In the VIP section

Only silence remained after the judge announced the result of the third arena, a stifling atmosphere lying over the room. Normally, the composed elders of the top powers could keep their calm even in the face of the strongest foe, but this time their mouths were all wide open.

Even Calamity Shadow did not seem as relaxed as before. But it was no wonder, Yasha finished his battle first and displayed an astonishing amount of talent, especially in the Sword Dao! The sword technique that he executed was unknown to nearly all of them and he was already showing signs of developing sword intent, all while still being in the Energy Gathering.

All elders stared at Dyetz, hoping that he would disclose some more information, but they were doomed to wait, as Dyetz was not in possession of any other information regarding Yasha. Being the center of attention, Dyetz simply watched the battles on the stages, while his complexion turned uglier and uglier.

Meanwhile, the battles on the other two stages were quickly approaching their end too. On the first stage, Lentz was clearly having the upper-hand without expending too much of his spiritual energy, while holding back his most powerful moves.

Right now, he was only using the most basic form of the Great Art of Flames, the inheritance technique of the Hunlua Clan. The sword in Lentz’s hands burned with a bright red flame and empowered all of his attacks, leaving behind trails of flames in the air wherever the sword moved.

His opponent, Nilan, was clearly on the shorter end, as he was pushed around the stage by Lentz, barely able to fend off the relentless attacks of Lentz, who had also completed more temperings than him.

Unlike Yasha, who could defeat Energy Tempering cultivators at the Energy Gathering stage, he could only respond to the attacks of Lentz even though he already tempered his first organs, which usually gave him an immense advantage.

Despite that, he was completely beaten black and blue by Lentz, as his spiritual energy was clearly weaker than his opponents.

Lentz already managed to transform a minuscule amount of his spiritual energy into fire energy that further boosted his attack — a trade mark of late Energy Overflow Stage experts and Dantian Grade experts.

Needless to say that this really was an astonishing feat, as one needed the power from the universal laws. Without this support, it was nearly impossible to achieve.

After a while, Lentz gathered his powerful spiritual energy with a derogatory expression and infused his sword with even more power. The flames on his sword became more vigorous and the temperature on the stage increased yet again. This was the first stage of the Great Art of Flames, Incinerating Blade.

The flaming sword flashed through the defense of Nilan and directly cleaved his sword in two. The gashing slash on Nilan’s chest, though, was immediately cauterized because of the intense flames, preventing any blood from leaving his body. Nilan’s sword crashed to the ground as he fell to his knees, clutching the enormous scar on his chest.

He gritted his teeth and weakly looked up to look at Lentz, not wanting to accept his defeat, as defiance was written all over his face.

Lentz on the other hand, already had his back turned to Nilan and walked off the stage without a care. The win did not interest him much, it was a must win for him. At the same time, he was in a bad mood, as he hadn’t expected that Yasha would manage to win his battle.

During his fight against Nilan, Lentz glanced a few times over to the other stages and put extra focus on the battle between Yasha and Akura. Even though he did not want to admit it, Yasha clearly had transformed into someone that even he had to face seriously.

To the outside world, he seemed like an arrogant young master, and that was mostly true, but another part why he looked like this right now, was his constant ruminating about Yasha. While walking down the stage, Lentz was filled countless questions, trying to find out how Yasha managed to achieve his current strength.

With two battles finished, only one battle was left: the battle between Areth and Egil. On stage two, the result was also near its end with no surprises too.

Areth was clearly overpowering his opponent with his strange battle methods. He looked even more relaxed than Lentz, even though his battle took longer. Areth moved around the stage like a specter, nearly vanishing from sight while performing strange hand signs.

Egil on the other hand, grew paler with each passing second, as if his blood was leaving his body through several lacks. Underneath his sinister mask, Areth observed his prey and could not hide the vicious grin which gradually emerged on his face.

There were not many people among the spectators who knew what was going on, but those that knew, all had serious expressions. The strange and wicked methods of the Nameless Sect were spread wide and far, but with even mortals present, how could they understand the mysteries behind Areth’s rapidly changing hand seals?

The atmosphere in the VIP section could only be described as even more stifling than before. After everything that had transpired with Yasha there were not many things that could shock the experienced elders of the various factions. Yet now, one such thing unfolded directly in front of their eyes.

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Dairo stared down on the stage of the last battle, his breathing clearly getting rougher with an intimidating pressure slowly spreading out. His ice cold eyes turned to look at a seemingly insignificant man casually sitting in a corner of the VIP lounge. Only his pitch-black eyes were visible under the black mask. This person was Calamity Shadow, the elder of the Nameless Sect.

Dairo then tried to calm the raging waves in his heart and chuckled, “I must say Calamity Shadow, why didn’t you tell us that in your Nameless Sect a new Blood Prince had been born! Your Nameless Sect only manages to raise one Blood Prince every few thousand years, it has been such a long time since you last passed down your core techniques.”

Just now, Dairo had nearly lost his composure when he saw the complicated hand signs of Areth and how they controlled the flow of the battle. He could clearly feel the laws around him being roused, a sign that someone touched upon a universal law.

This was clearly the method of the core inheritance of the Nameless Sect, the Compendium of Blood Magic. This cruel cultivation method focused on perceiving the blood laws of the universe as early as possible, thus raising its difficulty to nigh impossibility.

An Energy Tempering cultivator trying to perceive the laws? What a joke! The laws usually were not something mere Energy Tempering rookies could touch, not to mention true comprehension, so the mortality rate of practicing this cultivation method was approaching the 100 percent mark.

The power of this method tempted many geniuses of the Nameless Sect and equally as many were buried by this technique. That's why Nameless Sect established a rule: the person who managed to cultivate the Compendium of Blood Magic before the Energy Overflow stage and before the age of eighteen, would be granted the title Blood Prince. Blood Prince’s were the true successors of the Nameless Sect and were trained with all available resources. They were the sect’s most precious treasures and would be protected no matter what.

So why was everyone worried after seeing the new Blood Prince? Areth was naturally not the first Blood Prince of the Nameless Sect. In the sect's deep history, several such geniuses emerged and turned the whole kingdom upside down. Every time a new Blood Prince emerged and managed to grow, an age of war and bloodshed would follow.

The moment Dairo spoke out loud to provoke Calamity Shadow, the other elders sighed heavily. They hoped that their eyes were clouded by age and that they did not see right, but Dairo’s words proved that their earlier assumption was the truth: a new Blood Prince was born.

Such news meant nothing good. Several elders immediately contacted the higher ups of their respective force and passed on the news. Everyone had to be prepared in the near future.

Calamity Shadow continued to sit quietly in the corner, seemingly not interested in explaining or disclosing any more information on this topic. The tranquility, which looked like it was a natural part of him, caused the others in the VIP lounge to get angry though. They were completely disregarded and even Dairo was ignored.

The first one to speak out was Neverim, the youngest of them all. Neverim stood up and slammed his hands on the wooden table that was simply blasted into powder, “Just who do you think you are, Calamity Shadow? Is this how you treat your peers?”

But Calamity Shadow still did not move a muscle, even after Neverim’s rampant outrage. Dairo and the others stood on the sidelines, quite amused by Neverim. Neverim, although part of the Darwa Family and a genius craftsman, possessed a wild and unruly temper, escalating even the smallest disagreement.

Even though the others were angered, they were older and thus were capable of controlling their emotions, not directly showing their anger. And the most important point, they knew Calamity Shadow better than Neverim, a newly emerged Dantian Grade expert. They knew that they should not provoke Calamity Shadow who seemed harmless with his tranquil aura…

And as they had guessed, Calamity Shadow moved for the first time since he sat in the VIP lounge. His head was still focused on the stage, not looking at Neverim at all, which angered him even more.

But Calamity Shadow’s hands slowly moved and formed one complicated hand seal after hand seal. The spiritual energy then converged in his hands and a faint blood red light emerged in the center of his palms, as his hands stopped and formed an interwoven net of red lines.

Neverim stared in horror at the simple hand seals unfolding in Calamity Shadow’s hands. His raging spiritual energy silently turned quiet, even though he tried his best to circulate it.

The blood in his body did not seem to belong to him anymore and was instead gradually controlled by the man with the black mask. This resulted in him being unable to control the spiritual energy in his body properly.

Neverim’s countenance grew paler with each passing second and suddenly he clutched his chest, right where the heart was located. With a pained face he fell to his knees and rolled on the ground, subdued by the immense pain by having his own blood flow forcibly controlled.

The pain of this sensation let him lose all of his previous bearing. Only his pain filled cries echoed through the lounge, begging for mercy. Until, finally, Dairo could not endure any longer and spoke out loud, his voice accompanied by a majestic spiritual energy, “Enough! That’s enough Calamity Shadow. Do not mind the words of the younger generation and stop bullying the weak.”

A strong pulse of bloodline energy washed over the room and destroyed the net of thin veins between Calamity Shadow’s hands. Only faint traces of blood silently dropped on the floor.

Calamity Shadow still did not say anything in response and simply shrugged, returning to his previous statue-like state.

The other elders that watched the short exchange tried their best to hide the horror in their eyes. They all thought the same thing: Do I have the means to break the seal so easily? At the same time, the reverence they felt for Dairo only continued to grow, as he managed to destroy the seal with an roar.

By the time Dairo spoke, Neverim had already fainted. However, if he heard that Dairo labeled him as weak, he would probably spat out more blood then he already had.

After the quarrel in the VIP lounge had been quelled by the supreme display of power of Calamity Shadow and Dairo, the last battle was also finished with Areth being declared the clear victor.

His opponent was lying flat on the ground in a pool of his own blood, while bleeding from all orifices. He had been truly massacred by Areth.

The judge then continued to announce the next battles. On stage one, Eleanor would battle against Ruxia, on stage two Levi would battle against Leighn and on stage three Amber would battle against Jiule, which would be the first battle for the latter.

The last battle was anticipated the most by the crowd, as the battle between two of the six prodigies could only deliver an incomparably stellar performance. It did not take long for the mentioned candidates to enter the stage, ready to fight in the next round!