The Sect Leader System

Chapter 359: Prelude to Ultimate Defeat

Zou Tian’s instincts had changed in the months that he’d lived undercover in the city. Being worried that everyone you passed on the street might suspect you’re actually a cultivator spying on two of the three ruling sects had made him almost paranoid. And that wasn’t a bad thing according to the manuals.

Or at least it hadn’t been. Now that he was in from the cold, he found himself looking at his sect mates with suspicion. That was a habit he needed to break.

Probably, anyway. There could be value in making sure no internal spies sought to betray the sect. He’d have to discuss the matter with Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu.

Other than that bit of weirdness, it felt incredible to be back with his sect mates, and Wan Ai most of all, obviously. The relationship between the two of them picked up where they’d left off. If anything, absence had made them cherish each other all the more.

Only one minor issue arose. At first, she studied his face intently every time she talked about their impending marriage, checking for signs he was as committed as he’d said. She found nothing. As an orphaned street rat, he hadn’t had a family growing up, not until Master plucked him out of that alley. The idea of marriage and being a father appealed to Zou Tian in a way he’d never realized was possible. He wanted to give his wife and kids the life he never had.

His only concern was that she honestly believed Master would let them get away with a quiet ceremony in the mayor’s house. She obviously didn’t know the man nearly as well as Zou Tian did. But he didn’t dissuade her from the notion. Better to let her have her little fantasy. Besides, he was sure it wouldn’t be as bad as she thought it would be.

Probably. Maybe.

Actually… Yeah. Yeah, it would be exactly that bad. Master would surely throw a party to rival the birthday bash, and Wan Ai would hate it. Honestly, though, it would be interesting to see what he’d do. Colorful glowing orbs, a massive cake, and gliders had come out of the last one. Surely, a wedding topped a birthday, right?

Zou Tian hesitated. Something didn’t seem right about the situation, so he rethought things. And it didn’t take long for him to determine what was wrong.

Something amazing that his girlfriend—no, fiancée—hated wasn’t truly amazing. If Wan Ai wanted a quiet wedding in the mayor’s office, that was what she would get. Zou Tian would just have to go to Master and explain the situation. He’d be disappointed, but he cared a lot more about making his sect members happy than he did about what he wanted. It was just that sometimes he could be a little blind to what actually made others happy.

Another interesting change in Zou Tian was that he’d picked up a gut feel for the atmosphere of a place. Things like whether a crowded tavern was likely to have a brawl that night or if a particular street might be frequented by criminal elements had become obvious. He’d partially formed those senses as a street rat, but the techniques, manuals, and experience of living as a spy had sharpened them to acute accuracy.

As he walked into the arena every other day to watch Jin LiJuan fight, he felt attitudes grow more tense with each round. His own sect mates were the least affected, but everyone else, including commoners, demonstrated consistently more strain as the last division of the tournament progressed toward the end.

The evidence that he could point to wasn’t apparent to most observers, but to him, the signs couldn’t be more obvious. It was a tightened jaw here and a whispered conversation there or the way a Jade Chameleon member tightened his hand on the hilt of his sword while looking at a Poison Claw member or the way a Swift Blizzard member purposely bumped into the shoulder of a Rising Tide member.

Ambush or no, war was coming, and Zou Tian paid attention and watched constantly. He would be ready.

As far as the actual tournament went, Jin LiJuan just kept winning. Correction. Jin LiJuan kept standing as far away from her opponent as she could get and letting her shield tank hits while Ganzou and Leizhenzi won.

Her Rising Tide Sect mates loved it, and she became the feast of the compound, everyone’s mascot. The weakest cultivator in the sect inched closer every round to becoming the overall champion of the tournament, and every single person in the contingent enthusiastically cheered her on.

He knew enough about how other sects operated to understand how rare that attitude was. In any other faction, her fellow cultivators, to some extent, would be jealous of her or would seek to use her rise to further their own. His sect mates did none of that. They were just … happy for her.

Less pleased were the non-allied sects. They couldn’t believe that a little child who did nothing but watch was so effortlessly defeating the best and the brightest the true powerhouses of the continent could field. The boos when she took to the arena floor grew more deafening each time she competed.

The day of the sixth round, sentiments in the rival sects brightened. They were absolutely sure that her opponent, a top ranked Jade Chameleon, would finally end her run.

Zou Tian didn’t know if they were correct or not, but he couldn’t wait to watch the match. Wearing his own face and spectating with his sect mates turned out to be even more fun than watching from anywhere else in the arena.

His only concern was that the conflict with the other sects was rapidly approaching and Senior Sister and Senior Brother had been called back to the main sect grounds for an undisclosed reason, probably having to do with whatever caused the obvious change in their personalities.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The matter was clearly important as Master frequently Teleported between the two locations and moved Senior Brother Yuan Yaozu to the compound in the interim.

Zou Tian put that worry out of his mind and grinned as Jin LiJuan walked into the arena. Her opponent for the round was a top talent, evidenced by the fact that he’d reached the peak of Foundation Establishment at a relatively young age and thus wasn’t that much older than her. Maybe three years? But he still stood a foot and a half taller than her, and his muscles had muscles. It looked like the world’s biggest bully picking on the tiniest victim he could find.

Even a win for him would be a loss considering the size and age difference between the two, and if he truly didn’t emerge victorious, his shame would be everlasting.

Zou Tian had to admit that Jin LiJuan and her menagerie would be a tough fight. None of her previous opponents had even gotten a half dozen hits on her shield before the spirit beasts took them down.

If he had to defeat her, he’d use Shadow affinity to backstab her and then break away hopefully before he was caught, repeating the hit and run tactics until he finally penetrated the shield. He’d not tested his stealth against her beasts, however. Animals were renowned for having stronger physical senses than humans, and such traits only grew stronger in spirit beasts.

Zou Tian couldn’t help but wonder if he could beat her.

Honestly, probably not. The realm discrepancy alone would put him at a disadvantage, and he was not meant to be a straight up fighter.

Still, his tactics would likely give her trouble, and he suspected that the upper rounds of the tournament wouldn’t be nearly as easy for her as she’d experienced so far.

The match started, and her opponent immediately disappeared. He didn’t turn invisible or slip into shadow. Nor was he so fast that he just looked like he disappeared. No, he did a short range Teleport, appearing behind Jin LiJuan and immediately stabbing her.

Spatial affinities were incredibly rare. That the Jade Chameleon could already Teleport at such a young age proved that his future was bright. It remained to be seen, however, if his talent would win the day.

If not for Jin LiJuan activating her shield as soon as the match started, she would have been in trouble. Instead, the young man’s attack fizzled, almost certainly costing him more qi for the combined Teleport and attack than it cost her to defend.

Leizhenzi, Ganzou, and even Oogway raced to save her, and he only got two more hits in before he had to Teleport away.

Moving at will anywhere in the arena was a fantastic ability, but Zou Tian was absolutely positive that it couldn’t be very qi efficient for someone only in the Foundation Establishment realm. As the three spirit beasts remained in a triangle around her, though, it looked like the two sides were at an impasse, revealing Jin LiJuan’s team’s major weakness—the lack of a ranged attack.

That was when Leizhenzi let out an earsplitting shriek. A combined lightning bolt and sonic attack raced from his mouth toward their opponent. The Jade Chameleon’s Teleport was fast to activate but not faster than either lightning or sound.

Zou Tian grinned. Never mind that whole weakness thing. Just because the thunderbird hadn’t needed to use a particular technique yet in the tournament didn’t mean he didn’t have access to one.

The attack hit, stunning the guy, and before he could move, Ganzou had hold of his leg.

Apparently, the Jade Chameleon had a weakness of his own—the inability to Teleport when being bitten by a hundred plus pound wolf.

From there, it didn’t take long before he was overwhelmed and had to surrender, leaving Jin LiJuan, who hadn’t moved a muscle from the time the match started to its end, as the victor.

Like Master always said, anything and everything could and would happen when dealing with cultivators, and the intense little girl certainly proved that adage true.

For once, Teng Wuying could actually relate to Mao Biya’s anger. It was one thing for a Rising Tide Sect top talent to win the low division of Foundation Establishment. After all, Yang Xiu would have been feted in any of the big three sects, and Chao Su had access to treasures that would make any cultivator on the continent drool.

There was no shame in Yang Xiu winning.

For a top talent to lose to a literally F ranked little girl, on the other hand, was preposterous. Teng Wuying had thought that his sect’s face couldn’t go any lower, but he’d been wrong. And it looked like the Swift Blizzard Sect and even the Poison Claw Sect would soon experience the same fate.

Frankly, he didn’t know if anyone could beat her and her spirit beasts. One of her earlier round opponents had a point when complaining that the matchup wasn’t fair. The equivalent of four peak Foundation Establishment realm combatants against one of that realm wasn’t something any but a once in a millennium talent could overcome.

The tournament wasn’t set up to accommodate a beast tamer who so flagrantly defied the norms for their type. They were supposed to be limited to a beast of an equal equivalent realm or any number of beasts of a much lower realm. That one could combine the advantages of each was thought to be so impossible that no one had ever even suggested a rule against it.

Teng Wuying was sure that the oversight would be corrected in the future, but that didn’t help the current participants, leaving the big three sects to suffer the ignominy of losing to a mere whelp. She didn’t even actively participate in the matches, instead just standing back and watching her spirit beasts fight!

It was an insult to the face of her opponents and the sects they represented.

“We have to do something about that insufferable brat,” Mao Biya said before she’d even sat down in the booth.

“Do you have something in mind?”

She frowned as she took her seat, obviously expecting him to come up with a plan.

“There’s no way that we can push through a major rule change,” Teng Wuying said. “Kang Ya-Ting won’t vote against his ally, and Qiu ZhenKang will object on procedural grounds.”

“There has to be something we can do!”

But there wasn’t. Teng Wuying had given the matter much thought already and had come up with a blank. The only way to bring the little girl down was by cheating, and the loss of face that would be accompanied with such an act if it were discovered didn’t bear thinking about. He wasn’t even willing to suggest the idea as something not to be done, fearing that Mao Biya would seize on it.

“Think of it this way,” he said. “We let this farce proceed. She wins. They, for a moment, revel in the perception that they’ve beaten us. And at that moment when their eyes are full of their seeming omnipotence, we take it all away.”

“You mean…”

“I do. Literally the second after her match concludes, we trigger the ambush. We turn their moment of victory into the prelude to their ultimate defeat.” He laughed as a thought struck him. “Afterwards, we spin it, tell everyone we let the girl win just for this purpose. It’s perfect.”

Silence stretched for a moment as Mao Biya considered his words. Despite the brilliance of his plan, he expected her to find fault with it.

Instead, she said, “For once, I agree with you completely. Well done.”

Later, it struck him that Mao Biya fully endorsing his idea wasn’t something he’d usually consider a good sign, but he quickly dismissed the thought. All the elements lined up perfectly. The Rising Tide Sect had gone too far, and it was finally time for them to pay the price for their arrogance … and for him finally to gain control of that Trials Pagoda!