Next, Yu Xian found the thread documenting the second-place player and opened it to watch Bafang Dao's matches.
Bafang Dao stood only 1.6 meters tall, putting him firmly on the shorter side for a man. He wore a martial arts uniform and had a carved wooden mask over his face.
That was clearly not his real name; Yu Xian suspected "Bafang Dao" was likely the name of his weapon.
The blade he wielded was exceedingly peculiar, obviously custom-forged by an artisan. The weapon resembled a silver fish covered in scales. It was a flexible blade capable of shifting directions mid-stroke, which was probably where the name Bafang Dao—Eight-Direction Blade—originated.
Yu Xian played the first video.
The instant the match began, Bafang Dao boldly drew his weapon. At the exact moment the blade cleared its scabbard, his opponent was snagged as if caught by a gravitational pull, helplessly dragged straight toward Bafang Dao before being cleaved cleanly in two.
His fighting style was the exact inverse of Shenshang Chai's.
Shenshang Chai flashed directly in front of his opponent to deliver an instant one-punch kill, whereas Bafang Dao reeled his opponent in and finished them with a single stroke.
Just from watching that first match, Yu Xian could already predict how the rest would go.
Sure enough, the second, third, and fourth videos were identical. Before his opponents could even react, Bafang Dao yanked them into his reach and carved upward from below, ending the fight with crisp, ruthless efficiency.
However, the fifth video took an unexpected turn.
In the fifth video, Bafang Dao's opponent was none other than Zhang Shou.
This time, Zhang Shou was playing the Heaven-Cleaving Blade Master, wielding a blade of his own. The moment the match commenced, Zhang Shou was caught by Bafang Dao's gravitational suction, his body dragged toward the masked fighter.
Yet Zhang Shou was blindingly fast. Even as he was pulled through the air, he brazenly unsheathed his weapon.
He wielded a Nine-Ring Ghost-Head Broadsword. Not only was the blade broad and heavy, but the hilt alone was half a meter long.
An inch longer meant an inch stronger. His weapon had far greater reach than Bafang Dao's, and his combat instincts were razor-sharp. His descending slash forced Bafang Dao to activate his ability, instantly converting the gravitational pull into repulsion. Before Zhang Shou's blade could connect, he was blasted dozens of meters back.
"I see. Messing around with gravity, are we?" Zhang Shou said with a grin, eyeing Bafang Dao.
He took a deep breath, gripped the long hilt of the Nine-Ring Ghost-Head Broadsword with both hands, and roared, "Heavy Mountain—Cleaving Mount Hua!"
It was a completely made-up name shouted on a whim. The Heaven-Cleaving Blade Master class had no need for flashy maneuvers; its blade qi, blade beam, and blade intent converged into one, capable of severing anything in existence.
The vast majority of his skills were passives, entirely dedicated to aiding his advancement along the dao of the blade.
A single slash.
Terrifying, surging blade qi roared down from above, cleaving toward Bafang Dao with ferocity.
Bafang Dao naturally did not dare take the strike head-on. Keeping one hand on his hilt, he extended the other toward Zhang Shou and twisted. Zhang Shou's entire world violently spun.
The blade qi originally hurtling toward Bafang Dao slashed harmlessly into the empty air.
"Petty parlor tricks!"
Zhang Shou bellowed, his body corkscrewing in midair before he drove a thunderous slash downward.
Yu Xian had assumed that since Bafang Dao held second place, he must have defeated Zhang Shou in this bout. Instead, the video concluded with Zhang Shou slicing Bafang Dao clean in half.
Yu Xian was dumbfounded.
If Old Zhang was this strong, why hadn't he made the leaderboard?
Suppressing his curiosity, Yu Xian continued watching Bafang Dao's remaining matches. From that point on, Bafang Dao's luck had been stellar. He never crossed paths with another opponent like Zhang Shou, essentially securing instant kills every round.
After skimming through a dozen more clips, Yu Xian stopped watching.
He had seen enough to gauge Bafang Dao's true capabilities. The man was not exceptionally formidable; his runner-up spot was largely a stroke of immense good fortune. Based on his actual strength, Yu Xian estimated he would place in the top hundred at best once the tournament progressed, and likely wouldn't even crack the top ten.
After all, starting tomorrow, players would no longer be fighting blind. Most one-trick cheese tactics that relied on catching people off guard would lose their effectiveness.
Yu Xian backed out of the thread and immediately searched for Zhang Shou. He was genuinely curious as to why Zhang Shou had failed to make the top hundred. Had he run into some monstrous powerhouse and suffered a shattered Dao heart?
He clicked into Zhang Shou's first video. The footage was straightforward: Zhang Shou drew his weapon, charged, and unleashed a forty-meter beam of blade qi that effortlessly cut his opponent down.
The second and third videos played out identically.
However, his bouts took longer to conclude than Bafang Dao's, which was why his fourth video featured his clash with Bafang Dao. Having already watched it from Bafang Dao's perspective, Yu Xian skipped straight past it.
The fifth, sixth, seventh... all the way through the seventieth video, everything remained completely normal. Zhang Shou racked up a smooth win streak, simply taking a little more time per match.
Yu Xian did some quick math: in the time it took Zhang Shou to finish one bout, Yu Xian could have taken down roughly 1.5 opponents.
Yet as Yu Xian scrolled down, he noticed Zhang Shou's recorded matches totaled only seventy-one. That meant only one unwatched video remained.
*What happened here?*
Curious, Yu Xian opened the seventy-first video. Zhang Shou and his opponent materialized on the arena stage.
This time, Zhang Shou faced a hulking brute standing well over 1.9 meters tall. As soon as the match began, the giant spoke: "The name's Shi Bao. If you've heard of me, you'd better just kill yourself!"
"Shi Bao? Never heard of you. Taste my blade first!"
Frowning, Zhang Shou whipped out his Nine-Ring Ghost-Head Broadsword and swung with furious force.
Yet the expected evasion never came. Shi Bao simply stood rooted to the spot, letting Zhang Shou's strike slam into him. Under the weight of the blow, his body was cleaved clean in two.
The problem was that even after his corpse hit the ground, victory was not declared.
Realizing there was something bizarre about Shi Bao's class, Zhang Shou brought his broadsword across his chest, eyeing the severed corpse with wary vigilance.
Right then, Shi Bao's remains began to divide. Clumps of flesh morphed into the shapes of slimes. Taking in their distinct color, Zhang Shou cried out in horror, "You've got to be kidding me... Dung Slimes?!"
"Much to your regret, my class is Master of Myriad Grain Samsara," Shi Bao's voice resonated from the swarm of slimes. "My first skill is Dung Samsara. Upon my death, every single cell in my body transforms into a Dung Slime, each set to self-destruct after thirty seconds. If they successfully kill the target, they absorb the victim's life force to resurrect me. If they fail, I resurrect after thirty minutes. Normally, I can only use this skill once per day, but in this tournament, I've discovered I can trigger it without restriction. Therefore, I was invincible from the very beginning. You made a grave mistake!"
Zhang Shou's complexion turned utterly wretched as the full reality of what he was about to face dawned on him.
The human body contained roughly thirty to forty trillion cells. If Shi Bao was telling the truth, he was about to endure the synchronized detonation of thirty to forty trillion Dung Slimes.
Even if exploding feces couldn't blast him to death, Zhang Shou could already vividly picture the horror of drowning in a sea of filth.
Chapter 592