Chapter 343: The Rules: Brutal and Direct

Lu Chao’s words rang out clearly across the entire venue, and everyone’s jaw dropped.

They finally understood what Lu Chao had meant when he said, "using the Face-removing Sand will be terrifying." It wasn’t that his true face was terrifying.

Nor was it that some terrifying event would occur after exposing Fan Changcun.

But rather...

Once the Face-removing Sand was applied, it would prove that Lu Chao was truly Lu Chao, that he wasn’t a fake at all.

"Impossible! I don’t believe it! There must be something wrong with the quality of the Face-removing Sand," Lu Dingtian cried frantically. The image of Lu Chao’s gruesome death flashed through his mind once more.

In response, Lu Chao gave another faint smile. "The quality? Is there a problem with it?"

As he spoke, Lu Chao suddenly inhaled sharply.

He drew the golden Face-removing Sand from the ground up into his palm. In the blink of an eye, a cluster of the sand was spinning like a tiny whirlwind in his hand.

He slowly tossed it to Sun Shijin, who stood behind him. Lu Chao smiled. "Elder Sun, take this and study it. See if there’s a problem with the quality. Besides, this Face-removing Sand might have other ingenious uses. We should collect it; it might come in handy later."

Sun Shijin took it in a daze, unsure of Lu Chao’s true intentions.

Just then, Yin Ye’s voice drifted down from the high platform...

"Lu Chao couldn’t have known at the start whether there was a problem with its quality, yet he still faced your Face-removing Sand without hesitation."

"Lu Dingtian..."

"You should be arguing that Lu Chao’s Face-Changing Pill is of such high quality that it can withstand the Face-removing Sand."

Hearing this, it dawned on the crowd.

That’s right. If Lu Chao were really an impostor using a Face-Changing Pill, he would never have dared to let the Face-removing Sand touch him.

Therefore, there were only two possibilities...

Either he hadn’t used a Face-Changing Pill to alter his appearance, or he was the real Lu Chao.

The latter possibility was now almost a certainty.

At this moment, all prior suspicion toward Lu Chao and Fan Changcun vanished into thin air.

Just as Lu Chao had said, the moment the Face-removing Sand failed to work, Lu Dingtian’s entire analysis collapsed. There was no grand scheme from Fan Changcun, no hidden ambition—nothing at all.

Then, Lu Chao took a step forward. "Lu Dingtian, why do you refuse to believe that I’m still alive?"

Lu Dingtian subconsciously took a step back.

"You should tell everyone how you killed me."

"Tell them how you used the Marshal’s Tiger Talisman to lure me into accepting it, claiming you would hand over all the Great Wu Soldiers and Horses. Tell them how your five fingers pierced my skull, how you broke every bone in my body, how you dug out my three Heavenly Destiny Saint Bones..."

Lu Chao’s voice grew increasingly incisive, laced with a ferocious killing intent.

"Tell them how you always made me wear a mask, just so the people of the Great Wu Empire would never recognize my face."

"So they would never come to accept me, step by step."

"Tell them you adopted me only to nurture my bones so you could become a Saint Bone wielder. If you tell them the whole truth, then everyone here would have to believe it’s impossible for me to have come back from the dead, wouldn’t they?"

A furious torrent of words carrying Lu Chao’s voice swept across the venue, sending a bone-deep chill through countless people.

It made Lu Dingtian and his children, Lu Hanyang and Lu Hanyan, subconsciously retreat another step.

The next moment, a powerful surge of True Qi erupted from Lu Dingtian’s body as he roared furiously, "Impostor, shut your mouth!"

As Lu Dingtian’s power flared, Dongfang Ren’s pupils contracted violently. "The Eighth Layer of the Peak Realm."

Zheng Liling and the others stared at Lu Dingtian in disbelief. Such a level of power was terrifying.

Nan Zhuiming, however, showed no reaction. He had long known that Lu Dingtian had also been chosen by the Cyan Sword Great Empire.

But Lu Chao’s expression remained unchanged...

He didn’t care what realm Lu Dingtian had reached.

He spoke again, his voice cold. "Lu Dingtian, I once respected you as a father. Even if you had told me to my face that you wanted my Heavenly Destiny Violent Saint Bone, I would have dug it out myself and given it to you. All I ever wanted was a little genuine affection."

Lu Chao’s eyes gradually turned red.

"I was a little beggar wandering outside the Great Wu Imperial City. You were the one who brought me to the Grand Marshal’s Mansion. All I wanted was a home."

"But in your hearts, I was nothing but a worthless bone from beginning to end. From the moment you brought me into the Grand Marshal’s Mansion, you were all just acting. You all treated me as a tool, as a fatted sheep to be raised for slaughter."

"All those times you called me ’Chao’er,’ all those times they called me ’Big Brother’... Ha! It’s nauseating."

At this moment, there were tears in Lu Chao’s eyes...

His time in the Grand Marshal’s Mansion had been the happiest of his life, but it had all been a phantom, a fragile illusion.

They all put on a facade, while secretly wondering when they could finally slaughter the fatted sheep. That was what Lu Chao hated most, what broke his heart.

The people he considered his dearest family were all fake.

He had given them his unwavering devotion, and in return, he received calls of "worthless bone." He received a merciless butcher’s blade, an ice-cold betrayal. His bones were torn out, his sinews ripped, his flesh trampled. They even erected a Blood Stele so that countless people would spit on his memory.

It was one face after another, each one the very picture of hypocrisy.

"Shut up! If Father hadn’t brought you into the Grand Marshal’s Mansion, you would’ve starved to death on the streets long ago!" Lu Hanyan roared.

Cheng Yunsu took a step forward and shot back fiercely, "Someone with three Heavenly Destiny Saint Bones would starve on the streets?"

Even without Lu Dingtian, Lu Chao would have risen to prominence in the Great Wu Empire all the same. Nothing could have stopped that.

Lu Hanyan glared back at Cheng Yunsu. "This is none of your..."

Before she could finish, Lu Dingtian cut her off sharply.

"Hanyan, don’t waste your breath on this impostor. He is a fake, and I will expose him! Everyone, listen to me! The Azure Flame Sect’s Forbidden Land is incredibly mysterious. Everything I said is true! He just didn’t use a Face-Changing Pill, that’s all."

Evidently, Lu Dingtian had calmed down slightly. He still insisted that Lu Chao was an impostor.

He stuck to his analysis of Fan Changcun’s great ambition, addressing the crowd with conviction, but his words no longer had their previous effect. Now, everyone’s face was etched with deep suspicion.

The faction from the Hundred Countries, at least, was now convinced that there was no so-called scheme involving Fan Changcun and Lu Chao.

Yin Ye, at least, would no longer be swayed in the slightest.

Lu Chao said no more. He fixed his gaze on Lu Dingtian. ’I thought I could face you calmly when we met again,’ he thought, ’but in the end, I couldn’t stop myself from voicing the pain in my heart.’

He couldn’t suppress the overwhelming wave of emotion.

At that moment, Lu Dingtian turned to the crowd and began to restate his analysis of Fan Changcun...

Then he boomed, "The Three-Academy Hegemony Tournament is about to begin! Once we kill this Fake Lu Chao, he will be forced to reveal his true form!"

As Lu Dingtian’s final words fell, a tremor ran through everyone present.

That’s right. They had been so caught up in the drama of the real versus fake Lu Chao that they had almost forgotten: the main event was about to begin.

"I will now announce the rules for the Three-Academy Hegemony Tournament! It will be a direct battle in the arena. Each academy will send forth one hundred and eight students."

"All participants will enter the arena and fight until only one academy remains."

"For the first quarter of an hour, no one is allowed to surrender or leave the arena. Even if you fall off, you will be thrown back on. In other words, for that first quarter of an hour, you must remain in the arena, even if it means dying there."

Lu Dingtian had announced the rules for the tournament. They were as straightforward as they were brutal.