The people in the audience went quiet instantly after the name of the next participant was announced. The uncomfortable silence got then replaced by faint whispering.
“Wait… d-did he say, inner Dark Palm sect?… what is a person like that doing here…”
One person asked.
“Why would someone of that status be here… are they here to cause trouble?”
Another person asked.
“How should I know, this was supposed to be an event for the clans and not for the main sect…”
“This looks fishy… probably something big is going to happen!”
People continued speculating while Deng Cai slowly went over the bridge, the shield flickering on as he entered the stage. He had a faint smirk on his face, hands behind his back while not paying attention to what these commoners were whispering about. He looked at the opponent that he was facing, it was one of the two girls that he was slightly interested in.
‘So it’s that one…so Master wants me to play around with her?…’
Deng Cai sighed inwardly, his plans were slightly different. He wanted to show off during the tournament against the so-called ‘best’ of the warriors that those clans had to offer. He would let the fair ladies see how awesome and strong he is, garnering their affection in response.
But now things were different, his master had ordered him to ‘play’ with this busty yet short girl. He knew Yang Kai’s character and what this actually meant in reality.
‘Hope I don’t break her too much… oh well there still is the second one, and she is more my type than this one.’
The young man looked to the audience, there were a lot of gazes on him. He was someone that liked to appear magnanimous on the outside even though he was quite rotten on the inside in reality. But if his master ordered him to be violent he would follow the order with decisiveness.
The two combatants were now facing each other, the mood was tense as the people that were watching didn’t know who to cheer for. They kind of had to go with the young Dark Palm sect master, otherwise, they feared that the sect would think they weren’t respecting them enough or giving them enough face.
The young lord smiled at the short lady opposite him, he was quite the handsome young man even the girls in the audience had their hearts skip a beat after getting a load of that hunk.
“What a beautiful fairy I have as an opponent, but don’t you worry this lord Cai is quite benevolent when fighting against such beautiful opponents!”
He gave her a slight coquettish grin while still standing with his hands behind his back. Feng Nuana’s eyebrows twitched as she had her hands out in a more traditional battle position. She as well as her big sister was someone that used combat fans as a weapon. This tournament allowed the use of personal weapons, the only thing that was forbidden was having spatial rings or pills that boosted your battle strength.
She was kind of mad as she noticed that her opponent wasn’t taking her seriously at all. Which made the small girl fume in anger, which was shown in the form of a giant pout on her face. The girl moved her hand out and pointed at the yang man she was going to fight, rage in her eyes.
“Who are you calling a beautiful fairy you idiot, you think this big sis would go for shallow compliments like that, huh?”
She gave the man a malicious glare, her battle fans getting moved in front of her face as she got ready for a fight. She didn’t know why, but this guy was pissing her off. He was way too smug and if she remembered correctly, smug and overconfident males weren’t good partners. You were supposed to go for the awkward boys, the more troubled they looked the better match they would be.
Deng Cai was taken aback, he was giving the girl his best young master smile and he even blew his bangs upwards for an enchanting effect while talking. How could this woman not be affected by his charms, there must be something wrong with her. Was what this man was thinking to himself.
“No need to be shy lovely fairy, how about we play a little game?”
The man proposed still standing there with his hands behind his back while the people in the audience continued whispering among each other.
“I’ll give you five minutes, if you manage to strike me even once, I’ll admit defeat.”
The man stuck his chest out while posing proudly and swished his sleeve to add to the effect, thinking that this made him look really gallant and charming.
“Huh? Stop spouting nonsense you dandy bastard!”
The small girl fumed with anger as her face got red. She really didn’t like how this guy was running his mouth, making it seem like she wasn’t even worth his time. She was still part of the young master template, so this was quite the hit to her face. She was oblivious to the Dark Palm Sect behind this man and didn’t really worry about things like that.
Feng Nuana gripped her two battle fans tightly and swung them forward. Her mortal grade weapon shone with a green light and produced a blade of wind in the shape of a scythe. The ranged attack flew with astonishing speed at Deng Cai that was still standing there without a care in the world.
“Die you bastard!”
The short girl had quite the potty mouth and continued shouting at the man while producing more razor shape wind blade attacks. The young master with the gem on the forehead on the other hand just dodged. He made it look easy as he dodged the wind scythes, each one of them missed and sliced into the rocky ground leaving deep scratches on it.
“My, my… you’re quite the interesting girl… but this is child’s-play for this young lord!”
The man continued bouncing side to side while using some strange movement technique that Feng Nuana couldn’t get a read on. The girl just as the rest of her clan members was a ranged specialist. She continued pelting her opponent with wind blades, the sheer amount of them was astonishing. The number would leave a normal opponent bleeding and defeated by this point. This man, on the other hand, looked to be enjoying himself as he just soared through the battle stage.
The crowd gasped, they weren’t expecting such a one-sided battle. The girl was ranked in the top ten of the current young generation that was taking part in this tournament. But compared to this man she was like a tame little kitten, he wasn’t even retaliating, just dodging everything with ease.
Up in the VIP booth where the members of the triforce alliance were sitting, the elders were sweating bullets. They didn’t know where this dark palm sect disciple came from, but everyone here knew well who he was.
“What is the disciple of that bastard doing here…”
Feng Liena moved forward and stared at the center stage. Her younger sister was assaulting her opponent with various techniques, but they didn’t look to be effective at all. The granny next to her rubbed her chin and also chimed in.
“Could it be a coincidence…”
“I don’t think so, this youth wasn’t there during the trials. His name wasn’t called out during the draws either.”
Zhang Jin replied while also standing up from his seat. He didn’t like this one bit, this situation was strange. He didn’t know what this was about, but it was probably something relating to the Feng clan. The disciple of that Yang Kai was probably moved to fight this young Matriarch’s sister for a reason, but what could that be?
“Do you have any ideas about the purpose of this? Did you offend this disciple or his master in any way?”
Feng Liena moved her face to the side and went a bit pale. She remembered one person from the Dark Palm Sect, she didn’t give him much face and stormed out the moment he made a marriage proposal out of nowhere.
“The Matriarch did refuse him, I was there with her that time.”
Feng Maling replied while following the rest to the edge of the VIP booth as everyone was trying to look at the fight.
“Think this might have been the reason we were sent to that blasted secret ground two years ago. Though we haven’t heard anything from him since then…”
The old lady vaguely remembered the Dark Palm young master, he had a strange look in his face. She was the one to apologize after the whole predicament happened for her Matriarch. The man had a weird smile that gave her the chills that time though.
“Maybe you should tell the young one to give up, that young man is clearly just toying with her at this point…”
The old man spoke up while rubbing his chin. He started measuring the young man’s strength and was quite surprised that such a young lad existed. He was clearly in the late stage of foundation establishment, even edging on the great circle realm.
‘Is this boy really below the age of twenty-one?’
Zhang Liu and Xue were already progressing fast, but even those two might not be at that realm in just a couple of years. Was this youth lying about his age? Even if his age was a lie, he was from the inner sect. The same sect that owned this whole town, they would probably not care or be too afraid to punish him for it.
“Tell her to give up?”
The busty Matriarch looked to the granny next to her, the older woman grimaced and then shrugged.
“I think it would be easier to find a phoenix feather than to convince that sister of mine to surrender…”
Feng Liena was getting worried, it would be great if the battle just ended. Her silly sister didn’t look as if she had any chance of winning. At least not if she used the regular Feng Clan techniques that were widespread. But would her pride allow her to go down without a fight?
“Oh, that’s a nice breeze my little cute fairy.”
Deng Cai chuckled to himself while doing a somersault backward and landing on his two feet. The audience bursting out in cheers at the nice performance.
‘Master didn’t really give me any specific instructions, so I’ll just embarrass her this way… best to not damage her before I have my fun.’
He licked his lips, which gave his opponent the shivers. Feng Nuana narrowed her eyes and stopped showering the man with the wind scythes. She moved her hand backward, her legs bent while she leaned forward. She looked now like someone that was intending to throw a discus from ancient Greece.
The man noticed that she was gathering some spiritual energy into the fan she was holding and just whistled. He was just going to dodge and then deliver a small attack of his own as the five minutes were almost up.
Nuana gritted her teeth and she felt a drastic decrease in her spiritual energy. The moment she ‘threw’ her fan forward without releasing it you could see a phantom of an emerald hawk behind her. Deng Cai felt like something was off as the greenish looking ranged attack flew forward him. The bolt of energy transformed into a hawk-like bird that charged towards the young man, the speed of this attack was several times faster than of the wind scythes.
Cai’s eyes bulged as he dodged to the side, evading the speeding bird just in the nick of time. This was far from over as the green hawk flew upwards and quickly changed its trajectory. It was chasing after its enemy and gaining more speed with each passing moment.
‘This one is a bit tricky…’
The man thought while constantly dodging the energy bird, the attack radiating a strong Dao of the winds. But enough was enough, it was apparent that he couldn’t evade this thing forever. He moved both his palms forward and chanted something. People could see a faint phantom of a giant mountain behind him.
A giant slab of rock appeared in front of Deng Cai just a few moments afterward. It looked like some kind of mystical wall with some strange runes and patterns etched into it. The green spirit bird collided with the slab of spirit rock producing quite the loud booming sound. After the smoke cleared people saw some cracks on the defensive technique but it was still there, they couldn’t say the same thing for the energy animal that was now gone.
“Nice try little fairy but…”
The man couldn’t finish his sentence as he felt something off. While he was defending himself he had lost sight of his opponent, this was something that Feng Nuana was counting on. The small girl was already following her previous attack with a close-range one, her battle fan moving towards her opponent.
“Go to hell you bastard!”
“Why you little!”
The man kicked the ground making it quake from the sheer amount of power. He was slightly late on the uptake as the battle fan that was covered by a layer of green spiritual energy sliced right next to his face. The two finally jumped back after the exchange, the small girl clicking her tongue as she didn’t manage to get a clean hit on her opponent.
Deng Cai, on the other hand, was seeing red, as the spot between his eyebrow and nose got sliced and he was bleeding. He moved his finger to the wound, it was a shallow cut but he could feel a stinging sensation. His hand shivered and his eyes trembled as he looked at the blood that was now on his fingers. He looked away from the blood and to the person that managed to injure him, his face going red with anger.
“You dare? You fucking bitch!”