by Tinalynge
Training into the night, he never noticed that outside the window the sun was setting, nor did he notice that the moon started shining and Sha Yun had entered the room with two light stones and some food. The only thing which the young man noticed was his energy, how strand after strand, drop after drop, the energies within his body slowly stabilized themselves. His goal was to have completely stabilized all his energy by the time he was supposed to fight.
One day took another and without paying too much attention the day finally arrived, the day Hui Yue was to fight in the arena.
*knock* *knock*
The sound of knocking could be heard as Xu Piao slowly opened the door, his insides churning like never before and his face filled with worry. The Guild Master had been observing Hui Yue these past few days and everything he saw was simple and standard skills which the white-haired man had used before. No new and astonishing attacks were shown, nothing which proved that he was capable of defeating a King ranked expert.
However, even though Xu Piao was feeling apprehensive it was now far too late to do anything about the fight and with a deep sigh he looked at the young man who had become a dear friend.
“Are you ready?” Was all he could ask, worried sick that this would be the final time he would talking with his friend.
Seeing the worry in Xu Piao’s face, Hui Yue could not help but show a gentle smile and his pale hand gently patted the older man’s shoulder. The smile on his face did not show any signs of anguish nor defeat. Within the ice-blue eyes was a certainty for victory, a certainty which Xu Piao had no idea where it came from.
As they left the room, Sha Yun, Deng Wu, and Wang Ju Long all came out none of them saying anything, all of them slowly patting Hui Yue’s shoulder before they moved behind him and together all departed from the Mercenary Guild.
Walking through town, the streets were bustling with activity and the closer they came to the arena the more crowded the roads became.
Unlike at Mercenary City, this arena was not used for competitions once a year, instead, it was used to deal with arguments that had no other ways of being dealt with than fighting. In the end this was a world where the strongest were correct and the weak had to make way.
Although one might think that the arena was a crowded place, but it was not somewhere battles occurred as often as one would expect. This caused the few battles which did happen to become that much more popular. It was very rare when both men survived the battle. If anything both would die from the severity of the wounds they had.
Arriving at the arena, Xu Piao led the entourage through a side door which took them underground where they stayed within a chilled room.
“We can follow you until you stand on the stage,” The Guild Master explained, “Yet as soon as you are on the stage itself, we will be unable to assist you in any way. The moment you stand on that stage you are only allowed to come down if after you have defeating your opponent.”
“It will be fine,” Hui Yue assured the worried Guild Master once more. The battle which he was about to participate in was not a fight for fun, nor was it a fight he picked because he wished to improve his cultivation and breakthrough.
This was a battle which Hui Yue took for the sake of protecting a friend of his, a friend who had shown him unquestionable loyalty and someone who was always the first to be there for him. If Hui Yue did not participate in this battle and win it, he had no right to call himself Sha Yun’s friend.
Chapter 157 - The Giant
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Chapter 157: The Giant
Entering the arena, Hui Yue saw that another group gathered on the opposite side of the stage. The group that was gathered was a small group of four men where three of them were wearing such beautiful clothes that the white-haired young man instantly ruled them out as being his opponent.
As he ruled three of the four men out, he focused his attention on the final person. This man was clearly in his thirties, his face was adorned with a full beard and his eyes were sharp and alert.
His upper body was bare, revealing his thick and muscular build. His hands were at least three times the size of Hui Yue, not to mention that his height seemed to be two heads taller and three times as wide.
Seeing this man, relief flooded his senses as he looked over the man once more. The fact that he had put so much effort into controlling his body and strengthening his muscles showed that he was not likely to have spent as much time practicing using his Wu Wei, which would help Hui Yue immensely because the young man had never controlled that powerful energy before.
Even though Hui Yue was capable of controlling the Wu Wei Lan Feng had refined, it was important to remember that he was after all still just a Master. The only reason he had access to Wu Wei was because of the phoenix within his dantian cave and although this phoenix was a Saint that, sadly, did not make Hui Yue one.
Fortunately for Hui Yue, a King rank expert was the first tier of the upper dantian and their strength and overall understanding of Wu Wei was far inferior to a Saint, meaning that the two opposing sides were likely to have an even amount of energy for the battle today.
Sighing deeply, Hui Yue nodded to his friends once more before he made his way towards the stage. Everyone within the entire arena was dumbstruck to see what was happening. Gossip quickly spread around the city after the challenge had been issued; gossip that said the person participating would be a necromancer Grandmaster.
What happened now was that a Master ranked young man was stepping up to the plate and although he looked anything but ordinary it was still easy to see that he was just a mere Master He would never stand a chance against the King ranked expert from the other side.
Standing on the stage, the muscled man was laughing in his corner as he saw who his opponent was, his eyes squinted together from laughter.
“Be careful,” The young master was one of the three people who were present in the arena, and his warning seemed to cause the muscular man to become insulted otheer than being helpful.
“This will be a walk in the park,” He laughed, “Don’t worry young master, I will kill him for you and then you can get his magical beast.”
Having said that, the strong man stepped forward and moved towards the stage itself. Just before he was about to enter he stood still and lifted an arm, pointing towards the heavens. At first a small cheer could be heard, but after a few moments the cheer grew in size and the entire arena was cheering and roaring for the muscular man, which caused a self satisfied smile to play on his lips.
Arrogant and very pleased with himself, the man looked towards Hui Yue only to see that the young man looking at him with complete apathy. No matter what was done, he had no reaction to it, instead, his eyes were locked onto every movement made by the giant. Every movement was remembered and analyzed.
“Today!” The giant started yelling, yet he only yelled one word to calm the masses which were still cheering for him. “Today you will witness a life and death battle between myself and this young man!”
Every word he said rang through the entire arena. It was not like Zhou Long or Hui Yue where they spoke with natural or low voices yet everyone clearly heard it, no this was a voice which was booming with strength and vigor!
“The battle has two prizes!” He continued, clearly enjoying the reaction he was getting from the audience, “When we win we will be taking the snake-creature over there. Should these challengers win then they will get some demon coins from our family.”
“Everyone here is a witness to this agreement. As always with the arena, any argument which has been brought before the arena will end here with the blood of the loser!”
At this point he was no longer able to speak any longer as the loud noises from within the arena drowned him out. Nothing could be heard apart from the screaming and cheering audience, but Hui Yue did not pay any mind to them.
Breathing a heavy breath, Hui Yue looked at the man in front of him. This was a battle to the death which meant that there was n
o rules. Anything you decided to do was valid. Should someone fall off the stage then the opposing team won. Otherwise anything was ok.
Seeing that the battle was about to begin Hui Yue started to circulate his Qi and set up the Qi Guard around him. This was not enough and he also released his spiritual energy, allowing for it to clad his body in a silvery shine, protecting him from what was to come.
At first, he decided to test out this new giant and he summoned three fireballs which all were red, or more accurately slightly orange.
These fireballs were Hui Yue’s standard attack and he wished to use it to probe out the man in front of him and as they were thrown they quickly grew in size as they absorbed more and more essence from the heavens and the earth on their way.
Tossing these fireballs, Hui Yue used his spiritual energy making their speed impossible to detect to the naked eye, but how could a King ranked expert not see the fire which was tossed his way. With a self confident smile on his face he allowed for the flames to explode on his chest causing almost no visible damage.
Both sides were shocked at that moment. Although he was a King ranked expert, Hui Yue expected that his fire would cause more damage than minor burn marks on his skin, while on the other hand the opponent never imagined that the fire sent by a mere Master was enough to actually put a mark on his perfect skin.
Looking tentatively at each other it was obvious who had the upper hand, and after calming himself by constantly reminding him about the opponent being a mere Master did the King ranked expert finally move.
Dashing forward, the King allowed for golden light to start gushing out from his body, more precisely from his forehead, from his upper dantian.
This golden light did not gather around the rushing body like Hui Yue’s spiritual energy and Qi had done, instead it floated towards his head where it took the shape of a giant halberd. Taking ahold of it and with a roaring scream he aim at the young man in front of him.
Looking at the man who was rapidly approaching, Hui Yue did not panic. Unlike the King ranked expert, he was completely aware of his own lack of strength, and he activated Velocity Flow as a result, creating a copy of himself and dodging to the side.
This King was unaware of the fact that in front of him was a copy, and with a full powered swing he split the clone in half.
Instead of laughing out loudly and proudly as most would have expected, his face turned serious and solemn as he felt a lack of resistance.
This King ranked expert had killed many people before and he was perfectly well aware of what cutting a human in half felt like, however, no resistance was felt just now. This caused the man to frown as he realized that the young man had already escaped his range, leaving behind a copy. Having an opponent who was capable of moving so quickly that even he was incapable of sensing the movements was something he had to respect.
However, this respect in no way caused him to give up, instead he spun around and faced his back towards the corner of the stage.
The giant was not the only person who was deeply shocked by the movement skill employed by Hui Yue, everyone who knew about martial arts was greatly surprised to see that a Master had succeeded in evading a full power blow from a King ranked expert. This was something which required more than just average ability.
Although the movement skill surprised and astonished the audience and the opposite faction, it did not change the fact that to win Hui Yue would need far more than the ability to avoid getting hit, a fact which Hui Yue knew better than anyone.
Hui Yue’s flames had done nothing other than slightly charring his opponents skin and with a grim look Hui Yue created yet another flame while standing as far away from his opponent as possible.
“Well, let’s try this out then,” While he was mumbling, a shiver ran through his body as he willed a small drop of spiritual energy from Lan Feng to merge together with himself. A small drop could not to be considered a lot, however, this drop of spiritual energy contained his elemental affinity. The red flame within the young man’s hand rapidly changed colour from red to white and white to blue.
Seeing the blue fire within Hui Yue’s hand everyone was shaken to their core; both the Demon Dancing family’s side and the Mercenary Guild side which decided to back Hui Yue.
Seeing the blue flame, everyone knew that this was nothing close to a normal flame, but it was not an elemental flame either.
According to history flames were rated by their colours. Red were natural fire, orange was stronger than red, white was the next strongest flame. But a blue flame was a flame built purely from elemental affinity, a flame that was Fire, itself.
Not many knew about these flames and while the audience was cheering for Hui Yue due to the pretty and abnormal colour, the head of the Demon Dancing Family eyes narrowed, a chilled atmosphere took over and a sour look was sent to his young son.
“Why on earth would you insult someone as promising as this? At least he is not stronger or we would have had a severe issue. How many times have I told you not to judge by the appearance?!” The family leader scolded his son with a low voice as he watched the battle unfold in front of him. The blue flame made him feel uncomfortable, but as long as this was the young boy’s trump card, then things should still be fine.
The Demon Dancing group was not the only ones who were shocked, Xu Piao from the opposite side was as astonished to see the blue flame which Hui Yue displayed in front of everyone. A blue flame which matched the blue eyes of the young boy.
Seeing this blue flame, the Guild Master finally understood that things were not as they had seemed and that Hui Yue wasn’t anything like what he had expected. If he was capable of holding back information about this blue flame, then who knew what else he would be capable of holding back?
Where the Demon Dancing family were hoping that this blue flame was his last attempt to survive, Xu Piao and the Mercenary Guild were hoping that it was just the beginning.
Ignoring both sides, Hui Yue grew the flame larger in size before he, just as previously, tossed the flame towards the giant who was rushing his way.
Chapter 158 - Wasteful Brat
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Chapter 158: Wasteful Brat
Throwing the fire, Hui Yue eyed his opponent, however, this time the giant decided not to meet the fire head on instead he stomped on the ground and managed to throw himself sideways, out of the trajectory of the blue flame.
Seeing that he successfully dodged the blue flame a satisfied smile appeared on the giant man’s face as he once more stomped hard on the ground and used his leg muscles to propel him forward, shooting towards the young man in front of him.
Once again, the golden light of Wu Wei exploded from within and shaped itself into a halberd, which cut a crescent shape towards the perplexed boy.
And once again, Hui Yue was sliced in half, but like last time it was just a copy, and a sudden feeling of danger emerged in the heart of the giant as the young man appeared right behind him, two blue flames in his hands.
The giant man being a King ranked expert and the halberd changed direction in the middle of its slash, the edge suddenly going towards Hui Yue.
An explosion sounded out and the floor of the stage disintegrated into sand which was thrown up blocking the sight of everyone present.
Only after some time was it possible to see the two figures who were still standing on the stage, neither of them moving.
“Too shallow, huh?” Hui Yue said with a grimace on his face. His side was cut open and blood was dripping down the ground from the wound.
The reason the other did not reply, nor do anything in return was because his right arm, the one which had been carrying the Wu Wei halberd, was black and the scent of burnt flesh was wafting out, making a few in the audience look ashen.
Although the wound looked bad it was not so bad that the right arm was out of commission, something which troubled Hui Yue to no end.
However, just as Hui Yue was about to curse his own luck a green hue
slowly appeared around the wound on his side, the green pearl seemingly in a mood to help out the owner of it’s residence and hope filled Hui Yue.
“Seems like I truly have no choice,” He mumbled as he saw how a wretched expression appeared on the face of his opponent. The wound he just dealt was rapidly healing, once more shocking the audience and the two families.
Seeing the green hue was a big surprise to the Demon Dancing family and the leader’s eyes narrowed a lot, his mood turning more and more foul with each thing he saw in front of him.
“A cultivator with affinity for Wood and Fire. Wood and Fire!” He spat at his son, “He could become an alchemist, who knows, he might actually already be one, but you had to go and insult him!”
“At this point we cannot afford to lose to him,” The family head continued, “If we lose then every large family will do anything in their power to gain favor with him, and we will be the ones they trample upon!”
