Dyon immediately snapped his attention back to reality. He already assumed what his opponents would have to do for them to have a chance, and under normal circumstances, he would be inclined to allow them a path to success, however, the “fated chance” opportunity wasn’t as benevolent as it seemed on the surface.
While it was a blessing for the losers of the round, to the winners, it was a punishment for failing. If a winner of a round failed to be responsible for three losses, they would lose the opportunity to become an inner or core disciple and would also be unable to leave the ranks of outer disciple for ten years.
This wasn’t Evangeline’s doing, but rather a concession she was forced to make in order to implement her wish to allow more opportunities for commoners.
Although she was loved by the general public, the core elders of Soul Rending Peak, she was an eye sore. She had only been in the public light for about 20 or so years, yet she had become Vice Master, wasn’t that just spitting in the face of all the work those elders had put into the sect for their millenniums of life?
Even worse, she had slighted many of them in refusing their advances, while the female elders were simply jealous of her looks, assuming that the Soul Rending Peak Master only promoted her because she was beautiful.
In the end, this resulted in many baseless rumors spreading around Soul Rending Peak and was also the very same reason why a woman with status as high as Vice Master was forced to oversee a mere disciple assessment. Anyone with intelligence could see that Evangeline’s life wasn’t so easy.
To the public, she was a goddess. To the Soul Rending Peak disciples, she was both their goal and their ideal woman. But, to those of near or equivalent status to her, she was hated… Not for anything she had done personally, but rather out of jealousy and spite. It wasn’t rare for rumors of her “immoral relations” with the Peak Master to spread amongst the elders, even trickling into the ears of the highest-ranking disciples as well.
All of this said, while Dyon didn’t care about the status a mere Soul Rending Peak could give him, he couldn’t afford to muddle around in the outer disciple ranks. That would simply waste too much time. The best combination of status and freedom he could have was to become a core disciple of the Peak.
As an outer disciple, he would be forced into wasting his times on missions, have too many people to answer to, as well as be restricted from entering too many areas of the Peak. As a core disciple, his only obligation was to cultivate and defend the honor of the sect when he was called upon. Nothing more, nothing less.
Immediately, two figures appeared before Dyon. They seemed so similar in appearance that they could be twins, but Dyon could tell that one was other than the other.
Coinciding with this observation, their cultivations were different as well. One was a 9th level essence gatherer, while the other remained at the 8th.
While this occurred, Dyon noticed that not only were the remaining seven keeping their distance, they were also fighting amongst themselves with everything they had.
Dyon understood what was happening.
The two before him were likely brothers and were used to fighting together. At the same time, the cultivation of the elder brother was also the highest among the entire group of combatants. Obviously, this gave them the best chance against Dyon.
At the same time, by sending only two people, even if Dyon defeated them both, he would still be one short of the requirements.
As for the fighting going on in the background, that was even more obvious, they wanted to fight it out until only one of them remained. Or, better yet, until there was mutual destruction amongst them all. Dyon didn’t doubt that they were coordinating with each other to make the fight look as real as possible.
Why did they bother to fake the fight? Obviously because rules were in place to prevent false results. If not, wouldn’t the nine of them just have to jump of the stage and concede to receive their desired result?
If the fight of seven in the back ended up with one winner, Dyon didn’t doubt that the brothers before him would quickly turn on each other to push one among themselves out before Dyon could.
Dyon smiled. “Quite a good plan, I must say.”
The crowd watched with rapt attention, not wanting to miss a single detail. They were inwardly nodding to themselves, this was a good strategy indeed. The stage was a few hundred meters across and would take even a peak essence gatherer a second or two to cross. By the time Dyon defeated these two and ran over to the side the other seven were fighting, they would have time to react.
The brothers didn’t respond, instead maintaining stoic and focused expressions.
Their fists flew toward each other, causing a massive noise to ravage the coliseum as they slammed together. However, what awed the crowd was the fact that the two fists that collided were actually the fists of the two brothers!
An eruption of fire and water will bloomed from them, creating two spheres of opposing wills.
The beautiful lights of red and blue wrapped around each other, covering the two brothers in a sea of fire and river of blue.
The crowd was stunned. “9th level wills!”