The air in the pavilion crackled. It was no longer a party; it was a gladiatorial arena, and the guests were now spectators to a life-and-death struggle.
Lin Feng looked at me with open contempt. To him, this was not a duel. This was an execution. The gap between Body Tempering and Foundation Establishment was a chasm. Qi Condensation, the realm between us, was a qualitative leap. He had an inner sea of Qi; I had a teacup's worth. His overclocked halo amplified that difference to an absurd degree.
He was a lion, and I was a house cat.
"I will give you one chance, for the Princess's sake," Lin Feng said, his voice magnanimous, playing to the crowd. "Get on your knees, confess to your crimes, and I might spare your life."
"How about this?" I countered, giving the Shadowfang Dagger a casual twirl. "You get on your knees and cut your own fucking throat. It'll save me the effort."
His face contorted in a mask of pure rage. "You court death!"
He didn't wait for a formal start. He exploded into motion. He was impossibly fast, a blur of motion that a normal Body Tempering cultivator wouldn't even be able to track. He appeared before me in an instant, his rusty sword descending in a vicious arc, humming with a thick, oppressive layer of Qi.
He wasn't aiming to wound. He was aiming to cleave me in two.
But I wasn't a normal Body Tempering cultivator. I was a veteran of twenty-five years of hopeless struggle, gifted with a second chance. I had devoured a demon. My senses, my reflexes, my very perception of time were on another level.
To the spectators, his attack was a blur. To me, it was moving through molasses.
I didn't try to block. That would be suicide. His Qi-infused blade would shatter my dagger and my arm along with it.
Instead, at the last possible nanosecond, I whispered, "[Imp's Shadow-Step]."
Reality lurched. I vanished from my spot, the world dissolving into a nauseating gray static for a split second. Lin Feng's sword slammed into the spot where I had been standing, shattering the marble floor and sending shards of stone flying.
I reappeared ten feet behind him.
Silence.
Every single person in the pavilion stared, their jaws agape. Valerius, Seraphina, even Lyra—their faces were masks of pure, unadulterated shock.
Teleportation. A prince at the Body Tempering realm had just used a spatial movement skill, a technique that should be utterly impossible for anyone below the Void Shattering Realm.
Lin Feng whirled around, his eyes wide with disbelief. "What… what was that?!"
"That," I said, my smile a cold, predatory slash, "was you underestimating your opponent. A classic protagonist mistake."
His shock was quickly replaced by a deeper rage. The impossible had happened, and it had made him look like a fool. "A trick! A life-saving trinket! You can't have many of those. Let's see how you handle this!"
He stomped his foot, and the Qi in his body erupted. A technique I remembered with bitter clarity from my past life.
"Mountain-Crushing Fist!"
He didn't use his sword. He lunged, his fist glowing with a thick, earthen-yellow light. It was a ranged attack, a blast of pure, condensed Qi that could pulverize solid rock. It was a technique designed to overwhelm, to crush an opponent who relied on dodging.
There was nowhere to run in the confines of the pavilion. Shadow-stepping again would be predictable.
So I didn't run.
I stood my ground, my mind a vortex of calculation. The quest objective wasn't to win. It was to survive, and to draw blood.
The glowing fist of energy shot towards me. To everyone else, my death was certain.
But my [Eye of Scrutiny], enhanced by my new Nether-attuned senses, saw something they couldn't. It saw the technique not as a monolithic blast of power, but as a web of flowing energies. And in that web, there was a single, tiny point—a nexus where the Qi was thinnest, a flaw in the technique's structure. It was a flaw that would be invisible to anyone, even a master cultivator. But to a System from a higher dimension, a flaw was a flaw.
I poured every last dreg of Qi in my body into the Shadowfang Dagger. It didn't glow. It didn't hum. It just seemed to grow darker, colder, absorbing the very light around it.
At the moment the energy fist was about to hit me, I didn't block or dodge.
I stabbed.
My dagger plunged forward, not meeting the full force of the attack, but striking that one, single, infinitesimally small flaw.
It was like pricking a balloon with a needle.
FWOOM!
The Mountain-Crushing Fist didn't explode. It destabilized. The massive ball of energy unraveled, erupting outwards in a chaotic, uncontrolled wave of Qi that blasted past me on both sides, shredding the pavilion's silk screens and gouging deep furrows in the walls. I stood in the eye of the hurricane, untouched, the sleeve of my robe fluttering in the after-blast.
Lin Feng stared, his face a perfect picture of a man who had just seen a ghost. His ultimate technique, a move that had won him countless battles against stronger opponents, had just been… dismantled. By a Body Tempering weakling. It was impossible. It broke all the known laws of cultivation.
"How…" he breathed, his voice trembling with a mixture of fury and, for the first time, a flicker of genuine fear.
"Your technique is full of holes," I said calmly, taking a step forward. "You focus on raw power, but you have no finesse. Your foundation is a mess."
I was lying, of course. His technique was flawless. It was my System that was the cheat. But the psychological damage was done. I had planted a seed of doubt in his mind.
He was shaken. His confidence, the very core of his protagonist's halo, was cracked. And in that moment of hesitation, I saw my opening.
The objective was not to kill him. It was to draw blood.
"[Netherworld Beckoning]," I whispered, a command aimed at the new, dark power within me.
I felt a sharp, draining sensation, as if a part of my own life force was being siphoned away. In exchange, a micro-fissure, a pinprick in the fabric of reality, opened in the air behind Lin Feng. It was invisible, undetectable.
From that fissure, a single, minuscule entity slipped through. It wasn't a demon. It was a Nether-Mite, a scavenger creature no bigger than a flea, its only purpose to feed on decaying soul-stuff. It was the weakest thing I could possibly summon.
It landed harmlessly on the back of Lin Feng's neck. And it bit him.
A single, tiny droplet of red blood welled up on his skin.
The system exploded with notifications.
[WAGER QUEST OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: First Blood Drawn.]
[REWARD GRANTED: Title: 'Destiny's Rival'.]
[You have become a recognized adversary to the World-Breaker. Your actions will now have a greater impact on the timeline.]
[REWARD GRANTED: [Protagonist's Blood Sample x1].]
[Item has been stored in your inventory. Analysis can be performed at a later time.]
I had done it. Now, all I had to do was survive.
Lin Feng, oblivious to the metaphysical victory I had just won, let out a roar of pure frustration and charged, his pride shattered. He was done with techniques. This was just pure, unadulterated rage.
I prepared to shadow-step again, ready to lead him on a merry chase until the duel could be stopped.
But suddenly, a new variable entered the equation.
Lyra, my dear sister, finally acted. She had seen enough. She had seen her invincible hero flustered. She had seen her useless brother perform two miracles in a row. Her script was in tatters, and she was intervening directly.
She didn't attack me. She didn't shout.
She let out a soft, pained cry and collapsed to the floor, her hand clutching her chest. "My… my Qi… It's unstable again!" she cried, her voice weak and pathetic.
It was a blatant, transparently false act. But it was also a checkmate.
The duel immediately halted. The hero, Lin Feng, stopped in his tracks, his rage instantly replaced by concern for the damsel in distress. My brother, Valerius, bellowed for the physicians.
The duel was over. I had survived.
I calmly walked over to Valerius, who was staring at me with a completely new expression—a mixture of shock, suspicion, and a grudging, newfound respect.
"The intruder's guilt is clear," I said, my voice carrying over the chaos. "But the princess's health is paramount. Lock him in the Sky-Cell. We will determine his fate in the morning."
Valerius, for the first time in our lives, simply nodded and obeyed his younger brother's command.
I had won. I had survived, drawn first blood, and imprisoned the protagonist. I had turned an unwinnable situation into a staggering victory.
As the guards, no longer hesitant, surrounded a protesting Lin Feng, I glanced back at Lyra. She was being helped to her feet, her eyes locking with mine over the shoulders of her attendants.
Her face was a mask of worry, but her eyes… her eyes were filled with a cold, murderous fury I had not seen even in our last life. She wasn't just suspicious anymore. She wasn't just hostile.
She now knew, with absolute certainty, that I was not her brother. I was her true enemy.
And as I held her gaze, a final, chilling system notification appeared. It wasn't a quest or a reward. It was a direct consequence of her shift in perspective.
[FAVORABILITY CHANGE DETECTED]
[Due to your impossible performance and the derailing of her plans, Lyra Ravencrest's understanding of your existence has fundamentally changed.]
[Her Favorability towards you has been permanently locked at: -100 (Nemesis)]
[NEW TRAIT UNLOCKED FOR LYRA RAVENCREST: 'Regressor's Intuition - Homicidal Intent'.]
[Description: She will now actively and ruthlessly plot your death using her knowledge of the future at every available opportunity.]