Zhang Liu and his companions got taken aback by the way the youth was speaking. He was clearly being condescending towards their Clan name.
‘Small Clan? Guess if you compare it to the Huo Clan then that’s true.’
Zhang Liu thought to himself while trying not to get offended, but he had to fight against his natural disposition of wanting to jump in and give the Huo Clan member a good smack. His friends that he was with were slightly less composed than him, picking up on the tone he was speaking in, knowing well that by calling them a small clan he was saying that they were weak.
“What did you say?”
“Are you looking for a fight?”
None of these people fought together in the secret ground, so they only heard tales about the other clan from others. So there was no real sense of comradery there.
“Hah, talk is cheap, if you want something just face me!”
The man moved his right hand outwards pointing it towards the blue robe wearing group of young cultivators and beckoned them over by moving his palm towards himself. The Zhang Clan members were furious, veins started bulging on their foreheads as they just wanted to jump in and fight.
“Oh what is this, the contestant is challenging someone from the audience? Are they brave enough to take him up on the offer? Or will they cower in shame!”
The veins on their foreheads started bulging, even more, the moment the loud announcer’s voice boomed through the whole arena. Now it would be quite difficult to back off, they would suffer public humiliation, loss to their own face and would bring shame to the clan.
“Brothers, let me handle this! I’ll show him how the Zhang Clan warriors fight!”
One of the members from the group stepped out, the youth had sharp sword-shaped eyebrows and looked to be in his twenties. This was a talented youth from the group, even though he wasn’t the strongest he wasn’t the weakest either. He looked at Huo Kong that was just standing there beckoning them over, looking like he was without any care in the world.
Zhang Liu was the de facto leader of the group, being the strongest and also having the best backing out of the group. Liu remembered the words of the elders of not causing trouble, but he also recalled the bit about not backing down from a fight and not causing any loss to face if it was a manageable opponent.
“Do you feel confident, brother?”
The sharp eyebrow youth smacked his chest which produced quite the loud thumping sound. He then moved over to one of the arena officials to show him his mark and that he was eligible for the fight.
“Oh, think we have a new challenger!”
“Will this young man be able to douse the burning inferno, or will he also get burned by the blaze!”
The announcer was overdoing it a bit with the dramatic introductions and comments, but he was there to pump up the people in the audience. This looked to be working as people cheered, a path was made for the blue robe wearing youth from the Zhang Clan, people shouting out as they got their bets ready.
“Give us a good show, eyebrows!”
“Burn him alive!”
“You can do it, blue robe bushy-eyebrow brother!”
The young man tipped over to the side as he heard people commenting on his eyebrows. This was his most prominent trait though, besides them giving him a sharp look they had quite the volume to them as well.
“Shut up, who you calling bushy-eyebrows!”
He shook his fist at the audience that just laughed at him in response. He then jumped into the arena to face the red-haired youth, his aura getting releases, blue spiritual energy covering his robe. Huo Kong just shrugged and held his fists out in a what looked to be a traditional boxing stance with both his fists up in the air with his forearms blocking the view of his face.
The announcer shouted out which prompted the match to start, the two fighters eyeballed each other from a distance probably trying to get a feel of their opponent.
“Oh, didn’t know the Zhang Clan studied the Dao of waiting, such a powerful technique~”
Huo Kong chuckled while taunting his opponent, who in response got red in the face and started showing his inexperience. He shouted out and charged forward, his foundation pillars vibrated and pushed their Qi into his legs. It looked as if a puddle of water formed under him and instead of running forward it looked as if he was sliding on the water that was getting produced on the arena floor. He glided forward like a figure skater just moving his legs slightly while gaining momentum.
The red-haired opponent gathered his Qi into his hands which produced a red glow, some strange patterns started appearing on his forearms that looked like they were made from fire. Huo Kong was going for a similar approach as with his previous opponent, first, rile him up and make him do the first attack, then he would block it and inject his fire type Qi into their body while defending. This was quite the simple battle plan, but worked quite well against easily irritable opponents with a chip on their shoulder.
The moment came soon, the Zhang Clan youth circled around Huo Kong while using his peculiar water gliding movement technique. He was gaining momentum, for his next attack. Soon he took his chance and jumped doing a nicely timed flying kick at his opponent’s head and aiming at it from the back. His foot was shrouded in a watery energy that molded itself into a sharp blade, the youth charged forward while shouting.
“Take this Tidal Wave Scythe!”
Suddenly the scythe bubbled and increased in size, the foot was coming in an arch from the side and if Hou Kong didn’t dodge his head would be flying into the air and probably killing the haughty youth in one strike.
“Hoho? Not half bad… but!”
Before the kick could slice the red-haired youth’s neck he moved back, not to the side but behind. He leaned back while not bending his knees making look as if he was defying gravity and doing a peculiar popular dance move back from earth. The water scythe swung past him while producing quite the strong aftershock, which got dispersed by the shielding formation that the arena was set up with. This was a standard shielding formation that had to be installed to protect the audience members from any stray Qi attacks, that might come their way.
The kick swung past Huo Kong that was now open for a counter, he had quite the good opportunity to deliver a blow. He moved both his hands back as if he was going to do a handstand. While using his momentum from the previous back-dodge he tried landing a kick that was clad in fire energy at his enemy that just missed with the big swing that he did with his foot.
Luckily momentum wasn’t only something the Huo clan youth was knowledgeable about, the bushy-eyebrow brother managed to spin around in time to receive the fire kick with his hands dispursing the attack somehow. He didn’t go unscathed though, he noticed that the enemy was trying to inject his fire Qi into him to disturb his cultivation. He quickly activated his pillars that worked tirelessly to eject the invading spiritual energy.
“Eh?”
Huo Kong was surprised, he expected to get a clean hit in but only managed to send the other youth flying backward. He knew that his attack was somehow effective as the opponent with the sword eyebrows started sweating from the Qi expenditure.
“So you weren’t a total pushover… but this doesn’t change anything!”
The raid haired youth went on the offensive, his muscles bulged slightly as some kind of strange runic looking patterns appeared over his body. You could hear an explosion as he flew forward, this was his movement technique that produced small controlled explosions under his feet to produce short bursts of speed.
After the first exchange, the crowd cheered out in unison. the Zhang Clan member that were at the side were hoping that their brother would show this rude cultivator that they shouldn’t be trifled with. But gasped out after seeing his water scythe miss the mark and him getting blown back several meters from the counter.
“Oh, that was a nice try but the blazing youth doesn’t look impressed!”
The two continued clashing with each other, it looked like they were equally matched at the start but soon enough you could see the water cultivator getting pushed back. His robe started catching fire, his water Qi having trouble in dousing the spirit flames that were far more difficult to deal with than regular flames.
Still Huo Kong was surprised, he had a reason for calling out these Zhang Clan cultivators and it was a personal one. He hoped to show a one-sided massacre against this man in front of him, but his opponent was showing quite a high amount of skill. He was still confident in his victory, but he wanted to show the large gap in their techniques and aptitude. Instead the no-name sword-shaped eyebrow opponent showed everyone that he could keep up with him.
“Don’t get cocky, this ends now!”
Suddenly the fire cultivator’s power spiked, did he activate some kind of special skill or was he hiding some reserves, no one was sure. The abrupt change of pace surprised the Zhang Clan youth, that received a heavy hit to his stomach. He was unable to see the trajectory of the fist coming for him and was blown back by the strike by several meters.
The red-haired man cocked his fist back, red energy gathered and it looked as many tiny fireflies were quickly getting absorbed into the palm of his hand. The Zhang Clan youth knew that he was about to get hit by something big, so he used a defensive technique that produced a water shield. The previous strike took the wind out of his lungs, so this was the most he could do.
“Take this, Inferno Dragon Strike!”
The moment the fist got thrown forward a surge of fire Qi flew towards the defending cultivator, the fire started taking shape and turned into a dragon. The dragon head gave out a roar that sounded more like an explosion. On the other side, the Zhang Clan member had both his hands stretched out and he was getting surrounded by a thick bubble of water.
*BOOM*
Another explosion occurred, steam and wind getting kicked up while the vision of the audience members got blocked.
“Oh no, is this it? Can the watery youth defend against this strike?”
Everyone scooted closer to the arena trying to see if the fight was over, or if there would be some kind of comeback. After the smoke cleared, they could see the red-haired youth looking at something. At the spot, he was looking at stood the Zhang Clan youth, his bare chest was showing and his hair was in a mess. He was still standing and breathing though, looking as if he managed to power through this attack.
“Huff…huff… huff…”
He was panting hard, one of his eyes closed as he burned through quite a lot of his spiritual energy to defend against this attack. His opponent was clearly annoyed that he couldn’t end the fight right there, he even had to push a lot of his spiritual energy into that attack but the annoying opponent was still standing there.
“Oh, he is still standing! What a twist!”
The people cheered out, shouting out the nickname of eyebrows-brother in unison. The youth in question was far too tired to grimace about his stupid nickname.
‘That’s enough, don’t risk injury brother, leave him to me.’
The Zhang Clan youth twitched and then looked to the audience and there his clan members were standing. Zhang Liu sent his voice out next to his brother so that he would hear his message. He was feeling a bit apprehensive but he felt that he wouldn’t come out unscathed if he battled this youth further.
Huo Kong looked at his opponent that stood up straight and clasped his hands.
“This is my defeat.”
He didn’t really wait for his opponent to reply and just turned around to leave, the audience getting a bit rowdy at the surrender but they knew that this water cultivator’s spiritual reserves were all used up and he couldn’t really continue the fight.
“Hmph!”
Huo Kong spit to the side and looked at the youth leave, then watched as another member from that group stepped forward. The youth was different in the way as his hair was mostly snow-white, with a patch of obsidian in the front.
“Guess it’s not so easy to bully our Zhang Clan, now is it?”
“I’ll be your next opponent!”