"Fine... let's give this crowd what they came for." Gojo rolled his neck, stretching his legs with casual ease, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.
But Xiao Wusheng raised a hand and cut him off. "One move. Let's settle this with one move."
Even Gojo paused, eyes narrowing for a moment before he let out a low laugh. Bold. Unexpected. He could get used to someone like Xiao Wusheng. The guy was like a maze, no discernible entrance, no predictable turns. Reading him was like trying to trace smoke in a storm.
Around them, the crowd erupted.
"He said one move!?"
"One move?!"
"This bastard's out of his mind! Is he trying to psych out Chen Zhen?! Of all people?!"
Even the Elders blinked in disbelief, glancing at each other with furrowed brows. But the arena quieted as both fighters took their stances.
Xiao Wusheng extended a single palm outward, calm as still water. His breath deepened, and a subtle ripple of Yuan Power danced around him like mist catching firelight. Gojo mirrored him, his left hand stretching forward with slow deliberation, fingers loose, yet crackling with suppressed force.
They stared each other down in silence, tension thick enough to drown in.
Gojo smirked faintly. Xiao Wusheng definitely knew how to stir things up. The best part? Even he had no idea what kind of asspull this fellow was going to cook up. So he'd do what he always did, hit hard enough to rewrite the rules.
Xiao Wusheng's bored eyes, for the first time, glimmered with heat. His voice came like thunder behind silk:
"Let's do this, Crimson Blazing Chop: Ninth Form..
Fire God's Blazing Seal."
A golden seal formed above his head, spinning like a miniature sun. Light burst from it, searing and holy. For a moment, he looked like an angel descending into battle, serene, radiant... and utterly devastating. The light blanketed the entire sect in gold, blinding and divine.
But Gojo, facing it directly, saw past the beauty. He saw annihilation. "You're a lunatic, you know that?" Gojo muttered.
With swift hand seals, torrents of Yuan Power erupted from him. Reality around him shuddered. The very air distorted, as if rejecting what he was doing. Space fractured. Cracks appeared in the void like shattered glass, and for a breathless moment, Gojo saw everything, realms layered upon realms, dimensions folding over each other like a cosmic lotus.
He gasped. This was no ordinary clash. This... was evolution.
His Earthly Titan Physique was evolving, advancing.
Gojo raised his hand, and above his index finger, a black orb formed, an unstable, rotating mass of shattered dimensions. It pulsed with infinite weight, distorting the space around it like a newborn singularity. This wasn't strength, this was creativity forged into destruction. Collapsing his entire reservoir of Yuan Power into one singular point and merging it with the chaotic frequencies of the dimensional rift, he had created what looked like a black hole born of raw will and spatial law.
This was the utmost extent of destructiveness he could achieve with his current understanding of his Bloodline..
On the sidelines, the First Elder paled. "Those brats..." he whispered, before thrusting his hand down. A radiant dome of pure spiritual energy surged up to encase the entire arena. "They'll tear down the sect if I don't seal this in..."
BOOOOOOM!!!
The clash was apocalyptic.
The Fire God's Blazing Seal descended like judgment. Gojo's dimensional orb soared upward to meet it. When they collided, the sky screamed. Light and darkness erupted outward, tearing across the heavens.
Winds howled like ancient beasts.
Flames spiraled into the sky, forming a blazing dragon. Cracks split across the arena floor as gravity warped, drawing everything toward the epicenter. Space twisted, and for an instant, reality blinked, the sun overhead flickered, and the world turned grayscale.
Above them, clouds were sliced open. Thunder raged without lightning. A vacuum wave burst out, flattening trees miles away, while the mountain beneath the sect groaned.
Then...silence.
A deep, crushing silence, broken only by a breeze that stirred the rubble. The light faded. The smoke cleared. And from opposite ends of the ruined arena... both men stood tall. Unscathed.
Xiao Wusheng exhaled, rubbing his wrist. "Hmph. You didn't disappoint." Gojo chuckled, shaking out his fingers. "Not bad. You're crazier than you look."
The crowd stood in stunned silence. No cheers. No gasps. Just awe. Because sometimes, even words weren't enough to follow gods in motion.
"Holy Shit!!"
"One word. Just one word. Epic!"
"Are these guys even human?!!"
It took a while for the crowd to come to their senses. The Elders were shaken, and could only glare at each other in silence. But what none of them expected happened. Xiao Wusheng straightened his robe, stretched his back and walked off the stage with a shrug.
"Let's fight again sometime, when we can comfortably tear each other's throats out without others interfering.."
Gojo whipped his hair back. This fellow was really non standard. He could already feel the budding respect for him. To put it in fair terms, Xiao Wusheng had gone against Gojo's most destructive attack he could think of unleashing and remained unscathed. That was the gravity of what he had done.
To Gojo this was far impressive that all his other feats from before. It was incredible. Gojo shook his head and walked off the stage as well, heading to his seat.
"Who won??"
"I guess Chen Zhen did..."
"You're right, the rules did say that last man in the arena wins, so by default Chen Zhen wins.."
"At this point, I don't think the rankings matter much to Xiao Wusheng. He has stalemated Chen Zhen. That was arguably the most impressive feat in this competition. Stalemating a Space Controlling Saint Physique wielder with nothing but martial arts is more impressive than even winning the outer court rankings exams.."
A spectator explained, and the others understood, nodding in appreciation.
"Well, that was anticlimactic" the first elder raised a brow..
"So who won in the end?" The second elder rolled his eyes. "Technically, Chen Zhen did. But Xiao Wusheng didn't technically lose either, so it's hard to say.." The Sect Master chipped in, and the two elders descended into deep thought. "Ol Second, how about we put this bet of ours behind us and look towards the future.."
First Elder puffed smoke and then extended a hand to the second elder, who nodded in agreement and shook on it. Just like that, the situation was settled. Meanwhile, Gojo wasn't having it easy.
MeiYing pinched hard on his ear. "It's a pity to kill someone so pretty? Are you out of your mind? Do you want to die, Chen Zhen?" MeiYing pinched down harder and Gojo cried out. "Come on, I was just admiring her a little bit. If you don't want me looking at other girls then you'll have to destroy my eyes.. or you can do what a girlfriend does.." Gojo gladly took the opportunity to tease her and she went all red and then stormed off angrily, before he laughed out.
Just like that, the first set of battles had been decided. all that was left was to decide the top four between Chen Zhen, Li Tianheng, Su Qingshi and Feng Xiaoyao.
That was all that was needed to conclude the competition.. Although, many of the disciples already knew who was going to win. At this point, it should've been common knowledge by now. Chen Zhen, Gojo was by far the strongest.
A/N: Go all out today guys. Let's get on the rankings..