Liang rolled on the ground towards his right and just barely avoided the punishing steel ball that slammed into the ground. His opponent was a small mountain of a man containing both strength and skill that was capable of attacking accurately from any distance using his weapon. However, it was the second time facing an opponent with a similar fighting style, so he already had a working plan.
Leading with a qi blade, he shot forward as if loosed from a bow and slammed his shield into the man’s sword, pinning it to his chest. The qi blade left a deep cut across his shoulder, and Liang followed through by stabbing his Khopesh into the man’s side; a wound deep enough to end the match, but not deep enough to risk ending the man’s life.
It was his second victory of the final round placing him as one of the frontrunners. With eight people remaining undefeated, the challenges would begin. To go from a village boy to a top 10 fighter in a tournament of hundreds felt extremely satisfying, but at the same time, he was disappointed.
During the tournament, his skills grew by leaps and bounds, and every day he felt his strength increase, but the competition was a sham. He wanted to see if he could win the number one spot, yet it was not an option. The top 10 fighters would receive a reward, however, the fighter did not have to accept them as they all came with strings, and the old man was not interested in wasting time fulfilling the requests of sects.
First place was different though. The reward was not optional. No matter who won, there was no way to decline the city lord’s daughter – not that any males would pass on what they thought was a valuable cultivation partner. The thought of not fighting for number one tempered his motivation, and made the rest of the tournament feel pointless, but he did still have a goal.
Although Liang agreed with the goal, he still wanted to be number one. However, when he brought the topic up to the old man he was told, “What do you care if your number one of this tournament? Some five-year champion in something as pointless as this. Do you think they’ll sing your name in the streets while emptying the brothels for your arrival? Nobody cares boy. But pin that ugly daughter on that Huang kid, ha, that’s how to leave your mark on the world.”
The old man’s response was expected, and as the challengers went up one after the other he became less interested. The boy with the giant hammer finally lost his first fight, leaving him with a record of two and one, which was still good enough for top ten, but a setback nonetheless.
There were two fighters with a three win’s to zero losses record, and that was Huang Yun and the girl who could control metal named Xuan Fu of the Emerald Phoenix Sect. Amongst all the powerful sects of the region, The Emerald Phoenix Sect was renowned for their kind and generous nature, which the old man said was most likely nothing more than a cover, after all, how else could they produce such a monster. Undoubtedly, she would be difficult to defeat.
With losers challenging other losers in an attempt to pad their victory totals, nearly two hours passed before Liang faced another opponent. It was a young woman who fought with metal fans capable of throwing a barrage of qi attacks or transforming into a staff weapon when closed. Although she had a slender frame, she was surprisingly strong.
Once again relying on his shield to close the distance, Liang hacked his sword in her direction, but was unable to get a clean strike against her. Nearly every blow was a near miss or a parry, and slowly damage to her weapons became visible, it was only a matter of time before they shattered.
However, he did not want to drag out the fight by attacking until the weapon broke, he wanted to try something different. Using one of the techniques the old man taught him, he excited areas of the stage by channeling qi through his sword to the ground every time he swung. By attacking her left side only he slowly built a ring around her, and when it was complete, he retreated back over a dozen meters.
Certain he was no longer within range, he clenched his fist as a visual aid and instantly the connections to the dormant qi erupted, creating a ring of explosions surrounding her. Although he learned the technique several days before, he never used it in a fight due to control and clarity issues
When learning the technique, the old man told him that all things contained a certain amount of energy, and injecting an object with qi increased the energy it held. The dissipation time of the qi depended on the object, and certain materials were able to store the qi for long periods creating spirit stones. It was one of the fundamentals of powering arrays.
Although he did not understand the finer details, he did understand how to overload a material and how to release any excess stored energy. Overloading an array will damage or potentially destroy it, and releasing all the stored energy at once would create an explosion. The old man called them active mines, and any material capable of storing qi could become one.
The instant the eruption occurred, the crowd turned silent. For some reason unknown to Liang, the crowd reacted differently when an attractive girl was injured, and once they realized the girl in the ring was defeated; they booed in his direction and even called him names. He almost felt everyone wanted him to forfeit and not even try to win.
The explosions – equal on all sides – forced the girl into the middle of the mine ring and only knocked her unconscious, so when the announcer was able to wake her up, he declared Liang as the winner and the crowd calmed down. He could have kept the technique a secret, but he doubted very much that anyone understood how versatile it was, so he did not mind.
More importantly, the technique caught the attention of the remaining opponents. It was unseen to this point in the tournament, and fighters generally avoided unknown techniques when they could. His hope was that it would lower the number of people willing to challenge him, which worked.
By the late afternoon, only the top ten fighters remained. Of the original competitors, 290 were now gone, some had died, some were physically crippled, and the lucky ones walked away feeling inadequate. No matter the expectations going into a match, none wanted to stop fighting. Every additional chance to fight meant one-step closer to complete victory.
Ten fighters and ten rewards, each person left had the opportunity to win something, and only Liang and the boy with the hammer came from an unaffiliated background. They were better odds than most would give them. Unless the boy refused, he would most likely become a member of a sect after this tournament.
The remaining battles were for bragging rights and honor, and the first challenge was surprisingly the top two. With the most wins and no defeats, – unless they lost to someone below them – they would most likely fight each other to determine first place anyways, but it was earlier than expected. However, the young girl who controlled metal and controlled the crowd almost seemed impatient.
Since the beginning, Huang Yun had not gone all out, but Liang did not think the girl had either. It was an interesting match, one he was happy to see play out.
***
Since the black market incident, Huang Yun had been having a terrible time. Curses rained down on him incessantly from the other disciples, and even the elders in his clan questioned him. A space talisman could become a family treasure, passed from one clan leader to the next, but he had nothing to offer other than excuses.
One moment he was in an alley and the next moment he was lost in the forest, needing more than an hour to figure his way out and return to the city. On top of that, the news of the incident had reached everyone’s ears, as if someone was deliberately spreading it. Even trying to enter the gates became a problem.
None of the guards showed him the respect his clan warranted and a verbal argument led to a fight, which left one guard injured, and his reputation smeared further. To add insult to injury, he had to pay 10 medium grade spirit stones as a reparation for the damage he caused to the guard and the public order. It was humiliating.
When asked at the mansion, he told the elders how he checked his body in the woods and found a piece of paper in his robe that was slowly burning away. The space talisman had burned up. However, he doubted any of them believed him, and Fairy Xu and his guards only made the issue worse by corroborating the rumors going around. Without a doubt, the news had already spread to the patriarch.
The tournament almost became an afterthought in his mind, as even if he won first place it would not clear his name. In every fight his opponents would taunt him before the match began, even spitting on the ground and calling his clan a den of thieves or a dogshit clan with no honor. He had held his composure up to this point, avoiding disqualification from permanently injuring someone, but his patience had run out.
The blade dancer challenged him, which he expected, but she was the first to challenge someone after the top ten were decided. Of everyone in the final round he had the most challenges with seven; it was a sign of disrespect. He was in first with a three-win lead, but a loss to her would drop him to second due to the nature of challenges. He could not allow it. Even if he restoring his honor was impossible, he would not lose first place, and she would become a warning to the others.
