Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal?

Chapter 918: What is the Price?

..."You're the Jade-Faced Ghost Hand? You don't look like much."

The red-haired woman was still provoking Tang Er.

Looking at Tang Er's icy yet calm aura, she couldn't understand how a Battle Master like him had risen through the ranks so quickly.

But it didn't matter.

Today, the Jade-Faced Ghost Hand's winning streak would end in the hands of her, the Crimson Queen.

Tang Er looked at his opponent with an expressionless face.

A piece of trash barely past level eighty, he could crush her with a flick of his hand. But for the sake of future matches, he'd better conceal his true strength.

The moment this thought arose.

A gaze also fell upon him.

The instant he felt that gaze, Tang Er's entire body stiffened.

That gaze was very familiar, piercing straight into the soul.

It made him involuntarily think of the day his father's head was severed by a single sword stroke.

It was the same kind of gaze then, lightly falling upon him, a mix of disdain and a trace of probing.

It's him...

That mutated Battle Soul.

That white-clothed swordsman.

Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of his robe.

Tang Er did not turn around.

Fury and humiliation grew wildly in his heart.

Behind him.

The blood-colored afterimages formed by countless Mother's Love Grass vines writhed madly due to this moment of shock.

"Die!"

A suppressed roar squeezed from his throat. The three World Rings beneath his feet suddenly blazed with piercing light.

A terrifying Battle Power pressure directly suppressed his opponent.

At the same time, the winding Mother's Love Grass also bound the woman tightly.

And just as the woman struggled to free herself from the vine cocoon.

Tang Er's figure had already flashed, appearing instantly behind the crimson-haired woman.

His five fingers were like hooks. The fourth World Ring beneath his foot flickered.

Amidst the shriek of tearing air.

Blood mist sprayed onto the edge of the silver-white mask, sliding down a dark red trail.

The Mother's Love Grass receded.

The crimson-haired woman's pupils dilated, her body slamming heavily onto the blue stone bricks.

Until death, she couldn't have imagined.

Facing Tang Er's wrath, she was so weak she didn't even have time to manifest her World Rings.

"Seventy-ninth consecutive win! Seventy-ninth consecutive win!"

"The Jade-Faced Ghost Hand has once again proven his strength!"

"Let us congratulate, the Jade-Faced Ghost Hand—his rank has climbed to twenty-first place!"

The host's frenzied shouts, accompanied by the overwhelming cheers from the spectator stands, almost lifted the colosseum's roof.

Tang Er slowly straightened up amidst the falling ribbons.

His gaze pierced through the mask.

Staring fixedly at a corner near the contestant tunnel entrance.

There, the hem of a plain skirt flitted past.

...

"Next match, 'One-Finger Killer Star' versus 'Berserker'!"

Inside the contestant tunnel.

Tang Er walked down the steps as Li Qingran ascended them.

The two passed each other in the dim corridor.

Tang Er's steps were heavy, each one carrying the lingering scent of blood.

Li Qingran's steps were light and composed, as if she wasn't heading to the center of the arena, but going somewhere for a spring outing.

The moment they passed each other.

Tang Er's footsteps abruptly halted.

He tilted his head slightly. The voice beneath the mask was like sandpaper grinding, low and hoarse: "One-Finger Killer Star, is it? Wash your neck clean and wait. I will personally kill you.

Just wait...

That day won't be far!"

"Huh?" Li Qingran stopped and turned her head somewhat blankly, only seeing a figure draped in a black cloak, a gloomy silhouette melting into the shadows.

"Master, who was that? His tone was so fierce."

Li Qingran muttered in her heart.

The meaning behind his words made it seem like he knew her.

"It's fine, just an irrelevant person."

Chen Huaian said indifferently. He already knew Tang Er's identity but didn't plan to say more.

Anyway, they were all wearing masks.

Might as well let him die silently before Li Qingran.

All causality would then be severed.

There was just one thing he didn't understand.

Logically, since they ran into Tang Er today, the host should have arranged for them to fight him. Why did they just let Tang Er leave? Today was only the Jade-Faced Ghost Hand's first match, right?

And they arranged another opponent for Li Qingran.

Was it because the Jade-Faced Ghost Hand's rank was higher, granting him privileges?

Seeing Li Qingran step onto the stage, he put away his thoughts.

"Go. Don't let your Sword Intent become disordered."

Across the arena, the Battle Master named "Berserker" stood like a mountain of flesh.

The pressure of level ninety made the surrounding air feel thick and viscous.

He held two giant axes covered in minced meat, grinning viciously at Li Qingran: "A tender-skinned little girl, One-Finger Killer Star? I think you're more like 'One-Finger Suicide'..."

However, his laughter abruptly ceased.

Li Qingran lightly tapped her toes. A pitch-black, ink-like circular ripple, exuding an ancient, desolate aura, slowly spread out from beneath her feet.

That was the first World Ring.

Her opponent was a Peak Battle Master.

He was already qualified to make Li Qingran manifest a World Ring.

But this first World Ring was pure black.

Without a single impurity, as if it could devour all light.

The entire colosseum's previous clamor was muted in that second.

Countless spectators leapt to their feet, staring fixedly at that black World Ring.

"Ten... ten thousand years? The first World Ring is ten thousand years?!"

What it meant for the first World Ring to be ten thousand years, many didn't know.

But this Peak Battle Master knew very well.

Moreover, he could already feel the surging, rising aura emanating from Li Qingran.

*Clang—!*

The giant axes fell to the ground. His knees went weak, and he actually knelt directly, his previous arrogance transforming into a face full of terror. "Spare me! Your Lordship, spare me! I surren..."

As he spoke, his right hand secretly reached for the poison needles at his waist.

His movement was tiny.

He thought Li Qingran wouldn't notice.

Little did he know, his every move was within the perception of Sword Intent.

"Next time you beg for mercy..." Li Qingran's voice was as cold as ice: "Remember to hide the killing intent in your eyes!"

As her words fell, she formed her right hand into a sword finger and extended it forward, plain and simple.

"There will be a time when the long wind breaks the waves, I will hoist my cloud-like sail and cross the vast sea!"

With this low chant, a stroke of ink-wash colored Sword Qi materialized out of thin air in the void.

The Sword Qi was like a pale dragon emerging from water, rolling and roaring, stirring up a clear, crisp sword hum.

The ink stains diffused in the air, transforming into towering waves, instantly piercing through that mountain of flesh.

The Berserker didn't even have time to scream before dissipating along with the ink-colored afterimage.

After a brief silence—

"One-Finger Killer Star wins!"

"Twenty-eighth place!" The host's trembling voice echoed throughout the arena. "Congratulations to our One-Finger Young Lady for becoming the colosseum's twenty-eighth ranked fighter!"

The entire arena erupted in cheers and thunderous applause.

Frenzied howls lingered without end.

In the darkness of the stands.

Tang Er's fingers dug deep into a stone pillar, fingernails cracking, blood dripping.

...

Several days later, back alley behind the colosseum.

"Not enough points, you cannot avoid the fight."

The staff member's words were cold and clipped, devoid of any warmth, not fluctuating in the slightest even though the person before him was the colosseum's terrifying Jade-Faced Ghost Hand.

"Give me your points."

Tang Er glanced at the ranking board, then reached out and grabbed the staff member's neck, his hand gradually tightening.

Tenth place was right next to ninth place—"One-Finger Killer Star".

Somehow, Li Qingran's rank was already above his.

If he wanted to avoid the fight, he needed to pay 90 points.

He simply didn't have that many.

"Killing me is useless." The Battle Master looked calmly at Tang Er. Death was so lightly described to him, as if his own life was trash to be casually discarded. "This is the colosseum's rule. Kill me, and you still won't have enough points."

Tang Er stared fixedly at this Battle Master, finally slumping and releasing his hand.

Just as he was agonizing over what to do today.

A cold, slimy voice suddenly sounded.

"Hehe... Need a loan?"

From the shadows, a man wrapped in a decaying cloak quietly materialized.

Wherever he passed, the moss in the corners of the walls rapidly withered and died, a heavy odor of decay spreading.

In that instant, Tang Er felt as if he had been dragged into another space.

Everything around him was still.

Tang Er stared at the figure beneath the hood. After a long while, a flicker of resignation flashed in his eyes. He sneered, clenching the silver-white mask in his hand until his knuckles turned white. "Speak. What's the price?"

The man didn't speak, only extended a hand like a withered claw and took the mask.

He suddenly took a deep breath, his eyes bursting with a bloody red light.

A viscous killing intent poured from his fingertips into the mask.

The silver-white metal surface hissed. Blood-red color rapidly seeped into every groove.

In the blink of an eye, the mask became a twisted, dripping, weeping face.

"This is the price." The man grinned ferociously, handing it back.

Tang Er looked at that blood-red mask, which seemed to be screaming silently, and remained silent for a long time.

Finally, he slowly raised his hand.

And pressed that mask, saturated with violence, that ghostly face, back onto his own face.

...