The Dark Wizard of Mug started growing suspicious. Ever since her first attack, Dowloon would only attack him periodically. She also didn't move around, she didn't even try to evade his mud pack. Had she given up all hope, because her poison fog didn't work? She just stood there and-

Her hand moved and he used to evade the attack like before, however-

The notifications rushed through his mind. “What?” he exclaimed silently. He had not even noticed being attacked! Looking at his body, he found a silver needle sticking out from his thigh. Had it hit him just before he was able to evade?

The system answered his question the moment it came to mind. this was why he didn't notice being hit, he wasn't even able to feel this little damage because he was drugged in the same move! Wait, when it was like this, what if-?

... the notifications repeated and his poison counter became two when he just noticed what was even happening. he didn't even know what the poison counter would do! Apparently it didn't count as poison, or else the High Potion of Poison Resistance would have negated it.

... Again. He had not even seen her move! The counter went up to three. He couldn't bother thinking of what the counter would do, he had to block these attacks. He cast “Stone Skin”, a spell that created a shell of hardened mud on his skin.

Ping!

His quick thinking was rewarded with the sound of a needle hitting him, not dealing any damage. Yet-

The Poison Counter could not be avoided!

“How did the crusader win again?” he asked himself before he came to a realization. The crusader had used a holy shield to block attacks, so her weapons never reached him. So the energy could probably only be transmitted over a short distance.

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With a quick action, he erected an earth barrier from the mud. Although it would cost him his mobility, Dowloon was also unable to move, covered in a thick layer of mud herself. As if to confirm his conclusion, there was a ding on the outside of the shield, but the Poison Counter didn't change.

Using the moment of calmness, he started to cast Rock Spike to finish the fight, however.

Krt~ Krt~ Krt~

A weird sound on the earth shell kept disrupting his concentration. What was-? Something fell on his shoulder. Another, another...they moved-

...

because of the poisonous smoke, the golems were barely able to record anything for the audience. The screen only showed the shadowy figure of Dowloon covered in mud and the Mud Wizard who had suddenly decided to raise an earth barrier. Things were calm...

BOOM, the stadium shook, betraying the calm before. Shocked and surprised, everyone stared at the arena, where the ball of the Mud Wizard had just exploded in a huge fireball, erasing a great part of the fog and finally revealing the arena to the eyes of the audience, though they may have preferred not to see.

Crying a screeching, a young man, barely a teenager, was rolling on the ground. his robes were singed and ragged. His flesh was tattered in many places, as he was covered in a horde of insects, eating him alive. Many died in the explosion, but there was still a lot of wriggling on and under his skin. He kept screeching in pain, as he seemed to try to rip his skin off with his bare hands.

“make it stop! Take them out! Out!” he whined, obviously deranged.

People were shocked that the mysterious Dark Wizard of Mug was actually such a young boy(or at least looked like one), but they were even more horrified by his fate. Dowloon didn't even move, as the young man became using low-tier fire magic to literally burn his own flesh off.

Probably the most haunting end of a duel so far, was him burning himself, laughing in relief. When he ultimately died quickly after, the mud lost its cohesion and slid off Dowloon, leaving the Poison Fairy dirty but mostly unharmed.

“We have a winner! Dowloon goes on to the semi-finals, where she will meet Caleb!” Umi belatedly announced when the Mud Wizard's death was clear. Dowloon shot a short glance at the burned corpse vanishing before she lifted her hand to accept the victory.

Even she didn't seem too comfortable with how the battle ended.

“But how did she manage to cover him in bugs?” Fin asked confused, when Dowloon left the stage, making space for the repair teams that prepared it for the next fight.

“The mud,” Master Mountain commented on her question. “Since she herself was covered all the time, it probably wasn't hard for her to have her insects infiltrate it. When he covered himself in a shell of it, she effectively trapped himself in a nest, to be eaten alive,” he explained.

“A-Are people that use insects common on the Cloud Continent?” Jess asked slightly perturbed. There were a few others in the room, that attentively listened to the answer to that question. The fate of fighting and being eaten alive by insects was a special kind of terrifying end, nobody wanted to experience.

“Hmm, there are not that many in the XiGuang Province as it isn't native to our lands. But I heard the practice of Gu or Bug Handling is more prevalent in other places, partially even replacing the practice of Qi gathering. Or so I heard, I wasn't there myself,” he answered the question vaguely. Although the answer was vague, the people especially interested seemed to calm down a little.

“Sounds like they are rare in the province?” the blacksmith asked to clarify.

“Hmm, yeah. Now that you mentioned it, I wouldn't have expected to see one here,” Yu answered pondering.

It seemed that Dowloon had some intriguing secrets, Seth may have been interested in, if they weren't preoccupied with a foreign force threatening to crash their party. For now, the third battle was already about to begin.

One could say these first two were just appetizers, now came the heavy hitter of the tournament. Lyca and Nam, both had already shown their prowess, and they were going against Ibelin Godfrey and Bartholomew Mathias respectively.

Would they fight each other again in the semi-finals, or would there be a surprise? Would the new Mithril flooring survive their battles? The audience was clamoring to see what would happen.

It didn't take long for the arena to be maintained. Finally, the two participants stepped into the arena. On one side Nam, the mysterious cultivator who was revealed to be a half-rotten Corpse with a beating heart. On the other Bartholomew, a Chosen of Balder whose fighting style so far was closer to that of a cultivator, than a player's.

Umi went through the usual procedures before-

“Begin!”

-announcing the start of the fight.