The man standing in front of Hui Yue was neither tall nor was he short. He was not fat, nor was he thin. He was not old, nor was he young. He was the most average man Hui Yue had ever seen, yet even though he was so mediocre he was still the leader of the mercenary group and a cultivator of the Grandmaster rank.
Those two facts alone were enough to make Hui Yue focus on the man, but no matter how much Hui Yue looked he only got more confused, as nothing about the man seemed to be as dangerous as the man before.
Standing on top of the stage, Hui Yue looked at the opponent feeling as if something was wrong, yet unaware of how to make his first move thus Hui Yue stood still not willing to make the first move.
The man moved quicker than Hui Yue expected, and not only quicker, but his attack was aimed straight towards Hui Yue’s waist rather than at one of his weak points. The attack completely threw Hui Yue off and before he noticed, he saw the entire arena flying past his eyes as he was thrown hard against the ground.
Being thrown like this was something Hui Yue had never experienced before, and due to this his reaction was somewhat slower than it should have been.
What happened was that his opponent linked his arms around the waist of the weaker boy and slammed him down hard onto the stage in an attempt to break the younger boys neck.
Noticing this was the aim, Hui Yue merged with Earth and changed the entire stage from rock hard ground into soft sand, allowing for less injuries to occur when he landed.
Although Hui Yue did this, he still felt immense pain in his shoulder, instantly aware that it was dislocated.
Having thrown Hui Yue to the ground, the middle-aged man instantly took his chance to unleash a flurry of attacks. All of them were punches and kicks which landed on Hui Yue’s body, causing the young boy to spit out blood from internal injuries.
All it had taken was one moment of confusion and now Hui Yue was already heavily wounded. Each wound contributed to a fierce struggle within his dantian cave, as the red mist roiled even stronger than before, wishing to emerge.
“One. Two. Three. Four.” The host started counting as soon as Hui Yue was lying on the ground, however, he did not reach further than four before Hui Yue once more stood up. With a careful hand he wiped away the blood which was seeping out from the corner of his mouth.
Standing up, Hui Yue could only blame himself and could not help but laugh mockingly at how bad he looked. His whole plan about revealing himself was to astonish the Dragon Corps, but here he was getting beaten up by some mediocre mercenary.
Getting seriously annoyed, Hui Yue lifted his arm and around it flames started appearing. The many small flames all connected turning into one large flame. The heat that radiated from the flame was so hot that the man and host both felt as if they were being scorched, even though they were not in contact with the flame itself.
Hui Yue’s flames had varying degrees of strength where the blue one was his absolute strongest flame. To create the blue flame, Hui Yue needed help from Lan Feng and it was a flame which would burn anything. Even dragon’s flames were nothing next to the blue flame of the phoenix.
The flame used right now was no where near that serious. Instead it was a red flame, a flame as ordinary as could be, but even the most ordinary flame of Hui Yue’s was bad news for others.
Seeing the flame the man cursed slightly, calling forth a silvery light from within his body. Cladding himself with a spiritual guard that protected him and emitted a light hue.
Making incantations with his hands more silvery light appeared, but unlike Hui Yue this silvery light was not used to support the element with which he had an affinity, instead, it gushed out and formed a massive hand over Hui Yue, a hand created from spiritual energy alone!
Hui Yue gaped as he saw spiritual arts which did not rely on elemental energy. He had seen it implemented once before back when he was a five year old child. Lord Rong Liang used an illusion to subdue the magical beasts the first time he came to the village where Hui Yue grew up.
To see someone else specializing in non elemental spiritual arts, Hui Yue was greatly surprised and his interest was piqued, as he fed his flame with more and more spiritual energy. Making it so pure that the red flame turned orange and almost yellow soared into the heavens above.
Looking at the large silvery coloured palm, Hui Yue used both his hands to condense the flame, not allowing it to continue its intimidating behavior. Instead he willed all the fire into a large fire orb, an orb which constantly grew in size. The fierce heat was enough to set Hui Yue’s clothes aflame from afar. The stage floor was scorched and the heat radiating out made it hard for the audience to even breathe without feeling strangulated.
The fire orb was released by Hui Yue as the large palm descended towards him The two forces met with a large boom and an explosion of powers. The explosion was so large that all of the audience was pressed back into their seats and even Hui Yue and the middle-aged opponent staggered backwards, blood spraying from both of their mouths.
Wiping the blood away once more, Hui Yue glared at the man as they both approached each other ready to come to blows again.
The situation was vastly different from their first exchange as Hui Yue now knew his opponent was a master when it came to holds and throws, but Hui Yue had practiced for years with his daggers and with but a thought Black Blood and a Qi dagger appeared in his hands as he rushed forward.
A hand shot towards Hui Yue, but he managed to narrowly dodge it. Had he not dodged, then he would have been held in the same firm grip as before, however being prepared greatly helped and instead he managed to twist his body in time to escape.
Having activated Velocity Flow, his speed was a lot faster than it was before and with a twist of his body, Hui Yue managed to slip behind the middle-aged man who was charging forward, placing a dagger at his throat.
Both Hui Yue and the man were getting close to the limits of their abilities. Hui Yue because he was severely injured, and the man because he had poured all his spiritual energy into the palm attack from before, causing him to sigh with regret as the cold black iron was pointed at his throat.
Seeing Hui Yue holding his dagger at the opponent’s throat, everyone felt as if they were seeing a repeat of a previous battle, and they were correct because Hui Yue used his final spiritual energy to once more merge with Earth and slowly set down his opponent, placing him off the stage.
Moving him was done gently and neither of the two men struggled as it was done. Both were perfectly aware who the winner was.
Being placed on the ground, the middle aged man saluted Hui Yue after which he bowed. “Thank you for not killing any of my men,” He said with gratitude visible on his face.
Hui Yue nodded to him, before he cursed the green pearl within him. His body was in a serious condition due to internal bleeding, not to mention the dislocated shoulder which he had forcefully put back into place.
“This mysterious group who constantly amazes us seem to be going to the final tomorrow,” The host declared astonished by the result, “They won three to zero in the semifinals and the final will be held tomorrow at high noon. Make sure to show up!”
Having heard his words, Hui Yue nodded to the host before he moved down from the stage. As soon as his foot touched the ground, Wang Ju Long appeared green energy swirling around her hands as she slowly started healing Hui Yui’s many wounds.
Her face was covered in sweat as she pushed her cultivation base to its limit. At first it was incredibly hard for her to heal him, as the internal injuries were far more serious than she had expected, but after mixing her spiritual energy together with her elemental affinity in his body she noticed that it got easier to heal hims. An energy burst out from within the dantian cave, and both Wang Ju Long and Hui Yue looked equally shocked when that energy from the green pearl feasted on Wang Ju Long’s spiritual energy to heal the entire body of the white-haired boy.
Wang Ju Long had no idea what this phenomenon was, however, Hui Yue felt like sighing deeply as the green pearl finally activated to absorb the spiritual energy which Wang Ju Long poured into him to heal his wounds. It was as if the green healing pearl was a greedy and selfish pearl, something which did not have much to do with healing at all.
Now that the healing pearl started rotating it quickly went to heal every wound in Hui Yue’s body and within moments he was as undamaged as he had been before starting the three battles.
The pearl which had no intention of working previously suddenly started waking up the moment her foreign spiritual energy entered his body. The moment the pearl started acting greed suddenly surfaced within Hui Yue’s mind. A greed and desire to steal the energy and without Hui Yue doing anything the green pearl lashed onto the energy, forcefully drawing some of it from Wang Ju Long’s spiritual energy sea. Fortunately enough it had not drained her entire cultivation base, just the current spiritual energy pool.
As soon as the green pearl consumed what seemed to be around two thirds of her energy it finally stopped rotating. Every wound within Hui Yue’s body was healed, but the price cost Wang Ju Long’s spiritual energy.
Everything occurred within mere minutes and it was done in the middle of the arena, causing everyone present watching this unfold to feel greatly shocked which was evident on their faces. Even the masked cultivators were shocked beneath their masks.
Healing was something everyone revered and almost every mercenary group had a wood affinity to assist healing some wounds which they gained while in the tunnels, however no matter how strong a healer was, there was a limit as to how much they could heal and how quickly.
Everyone noticed Hui Yue was completely healed within mere minutes, and the cloaked healer looked as though she had not wasted a large portion of her energy.
There were a few misconceptions to these theories, however, Hui Yue was not one who wished to correct their assumptions. Instead he gathered his group and slowly moved back towards the courtyard which they had borrowed from Xu Piao.
The misconception was that even though Wang Ju Long looked as though she was fine, she was completely wasted, all her energy was drained by the green pearl.
Secondly, although the pearl had eaten a lot of spiritual energy, it was also the pearl which had healed him within moments clearly as a thank you for the spiritual energy which was filled with the wooden element.
Although Hui Yue dropped his cloak behind him were four cloaked people who all followed him faithfully as they marched back to train.
The following day was the most important day for them since they had joined the Demon Dwelling Cave. It was time to prove that they were indeed the strongest mercenary group in town.
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