Tan Xu

Tan Xu is a reclusive, battle-hungry Child of Kun Lun assigned to Nie Chen's Totem Coliseum team. His hostility and pride are tempered by strict battlefield discipline and a private habit of remaining mentally prepared for ambush.

Biography

Documented arc

Tan Xu reacts coldly to the deaths of fellow disciples, saying that those without enough skill should not shame Kun Lun. He joins Nie Chen and Zhen Ling Meng in seeking the shen device nucleus, obeying Nie Chen despite ordinary defiance because Nie is mission leader. Tan kills opponents eagerly, dismisses weaker factions, proposes ambushing Mo Cloud Sea, and hopes to challenge Wei Sheng, but he accepts caution when the team recognizes a possible trap. (Chapters 781, 791, 796, and 800)

Silly Bird then ambushes Tan Xu. His habit of splitting off part of his attention prevents immediate defeat, and he responds with Sword Flame and its compressed killing form, Sword Flame Death. Phoenix Flame consumes the sword energies and traps him inside an apparently tiny but inescapable field. His shen power drains rapidly, his desire to fight turns into panic, and the narrative leaves him unable to escape. Kun Lun's later call for revenge for Nie Chen “and the others” supports his death, though no sentence directly describes Tan Xu's body or final breath. (Chapters 801–805)

Appearance and personality

No stable physical description is supplied. Tan Xu is reclusive, strange, unpopular, proud, dismissive, aggressive, and hungry for real combat. He is not merely reckless: an earlier near-fatal mistake makes him maintain partial vigilance even while cultivating, and he follows command discipline once a mission begins. (Chapters 781, 791, and 801)

Abilities and cultivation

Tan Xu cultivates shen power and fire-aspected sword techniques. Sword Flame Death compresses thousands of sword energies into a smaller set of much denser dark-red energies, each carrying sword essence. Its successful execution is difficult even for him and produces a destructive burst. (Chapter 803)

His split attention helps detect ambushes, but confidence in Sword Flame Death makes him misread Silly Bird's counter. Phoenix Flame consumes his energies, while the Solitary Dance of the Great Dark Wheel Phoenix creates a field he cannot cross. His protection delays burning but depletes too quickly to provide an escape. (Chapters 801–803)

Relationships

• Nie Chen: Tan Xu challenges him socially but obeys him as mission leader. Nie recognizes Tan's pride and channels it within Kun Lun discipline. (Chapters 781–803)
• Zhen Ling Meng: She is the third member of their elite team; the three coordinate through the ruins despite different temperaments. (Chapters 781–803)
• Wei Sheng: Tan Xu resents the outsider's sword reputation and boasts that he will kill him, but they do not meet in the supplied corpus. (Chapter 796)
• Silly Bird: Her Phoenix Flame negates his best demonstrated technique and traps him beyond escape. (Chapters 801–803)

Items

• Unnamed flying sword: Tan Xu channels Sword Flame and Sword Flame Death through this weapon. Its grade and custody after his apparent death are not stated. (Chapters 801–803)