Shi Cang was strong enough, and as a swordsman, he was the only one present who could see through Bai Ya.
He already understood that Bai Ya was no longer a frail young girl; she had already become a promising seedling on the path of the sword!
The Gold-rank Ogre had failed to shred the weak Bai Ya to pieces immediately, suffering counterattacks as she dodged, and this was because Bai Ya had learned a sword skill.
Sword skills were combat arts exclusive to swordsmen; their power depended on weapon and battle aura.
With divine weapons, those at the war-level and above could split mountains and fill seas.
Bai Ya’s weapons came from the assortment scattered across the arena—regardless of type or weight, as long as they were sent flying by the ogre’s terrifying strength, she would grab and attack with them.
That’s why some cultivators present couldn’t tell if Bai Ya had used a combat art in the process, or, if she did, what kind it was—a truly troublesome problem.
She had used every weapon—blade, spear, axe, staff, and more.
Could it be a universal combat art?
But there had never been such an example!
It was only after Shi Cang caught a trace of swordsmanship in Bai Ya’s movements, and combined it with his own understanding, that he arrived at the final answer.
At this very moment, Bai Ya was indeed using a combat art—a sword skill!
Strangely enough, up to now, Bai Ya hadn’t even used a sword; among the weapons sent flying by the ogre, a sword was the only one missing.
If others knew Shi Cang’s judgment, they would surely laugh at him, call him ignorant.
But the truly ignorant are often the most self-satisfied.
Everyone present was captivated by Bai Ya’s attacks.
This frail slave girl’s heroic posture—grabbing weapons flying through the air and launching counterattacks—compelled them to cheer.
The surviving gladiators hiding in the tunnel had long since erupted in excited shouts, cheering on their hope.
People are always enamored with brilliant displays, yet overlook the ordinary details.
The nobles analyzed in the wrong direction; flustered, they cared only about how Bai Ya wounded the ogre, assuming she’d used some combat art in the process.
Their focus was entirely mistaken!
Shi Cang noticed the details.
Other than him, no one had paid attention to the fact that Bai Ya had yet to be struck by any of the ogre’s attacks.
Every time, she naturally dodged the fangs, as if the ogre had deliberately missed, unwilling to hurt her.
Such a possibility was out of the question!
Bai Ya had never used a combat art to attack; her combat art required no weapon to trigger.
Those who analyzed her attacks were doomed to learn nothing!
Bai Ya’s movement art, dodging every blow, was her only used combat art—a sword skill!
A swordsmanship talent! Blade of Insight!
“Could it be her ancestor was a Sword Saint?”
Shi Cang remembered the details of every prisoner on the transport ship, dead or alive.
To do his job well, he considered this an essential skill.
He also had Bai Ya’s information memorized.
She had never shown any record of cultivation; she possessed noble lineage and had lived a carefree life.
By all logic, she should have grown up a pampered, delicate young lady.
Her parents surely never imagined she would ever fight so valiantly.
When Bai Ya boarded the transport ship, she had been evaluated—battle aura: none; magic power: pseudo-Bronze rank.
She spent less than five days on the ship.
To claim she had cultivated a swordsmanship talent in those five days, Shi Cang couldn’t believe it at all.
So he could only think along the lines of a bloodline-inherited combat art, surmising that the Krolorum family must have once produced a Sword Saint.
Only a Sword Saint-level expert could pass on a bloodline inheritance, completely abandoning all understanding of a single combat art, merging it into the descendant’s blood.
Bloodline inheritance was not uncommon among great clans.
The powerful hoped that, should their families decline, descendants could awaken the inherited combat art and resolve the family’s crisis.
Although cases of bloodline inheritance awakening were rare, and usually only happened with naturally gifted battle geniuses, the appeal of bloodline inheritance among the strong never faded.
If the Krolorum lineage once had a Sword Saint, then Bai Ya’s current swordsmanship talent would be easily explained.
The Krolorum Sword Saint ancestor had passed the Blade of Insight sword talent to the bloodline, and after hundreds or even thousands of years, this power, buried and forgotten, was awakened by a descendant—Bai Ya Iphiel Krolorum!!
Was she a once-in-a-generation genius?!
Shi Cang’s interest in Bai Ya grew ever deeper, to the point of entertaining the absurd thought of taking her as his disciple.
“A swordsmanship talent… Perhaps she really can win…” Shi Cang whispered, so quietly none around could hear.
If her Sword Saint ancestor had passed on any other combat art, Bai Ya would stand no chance against a Gold-rank magic beast.
But, precisely because it was a sword talent, nothing could be done.
Combat arts fell into three broad categories.
Battle skills, usually involved bursting outward with battle aura—like the Hall-level skill, Azuresteel Sword, which, once mastered, projected battle aura along the blade, unleashing strikes that could cut steel.
Enhancement skills, which consumed battle aura to boost the body—like the Hall-level skill, Iron Body, which, at mastery, turned the skin silvery and hard as steel, rivaling the iron bones of Gold-rank beasts.
Both these types consumed battle aura.
Only the third type, talent arts, required no battle aura, using only spiritual power, and were the hardest to learn.
Talent arts had no ranking.
Not every strong one possessed a talent art, but anyone who did was certainly a strong one.
Talent arts were the foundation of the strong!
Talent arts required no deliberate activation—they functioned like a passive instinct, and only when spiritual power was depleted did the talent art cease to function.
Their effects were immeasurable.
Shi Cang himself was a Sword Master only because he had mastered a sword talent called Parry Counter.
Since truly mastering it, he had never shed a drop of blood.
Every battle, his foes fell beneath his blade without ever touching a hair on his head.
Right now, the ogre attacking Bai Ya so furiously—Shi Cang could decapitate him in just two strikes.
At the same level, someone who’d mastered a sword talent was invincible.
Talent arts could only be acquired through later comprehension; effort alone was not enough.
Even with secret manuals and a master’s guidance, if one could not comprehend, one would gain nothing.
Talent arts were universally acknowledged as the hardest to learn—on par with the difficulty of learning epic skills.
Add to that the rarity of talent arts, and the difficulty soared even higher.
To date, only two or three dozen martial talent arts had ever been discovered.
In swordsmanship, there were three: Parry Counter, Overlord’s Sweep, and Blade of Insight.
Without a bloodline inheritance, there was no way Bai Ya could master a martial talent.
As Shi Cang pondered, he suddenly remembered the slave girls, and his expression darkened.
Slave girls were born with powerful racial talents.
With foreign blood in their veins, they could gain world-shattering power with little effort.
They were seen as the demons among the human race.
Yet, more and more people pursued this power.
The racial talents of slave girls were worshipped; their otherworldly power awed all.
Shi Cang despised slave girls.
He believed martial talents were the pride of humankind.
Talents developed by humans themselves were in no way inferior to racial talents!
One day, he would prove this with the blood of slave girls—if Amidal allowed him to fight freely.
The greatness of humanity was undeniable!
“In a way, human martial talents are the equivalent of the slave girls’ racial talents.” Shi Cang’s fondness for Bai Ya, who possessed a sword talent, soared.
Suddenly, he seemed to think of something, furrowing his brow as he stared at Bai Ya’s figure for a long while before finally exhaling deeply.
“Maybe I’m overthinking it; otherwise, how ridiculous would that be?”
Only girls of mixed foreign blood had a slight chance of awakening as slave girls.
It took both foreign and human blood to produce a demon child—there had never been an exception.
So, if not mixed with foreign blood… If being a slave girl required human blood, and the other could be of any race in this world, then… what if it was also human?
Human and human mixed blood—but that wasn’t mixed blood at all.
The child born would be a pure human.
Shi Cang felt, for a moment, that he must have gone mad.
How could he think of such a possibility?
On the transport ship, there were three slave girls.
Aside from their code names, each had another way of being addressed.
[Shadow Spider] Mingyao Zhi Tu—she was the slave girl of the Shadow Queen.
[Cursed Doll] Yehuo Guiling—she was the slave girl of the Curse Demon Tribe.
[Life and Death Sovereign] Lunhui Tianqi—she was the slave girl of the Nether Ghost Tribe.
To this day, no two slave girls had shared the same foreign bloodline; each had a unique racial talent, as if they represented their respective foreign race.
So, was it possible that there existed a human slave girl—a slave girl who represented humanity?
Shi Cang felt he should just knock himself out, lest he keep imagining wild things.
*****
“Aha! Let’s see how you get out of this!!”
“Your little tricks don’t work anymore! You have nowhere left to run!!”
“Can you still laugh now? Fool, hahaha!”
*****
Shi Cang heard the smug laughter nearby, realizing Bai Ya had once again fallen into a crisis.
He calmly looked into the arena, making no comment.
So that’s how it is.
Shi Cang saw Bai Ya’s predicament at a glance and couldn’t help admiring how naive the nobles were.
After multiple lunges and ambushes had been dodged, and the ogre had been brutally countered, his head battered and bloodied, he grew wiser.
He stood firmly on the ground, refusing to give Bai Ya any chance to use him as a springboard, roaring as he unleashed powerful punches, raining blow after blow, swearing to smash Bai Ya into a bloody paste!
Bai Ya lost her opportunity to counterattack and could only evade.
The ogre threw five punches at five different spots.
With only slight shifts of her body, Bai Ya moved out of their range—right under the ogre’s nose, she dodged every strike.
Untouched even in the heart of a violent storm—this was exactly Bai Ya’s situation now!
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