The crowd cheered but the poltern stayed in moderation.
Tian Shen was a cultivator who had shown great basic power and technique, but it also meant that his fighting style was somewhat plain. of course, seeing someone destroy armor, weapons, and magic with their bare fists had charm to some people but it wasn't in the overall taste of the audience that looked forward to flashy skills and magic.
Byron also wasn't really one that satisfied the audience's thirst for flashy carnage. Although he had won his preliminary round, similar to his opponent, it wasn't like he single-handedly killed all 100 of his opponents. As such, the first pairing did not gain any immediate love from the audience, past the enthusiasm to see a brutal fight.
However...
The moment the fight started, the two opponents vanished from the spots on opposite sides of the arena. With an ear-shattering crash, they clashed in the center. they had moved so fast that barely anyone in the audience was able to see them move.
Fists, Feet, and Halberd clashed in a quick exchange of moves, spraying sparks everywhere. Flashing light kept shining like lightning in the thunderstorm. the whole scene being accentuated by the pouring rain, drenching the two combatants.
Seeing their sudden speed and power, the audience realized that they had held back during the preliminaries.
A Series of sharp stabs from the halberd's pike drove the cultivator back. Although he managed to deflect or block the attacks with his palms, they were colored red as the rain mixed with the blood flowing from his wounds. The two finally split, taking some distance from one another for the first time since the fight started.
Tian Shen's powerful fists which had broken many weapons so far, were biting on granite, facing the Halberd from Minas Mar's storage. The almost silent high-speed display of martial skill, despite lacking the flashiness of magic, managed to rouse the excitement of the audience, adding the roaring, cheering, and poltern of the audience, to the soundscape of pouring rain and clashing weapons.
Tian Shen could be seen taking a deep breath, as he calmed himself.
“It seems the tournament is truly on a different level than the preliminaries. It would be disrespectful to hold back any longer,” he spoke in a calm voice before his hand started glowing in a golden light.
“Dodonpa!” he suddenly shouted and a golden energy beam shot toward Byron. Aiming for the opponent's heart with incredible speed, the beam exploded in a bright light, leaving the audience unable to see how it affected Byron.
However, Tien Shen didn't have the time to check either, as he had to evade the answer to the question in the next moment. A crescent of pale green light, aiming to lop his head off, came flying straight at him.
It was only when the replay from the golem recording ran, that people realized what happened. Byron had silently blocked the sneak attack with the shaft of his halberd, and used the resulting stance to swing it down in a forceful motion, shooting off the energy attack, aiming for Tien Shen's life.
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By the time the cultivator recovered from dodging, the warrior was already onto him, this time he had the initiative, and his Halberd was coated in a green aura, similar to the skill he had just fired off. Yet, the fight stayed balanced, as Tien Shen had also started using a kind of aura to deflect the barrage of attacks.
Despite coming to appreciate the raw fight in the beginning, the audience was delighted to see the battle become flashier with energy beams and aura skills being reflected in the puddles of water from the rain.
...
Tien Shen felt pressured and it wasn't only because his sneak attack was easily parried. For a while now, he felt a foreign energy wreaking havoc in the wounds on his hands. They didn't just not heal but seemed to grow gradually worse. If this went on, he would soon be unable to fight.
Running out of time, he chose his only, albeit cowardly move.
“Taiyōken!”, Tien Shen cried out and the whole arena was drowned in a flash of light.
He rushed forward. His opponent had to be blinded. So far, there had been nobody who was able to resist the light of the solar flare his master taught him. Although this attack was a little cowardly, this was for their schools. If he was able to bring home a heaven-grade weapon, the Crane School would rise again, to even greater height!
As expected, the native had broken his stance and seemed to be confused. Tien Shen, his straightened hand enveloped in aura to create a blade, charged at his opponent, intending to pierce his hand straight through his body and heart, killing him in a single move.
The streaming rain couldn't cool his heated body, as he put all the energy into this attack. This was the end. he would advance in the tournament and bring home glory and the prize! His hand stabbed forward, sure of his victory.
The feeling of his hand breaking through the armor and ripping to the flesh of his opponent. The boiling blood and the heat of life when his hand entered another living being... didn't happen. His hand pierced through Byron, he saw it with his own eyes, but it was like touching air. There was nothing.
Then the world started tilting. The last thing he remembered was his head hitting the floor of the arena and his own, headless body slumping to the ground. then everything became dark.
...
Once Tien Shen's body crashed to the ground and vanished to be revived at the Adventurer Guild's revival point, the image of the confused Byron that had been stabbed vanished and the real Byron appeared from a haze, blood still dripping from his Halberd.
The audience was going crazy. It had started with an incredible display of skill, only to have a turnaround and end with an incredible trade of deceptions. One tried to blind his opponent, only to be slain by a hidden enemy.
Byron, silent as he had been during the whole fight, stood in the middle of the arena, waiting for his victory to be announced. He didn't have to wait long for Umi to appear beside him, a bright smile on her face, shielding him from the rain, still pouring down from above.
“As you all saw, we have a winner! Byron of the Boulder Guild is the first participant to move on to the next round!” she announced, lifting his arm in the air.
The crowd that had been silent in bafflement at the sudden and abrupt end broke into cheers. Accompanied by the crowd's roars, Byron left the stage making way for the next fight. The match between him and Tien Shen had barely taken 20 minutes.
“That was exciting, wasn't it? We will have a small break to check the stage before our next pair enters the arena,” she announced. The break also gave the audience some time to process what happened, watch replays, get some food and drinks, or use the toilets.
...
“Wow, I didn't expect your Byron to be that strong. What was that last move?” Gallwell asked Brock in surprise. Byron had not shown any special skills apart from his prowess and control in spearmanship during the preliminaries.
“Byron is our ace, I would have been surprised if he had been the one of the three that didn't advance,” Brock bragged confidently. However, he didn't reveal what move Byron had used. After all, there was a chance that he would meet Tiny in the following rounds. The was no way he would reveal anything to Gallwell at this point.
“Fine, keep your secrets. it's not like he will stand a chance against Tiny with such tricks,” Gallwell taunted a little.
“We will see about that if your Tiny even gets into the next round,” Brock said smugly.
Tiny's performance in the first round was similar to Polter's, as he brutally struck down dozens of opponents with an over-sized hammer, but he had already shown struggle against some of the stronger people in the preliminaries.
On the other hand, his opponent was diametrically opposed to him. The Dark Mage of Mud had wreaked havoc in his preliminary bracket and killed all 99 of his opponents himself. As a creature immune to physical damage, he was the worst opponent for Tiny.
“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Gallwell said mysteriously. Was he hinting that his protege was still holding something back, despite already struggling in the preliminaries?