Beneath the lingering glow of the setting sun, Xia Ye narrowed his eyes.

“What is it?” Lin Kezhi jogged a few steps to catch up from behind. “Is the light bothering your eyes? It shouldn’t. The sun’s practically set already.”

“It’s nothing.” Xia Ye shook his head. “Let’s go inside.”

Lin Kezhi was curious. Following Xia Ye’s line of sight, he looked in the same direction and happened to catch sight of the hem of someone’s clothing. It was a sharply tailored black wool suit of exceptional quality. Whoever it belonged to had to be an important figure.

“Are you afraid of being recognised?” Lin Kezhi asked, convinced he had figured it out. “Don’t worry. Anyone who can get into the VIP lounge is someone important in the Alliance. They won’t bother with people like us.”

Having grown up in the Upper Seven Districts, he was intimately familiar with the unspoken rules that governed society there.

Xia Ye neither confirmed nor denied it. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his expression weighed down with concern.

He had come here for the Scarlet Dawn Lotus. He had never expected to run into Chi Zhou here.

The underground fighting arena was a place where all kinds of people gathered—a melting pot of every walk of life, one of the shadiest corners of the Upper Seven Districts.

Given Chi Zhou’s status, he shouldn’t have been here.

Unless something significant was about to happen.

Xia Ye became alert in an instant. Over the past few years, he had devoured every kind of Alliance newspaper there was, and Chi Zhou only ever appeared on the most important occasions.

He reached a conclusion almost immediately.

Chi Zhou was here for the Scarlet Dawn Lotus.

The purpose that had brought Chi Zhou here was the same as his own.

Xia Ye’s blood began to boil once more. The snow leopard within him let out a thunderous roar, eager to burst free from its cage.

He was determined to obtain the Scarlet Dawn Lotus. Not even Chi Zhou could stop him.

Before his father died, he left him with only two instructions. One was, “Take good care of your little sister.” The other was, “Find the Scarlet Dawn Lotus.”

The Scarlet Dawn Lotus embodied his father’s life’s work. Xia Ye could never give it up.

He had no time to hesitate. Just as he was calculating how much of a chance he would have if he really ended up facing Chi Zhou, Blackbeard approached.

Blackbeard was one of the arena’s managers. Black hat, black trench coat, black leather shoes—everything he wore was black from head to toe.

“What are you loitering around for?” Blackbeard snorted at them. “The matches are about to start.”

Xia Ye had entered through the competitors’ passageway. He had expected something like this.

He lowered his head so Blackbeard couldn’t get a clear look at his face. “I’m new. Got lost.”

Blackbeard was drunk out of his mind. He looked Xia Ye up and down but still couldn’t remember who the kid was. Youngsters of this age came and went through the underground arena every day. There was no way he could keep track of them all.

“You don’t even know your way around, and you’re wandering all over the place! What a pain in the ass, you little brat.” Blackbeard cursed under his breath as he pointed toward a corridor. “Guides can’t compete. You’ll stay behind later.”

He pointed at Lin Kezhi. After tossing out that remark, he staggered away.

Watching his retreating figure, Lin Kezhi asked in surprise, “But aren’t you also—”

Before the word “guide” could leave his mouth, Xia Ye silenced him with a warning look.

Lin Kezhi had never seen eyes like that before. They were as cold as a blade, and he obediently shut his mouth.

There were many ways in this world for a guide to disguise themselves as a sentinel.

Xia Ye had merely used the simplest one.

—

Fifteen minutes earlier, after slipping away from Lin Kezhi, Xia Ye had injected a dose of genetic suppressant into his vein.

His complexion was pale enough to seem almost sickly. Beneath the fair skin on the back of his slender hand, bluish veins faintly showed through, making it effortless for him to administer the injection himself.

The high-purity drug quickly took effect. The torrent-like psychic power surging within him was compressed into a gentle stream, transforming instead into senses several times sharper than normal.

He had found the drug on the black market. It was intended to suppress hormonal disorders in sentinels and guides, making it perfect for someone like him, whose psychic power frequently went berserk.

Once the genetic suppressant converted his rampaging psychic power into heightened senses, everyone else perceived Xia Ye as no different from a sentinel.

Lin Kezhi had been with Xia Ye the whole time and hadn’t noticed the change.

As for Blackbeard, he was dead drunk and meeting Xia Ye for the first time. Guided by first impressions, he subconsciously accepted that Xia Ye was a sentinel here to compete.

“I’ll head in by myself later.” Xia Ye pointed toward the competitors’ waiting room ahead. “Go wait for me in the spectator stands.”

Lin Kezhi had assumed they were only here to watch the fights. It had never crossed his mind that Xia Ye was actually here to compete, and he immediately panicked.

“You’re going to fight? Xia Ye, they’re all sentinels!”

A sentinel’s physical abilities far surpassed those of ordinary people. They were genuine war machines.

On the battlefield, everyone took it for granted that guides existed to support sentinels. They enhanced a sentinel’s senses even further, soothed the chaos within a sentinel’s mental world, and trained them into even deadlier weapons.

Very few guides fought alone.

“Don’t worry. I’m used to it.”

Xia Ye rarely explained himself to others, but seeing how anxious Lin Kezhi looked, he added a few more words.

“Back where I came from, if someone bullied you, the only way to make them stop was to beat them until they admitted defeat.”

In other words, he got into fights often.

“You saw it during the entrance assessment,” Xia Ye added. “I’ll be fine.”

Lin Kezhi knew little about life in District Twelve, but remembering Xia Ye’s performance during the entrance assessment, the knot in his chest loosened slightly. Li Feile and Qiu Luo had been the strongest sentinel-guide pair in their class. Every child in the Upper Seven Districts had grown up hearing their names.

Yet when they had faced Xia Ye, they had cowered like two quails, not even daring to step into his Mental Domain.

No matter how formidable the Sentinels in this underground arena were, they couldn’t possibly surpass Li Feile.

Seeing that Lin Kezhi had finally relaxed, Xia Ye said, “There’s betting in the spectator stands. Put all your money on me.”

His gaze was unwavering as he spoke.

“I’ll win.”

—

Xia Ye turned and entered the competitors’ waiting room.

Calling it a ‘waiting room’ was generous. There wasn’t even a sofa inside. The walls were nothing but bare cement, left in their most unadorned state.

Compared to the magnificent ancient Roman-style spectator stands outside, it was like stepping into a completely different world.

The room was filled with shirtless youths. Sweat-soaked bangs clung to their faces, hiding their eyes. Yet whenever they lifted their heads, their gazes proved as sharp as hawks’, filled with despair.

Xia Ye found a seat in the corner and stared absentmindedly through the iron bars at the ongoing match outside.

A battle where technology intertwined with primitive combat was unfolding in the arena.

The mecha, forged from refined steel, stood a full three meters tall in the centre of the arena, like a small building come to life.

Representing the blue side was the arena’s undefeated champion, ‘Shadow Warrior’. Wielding a two-meter-long greatblade, it fought like an ancient gladiator, seizing every opening to charge at its opponent.

Its opponent on the red side looked far more battered.

‘Hermit’ was a newcomer who had only recently made a name for itself in the arena. It hoped to establish its reputation by defeating Shadow Warrior.

Unfortunately, although Hermit’s long spear had an impressive attack range, it couldn’t get close enough to land a meaningful blow.

Xia Ye closed his eyes and felt the vibrations in the air.

The breeze generated by the clash between the two mecha had become exceedingly faint by the time it reached the waiting room, yet Xia Ye could still reconstruct every movement and every exchange between Shadow Warrior and Hermit through those subtle currents.

The genetic suppressant did not strengthen his five senses by weakening his psychic power.

Rather, it calmed his rampaging psychic power and further expanded his Mental Domain.

At that moment, his domain enveloped the entire arena.

Except for the VIP viewing area.

He couldn’t detect even the slightest trace of Chi Zhou there. It was as though that section had been cut away from the rest of the arena, sealed behind a unique barrier.

—

“Where did this pampered young master come from? What’s with the brooding act?”

A hoarse, rough voice interrupted Xia Ye’s thoughts.

Opening his eyes, he found several youths with insolent expressions standing before him.

Qi Longsheng was the leader of the group. With thick sword-like eyebrows and muscles bulging all over his body, he swaggered as he waved a fist at Xia Ye.

They were all toughs who had clawed their way up from Districts Eight and Nine, each one an experienced street fighter. After hearing that the underground arena in District One was a gold mine, they had gathered their friends and come together.

Qi Longsheng had made a habit of bullying newcomers.

Partly for the prize money. Once he beat a newcomer into submission, he could extort protection fees from them.

The other reason was simply personal enjoyment.

Watching arrogant hotshots kneel down and beg for mercy was Qi Longsheng’s greatest source of entertainment.

The moment Xia Ye walked in, Qi Longsheng had set his sights on him.

Fair-skinned, clean-cut, neatly dressed—he looked like some wealthy family’s young master, here to dabble in underground fighting for fun.

Qi Longsheng hated people like that more than anything.

Born with a silver spoon in their mouths, they should have just enjoyed their privileged lives. Why come here and steal food from people like them?

On top of that, after entering, Xia Ye hadn’t greeted anyone. He carried himself with an air of aloof detachment that rubbed people the wrong way.

“Who do you think you’re looking down on?” Qi Longsheng shouted. “If you’ve got guts, get up and fight me.”

Xia Ye lifted his eyelids to glance at him and replied flatly, “Why don’t you just go register and request me as your opponent? Wouldn’t that solve it?”

Qi Longsheng’s anger flared even higher.

‘Registering’ was underground arena slang. It meant going to Blackbeard, claiming you had run into an enemy, and specifically requesting them as your opponent for the next match.

The audience loved grudge matches, and the arena paid double prize money for them.

The reward was tempting, but very few people signed up.

The reason was simple.

By default, a registered grudge match was a fight to the death. The match wouldn’t end until one side was dead or permanently crippled.

People came here to make money fighting—not to throw away their lives.

“You?” Qi Longsheng kicked a pebble. “You’re just some soft-skinned rich brat. I could cripple you with one finger! Ah He, go register him.”

He shot one of his lackeys a look. The subordinate immediately understood and hurried off toward Blackbeard. Watching their little scheme unfold, Xia Ye said coolly, “If you register the wrong opponent, you’ll be thrown out of the arena.”

Cold sweat instantly broke out across Qi Longsheng’s back. He hurriedly waved, trying to call A He back.

How had he figured it out? He had indeed been playing tricks. He had claimed he was registering Xia Ye, but what he had actually told Ah He to do was ask Blackbeard to register Xia Ye against Shadow Warrior.

Shadow Warrior was the strongest sentinel in the entire arena.

He had intended to send Xia Ye to his death.

And Xia Ye had seen right through it.

This man was obviously nothing like the pampered rich kid Qi Longsheng had imagined.

He knew the arena’s rules inside and out, even their dirty tricks. Chances were, he had already fought countless matches in other underground arenas.

Still trying to save face, Qi Longsheng scoffed, “You think so little of me? I’ve been in this arena for ages. You think I’d make a rookie mistake like that?”

Xia Ye stood up with a half-smile that wasn’t quite a smile. “You had better not.”

He couldn’t even be bothered to spare Qi Longsheng another glance as he walked straight toward the waiting area. Ah He came running back in a hurry and whispered into Qi Longsheng’s ear.

“Boss, it’s all taken care of. Next match is a registered death match. He’s facing Shadow Warrior.”

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