AT LONG LAST TORCHES illuminating the Grand Arena began to flicker as they were extinguished; the tumultuous thunder of the excited crowd breath-taken with anticipation. This was it! This was what they had come all this way to see - to bear witness to the grand festival that was The Hainan Island Dao Tournament! The probable repeat crowning of a defending Champion Standing, an accomplishment in itself of great merit, or perhaps the less likely, but every bit as desirable crowning of some heretofore-unknown newcomer.
In all the tournament’s grand and illustrious history, fewer than a dozen Warriors had won back-to-back tournaments. Perhaps a dozen more had repeated after not winning for two or three years. Han Warriors, after all, did not have a great life expectancy. There is an ancient H
