"Ye Xiu and Fu Fan, please make your way to the centre arena. Your match will begin in five minutes." A voice sounded out throughout the entire Arena grounds to inform the two that their match was about to begin.

Ye Xiu made it to the Arena quickly and waited for his opponent to show up. It took three minutes before his opponent showed up. His opponent looked bulky and muscular but every step that he took was graceful. Just watching him move made Ye Xiu go on guard. Being able to move with such gracefulness with such a massive body isn't easy at all. As Ye Xiu was observing Fu Fan, the referee for the match interrupted his thoughts.

"Now that the both of you are here, we'll begin the match. Start at three. One. Two. Three! Begin!" Fu Fan flew at Ye Xiu's face with a roundhouse kick which Ye Xiu was able to block easily with his superior body strength. Ye Xiu could feel the amount of power behind that kick and he was slightly disappointed because he expected more power from a person of that body size.

With Fu Fan being in midair after his roundhouse kick, Ye Xiu decided to just end the fight quickly. He punched him in the stomach sending him flying out of the arena. The referee didn't stop the match because the rules of the matches changed once they hit the Top 16. The fight would only end if one person surrendered or if the other person no longer had the capacity to fight. Fu Fan quickly got up from the ground because he was informed of this rule by his teacher.

He jumped back onto the stage and approached Ye Xiu carefully. He started to move as if he was dancing to music, whenever he got close enough though, Ye Xiu quickly backed off. He had no idea what Fu Fan would do so he took out his whip so that Fu Fan would have no chance to get close or utilise this weird movement technique.

To conserve his energy, he stopped using his 'Tyrant's Physique' and attacked Fu Fan with his whip in the 'Entangled Roots' style. Fu Fan's advance was stopped with the whip moving at a high speed. He wasn't able to see the whip and knew that if he got close he'd get hit multiple times before he would even have a chance to retreat

Knowing this, he just held his position and waited for Ye Xiu to come towards him.

Ye Xiu saw what Fu Fan was doing and sighed. He knew that there was no choice but for him to get closer to Fu Fan. He started to advance to Fu Fan with his whip held at his side. Once he got in range to attack Fu Fan he started his whip assault again. Every time Fu Fan retreated, Ye Xiu advanced. Ye Xiu was slowly turning the battleground into his own personal playground by creating obstacles everywhere his whip hit.

Soon Fu Fan had nowhere else to move and decided to advance towards Ye Xiu instead. If he had to lose he should at least lose with some dignity. Losing without even being able to attack was just humiliating to him and he didn't want to be the laughingstock of the academy. He utilised his strange dancing technique again and was able to avoid some of Ye Xiu's whip attacks. The others that he wasn't able to avoid, hit him and left multiple scratches on him.

Fu Fan narrowed his eyes when he felt the scratches on his body and was surprised that Ye Xiu could inflict so much damage to his body. He thought about it again before realising that his surprise attack at the beginning was also easily countered by Ye Xiu. He let the whip fall on his body multiple times, using his eyes to try and tell where the whip was. He eventually managed to predict where the whip was going to strike and next and managed to grab it.

What he didn't notice was that Ye Xiu was already behind him and the moment he had done the last strike he had let go of the whip and took out his sword and pointed it Fu Fan's neck. "Surrender or you die." Ye Xiu's voice came from behind Fu Fan.

Fu Fan turned shocked at Ye Xiu's arrival from behind him. "I surrender." The referee immediately declared Ye Xiu's victory over Fu Fan and called for the next match's participants to go up to the arena. Ye Xiu left the arena to look for his friends and to rest for a moment. Ye Xiu had a feeling that the next 7 fights would last longer than his so he decided that he would look for the others so that they can observe the matches and break down their fighting styles.

Shi Die was standing with Shang Yang and Xiao, smiling brightly. "Good job on that match. Your opponent had absolutely no chance against you."

"He didn't have a way to attack from long range so I just abused the fact that I can use a whip. I'd think that if it was someone else fighting him, they'd probably have a much harder time. The guy had a weird movement technique that allowed him to dodge a few of my attacks. If he was any more agile and flexible, I'd have no doubt that he would've been able to get past my attacks." Ye Xiu shook his head at the thought.

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Instead of continuing that train of thought he decided to ask Shi Die a question. "Are you ready for your own fight? I'd love to fight you at full strength instead of our normal spars."

"I'd have to win my own fight first before I even get to you. We might not be lucky enough to meet each other until the Final matches. It all depends on our luck." Shi Die was being very lacklustre in his enthusiasm to fight Ye Xiu.

They went back to watching the matches with Xiao Tu and Shang Yang offering their own comments on each combatant's fighting style. Soon it was Shi Die's own turn to fight.

The moment Shi Die stepped onto the arena, the referee gave him little to no time to compose himself for the beginning of the fight. The referee started the match immediately. "Begin!"

Shi Die looked at his opponent and noticed that it was a girl. Obviously not surprised that it was a girl, he decided to overpower her like he usually does to Shang Yang. He knew that the majority of the female cultivators that he knew of or heard of did very little training for the body. They mainly focused on their techniques and skills to win against others. Though that was true, he didn't underestimate her strength because that would be a foolish thing to do.

Going with his aggressive style of fighting, he lashed out with a scissor kick towards the girl's face. He knew that it was a cheap trick to aim at a girl's face but it's a dog eat dog world. Girls liked to keep their appearances so attacking their main source of attraction would force them to defend it.

As predicted the girl blocked the kick with her palms which gave Shi Die the chance to kick her once again as he twirled around on his hands to give him momentum to sweep the girl's legs. The girl was kicked off balance but was able to gain her stability by retreating with backflips. The girl took out a spear and stood in a stance and waited for Shi Die to attack.

Shi Die now knew that he was at a disadvantage because of the longer range that the girl had over him. With the difference in range, all Shi Die could hope for was that his skin was tough enough to withstand the piercing power of the spear. The girl attacked with several jabs with the spear before thrusting it towards Shi Die's body. Shi Die managed to block a few of the jabs and quickly flipped back to kick the spear that was thrust at his face.

The spear point was forced upwards and gave Shi Die enough time to get into arms range of the girl. He quickly punched her in the stomach and got up close and personal with her. He did this so that she would have absolutely no space to move her spear and it would deny her the advantage of long range. He was certain that if he went for hand to hand combat against her, he should win because the girl would've probably focused on her spear skills instead of barehanded martial arts.

He knew that the spear usually would've been able to defeat a cultivator who fought bare-handed due to the longer range. It was lucky that he was able to move fast enough for him to react to her attacks so that he could get close enough to make the fight more fair for himself. He knew that if it was another person with much more strength wielding the spear, the spear wouldn't have even been able to be budged by that single kick.

The girl took the punch in the stomach and used it to her advantage. With the punch making her fly due to her weight, lack of blocking and Shi Die's strength, she was able to distance herself once again. She used the spear to stop herself from flying any further and got back into her fighting stance. She was much more careful now that she knew how strong Shi Die was.

Shi Die ran towards her to attack. The girl quickly threw her spear at him and ran towards him. Just as the spear was about to hit Shi Die and he was about to block it, the girl quickly jumped onto the spear's end pushing the point up and towards Shi Die's chest. Shi Die managed to block it before it got there with his legs and tried to wrest control of the spear from the girl.

The girl flipped the spear from the ground and into the air and she jumped up to avoid Shi Die's legs. As she was in midair she brought the spear downwards to hack Shi Die. The force and momentum from the downward swing were enough for Shi Die to be careful with blocking the attack and he quickly rolled to the side whilst still being on the floor. With the downward swing missing, the girl groped the spear and twirled it around her body to start it spinning.

The girl did this for the sole reason of making Shi Die unable to predict when she was going to attack. Shi Die saw the speed of the spinning and wasn't fazed by it. He had seen much faster things flying at his body during his reflex training with Shang Yang and Ye Xiu so he decided to grab on to the shaft as she was spinning it.

If the girl had much more muscular strength, Shi Die wouldn't have dared to attempt to do this because he would've been swept away by it immediately. He knew this from experience from fighting Xiao Tu and the similarities between his quarterstaff fighting and the girl's spear fighting. With that in mind, he lashed out with his leg to kick the shaft in the very middle so that it would fly out of the girl's grasp.

The girl's grasp was strong but with the direction the spear was kicked, her body was dragged with it. Shi Die dashed to her and pinned her down with his legs whilst she was in midair. He quickly placed her into a hold once they fell onto the ground with his fist right above the throat.

The girl surrendered immediately once she saw it. "I forfeit this match. I can't get myself out of the situation."

The referee nodded and had a frown on his face as he looked at her. "Shi Die wins and advances to the Top 8."