Alex stood in front of a middle-aged man with a cultivation base of True Emperor 1st realm.
Everything around him was pin-drop silent as all noise that came from the crowd in the arena was stopped by a barrier formation that was all around the stage.
In a one-on-one battle, the staff really couldn’t allow anyone to interfere in the matches, and they had made sure to do their best in that regard.
5 days had gone by since the 2nd round of the tournament started and finally, it was his day on the 6th.
Half of the original 512 had already fought and 128 of them had passed. Alex was now part of the next 256 that would have to pass.
The man in front of him wore armor, a necklace, and an armlet, and held a massive black bow in his hand.
Alex on the other hand only had his shield floating around him. Other than that, he had nothing on him.
The man had already sensed Alex’s cultivation base and was certain that his victory was up for grabs. Not that he knew that Alex had intentionally let his cultivation base remain unhidden.
It wasn’t every day that Alex could use the presence of his cultivation base to his advantage, rather than when it remained hidden.
The referee gave a weird look to Alex after seeing him not bring out any weapon, but enough time had passed and Alex was ready in his eyes.
“Begin!” he shouted.
The other man instantly pulled on the strings of the bow as fire Qi coalesced onto them, forming an arrow in the process.
SWING~!
He let the arrow go and it flew straight at Alex.
Alex dodged to the side. The arrow was slow enough for him that he could block it with his shield, but then the shield would break.
After all, the shield could only stop attacks from people below the True Emperor realm. Against a True Emperor realm cultivator, the shield was simply a paperweight.
Still, he kept it up to give the illusion of needing defense when fighting against someone.
Another fire arrow shot at him and Alex used the shield to parry it away.
Alex watched the man pull the string one more time and another fire arrow appeared on it. However, he didn’t let it go. Instead, Qi moved on to the string to form another arrow.
Only, the second arrow was made up of Water Qi.
There was a constant flux of energy poured into both the arrows as they fluctuated between which one was stronger. As such, the Fire Qi sought to Ruin the Water Qi at times, while the Water Qi tried to Overwhelm the Fire Qi the other times.
However, the middle-aged man was talented enough to not let either mix up with each other.
SWING~!
He let the arrows fly.
Alex was ready to dodge, but the trajectory of the arrows didn’t seem like they would hit him at all.
Just when he was thinking that, halfway through the flight, the arrow changed their direction slightly… towards each other.
BOOM!
A massive explosion rang out from the two Fire and Water arrows and instantly half the stage they were fighting on was full of steam that quickly condensed into the fog.
The fog only grew thicker as the visibility became horrible at some point. Alex could barely see his arm in front of him.
‘Do I do it?’ he thought for a moment.
The area was only 250 by 250 meters at best since the space of the stage had been shrunken for the one-on-one battles.
That meant, if Alex used his spiritual sense, he could easily cover the entire stage.
However, if he did that, the referee would also find out he had a spiritual sense. And given that today’s referee was from the Glory’s Edge sect, he didn’t want to reveal that just in case he passed along that information to He Liwei.
The shield moved on its own and stopped one of the arrows that were attacking him.
At the same time, the shield was heavily dented.
‘Can he see me?’ Alex thought.
Another arrow struck it again as the fire spread all around it.
CLANG~!
The shield fell onto the ground, useless. After stopping two strikes from a True Emperor realm cultivator, the shield was done.
‘Shit! He can see me. No wonder he put on this fog,’ Alex thought.
He immediately moved to the side unintentionally to dodge any arrows that might come flying his way.
At the same time, he created a yang clone and sent it the other way while concealing his own cultivation base.
An arrow narrowly flew past him as he managed to hear it coming his way.
‘Shit! He can definitely see my physical body,’ Alex thought. ‘But how?’
Just then, a thought came to him. ‘Qi Sense.’
Anyone that reached the True realm was able to use Qi sense. Qi sense could be used to feel things that one couldn’t see directly. It was only useful to sense the physical body and was thus a vastly mediocre version of spiritual sense.
As such, Alex had never bothered learning it and had also forgotten that most people needed to rely on it.
‘So he can use his Qi sense to feel me at such a distance huh?’ Alex thought. ‘What if he senses 2 of us?’
The middle-aged man was using his entire focus in the fog to sense Alex’s location as he pulled his bow for another arrow.
However, just as he was about to pull it, the figure of Alex doubled as another physical form appeared next to him.
‘Huh? What’s that?” the man thought. He saw one of the figure moving toward him, so he pointed his arrows in that direction and let it loose.
The arrow flew through the air and hit whatever was coming, with a massive explosion ringing out from the hit. However, his Qi sense told him that the figure wasn’t stopping at all.
As the figure got closer, he could sense the cultivation base as well.
‘True Emperor realm!’ the man’s eyes went wide.
Pearl jumped out of the fog and dashed towards the man.
“What the!” the man wasn’t expecting a beast to fly out of the fog, so when Pearl did, he was surprised.
ROAR!
Pearl roared and used the White Tiger’s Roar to hurt the man mentally, but the necklace on his chest stopped it from affecting much.
Still, he felt a slight headache, but that was nothing for him. He pulled the string of the bow back as a fire arrow appeared on it again.
He shot it directly at Pearl, but Pearl didn’t flinch. His body turned golden as the White Tiger’s Golden Body stopped the arrow from hurting him at all.
Pearl continued dashing as his body flickered with golden light and he turned into two different Pearls, each running towards the man.
The man was confused, he didn’t know which one it was as both the Pearls felt like they had a physical body while at the same time having the same energy too.
The man thought there were two beasts for a split second before realizing that wasn’t possible as he saw Pearl split into 2 himself.
So, with no choice, he pulled the string to form another arrow in his hand that he shot one of the Pearl with.
When that Pearl disappeared, he knew that it was the other Pearl that was the real one.
Then, the man pulled out an arrow from his storage bag. That was the 5th artifact he had been allowed to bring onto the stage.
He quickly placed the arrow onto the bow and pulled on it as hard as he could. At the same time, he also activated the armlet on his arm to give him an extra boost of power to pull on the arrow.
The man was quite mad. This was something he had brought along to fight against people that were above his own cultivation base, but the beast in front of him was forcing him to use it.
‘Whatever, I will ask master to get me another one,’ he thought and waited for the beast to get closer.
Just when the beast was only meters away, he let it loose.
Right then, a sword slash flew from the side and struck the bow right as the arrow flew off.
The strike caused the arrow to miss and Pearl landed on the man with a glowing golden paw that struck him in the chest.
The armor stopped the man from being hurt too much, but it still felt like being hit by a massive rock.
He tried to get back up, but Pearl was already on him, pummeling him on the chest time after time to beat him.
At some point, the armor failed, at which point Alex asked Pearl to stop.
Alex was already out of the fog while the man was focusing on Pearl, so he had been able to come out in time and save him.
The referee arrived next to the man to check his vitals. He had been keeping an eye on everything so he knew the man was okay, but he still needed to be sure.
After seeing that everything was okay, the turned to Alex and grabbed his arm to announce his victory.
The barrier around the stage lowered and Alex could suddenly hear the cheers of the crowd.
He smiled at them and walked back into the viewing area while the middle-aged man was taken off stage to the medical center.
