The words of the judge still echoed across the arena, but the battles already began. Yasha had no time to think, as he was directly attacked by a fifteen-year-old spear user.
He sprinted at Yasha gathering his whole force in his spear ready to unleash his power in an instant. The silver spear in his hands visibly vibrated, a clear sign that the spear was backed up by an enormous spiritual energy.
Similar to his first fights in the Fallen Snow Mountain Range, Yasha seemed to enter another state of mind, completely focusing on the opponent and the battle in front of him, while shutting off all distracting thoughts.
From the vibrations and spiritual energy emitted from the spear, Yasha was able to guess that the cultivation of the young man was around the peak stage of Energy Gathering.
His mind then analyzed the incoming attack nearly instantaneously, simulating all the possible outcomes. Numerous different scenarios played out inside his mind and he quickly found the most optimal answer to the attack.
On the other side, the young boy only saw Yasha standing still, as if he frozen by fear. Thinking that he already grasped victory in his hands, he smiled.
His smile, however, did not last long, as he had the feeling that something was wrong, but it was already too late for him to back out now, thus he continued his attack.
Like a ghost, Yasha skillfully evaded the incoming attack with a simple step to the side, clearly anticipating where the young boy planned to strike.
In next to no time, Yasha was already behind the young boy and kicked him in the back. Without much force, the young boy tumbled and lost his balance. In the end, he fell of the stage and was eliminated.
After he crashed on the ground, he still didn’t know how he lost the battle. With his cultivation base, he should have gotten through the first round, at least on stage ten. Unfortunately, he picked up a fight with the wrong person.
However, Yasha also could not relax, as another challenger wielding a long sword and a strange fire technique already appeared.
---
In the VIP arena, Arslan followed Yasha’s battle intently. Did he really recognize the weak point of the technique in instant, or was it a pure coincidence? At his age, he couldn’t have gone through that many battles to develop such a keen battles sense.
But then with that kick in the end, it looked like he knew that by attacking that exact spot, he could disrupt the flow of spiritual energy for a time. Could he really have gone through so many battles?
The more Arslan saw and got to know about Yasha, the more shocked he got. He could not see through Yasha at all. Yasha was a complete mystery.
As an elder of the ancient Moon Flower Sect, he traveled through the whole kingdom, visited other kingdoms and fought on numerous battlefields. He saw and experienced a lot. But a youngster like Yasha? Never before had seen a similar person.
In battle, Yasha was like a completely different person compared to the shy and introverted boy when they met for the first time. He simply couldn’t understand how Yasha suddenly looked like battle hardened veteran.
---
Yasha’s next battle also ended in a fast way. He circulated a bit of his spiritual energy to quickly finish the battle and prepared to stop the sword with his bare hands.
With a metallic clang his hands steadily grabbed the sword. The attacking swordsman was flabbergasted by this action.
He never witnessed someone on a similar level like him that would dare to grab his sword with his bare hands. Who would be such a lunatic?! His longsword was extremely sharp and could even cut stones or metals like paper.
Using the moment of surprise, Yasha pulled the sword towards him. The swordsman tripped and tumbled to Yasha as a result and before he could anything a, he saw a kick closing in on his face. After that he immediately fainted from the impact.
And with that the next participant was eliminated.
Yasha’s next battles would go the same way. Some guy would come and try to fight him, as he did not show extraordinary things or flashy moves. Evoking the feeling that he was an easy opponent.
Only after being eliminated did they realize that were completely wrong.
That seemingly harmless boy was a wolf in sheep’s closing! Even though they were unwilling to admit it, reality showed them the bitter truth. With a single misstep, they were eliminated. Such was the harsh reality of the kingdoms tournament.
Time passed and more and more participants were eliminated, which meant that the fights also got increasingly more intense.
Yasha on the other hand was constantly moving around and managed to avoid most of the battles as a result. His goal in the first round was to preserve his strength, while suppressing his rising thirst for battle at the same time.
The less he fought, the less he had to worry about potentially loosing control. It was not yet the right time to fight with full force and risk it all.
On the other arenas, the fights also got more frenzied, with most weaker people being eliminated. To no ones surprise, the six prodigies dominated their respective arena. They stood proudly in the middle arena, with no one daring to fight them, having demonstrated their might in previous battles.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Of course, a lot of this also came down to their reputation. No one was foolish enough to oppose them during the first round. They had more than enough chances to duke it out with them in the other rounds, but throwing themselves at the strongest participants in the first round was pure foolishness.
In the center of arena ten, two early stage Energy Tempering cultivators were having a showdown which drew the attention of the crowd. A blue clothed man was fighting against a beautiful girl, who wore a green dress with flowers on it.
Her short sword moved fluently and made it clear that she was using a powerful sword art. Wherever her sword went, it left green scars in the air. With precise steps she closed in on the young man.
The youngster looked nervously at the incoming attack and shifted his stance into an offensive sword stance. He clearly wanted to fight force with force.
His sword began to emit intense white light. Fueled by a huge income of spiritual energy, the sword vibrated. Cracks appeared on the stage with the blue clothed man in the center, but they closed miraculously right after they cracked.
The youth then lightly breathed out and focused completely on the next attack. His invisible aura rose and tried to fight back against the powerful force of the girl, who looked a lot more relaxed. Although focused, she evoked the feeling that she was strolling through a wonderful park.
It looks quite comical, if you compare the two. Yasha who was watching from the sidelines couldn’t help but smile a bit about this scene. The girl was clearly only playing with the blue clothed man, not taking him serious at all, but the young man on the other hand, took it completely seriously.
Yasha liked this kind of resolve. Not everyone could fight back like that youth. Most would just simply give up in front a seemingly unsurpassable mountain. Those people would never get far in their live.
The Heavenly Dao was cruel and the path of cultivation was one of no return. How could one strive for the peak when one backed down in front of every obstacle?
In the meantime, the beautiful girl had reached the youth and slashed down elegantly. Her movements were fluent to the extreme and looked like the natural order of things.
The youth hastily raised his sword and released all his spiritual energy to power up his attack. Without a change in her emotionless face, the two swords clashed. Or to be more precise, her short sword cut through the sword of the blue clothed boy like tofu.
There was not the slightest bit of resistance. Horrified by the outcome of the attack the young boy just barely evaded the sword. Had he been a little bit slower, the sword would have split him into two parts. Just imagining that he got goosebumps all over his body.
“You lost,” uttered the the girl with a piercingly cold tone. It was simple and direct, but ice-cold.
The youngster knew that. How could he not? Nevertheless, he gnashed his teeth and stubbornly stared at the girl, “You clearly missed me on purpose. I know my strength. Even though I am fast, I am incomparable to you. There’s no way for you to be slower than me. Why did you do that? Defeat me fair and square!”
These words caused a huge uproar in the arena. There were already a lot of people watching this match. Who would want to miss the rise of a black horse? But now even more paid attention to this battle.
What the youth just said was simply asking to be kicked out of the arena and to get a beating. Not many people understood his intentions. But Yasha was one of those few. He clearly understood what the young man was thinking.
There was a simple explanation for that: pride. Right, pride. He wanted to go down fighting, there was no going back for such a person. 99 percent, the average person in this case, would just think that such a behavior was incomparably foolish.
But on the other side, such a person had to be shown a bit of respect. One had to have a firm, unyielding will. Such a person could rise to the peak, but most of them would die early, because of their “foolish” behavior.
Should I help him or not? This thought crossed his mind, because he liked the unyielding character the young man had shown. Thus, Yasha thought of helping him out a bit. He quickly shook his head without the need to think more about that.
If I would help him now, I would just hurt his pride. Also another thing, I should not show too much of my power. If I use my sword, I should be able to deal with the girl, but that would expose more my strength. Knowing what was better, he stayed in the shadows, waiting for the first stage to come to an end.
Hearing those words, even the beautiful girl was surprised for a short moment, before returning to her usual cold demeanor. Without any more necessary words she raised her sword and sprinted to the blue clothed youth, intending to deal the finishing blow.
The blue clothed youth just smiled and raised his broken sword. He had no power left, but he would rather brake then bend, not willing to surrender.
Not showing any weakness, he tried to evade her and managed to dodge her sword, but the girl seemed to anticipate this outcome and lightly tapped the young man on the shoulder and used some of her powerful spiritual energy. Just this was enough to push the youth from the stage.
The young man felt the whole brunt of her spiritual energy. It wast the like the cold wind during a bitter winter. It brushed past him and without much force he fell down the stage.
However, the energy rampaged through his body and wreaked havoc. After spending his whole spiritual energy, he had not much left to deal with the rampaging spiritual energy on his own.
Soon after, he was left in a complete broken state. It would take a lot of time for him to heal his wounds. And it was possible that he would have great difficulty advancing in the future. With that last move, the girl showed no mercy.
In only a few seconds, the beautiful girl finished the young man and fulfilled his wish. On the ground, the young man stood up with great difficulty and bowed to the beautiful girl, despite his deep wounds.
After that he left the coliseum, never looking back. He looked very lonesome at this moment, but he was forgotten really fast, as more intense battles took place in other arenas.
In many arenas only about fifteen people were left and those who could survive until this stage, already proved that they were powerful. That’s why the battles turned even more berserk towards the end, battling it out to make it into the last ten of their arena.
After the interruption with the young boy and the beautiful girl, only thirteen people were left on stage ten — the least of all arenas.
Besides the cold girl, no other exceedingly powerful persons revealed themselves. Of those who endured to this point, two other reached the early stage of Energy Tempering and the rest was at the peak of Energy Gathering, with the exception of Yasha who looked even weaker.
The crowd did not care too much about him. There was always a hand of people who “cheated” their way into the next stage, relying on their their impress movement and evading techniques.
In the next stage all of those would be eliminated, as they had to fight for real in the second round. So, nobody cared about him. And that was exactly what Yasha wanted.
It looks like it goes all according to the plan. Only three more people have to be eliminated and then I… Before he could finish his thought process, he felt a piercingly cold gaze directed at him. It took not much effort to see who looked at him with such cold eyes. It was the beautiful girl. She looked at Yasha and coldly said, “You there, with the black robe, fight me.”