In terms of speed, Alabasta was undoubtedly number one under the Beast Rank within the Great Aka Tribe. He was even faster than some of the weaker Beast Ranked beasts. His speed was something those under the 7th Grade couldn’t even see, let alone defend against. Although Akata had two cultivation bases, both were only at the 7th Grade so he wouldn’t fare much better. He could at least track some of Alabasta’s movements and attempt to prepare for them, but all in all he was pretty much defenseless against him.

Luckily Akata was prepared for the assault and it also helped that Alabasta was a bit of distance away. Even though that bit got covered in an extremely short amount of time, it was enough for Akata to steadily defend himself.

Akata put his arm in front of his chest but it wasn’t meant to defend himself. This movement was meant to trick Alabasta into feeling more comfortable in attacking. It was a simple tactic but with this, Alabasta would be less worried about defending, even if only by a little.

Akata used this chance to rotate his golden rune vigorously. All of a sudden, an intense pressure exploded out of him along with a golden light. The light was extremely bright while the pressure was extremely heavy. The sudden appearance of the really bright light caused Alabasta to shield his eyes, therefore he chose to slow down a lot. Coupled with the pressure it also decreased his speed. His speed as of this moment couldn’t even be compared to half of what is was.

‘He wants to attack me, eh? Humph. I don’t have the power to fight him directly but I can hinder him in this competition. I will make sure he doesn’t get in first place.’ Akata thought to himself as he chose to, instead of continuing to fight with Alabasta, take some of the motes of light.

He spread his nature sense out far and wide, enough to cover an area of roughly 300 meters. Instantly, images of various motes of light appeared in his mind. Some were small some were big, others were bright and others were dim. But it was hard to tell because the motes of light frequently changed sizes and brightness.

‘Head for the brightest and biggest ones.’ This was Akata’s first thought as he dashed toward a nearby mote of light. Alabasta was right behind him with a face full of rage. He had been temporarily blinded and had to stop his attack. This could be seen as a humiliation for him so as soon as he recovered a bit he went right for Akata.

Akata immediately reached out and grabbed a mote of light that was in front of him. That light was absorbed into his body where he could feel a blessing from it. He was about to go in a different direction when he frowned. Immediately he spun around and turned into a black mist-like substance. His speed rocketed up as he dashed toward another mote of light. This was none other than his Shadowfeet movement skill.

“You can’t run away from me haha.” Alabasta laughed coldly as a neon light started to glow around his body. He took a step forward and as that foot fell he appeared right in front of Akata. The distance wasn’t quite large between them initially, only 10 meters, but the time he took to cross that distance felt as if it were instantaneous.

As soon as he appeared he swiped his paw forward toward Akata’s throat. Akata felt his mind reeling at the speed of Alabasta. He had witnessed a bit of it before but had never really had to face it. In their last battle, it was mostly a head on duel. In fact, Alabasta had stood still most of the time during the fight.

Now, Akata was fully experiencing the terrifying speed of Alabasta first hand. Akata’s eyes went wide and he started to glow with a light. Alabasta smiled coldly as he closed his eyes, as if prepared for the same trick. “You’re not going to get me this time.” He spoke coldly. He kept his hand going forward but to his surprise it didn’t hit anything.

He opened his eyes to see that nobody was in front of him. He looked around lost to see Akata far off in the distance grabbing multiple motes of light. His mind filled with utter confusion and madness and was about to rush out toward Akata when a voice was transmitted to him. “Forget it for now, you’ll have your chance later on. Just collect the motes of light and win this competition.” This was none other than Star Sovereign Allica. “Yes!” Alabasta responded. He turned away with a grim face as he started to collect his own motes of light.

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Akata obviously noticed that Alabasta had given up. He took note of how he stopped his pursuit even though he looked as if he were about to charge straight for him. ‘There’s obviously somebody telling him what to do.’ He turned his head and went to gather more motes of light.

His face was pale due the skill he had just tried. It was his combination of the Lunarsun Steps and Shadowfeet movement skills. It was very much so incomplete and used up a ton of Akata’s energy. Luckily, the use of this skill had gotten him away from Alabasta in the knick of time. The speed that it had mustered was surprising to even him.

‘If I’m able to perfectly merge these movement skills together it would be unimaginably fast. Just this incomplete version alone was able to make me move as fast as Alabasta had.’ Although he was tired, his heart filled with utter anticipation to merge these two skills together. ‘I might be able to affect Alabasta’s performance a bit but not much now. I wasn’t expecting to use that much energy.’ Akata thought to himself a bit and then filled himself with determination. He turned around and headed in Alabasta’s direction.

Although Akata and Alabasta were battling, it didn’t draw too much attention. That was because everyone else on the stage was also fighting each other. This was an elimination round after all. Many fights were going on and some ended up with people getting eliminated right then and there. Getting thrown off the stage would get you eliminated along with anything that would hinder you on the next stage such as injuries. Nobody was really going all out but the number of contestants made it hard to compete.

Even though Alabasta started off late in collecting motes of light, he could simply make it up with his immense speed. At first he had been in last place when he was chasing Akata but after he started to collect the motes of light, he quickly shot up to the top 10. His speed was just too great. It would be hard to get first place but he was confident he could do it if he tried hard enough. But he didn’t count on Akata coming back.

Alabasta was about to reach out to grab another mote of light when all of a sudden a black arc of light appeared and prevented him from making contact with it. His eyes filled with savageness as he viciously turned his head to look at which beast was dumb enough to go against him. To his surprise however, it was no beast, but a youth carrying a scythe in his hand.

Alabasta gave a cold snarl as he charged toward Akata with an air of madness. Neon light exploded off of him as he headed straight for him. Akata simply smiled as he put away the scythe and threw out a punch. This punch was backed with the power of his red and gold runes. It created a huge blast of energy that shot out toward Alabasta.

This blast of energy swept out across the stage and actually knocked some weaker beasts off of the stage. Akata and Alabasta were close to the edge and these beasts were unprepared so they were knocked off by Akata’s blow meant for Alabasta.

Alabasta simply rushed through the blast of energy as if it weren’t even there. “You tricked me twice so now I have to pay you tenfold!” He roared in a savage filled voice. “I’m going to tear you to shreds this instant!” The neon light surrounding his body exploded out and he disappeared to reappear right in front of Akata. He swept out with his paw. Swish!

It hit nothing but air again. He watched as the “Akata” in front of him simply turned into a purple mist and dispersed into the air. He looked up to see Akata off in the distance collecting more motes of light. Alabasta’s eyes became bloodshot as he ran out once more toward Akata.

When Akata had threw his fist out, he had rotated his red and gold runes. When he rotated his gold rune he made a golden light shine from his body. With the golden light there it hid the purple rune under his fist that he used to make a fake Akata with his illusion.

Alabasta charged toward Akata who was off in the distance and caused a neon light to shoot toward it. Boom! An explosion rang out that some of the surrounding beasts were caught up in. Immediately some of them were eliminated from the contest. Alabasta’s eyes became more bloodshot as he saw “Akata” once again disperse as a purple mist. He let out a roar as he ran around trying to find the real Akata.

Meanwhile, the real Akata was hanging in the air. He had actually been in the same area as his first fake clone, but he had shaped himself to look like a mote of light. With his skill and insights into the Inner Element of Illusions  and nature energy, he was able to cast a rune within the range of his nature sense. This made it so that he could create a clone within his 300 meter range and fool Alabasta time and time again. While he himself could pose as a mote of light.

Of course he didn’t just stay in the same place the whole time. He moved around toward motes of light collecting them while also keeping Alabasta occupied. There were some special motes of light that moved around so people didn’t see this as suspicious. Each time Alabasta would stop pursuing, Akata would wait a while to provoke him again then set things in motion once more.

It was in this fashion that this trial came to a close. The results for the third stage came in:

1st Palet - Scarlet Rune Tribe

2nd Tabet - Scarlet Rune Tribe

3rd Reina - Flying Dragon Snake Tribe

4th Azara - Meteor Wolf Star Tribe

5th Pina - Flying Dragon Snake Tribe