She stepped inside his reach, the most dangerous, highly intuitive move in all of martial arts, as she caught his wrist, utilized his own momentum, and pivoted her entire body, using the flat of her spatula to deliver a single tap to the center of his chest.
It wasn’t a blow.
But it was a nudge delivered with the perfectly calculated timing of a Master Chef.
Jianheng’s internal Qi-circuitry was disrupted. His momentum shattered as he stumbled backward, his sword slipping from his numb fingers, and he fell heavily onto his knees.
He didn’t move.
He sat there, staring at the jade floor, the fight completely, irrevocably drained from his body.
He looked up at Ji’an, his eyes wide, lost, and broken.
"You were holding back," Jianheng whispered, his voice barely audible. "The entire time. You didn’t even need your Qi. You were just..."
Ji’an stood over him, the Black Iron Spatula resting calmly at her side. She looked at the Sword Lord, and for the first time, she felt a genuine sense of regret for the arrogance she had displayed.
"You have a good foundation, Young Sword Lord," Ji’an said softly, her voice devoid of her usual young-master toxicity. "Your speed is commendable. Your intent is clear. But your sword is too rigid. You fight as if you are trying to conquer the world. A sword should be like a flame, adaptable, consuming, and as fluid as a stream flowing freely in a river. Stop trying to prove your nobility and start learning how to burn."
She didn’t wait for him to respond. She turned around and walked toward the center of the ring, where the massive, golden loot crate was still sitting, waiting to be claimed.
Behind her, the Sword Lord didn’t get up to attack again. He just sat in the dust, staring at his own hands as his worldview dismantled.
Sect Leader Bai Yunfei stood up in the VIP box, his dark eyes glowing with absolute, radiant pride.
"The Sect has been blind," the Sect Leader murmured, his voice echoing through the hall. "We have possessed a Master-tier prodigy within our own kitchens, and we were too arrogant to look inside the wok."
But as the Sect Leader looked down at his apprentice, his eyes sharpened. He saw the way the other sect leaders were looking at Ji’an.
They weren’t just impressed anymore.
They were greedy.
The look in their eyes was the look of merchants eyeing a rare, irreplaceable diamond. They had seen what she could do. They had seen the effortless, monstrous power she held in reserve.
They were already drafting offers, planning how to bribe her away, how to lure her to their sects, how to claim the Iron Wok Demon for their own.
"Elder Jiu," the Sect Leader whispered, his voice cold and commanding. "Your apprentice has revealed his strength. The predators have noticed. The arena is no longer a tournament; it is a hunting ground."
Jiu Zui gritted his teeth, his grip on his ale gourd tightening. "I know, Sect Leader Bai. I know. You don’t have to worry about my apprentice. I’ll make sure he stays safe. If anyone tries to touch him, they will have to go through me first, and my gourd is significantly heavier than their swords."
Jiu Zui wasn’t truly worried about the elders.
He was worried about her.
Because as Ji’an walked toward the loot crate, unaware that the entire continent’s elite had just turned into her stalkers, she was doing the one thing that made his heart stop.
She was just being herself.
She was wearing a red dress, acting like a villain, and she was entirely, catastrophically oblivious to the fact that the entire world was currently falling in love with the person she was trying so hard to hide.
The Final Ranking Week had officially reached its climax.
And Lin Ji’an, the most chaotic ingredient in the history of the Azure Empire, was finally ready to serve the main course.
The sect elders were pale. Their hands were trembling. They looked at the shattered colosseum, and then they looked at Lin Ji’an, the cook who had spent the last year stealing ginger and harassing junior disciples.
They weren’t just impressed.
They were terrified.
"He is..." Elder Tie of the Forge Peak stammered, his massive beard shaking. "he is stronger than the Sword Lord. Combined with two Sovereign Elders, he would... he would survive."
"He is a monster," Elder Hua whispered, her eyes wide. "Jiu Zui... how long have you known?"
Master Jiu Zui sat in the shadows of the box, casually peeling a plum, unbothered by the fact that his apprentice had just traumatized the greatest sword genius of the generation.
"I didn’t know the extent of it," Jiu Zui grunted, popping a slice of plum into his mouth. "I just knew that if you made her angry enough, he would eventually make the entire mountain cry. He’s a prodigy. And he’s a menace. You’re lucky he prefers stir-fry to world domination."
But the elders from the other sects?
They were not feeling proud, and at the same time, greedy.
Across the VIP box, the Sovereign of the Azure Lotus Pavilion, a woman who usually valued grace and elegance, was currently gripping the armrest of her chair so tightly the wood was splintering. Her eyes were burning with a cold, ruthless ambition.
’He is a rare martial prodigy,’ the Azure Lotus Sovereign thought, her mind racing. ’He possesses an unmeasured, unregistered Dao path. If he can be brought into the Azure Lotus Pavilion... if he can be wedded to our cause... the entire power balance of the northern territories would shift.’
It was a sentiment that rippled through the box. The foreign elders had seen the footage, seen the Senior Apprentice’s protectiveness.
Lin Ji’an was no longer just a junior Martial Uncle.
She was the ultimate, rarest, highly coveted asset in the entire orthodox world.
Sect Leader Bai Yunfei noticed the shift as well.
He noticed the avaricious glint in the foreign Elder’s eyes.
He didn’t scold them or didn’t shut them down.
He simply smiled, a thin, sharp, highly dangerous line.
"The tournament concludes in two hours," Bai Yunfei announced to the room, his voice calm, yet carrying the weight of a decree. "The final brawl begins. I suggest you all prepare your proposals. Because once the champion is crowned, the era of the Celestial Sword Sect will begin in earnest."
He leaned back, his dark eyes locked on the projection screen, watching Ji’an as she stood in the center of the shattered colosseum, surrounded by tokens, her spatula raised, her red robes billowing in the wind like a flag of war.
’He’s mine,’ Bai Yunfei thought, his smile deepening. ’And he has no idea what I have planned for him.’
Down in the Heart of the Realm, entirely unaware of the political feeding frenzy currently brewing in the executive box, Lin Ji’an looked at the tokens scattered at her boots.
She looked at Shen Zechuan, who was standing beside her, still holding her iron wok, his dark eyes full of that familiar, older-brother pride.
"We are winning this," Ji’an whispered, her silver-flecked eyes ignited with a brilliant, unhinged fire. "Let the foreign sects and the monsters come. We have food, plot armor, and we have the terrifying power of the kitchen. Let’s finish this."
***
The shattering of the jade arena floor had left the colosseum looking like a disaster zone from an epic-scale mythological war.
Steam from the vaporized illusions still swirled in the air, mixing with the metallic tang of spirit-blood and the lingering, mouth-watering scent of the Szechuan Red stir-fry Ji’an had been cooking before she decided to reorganize the sect’s hierarchy with a spatula.
Lu Jianheng, the Sword Lord, was still on his knees. He looked less like the peerless genius of the Sword Peak and more like a man who had just watched his entire philosophy of life be pulverized by a piece of iron cookware.
"I..." Jianheng gasped, his voice raspy, staring at the white jade tiles. "I have failed. My intent... my aura... it was shattered."
Ji’an, who had been aggressively wiping serpent ichor off her red silk sleeves, paused.
She looked at the Sword Lord, who was currently trembling with the kind of existential dread usually reserved for people who had just realized they’d left their stove on for a week.