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Chapter 64: I’ll Fight All Ten!

When Daifei rose at dawn, Ashura was already in the courtyard practicing his martial techniques.

Blushing slightly, the girl fastened the buttons over her chest, hurried out of bed to wash up, and then went off to make breakfast for Ashura.

For the next 3 days Ashura never left the yard, focusing on his martial techniques and steadying his condition.

Meanwhile Daifei busied herself with the food shop, turning it into a pastry store, hiring a few helpers for the daytime, and running a decent business.

Every evening the two of them read books together, chatted, and teased each other with wandering hands.

In the deep night he still meditated with magic until dawn, and through 3 days of talking with Daifei he felt the girl had keen perception and a natural talent for medicine.

Whatever medical knowledge he had learned from his grandfather Qin Zongren in the past, he wrote down whenever it came to mind.

He also added many of his own insights and slipped the thick stack of notes beneath the girl’s pillow.

On the evening of the 3rd day Ashura straightened his warrior uniform, pulled out a demon-face mask, and put it on; he had asked Daifei to buy it especially for him.

Without alarming Daifei in the front shop, Ashura vaulted over the wall and disappeared around the street corner with a few swift steps.

When Ashura arrived at the registration desk wearing the mask, the scantily clad, formidable woman sized him up with interest.

Clearly recognizing the fledgling from before, she teased, “Oh baby, did you miss big sister? Come in and let me give you some love!”

Ashura glanced at the fullness of the woman’s chest and concluded that it was large yet sagging, nowhere near as firm as the girl’s.

The scantily clad woman seemed to read the meaning in his eyes, bit her lip, and said, “Planning to die tonight?”

Ashura asked calmly, “How many fighters at my level are competing tonight?”

She tossed him a test stone with such force that his hand went numb catching it; women really did hold grudges.

The woman on the other side was equally startled, for she had meant to embarrass this clueless boy.

With her own strength, anyone below Grand Martial Master realm should never have caught it, yet the stone clearly showed Martial Master, stage 3.

What she did not know was that Ashura had halved his power through Caban’s Prison, so the stone was only displaying his current level.

The scantily clad clerk behind the desk gave Ashura a long look, then handed him a list of the stage-3 Martial Masters fighting tonight, complete with brief notes on each opponent.

Ashura skimmed the roster; including himself there were exactly 12 fighters.

The strongest among them was a warrior with 63 credits named Sein, whose weapon was a mountain-cleaving great-axe; the note said he had once fought a stage-1 Grand Martial Master to a draw with both collapsing from exhaustion.

Without thinking further, Ashura pointed at Sein’s name and told the woman, “He’s my opponent tonight.”

She sneered, “Do you really have a death wish? Do you know how strong the man you just picked is? So far he has never left anyone alive.”

Ashura smiled beneath the mask and said, “I just want the biggest credit payout; fighting point by point is too much trouble.”

She only shrugged and smiled; she had seen too many reckless fools, and although she could not quite see through this young man, anyone who wanted to challenge Sein right off clearly did not know the meaning of death.

With a devilish grin she said nothing more, set Ghostbane’s tag beside Sein’s, and told the back office to calculate the odds.

Seeing that she had lost interest, Ghostbane simply shrugged and followed a staff member to a waiting room.

Ashura would be lying if he said he was not nervous, but knowing his true power was stage-1 Grand Martial Master and that he could break all three seals to save himself if necessary put him at ease.

When the arena host called Ghostbane’s name, Ashura took a deep breath, stood up, and followed the attendant into the contestant tunnel.

As he emerged, the arena erupted in jeers and curses, most of them from gamblers who had bet on Sein and now hurled abuse at Ashura.

Ashura disliked the atmosphere, and insults aimed at his family sent anger surging through him.

His family was forever his reverse scale, and all his hard training was only to protect them.

Heavy footsteps now sounded from the opposite tunnel, every thud hammering at the spectators’ hearts.

A bare-chested giant appeared, head lowered, striding from the tunnel.

The bald, red-eyed giant’s muscular body was covered with ghastly scars, and he held a great-axe that looked bigger than Ashura himself, grinning viciously at the black-clad youth.

With a roar the entire underground arena seemed to tremble.

Sein’s entrance whipped the crowd into an even greater frenzy, their wild shouts filling the arena.

Gamblers clutching their betting slips were beside themselves, eager for Sein to twist the kid’s head off at once.

Ashura’s heart also tightened at the sight of the axe; his right hand instinctively moved toward the dagger in his boot, only to freeze when he remembered he had just returned it to Lan Yu.

Ashura felt embarrassed by his own thoughtlessness and focused even harder on the giant before him.

The host was delighted by the charged atmosphere, but the sight of Sein’s opponent left him with no desire to introduce Ashura.

Introducing someone about to die seemed a waste of time; who cared what the doomed kid’s name was? After a grand introduction for the giant Sein, he started the match perfunctorily.

Sein bared his teeth and shouted, “Brat, I hear you chose to challenge me yourself; as a rookie you don’t know how stupid that was, so in your next life be more careful with your choices!”

With that he charged straight at Ashura; despite his bulk, his sprint was incredibly fast.

He raised the huge axe high, intending to cleave the masked youth in two, already anticipating the feel of hot young blood splashing across his face.

Yet the full-force swing smashed only into the solid floor, throwing up a shower of sparks and numbing his arms, with no sign of the boy beneath the blade.

As he looked up to search, a lightning-wreathed fist filled his vision; three muffled thunderclaps rang in his mind and Sein toppled in a dizzy crash.

When the giant fell, Ashura appeared beside him, and everyone’s first reaction was that his speed was terrifying.

Ashura planted one foot on Sein’s chest just as the giant tried to rise, forcing him back down.

Then a storm of fists rained onto Sein’s face; at first the giant still twitched, but soon only blood splattered while his chest no longer moved.

A deathly silence fell over the arena as the thudding blows echoed, more chilling than Sein’s entrance footsteps.

Sein might not have been the strongest Martial Master alive, but he was among the best of the stage, and the rest of his peers were either healing or absent tonight.

Ashura kept pummeling the giant’s head as a form of release, making himself feel a little better.

At last he rose slowly and swept his gaze over the crowd; no one dared meet the eyes hidden beneath that ghastly mask.

The host finally announced, “The winner of this bout is Ghostbane!”

That unfamiliar name was destined to be etched into every spectator’s mind.

What dropped their jaws even further was the masked young warrior who shouted, “Bring out the other 10 stage-3 Martial Masters; tonight I’m taking on all ten!”

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