The Endless Promise

68. Judgement

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Not many things could rattle the entire Yueyan Mountain and its surrounding cities...

But recently, Yueyan had seen several mountain-shaking occurrences!

First came the news of how one of their own had defeated the infamous 'Black Dragon', which made the Yueyan Sect, Sky Realm's most recognized Mortal Sect. This was swiftly followed by the rise in evil spirits, culminating in the gruesome attack right within Tian Yue Temple.

After that followed the eye-eater incident which had spread far and wide, and then there was the birth of a Divine Light Tiger right in the Sect, which had drawn in highly-ranked cultivators from the Wulin and other top sects!

But now...?

Now there were rumours that someone without any hope of cultivation had given Yueyan Sect's strongest and most promising junior disciple a glorious beating!

It was even worse when added to the rumours that the so-called 'strongest and most promising junior disciple' had swallowed three Qi Heightening pills, which should have elevated his qi past reasonableness, nearly putting him on the level of Astral Tier One...

This meant he was practically 'Elder Level' at the time, and yet someone considered 'trash' had thoroughly beaten him!
  
This of course made cultivators everywhere curious about what trick this 'Zhang Luoyin fellow' had used to defeat someone on 'Elder' level...

"Is it even possible?!"

"Surely he used some devious means!"

"How else can Zhang Luoyin of all people defeat Zhang Cheng?!"

No one believed it, yet the rumours flew.

This was because most of the powerful Junior disciples were all singing Zhang Luoyin's praise!

This included Xu Weiyan, Yueyan sect's 'White Swallow', aka 'Erudite Swordsman', aka 'Swift-feet', who clearly insisted at the Arena that Zhang Luoyin had defeated Zhang Cheng fairly and taken his flag.

Unfortunately, during Luoyin's duel with Zhang Cheng, a 'strange' crystal barrier had prevented the Sky Talismans from seeing or recording a clear fight, so though the junior disciples said one thing, most of the higher ranked cultivators simply could not believe such 'impossible nonsense'!

In fact, a few were insisting that Xu Weiyan was merely trying to 'support' her husband Zhang Luoyin with blatant lies!

But it did not solve one mystery.

They could all overlook the fact that Zhang Luoyin had emerged waving Zhang Cheng's flag... surely Xu Weiyan had given it to him! But there was no explaining the mystery of why Zhang Cheng's teammates were either terrified of Luoyin, giving him a wide berth at the arena, or were now singing his praises along with the rest!

So the news flew far and wide...

"Yueyan again?!" Lord Ju, Yunchi Sect Leader, pondered aloud, a sliver of annoyance in his voice.

His annoyance was mostly a mild envy... With the way things were going, Yueyan Sect would soon overtake them as Second Greatest, and it annoyed him to no end because he might have used his own hand to send a part of that 'greatness' to Yueyan!

As a powerful Sect Leader, he had eyes and ears in most sects, so he knew quite a bit of Yueyan's recent happenings.

From the Eye-eater incident, to the birth of the Divine Tiger, to the first stage of the tournament, to the new pills making waves in Yueyan, and now, to this supposed defeat of the strongest Junior disciple...