Tao Tiankong's crimson pupils shrank fiercely as he looked at the spear that Yin Long was presenting to him. There was no way to sugarcoat it, that was a bare-faced challenge, one made fully knowing that the entire Dominion would be able to see it.

But Tiankong couldn't understand the reasoning behind it, the logic that supported that decision. Yin Long had grown since they last met, but it was nowhere near enough for him to handle Tiankong. He could probably detonate more weapons and stand a slightly better chance this time, but just as his own words implied, he probably wouldn't be able to do more than reach him twice or so before he lost.

And yet, yet he was willing to fight, willing to lose and possibly die in front of the entire Dominion. What was he planning, what was he aiming for? Tiankong couldn't understand it, what would he stand to gain from a losing battle?

"I don't know what you're planning, what schemes you're brewing, but you can't beat me, you know that."

Despite his thoughts and worries, Tiankong still stretched out his hand and grabbed the shaft of the spear, pulling it from Yin Long's hands as he spoke with a stern expression. Yin Long simple smiled in his calm manner when faced with the truth, turning his body and vaulting over the railing, making his way towards the stage at a leisurely pace.

"True, I can't beat you, you're way too strong for that. But beating your opponent isn't the only way to win a battle."

It wasn't his favourite thing to do, a battle was the perfect chance to learn something new after all so he would prefer to concentrate all his effort on learning everything he could. But if he put his focus somewhere else then there would still be things he could do here, much like how he previously managed to escape from Tiankong.

Tiankong remained standing in place with narrowed eyes for a bit as Yin Long stepped onto the stage, observing him from the distance. He was the Young Master of the Hungering Heaven sect, in the future, there would be multiple Province Emperors working beneath him. A youth like Yin Long was not someone who should enter his eyes, an insignificant bug that could just be squashed.

But he just couldn't look at Yin Long like that, he feared that he may die the moment he started to think of him like that. He was a being worthy of respect, an adversary worthy of dread and consideration despite the apparent difference in strength. It was exactly these emotions and thoughts that made Tiankong wary right now, he couldn't understand what Yin Long was planning, and the unknown would always be scary.

"Alright. Then let me see what it is you have planned."

No matter what was said, Tiankong was currently one of the focal points of the entire Dominion, there were so many eyes on him that they couldn't be counted properly. In front of all these gazes, he had to uphold his dignity and pride, the exalted Young Master, the man who got the name Gluttonous Sky, couldn't reject the blatant challenge of someone much weaker than him.

He hopped over the railing and made his way towards the stage, the fourth arena inevitably becoming the focus of every single person who could observe the competition. One was a newcomer who had unknown but scary skills while the other was the Young Master of the Hungering Heaven sect, someone who should stand leagues above his opponent.

It was a battle that should have a painfully obvious outcome, but it still drew everyone's attention. After all, no one could confidently say exactly how things would play out, what sort of abilities would be showcased. Tiankong also knew this, he had personally experienced Yin Long's strange abilities after all. As such, when he stepped onto the stage and locked eyes with Yin Long, he immediately made his plans clear.

"You won't get the chance to detonate your weapons, you won't get the chance to pull out that wretched energy, you won't get the chance to reach me. That will be my show of respect, prepare yourself."

The spear Yin Long had presented him with vanished from Tiankong's grasp as he spoke, replaced by the black spear with its crimson tip. This was Tiankong's personal weapon, the moment he brought it out he showed to the entire world that he had no intentions of going easy on Yin Long.

"Let's settle it, Nameless Warrior, things will return to how they should be once you fade."

Tiankong still didn't know Yin Long's name so he could only use a provisional name for him during their last bit of time together. Tiankong's Domain spread out the moment he finished talking, the law of devouring filling the entire stage as it swallowed Yin Long, transforming the world into one suited solely for devouring.

Yin Long stood amidst the darkened world, even the air taking on a blackish tint thanks to the domain. He could feel it eat away at him, gnawing on his bones and strength as it tried to swallow him whole. Previously, the only way for him to deal with this domain was to detonate his three strongest swords all at once, it had been a great loss for him. This time he would not allow things to go the same way.

He drew in a deep and slow breath, the world around him crumbling bit by bit. The seating area vanished, the private booths vanished, the edges of the stage, everything fell apart and faded from existence. The world crumbled and shrank until only a measly two metres remained of it, until only Yin Long and his blade remained.

But under the force of Tiankong's domain, even that world was forced to crumble further. Two metres turned into one and a half and finally into just a single metre, Yin Long's broken world could not extend past that single metre. But under the pressure of the domain, that tiny world grew sturdier than ever before, even the drops of Qi floating in the air were vibrating thanks to the crumbled world.

A sword needed to be hammered to take shape, an edge had to be ground down to become sharp. A sword was born from violence, for violence. Yin Long was a sword, and Tiankong's domain was the hammer that beat him into shape, the grindstone that sharpened his edge.

The effect of the devouring domain stopped working on Yin Long, the blackened air was unable to move within the range of that broken little world of his. Once he abandoned three swords, three companions, to escape this domain. Now his shattered world could resist it, now he could face Tiankong.

"Yin Long, dubbed Swordsman of Dancing Leaves. Here I come, Gluttonous Sky."

Yin Long finally spoke his name, finally uttered the title that Hongzai had given him. And as he did, he brandished his sword, or at the very least, what was about to be his sword. His hand reached out, his soul surged out. The world around him consisted of devouring, a voracious force that wanted nothing more than to eat all of existence. But his soul was a parasite, it latched onto all of existence and used it to forge a greater blade.

And now, now not even that all-encompassing devouring force could resist the parasite, especially not the parasite that was supported by the broken world. The blackened air that was trapped within the crumbled world was all drawn in by Yin Long's soul, even some of the dark tint hovering around his world was drawn in. A sword formed in Yin Long's grasp, a long and black blade without any impurities, like a black hole eating away at the world.

Devouring was infinitely close to swallowing, but that tiny difference between them produced an entirely different sword. The sword formed by swallowing had faints swirls present within it, but this devouring sword had none of that, it was more akin to a sword of darkness. But even Bai Mu's darkness had only formed a sword that seemed as if it was filled with black smoke, it hadn't been anything close to this.

Tiankong's eyes narrowed sharply when he noticed that his domain stopped working on Yin Long, and his pupils shrank once more when he saw that even his own laws seemed to become a sword in Yin Long's hands. Yin Long couldn't properly see Tiankong, all he could see was the three-dimensional image of Tiankong in his head, the flow of his Qi and the movements of his muscles, the way he used his power, where it was strong and where it was weak.

But it wasn't enough. The image grew fuzzy at times, Tiankong was simply too strong, too far above Yin Long. But that was fine, if the current him wasn't enough then he would just have to pull out more. His robe burst open as two crimson wings grew from his back, yellow veins spreading across the feathers, an eerie glow running through them.

His forehead cracked open vertically, a dim yellow light rising from within the cracks as a sinister aura seeped out from within his body. But that still wasn't enough, this wouldn't let his blade properly reach Tiankong. So he drew out more, pulled out the thing he had been trying to hide for so long. After all, now that he was trying to draw attention and garner fear, what point was there in hiding anything?

Black marks similar to scaled leaves appeared on the right side of his body, spreading up his arm and onto his face, even imprinting themselves into his pupils. Two usages of Netherworld energy dwindled into only a single one, the violent and ferocious energy pouring out from his soulsea and spreading to the rest of his body. And just like that, Yin Long had reached his strongest state, now his sword would be able to reach even the Gluttonous Sky.

"You're mad. Now there'll be nowhere for you to hide."

Tiankong's voice reached Yin Long, his crumbled world almost breaking up the voice and rendering it so slow and drawn out that the words were hard to understand. But he could feel the slight traces of shock in his voice, his action had clearly caught even Tiankong off-guard.

"I don't need to hide, someone told me to go bear the weight of the light."

Yin Long brandished his sword as he spoke, kicking off of the stone stage as he charged forward, taking the initiative in this lopsided fight. Tiankong's brows furrowed at Yin Long's actions, the more he saw the less he understood, the less he understood the warier he became.

There hadn't been much distance between him and Yin Long to begin with so Yin Long would reach him before long. But would Tiankong just allow that? His spear rose from the ground in a sharp manner, the crimson tip cutting through the air and drawing a thin line into it. That thin line was pushed forward, leaving a small gash in the stage as it headed directly for Yin Long, producing an almost grating sound as it cut a path through the air.

Yin Long didn't move to dodge the thin red line, he didn't even move to block it with his blade. But as the line got close to him and touched his crumbled world, a faint ripple ran through the surrounding space. The energy contained within the line sank drastically as the ripple ran over it, it suddenly lost almost half of the energy that fueled it.

This was a technique that Yin Long hadn't used much, it wasn't something that relied on his sword so it wasn't something he drew out in combat often. As far as he could remember, the first and last time he had used it was during one of the matches in the Three-Fold Territory Clash. It relied on the principle of Ravenous Beast, forming a duplicate dimension and moving the attack over into the new dimension before erasing it.

He was still far from being able to erase entire attacks like this, but just using it to drain the energy in them would be enough most of the time. As for this attack, it fell into the category of times where it would be enough. At full power, the red line would have run him clean through and cleaved him in half, it would be an attack that ended his life and activated his final life-saving ability. But now, with so much of its energy erased, the best the red line could do was leave a gash in his body, its path was even diverged somewhat due to the sudden loss of energy.

Of course, saying that it was the best it could do was still an understatement, it still cut all the way to his bones and splashed blood everywhere. But the edges of the gash started to wriggle thanks to the Netherworld energy, stretching towards each other as the wound tried to repair itself. It came with plenty of pain, but thanks to the law of Yin, pain would forever be nothing more than fuel to Yin Long, another block of wood thrown onto the pyre that pushed him skywards.

Tiankong thought that he had a fairly decent grasp of Yin Long's capabilities, even the rapid healing was something he had been ready for. But what he hadn't been ready for was the fact that Yin Long wouldn't even flinch when faced with the pain, nor had he been ready for the strange way he weakened the attack and then suddenly seemed to grow stronger when he was finally hit by the attack.

All in all, this unpreparedness made it so that he failed to move for half a second, only a measly half a second. But that measly amount of time was enough for Yin Long to reach him and bring down the black blade. The devouring law that formed the blade acted as it descended, drawing in the Qi around it, eating away at the domain to strengthen the blow.

The sword descended like a black blur, but it wasn't so fast that Tiankong was still caught off-guard as it came. He loosened his grip on his weapon so that it slid backwards until he was almost grasping the spearhead, pulling his arm back and smashing it downwards so that he could bash the descending sword down into the stage by relying on his superior strength.

But the sword suddenly changed from a descending slash into a sideways sweep just as Tiankong's spear was about to bash it. Like a lifeless arm falling down until it collided with the side of a bed, the sudden change felt as natural as could be, just another part of the technique. Yin Long held nothing back and launched Esi straight away, the sword of starvation aiming to carve open Tiankong's stomach.

But Tiankong wasn't your everyday prey, he was caught off-guard by the sudden yet natural switch but still managed to react. His body retreated as he took a quick step backwards, his grip on his spear loosening again as he halted his downward bask and changed it into a forward stab, the loose grip meaning that his spear slid forwards towards Yin Long's shoulder.

Yin Long's two wings shot forward to block the spear, but the crimson tip pierced cleanly through them even without Tiankong putting too much force into the attack. The spear ran cleanly through his shoulder afterwards, piercing through his bones like they were water. Yin Long could feel the law of devouring pouring out from the spear, but he simply grit his teeth and used the pain to push himself to greater heights, his Qi bursting out from the sword.

The law of swords extended from the tip of the blade and reached the retreating Tiankong, leaving a small cut on his abdomen. And that small cut was all Yin Long needed for Esi to show its full effect. Tiankong suddenly stumbled back a few steps, his spear leaving Yin Long's shoulder as a result. He almost looked disoriented as he staggered, one of his legs giving out so that he dropped to his knee, his free arm clutching his stomach. He didn't understand what had just happened, the hollow pain that suddenly assaulted him. But he could understand Yin Long's words as they reached him, grated his ears.

"What's the matter, Tiankong? You're the Young Master of the Hungering Heaven never experienced Starvation before?"