The number of contestants was suddenly once again strange to make a proper tournament. With Six remaining.
Yet, as I was thinking of ways how this tourney would progress, the three remaining competitors climbed up the stage.
And then, I noticed that one of them, a man with six swords, three on each of his sides, looked at the Zither user and snorted, then walked up the stage.
It was as if there was a beef between the two that they didn't wish to discuss or share with the audience.
A staff using cultivator walked up the stage after the six sword style cultivator, then finally came the turn of the only remaining female cultivator. A woman of slightly tall stature, and carried a thin rapier, almost similar to my own Creeping Demise with the sole exception that it didn't have the arrow-head-like sword tip. The battle began after the referee gave the order and the man with the six swords was the first to rush forward, he slapped on both his sides causing the six swords to shoot out, three-headed for each of the contenders while he himself smacked both hands together and manifested two sword Qi from them.
He first shot towards the woman with the rapier who was already having a hard time trying to parry all the swords coming towards her.
He used the sword qi in his hand to smack her to the side and cause her to be flung towards the other man, only to follow up with teleportation and then kick the both of them outside the arena.
The whole event didn't take more than a few seconds, and with this man's actions, the whole tournament's strange numerical distribution was now fixed, and we have four semi-finalists left.
"With this round over, we can now proceed to the last couple rounds. We would like for all cultivators to take a slight break to prepare for the final battle area. The last fights will no longer be a disqualification by ring out, and will have to be either a clear showcase of superior martial prows, the opponent failing to stand back up after ten breaths, or forcing the opponent to admit defeat." The commentator said.
Then the earth weavers began fixing the broken arena and made it far bigger and cleared all the rubble from the earlier fights. Then they added a square barrier all over the arena ground, limiting flight area and evasion area and at the same time, it appeared that since they learned that audience could easily suffer from stray damage they enclosed the whole area. Which was pretty damn good for me, as now this allows me to even use more of my arsenal.
"The lots have been drawn, Qin Chu will face against Shen Bao, Fu Zhengfei will face Meng Hao!"
'Seems like I'll be facing zither guy already, damn.' I sighed because anyone with direct confrontational methods is easy to deal with, but this guy, with his strange instrument, will be quite the problem.
Just as I was about to turn and check up on Meng Hao's opponent, the man with the six swords, Fu Zhengfei spoke up, "You there, Core cultivator, how about you come and fight your friend here, and let me handle that old monster. You're out of your depth against him." he said.
"I'm sure I am, but that's unfair to my friend there because he looks like he is more interested in fighting you than me," I said as I pointed at Meng Hao who was full of fighting spirit, as apparently fighting strong opponents gets him off.
"You should have accepted his agreement, you can't win," the man with the zither said in a calm voice.
"You never know," I shrugged and walked up the stage.
The man with the zither once again pulled his small stool, sat on it, and had his zither above his legs, his hands ready to pluck the strings the moment the referee would start the match.
But I wasn't going to allow him to have his way, I had my revolver already pulled and ready, aimed at the cultivator, and waited.
Qin Chu was warry at first and sent a divine sense to inspect the revolver, but with the many mind-boggling inscriptions infused within the revolver, getting an understanding of how it worked in a few breaths was almost impossible.
The referee called the start of the match, and my gunshot before Qin Chu could even pluck the first string.
The bullet shot forward at maximum velocity and not at the cultivator but his Zither instead.
Seeing the approaching bullet, yes I say seeing because apparently, a bullet was far too damn slow for the eyes of a cultivator, he plucked a string and caused the bullet to split in half. Something I actually hoped for.
The bullet's content was revealed as a green pill showed from within the middle of the now sliced bullet, the pill slowly rotated in the air before it broke open and then, spread out toxic fumes that exploded towards the Zither user.
With the amount of rising poisonous smoke, the cultivator's eyes widened, and he immediately grabbed his stool and kicked the ground rising up and above the arena floor, giving me enough time to pull several canisters of explosive poison, smiling I hurled the canisters towards the zither user.
He plucked more strings towards the canisters causing them to blast within the air, causing even more poisonous smoke to cover and coat the arena. And thanks to the enclosed space, the poisonous smoke would soon fill the whole area.
And just to spite the man with the zither, I pulled the minigun and began shooting a hail of bullets at him, making him use his Zither to defend against the bullets more than actually be on the offensive.
Though I'm just a Core Cultivator, and that man was a high grade Nascent Soul cultivator, if he never gets the initiative to attack, it wouldn't matter. And I'm not about to give up my advantage, as this is only getting more arduous for him.
"This is shameless, he is using poison to fight! That's not honorable!" a few people in the audience spoke up.
Riots and disdain came my way, but if I was gonna win, I'll gladly bask in it, you try and fight a Nascent Soul cultivator with a Core Cultivation stage without using any underhanded tricks, I bet you'll end up dead the moment you make the first move.
The commentator immediately came to my side, "Please dear audience, this is not against the rules, though Poison IS considered among the unorthodox paths of cultivation, the rules clearly stated that anything can be used as long as the opponent's life isn't in danger."
The man with the Zither kept moving around the arena while I shot as many bullets as I could towards him, and at the same time, slowed down his pace while the smoke from my canisters slowly filled the entire arena.
The Qin Chu coated his body with as much Qi as he could, to suppress the intervention of the Poison, which worked well for him, but he soon realized that his Qi was dissipating far faster than he anticipated.
Because within the poisons I threw in, was the Breath Sealing Poison, which worked wonders against Qi barriers, as it ate at them like if they were dinner and the poison was a very hungry beast.
With nothing to save him from this ordeal, Qin Chu cursed and ignored the poison as he teleported, further consuming more of his Qi in order to end me once and for all…thank you for this, you just made your end that much faster.
Qin Chu appeared in front of me, then grabbed me by the neck, "I got you now!" he said.
And only saw me smile, as several dozen inscriptions all over my body lit up, then a massive explosion echoed as he was rattled to the core and then was blasted against the barrier.
I didn't explode per se, but that was a doppelganger I made from using the golden scripture. I had plenty of time to use it, duplicate myself, and then have it carry hundreds of explosive talismans, then when he grabbed the copy, I just activated the talisman and the explosion blasted him against the wall.
Qin Chu roared, bloodied and battered, then struck against his zither creating a loud ear-piercing and off-tuned note that threatened to break the barrier that was keeping all the poisonous smoke inside it.
The cringe-inducing musical note pushed the smoke away from Qin Chu, which gave him a moment to breathe.
"Your underhanded methods are cruel, but against absolute power, you're still nothing!" he said and then struck against his zither, even more, creating hundreds of wind blades that shot towards me.
"Guess it's time to use that," I said then pulled a talisman from my inventory. The talisman had so many small inscriptions on it that trying to read them would cause one to have a headache.
I slapped my palm on the top of the text in the talisman, then pulled back the Qi-infused inscriptions.
The moment the inscription was pulled, it manifested into a green square that I placed before me.
The square 'shield' wasn't even a foot long, and looked like I was trying to block a tidal wave with a paper.
But the moment the shield came to the world, even the space around it began to shake and shudder, the poisonous smoke itself, which I didn't account for began gathering into the square shield.
'This is not very good…' I mumbled to myself. As this very protective inscription was "Griefing" my own poison.
But it still worked wonders as the wind blades all were forced into the gravitational pull of the square shield and were rushed under the massive and heavy gravitational law within it.
I then hurled the square shield like it was a Frisby towards Qin Chu, who tried to evade using teleportation. But with the interference of the gravitational law within the square shield I threw, his teleportation was disrupted and he was immediately forced out of it, and then was pulled against his will towards the flying square.
The pulling power within the Square shield was too much for even a Nascent Soul cultivator to break through, as his whole body was being dragged to the square shield that was now stuck against the arena barrier.
Seeing Qin Chu struggle to free himself from the gravitational pull only made me grin, as I pulled a small poison pill and threw it at his feet, the pill exploded then released even more Breath Sealing Poison, causing the Qi he was using to free himself to be disrupted, and then he was stuck against the square shield.
I didn't even need to speak, because the outcome was already obvious, he was stuck to a gravitational law and he didn't have the Qi to release himself, and soon, if he doesn't give up, he'll be crushed and crumpled like a paper.
Now I'll only have to wait, to see if his pride as a Nascent Soul cultivator is bigger than his will to live.
