Arriving at the end of the corridor, Wu Xiaotian finds himself inside a room the familiar, mechanical voice resounding inside telling him to prepare as he will be transported to a different place, the announcement only giving him a few minutes of rest before the room starts glowing brighter and brighter, the light only disappearing as his eyes adjusts, finding himself in a completely different place.
Standing in a floating stone platform, he saw multiple similar places to the one he’s standing on, all of them occupied by other people, some appearing familiar to him while some are not, most of them wearing clothes similar to each other, uniforms that he is already familiar with, the people wearing them presumably coming from the five different forces that follows after him when his group entered the barrier of this inheritance ground.
“Now beginning the true trial for the inheritance, an elimination duel between each challenger that passed the previous trial, the winner proceeding to the next round and the loser being eliminated. There are no rules in the battle, and being killed is a risk that challengers needed to take into account.
Surrenders are permissible, and the winning side cannot attack the losing side when they already surrendered”
As the mechanical voice announced the goal of the trial, the people all around finally realized that this is where the real battle will begin, some of them might even get killed in this battle. However, all of the people standing in the stone platforms are cultivators with at least a bit of talent, hence not even a single one among them backed out.
After seemingly waiting for people to forfeit for a few minutes, the mechanical voice starts speaking again, announcing the start of the last trial as stone platforms moves and collides with each other, pairing the numerous people into two before speaking again.
“There are four-thousand and ninety-six challengers currently, hence the matches will be held simultaneously until there are only sixty-four challengers left, where each of the remaining challengers will display their might in front of the eliminated crowd in a one versus one fashion until there’s only one person remains”
After the voice turns silent, the stone platforms start rumbling as battles starts in multiple directions, some of them being finished at the first exchange with some of the losing sides not even having the ability to react before they were defeated by their opponents.
“Dao Seeking Mountain, Shui Fang, please enlighten me fellow cultivator” cupping his fist in a greeting, a young man wearing a daoist robe greeted while facing Wu Xiaotian. Seeing the demeanor of the fellow with cultivation only the same level as him, he couldn’t help but praise the young man as he held himself humbly yet full of confidence.
“Thousand Roads City, Su Tian” Wu Xiaotian replies as he draws his blade from its sheath, nodding slightly at the young man looking a bit older than his appearance before getting into a stance, ready to spar with this young man.
Charging at Wu Xiaotian, the young man starts with a downward swing with his sword, his movements being parried, his moves being used by Wu Xiaotian to control the flow of their battle, and within seconds, the young man wearing daoist robe is disarmed, still standing straight as he looks at Wu Xiaotian with admiration.
“That’s a brilliant use of yin-yang concept, fellow daoist Su” the young man said before picking up his sword.
“I’ll take your compliments” Wu Xiaotian replies before nodding at the young man again, their platforms separating with the young man’s platform ascending a few meters higher, going outside of the original circle formed by the platforms previously.
Observing the platforms outside the circle, Wu Xiaotian noticed that the platforms is already forming an arena, with the defeated people’s stone platforms residing on the audience’s place and the winners of the round in the main stage.
Left within the arena are two-thousand and forty-eight challengers, each of their platforms now being sorted, partnering with a new opponent as the elimination battles continues, the numbers of the winning participants bound to thin out the longer the competition proceeds.
After a few minutes of large stone platforms moving around the arena-like space, the lineups for the next battle are finally completed, with Wu Xiaotian coming across someone wearing the same uniform as the person he previously competed with.
“Dao Seeking Mountain, Qing Yun, asking for a spar” the young man said, acting the same as his previous opponent, Shui Fang, cupping his fist and bowing a bit before standing in a combat position, his senses vigilant as Shui Fang told him what just happened with his fight against this young man.
“Thousand Roads City, Su Tian” Wu Xiaotian replies as he draws his blade from its sheath, this time taking the initiative as he starts walking forward, his steps slow and steady, hence surprising the vigilant young man when his opponent suddenly disappears from his sight, the next moment he recognizes his presence, the immortal-like young man is already in front of him, the vigilant young man raising his sword up to parry Wu Xiaotian’s vertical strike, barely fending off the attack as he uses the force from it to create a distance between the two of them, his arms still shaking from the blunt force of the attack.
“What a monster…” he thought to himself as he looks at Wu Xiaotian, already walking towards him again exactly like how he did so previously, the young man wearing a dao robe, Qing Yun, pushing his senses to the limits as he anticipates the opponent in front of him, thinking to himself that he’s prepared for whenever Wu Xiaotian’s figure appears right in front of him again.
Seeing the unperturbed face of his opponent, Wu Xiaotian couldn’t help but smile in praise as he thought that not only the techniques, but even the human body in this planet is far more advance when compared to Earth, as this method he’s currently using alone is enough for him to take lives of multiple people the same level of strength as him with one strike back when he was Nyx.
“It’s a great move fellow daoist, now it’s my turn” Qing Yun said as the sword in his hand starts to get coated by ambient qi, the blade seemingly getting sharper as tempest of wind starts to whirl around it, his figure disappearing along with the wind, the few people watching their fight surprised at the sudden burst of speed he displayed.
“That young man is finished”
“He’s quite strong as well, he made that guy distance himself from the first attack after all… pity he meets someone quite powerful from the Dao Seeking Mountain”
“Heh… that might be his only chance to win the match, look, he’s not even moving now, he might be exhausted from all that I guess”
Amidst the unfavorable opinion towards Wu Xiaotian, one among the few watching his fight believes that he will win this battle with ease, his belief coming from the fact that he’s someone who got the privilege of fighting against such monster firsthand.
‘None of them knows anything at all…’ Shui Fang thought as he shook his head, shivering as he remembers his battle against Wu Xiaotian, their exchange of sword feeling more like an exchange between the conductor and his orchestra, with him following the immortal-like young man’s every movement, as if Wu Xiaotian is just playing with him in the palm of his hand, the only thing that prevents him from thinking of this spar as something terrifying is the fact that he got quite a lot of insights from it.