After the surprise brought by the unprecedentedly fast first match, the succeeding matches proceeds normally, with some of the people showcasing their skills as they fought each other, while some tries their best to survive the onslaught of their opponents, doing their hardest just to grasp that single chance of victory, only for most of them to fail as they couldn’t stand their opponents’ strength.
While the matches proceeds more quickly now that there is no rest time between each of the matches, it still takes a longer time than the previous rounds given the fact that each of the matches of the seventh round happens individually, rather than the previous rounds’ simultaneous match set-up.
This gave the participants who won their fight in the seventh round more time to rest and recuperate as the barrier immediately erects itself now whenever they are out of the battle, the ambient qi in their surrounding seemingly increasing even further as if to accelerate their recovery.
As the seventh round continues, more and more people got eliminated, the matches only stopping for a while once half of the participants were eliminated, leaving behind only thirty-two people still in the competition.
The thing that intrigues the people the most is that from all of the audience’s favorites, only Wu Xiaotian and Li Yan were matched immediately, while the others mostly fought against other less known opponents, each of them winning their matches just as the people expected.
“Congratulations to everyone who passed the seventh round, now starting the eighth round of the competition” with the mechanical voice announcing, most of the people who fought later in the seventh round hoped, prayed, and wished with all their might for them to not get chosen immediately, as they are still recuperating from their fights.
Most of their wishes come true, except for one disciple of the Purple Lightning Temple, the last one who won from the seventh round, had his stone platform approach the center of the arena, giving him a pleasant surprise when another person who wore the same uniform as him to move near his stone platform, prompting him to smile when they met eye to eye.
Before the barrier was even lifted, the two people that came from the same force seems to come into an agreement the moment they saw each other, with the first young man to approach the arena declaring surrender, rendering the audience speechless.
“That…”
“Yeah… I think it makes sense, Lei Xing is the strongest among the disciples of the Purple Lightning Temple after all”
“Still, surrendering like that is a bit… cowardly don’t you think?”
“At this point of the competition, do you think they would even care? They’re just paving the path for the one with the greatest potential among them so that he can have more chances of coming out as the final victor”
“Yeah, it’s the inheritance from a celestial that’s at stake after all”
Discussing among themselves, some have positive opinion of the tactics employed by the Purple Lightning Temple, while some look at their methods and branded it cowardly.
As the debate between these two sides escalates, the competition proceeds as usual, the fights dazzling the spectators as they witness geniuses among them fighting with all their might, displaying all sorts of rare and unique techniques that most of them only encountered for the first time in all their life.
“Finally, something interesting…”
“Another one of the most talented ones fighting huh…”
“These two really are destined rivals…”
“I hope they don’t go and destroy the stone platforms they’re standing on”
Looking at the two ladies standing opposite to each other, the spectators couldn’t help but start looking forward to the fight about to happen, given that these two are among the most talented people of their generation, with the two of them growing competing with each other.
“Hag…” looking at the lady standing in front of her, Hua Xian’er said while placing her right hand on the handle of her sword, seemingly prepared to fight at any moment now.
“Cow…” refusing to back down from her sworn sister’s provocations, Hong Lian taunts back with a smile on her face, her eyes squinted as she spreads her fan open, covering the lower half of her face.
“Ready?” reaching her hand out, Hua Xian’er looks at her sworn sister with her signature cold, empress-like face, the beauty she’s radiating enough to attract the people watching them, making most of the men desire to kneel in front of her.
“Always.” Holding the hand reaching out towards her, Hong Lian replies, the smile on her face making her appear like a young maiden who just got married, her charms and appeal stealing about half of the audience focused on Hua Xian’er previously.
As a disturbing silence starts to fall in the arena, some of the audience starts gulping, just the sound of that alone seems to be heard from all across the arena, this state of silence lasting for a few moments before one of the ladies in the arena curled her fingers, locking the other one as she also moves her hand like that.
“Are you… kidding me?”
“Is that…”
“Yeah, I can’t be wrong about that”
Seeing the thumb of both beauties moving across the ‘ring’ made from their hands joining together, the audience couldn’t help but become weirdly amazed as they stare at what’s happening, just the simple movement of the ladies’ fingers enough to catch them in terror, as it moves in an inhumanely quick way, almost as if they’re simultaneously defending, dodging the attempt of their opponent to pin them down while they also attacks, feinting around and sending occasional serious tackles to try and take down their opponents.
The battle continues, the two ladies eyeing the movement of their opponents’ fingers, trying to predict when and when they would move in order for them to execute the most efficient way to pin down their opponent, but their strength and abilities, as well as how well they know each other, makes it so that they can’t read each other due to them consistently predicting each other’s moves.
“Holy shit, even thumb wrestling are terrifying battles when fought by geniuses huh…”
“Do you not find this thing weird?”
“What’s weird with that!? There are myriads of daos that a cultivator can thread, each a way to express and know oneself and others, while it is really rare, who am I to say that fighting via thumb wrestling in a serious competition is wrong?”
“That brother over there, I agree with your opinion!!!”
“HAHAHA he’s right, still, it’s really rare for someone to initiate a fight like this”
“It’s rarer for someone to accept that…”
“That’s true, if I have a spirit stone for every time someone won a match in this competition through rare, out of the box battles, I would have two spirit stones now, which is clearly nothing much but it’s weird it happens twice”
While the spectators continue discussing, the battle between the two geniuses starts to approach its end, with Hong Lian eventually slowing down due to her body not being used to these kinds of fights, the still accelerating finger of Hua Xian’er finally catching hers, pinning her down as the empress-like lady counts down, causing Hong Lian to surrender the moment her sworn sister’s count reaches three.
“That was fun!” Hua Xian’er expressed towards the figure going towards the audience area.
“Let’s do that again sometimes” Hong Lian nodded before replying, smiling at her sworn sister as they move towards the side of the arena.