The stage floor parted with a smooth mechanical hum.
A heavy bronze cart rolled into the center of the arena, pushed by four armored stone golems. On the cart rested thirty large, oval fruits, each three feet long and banded with dark emerald and silver stripes.
Sharp, whistling winds curled around the melons.
The air within fifty paces of the cart hummed with invisible blade-qi, slicing stray motes of dust into microscopic particles. Cultivators in the first ten rows of the stadium felt their personal swords rattling in their scabbards, drawn by the potent spiritual resonance.
Elder Greed-Tongue stepped up to the edge of the stage, waving his arms dramatically.
“Behold, Lot Number Fifteen!” Greed-Tongue proclaimed, his voice echoing across the arena. “Thirty Primordial Sword-Will Melons, harvested from the jagged peaks of the Chaos Sword Abyss! Each melon contains ninety-nine sacred sword-will seeds. Swallowing a single seed grants a full century of sword-dao comprehension and cleanses all dullness from the mind! Starting bid: five trillion Origin Dao Crystals!”
Up in VIP Box Number Eight, a man stood up abruptly.
He was dressed in crimson armor etched with jagged blood runes. A jagged, serrated greatsword was strapped across his broad back, humming with savage killing intent. Above his bald, scarred head, a dark red number floated: negative fifty-eight out of one hundred.
