SWNOVELS Chapter 20 The Astonishing Reversal
"Check it out, Grace. I think we know who the winner is,” Connie claimed arrogantly, staring down at the field. Needless to say, the winner she referred to was her disciple, Wade. She then continued teasing, "I thought yours would at least have half a brain. Seems I was wrong. He's such a newbie.” Wade had enormous power, being at the seventh grade of Skin Refinement. Not only that, but there was his blade, imbued with the power of the winds. His command of all these energies was so powerful that not even a warrior at the ninth grade of Skin Refinement would dare to fight him. Such a challenger would be risking his life. Wade's energies were powerful enough to destroy anything—or anyone.
But Ricky dashed right into that bladestorm. Everyone thought he was suicidal.
"Shut your mouth and watch,” Grace responded calmly. She would never show any worry or weakness around Connie.
In reality, she was worried, heart threatening to leap right out of her chest. She wondered what on earth Ricky thought he was doing. He was usually cool and calculating, but now he just seemed reckless. Did he want to die? How could he survive this attach? Grace was at the end of her wits. "Humph!" Connie replied with a disdainful look and then turned her arrogant eyes to the battlefield, expecting this to be over any minute now. She decided not to gloat before it was over. After that, though, victory would taste sweet, and she would definitely lord it over Grace.
That would be vengeance for her son.
She wanted to see Ricky defeated for that.
"What the hell are you doing?" Wade asked in surprise. Most other warriors would close cautiously, hoping he would expend most of his power before they went toe to toe, or even jump aside. However, Ricky just rushed toward him with nothing but merely a sword in his hand.
"Swatting a fly," Ricky replied, turning his cold eyes to Wade.
Meanwhile, an evil smile found its way to his face.
There was a glint in Ricky's gaze. Wade noticed it, and it bugged him. However, that feeling fled quickly because Wade was super confident in himself. He did not believe that Ricky would be able to resist his ferocious attack.
Wade thought it a good idea to pump more and more spiritual energies into his blade just in case. He knew he had to defeat Ricky, and wanted to be prepared. He didn't know what his foe was doing, but he had to do his part of attacking. The air around them crackled with the awesome energies.
"Go to hell!" Wade roared with a mask of rage.
"Nine-degree Body Refining Formula - the First Degree!"
At the same time, Ricky focused his energies into a spiritual roar which boomed around the battle ring.
Visibly, the spiritual energies shot out from every pore of Ricky's body. Then they moved quickly and started to circle him. Finally, they were absorbed back into his body. He was bursting with spiritual power.
In an instant, both Ricky's black hair and his fair skin turned to red.
Light red, though.
Something happened to Ricky. His flesh became as hard as iron.
Thump! Thump!
In the meantime, Wade's blade slashed towards Ricky's shoulders, intending to end the fight by dismembering him. However, the young man remained tactic, except that his clothes were slashed away, revealing four slight marks. The sword then fell to the ground. It was now dead, lifeless.
"No, no! How could this happen? That's impossible! No!!" screamed Wade. The man was astounded. Seeing what just happened, the warrior panicked.
Wade was strong, his technique perfect. He was certain that even a warrior at the ninth grade of Skin Refinement would have been taken down. How did Ricky manage that?
"Anything's possible. You saw it yourself. Time to end this,” Ricky pronounced with a cold voice, staring at Wade with emotionless eyes.
Then he raised his sword. Countless fire elementals surrounded the blade. In a blink of an eye, he waved his sword and three flames danced through the air.
It was Nonuple Flame Strike - the Third Strike!
Wade was ill prepared. He was still in shock from what happened. He was lost in thought, and didn't notice Ricky's attacks until the three jets of flame reached him. But by then, it was too late. He was struck full in the chest. He had violated the cardinal rule of fighting and allowed himself to be distracted.
The warrior screeched, carried along the field from the force of the blow, causing a loud bang. Then he was buried with the dust and blast from the crash.
There was only silence from the crowd. Everyone was taken aback and their jaws dropped.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Like Wade, no one thought it possible.
They were sure that Ricky would be slain by Wade. Instead, he stood victorious.
"Wh... What is that? I've never seen a cultivation method like that. How could it make his body turn red like that? Weird! And his body—tough as iron? He even survived Wade's blade!" People began to whisper to each other about Ricky's cultivation method.
"That's incredible!" one of the inner disciples asserted.
"Yeah, no kidding! Fantastic body refining technique!" other inner disciples also chimed in with him. They exchanged looks with each other with greedy eyes. They wanted to know how to do this too. Even for those core disciples, there was unrestrained greed in their covetous eyes. All of them were eager to learn Ricky's cultivation method.
This method helped Ricky resist a fierce attack from a warrior at the seventh grade of Skin Refinement by only using his body. That was just unfathomable and fair enough to prove it to be an extremely marvelous cultivation method of body refining.
"The stage of this cultivation method is definitely no lower than the intermediate stage of Black Level," the Elder murmured to himself with intense suspicion. He blinked, incredible shock springing up in his ancient eyes. That was the first time he had felt like this.
As an Elder, with his rich experience, he was better able to recognize the extraordinary nature of that cultivation method.
"Oh, God! How is that... possible?!" Grace, on the other hand, gasped in shock. She managed to remain as calm as she had been, but in her head there was chaos.
She merely intended to test it out when she gave the Nine-degree Body Refining Formula to Ricky earlier, and had never expected that Ricky might succeed in the cultivation. She knew well the tremendous difficulty on the road to success.
In the past millennium, no warrior had ever succeeded in cultivating this formula. She had never expected Ricky, a warrior at the sixth grade of Skin Refinement would make it.
But the fact was that he did it, within just twenty days.
Rumor had it, the warrior who created Nine-degree Body Refining Formula spent a whole year merely reaching the first grade.
"Is this how he has planned to surprise me? By mastering that secret Formula?" Grace swooned in her heart.
"No way! That's impossible! He must be cheating!" Connie was taken aback and was struck dumb before she screamed hysterically. Then she got to her feet, intending to rush to the battlefield.
She did this not because she cared about Wade, one of her nominal disciples. She just wanted to go there to check, to see if everything was on the up and up. There was no way she would accept the fact that her side was defeated.
"Stop it, Connie! What? Are you trying to challenge the rules of our Snow Sect?" the Elder said, humming in a tune of paralyzing cold to stop Connie from walking ahead.
He was an Elder, but he was not blind or senile. He clearly knew the importance to maintain the authority of the Snow Sect. Leaving Connie to behave badly would stain the reputation of the Snow Sect.
On the battlefield, gradually the dust blew away, and Wade's prone form came into view. He was more dead than alive, thanks to Ricky.
Ricky, on the other end of the field, walked to him at a slow pace, sword in hand. There were still fire elementals surrounding the blade. He raised the sword high, ready to slash at Wade's neck to end this fight.
"No, Ricky! Wade is Master Nick's nephew! He dies, your father dies!" Scott, another man from the Nan Clan, threatened Ricky before it was too late.
The crowd started to whisper again upon hearing his words. They figured out the Nan Clan had Ricky's father held hostage. The Elder chose not to get between Ricky and Scott. He just stood aside, watching Ricky with interested eyes. He was curious about how Ricky would deal with Scott's threat. As everyone expected, Ricky stopped mid-swing at Scott's threat.
Scott smiled coldly as Ricky paused. He stared at Ricky with a sneer as if he were saying, "You won. But so what? We have your father, and you'll never be rid of us. You will be always under the Nan Clan’s thumb!"
When Scott was rejoicing at Ricky's hesitation, Ricky merely turned around and made a face at him. Then he turned to face Wade and beheaded him without the slightest hesitation.
'No, no, no! That's not how things are supposed to be!" Scott howled in his heart in great shock.
All the disciples were shocked. Their jaws dropped again. The men from the Nan Clan, including Scott, were totally stunned.
"Oh my God! His father will die! What a heartless man he is!" Many disciples sighed in their minds about Ricky's bold behavior. They despised him because they thought him to be someone who abandoned his family for fame and success. And more, they feared him.
A man who showed no consideration for his father was definitely a nut. None of them would piss him off now.