it, killing him has no meaning.* Yaoguang shook her head. She reined in the heavenly fire, halting it right before it consumed Du Ping.

Much like a speeding vehicle, maintaining momentum was easy, but slamming on the emergency brakes was exceedingly difficult. Yaoguang's effortless display of total control once again left the crowd gasping in astonishment.

"Are we still fighting?" Yaoguang asked.

"No more. I'm no match for you whatsoever," Du Ping replied with a desolate shake of his head before suddenly lunging forward into the flames. A collective intake of breath echoed from the onlookers.

The next second, however, Yaoguang flicked her wrist, and the heavenly fire instantly dissolved into nothingness. Du Ping froze in place, standing dumbfounded.

Yaoguang looked up at the sky, formed a hand seal, gathered her inner breath, and projected a stream of golden light upward. "Disperse."

The moment her voice fell, the dark clouds across the sky began to break apart, and the rain ceased.

"Why didn't you kill me?" Du Ping stared at her with unconcealed confusion.

"You're a ghost cultivator, but you're still human. The only things I kill are malevolent ghosts and evil spirits; I do not kill people. I have no right to do so," Yaoguang replied, shaking her head.

"I understand. Truthfully, I never had the qualifications to marry you. A woman like you—I'm not even worthy of carrying your shoes," Du Ping said with an even more wretched smile. "It's just that you were too dazzling."

"I don't necessarily have to marry a paragon among men," Yaoguang retorted, shaking her head. "You lacked ambition, choosing to walk a treacherous, unorthodox path all these years. Tell me, what girl would ever wish for her man to be someone like you?"

"Thank you, Phoenix. I lost, and I lost two matches at that. I accept this defeat wholeheartedly." Du Ping smiled bitterly, shaking his head. "In striving to live like a respectable person, I ended up turning into the very thing I despised." With those words, he slumped down to the ground.

"Phoenix wins," the match official announced coldly.

Yet the audience outside fell into a profound silence. Perhaps they had yet to recover from the shock of this tumultuous, plot-twisting duel. It was not until Yaoguang slowly walked toward Du Ping that a fresh wave of uproar rippled through the crowd.

Unwilling to look down upon him from above, Yaoguang crouched down and gazed quietly at Du Ping. "Du Ping, all these years, have any innocent lives truly been stained on your hands?"

"If I said no, would you believe me?" Du Ping looked at her with a faint, wry smile at the corner of his lips.

Yaoguang looked back at him and said, "I believe you."

"Why?" Du Ping asked in astonishment.

"You have no aura of blood on you." Yaoguang stood up and extended a hand toward him. "Get up."

Du Ping stared coldly at her outstretched hand for a long moment before finally reaching out to grasp it.

Pulling him up to his feet, Yaoguang said, "I am the victor, so naturally the right to decide rests with me. Your natal sword has merged with your soul; giving it to me left you with only half a life left. Since you've never taken a human life, there's no need for me to take yours—that would be meaningless. Give me that nine-tailed fox instead, deal?"

Du Ping stared at her in renewed astonishment for a long beat before answering, "Deal." With that, he drew the soul-retaining jar from his robes and handed it over reluctantly. "Take good care of it."

Yaoguang took the jar and nodded. Then, she handed him a business card. "Whenever you decide to turn over a new leaf, you can come find me. Under my guidance, your cultivation can reach even greater heights."

"Phoenix, why?" Du Ping looked at the card in bewilderment.

"Enmities are better resolved than prolonged. Du Ping, the mountains remain green and the waters flow long—until we meet again." With those words, Yaoguang turned and walked straight toward Jiang Yun.

Seeing the beaming, flower-like smile on Jiang Yun's face, she smiled and said, "Silly girl, take this. When we get back, I'll teach you how to summon it."

"Thank you, Master!" Jiang Yun hugged the soul-retaining jar, brimming with joy.

And thus, this duel finally came to its curtain call.