There was no one that took this bait at first since all of the guests waited to see who would go up first.
They knew that whoever went up first would be in a very bad position.
After all, the one that went up first would be the center of attention.
It would be fine if they won, but it would be disastrous if they lost.
After all, this was also a matter of their sect’s prestige at this point.
If they lost too poorly, their own prestige would be destroyed.
So they were all waiting to see who would act first. They wanted to see what cards the Love Sect was hiding with the ones that would act first.
But since everyone thought the same thing, there wasn’t a single person that came up.
They were all waiting for someone else to take the lead.
There was a long silence that filled the air until someone finally took the first step.
“I’ll go first!”
A voice cut through the silence before the owner of that voice jumped onto the stage.
This was a buff looking ‘young’ man with a bald head…though that bald head did make him look like a middle aged monk instead of the young man that he was.
As soon as he jumped onto the stage, he immediately became the center of attention.
With this, the bald young man cupped his hand and said, “Iron Head Sect’s Song Gang requesting to spar with the disciples of the Love Sect.”
Senior Brother Ying narrowed his eyes to look at this Song Gang before saying with a nod, “Who do you wish to spar with?”
Since they were the guests, they would be allowed to choose who they fought.
Song Gang turned to look at Xiao Tian before saying, “This fellow cultivator, would you spar with me?”
When he said this, the eyes of everyone watching him filled with a trace of disdain.
That was because everyone could tell from the aura that he released that he was someone in the Foundation Realm.
Xiao Tian was someone who was only in the Peak Qi Gathering Realm.
By all right, this was considered challenging someone weaker than oneself even though Xiao Tian had shown his ability to fight those in the Foundation Realm.
So there was no way that people wouldn’t look down on this Song Gang.
But no one blamed him for this since this was a valid strategy.
He was taking a risk by stepping up first, so it was only reasonable that he would be choosing a weaker opponent. It was only reasonable that he would pick someone that he would be able to fight.
Of course, Xiao Tian had the right to refuse which no one would be surprised with.
This was a fight with an unknown Foundation Realm Cultivator, this was not something that could be taken easily.
Song Gang was even hoping that he would do this just so he could leave the stage without fighting.
But to everyone’s surprise, Xiao Tian just calmly cupped his hands and said, “It would be my honour to spar with this fellow cultivator.”
Song Gang and everyone else was surprised when they heard this, but since Xiao Tian had already said this, there was no taking this back.
Song Gang gave a cough to calm down before saying, “Then fellow cultivator, shall we?”
Xiao Tian nodded before jumping onto the stage.
After jumping onto the stage, Xiao Tian cupped his hands to Senior Brother Ying and said, “Master, I’ll be going now.”
Senior Brother Ying just gave a casual nod, but the crowd was feeling anything but casual.
They didn’t know that…Xiao Tian was actually Senior Brother Ying’s disciple.
They hadn’t shown this earlier, so no one knew about this.
The one that had the ugliest expression on their face was Song Gang.
He had thought that Xiao Tian was just a skilled disciple that they decided to show off, but if he was Senior Brother Ying’s disciple…didn’t that mean that he would be offending a high ranking elder of the Love Sect if he defeated him? 𝐎𝑽𝓵xt.𝗇𝓔t
Senior Brother Ying had been in charge of all the events that they had been shown, which showed just how trusted he was in the Love Sect to take care of all of this.
At the same time, everyone had seen how the sect master treated Senior Brother Ying.
They all knew that this Elder Ying was most likely one of the important elders of the Love Sect.
There really was no way out for Song Gang now.
He would either show off by winning at the cost of offending this Elder Ying by defeating his disciple, or he would lose and avoid offending this Elder Ying at the cost of hurting the prestige of his sect.
There really was no good choice here…
But he did make a choice in the end since there was one that was worse than the other.
Losing to someone weaker and in such a public place would be very harmful to the prestige of their sect, so there was no way that he would be able to live it down.
If he lost, he would most likely lose everything he had back in his sect.
So there was only victory for him.
Taking a deep breath, Song Gang looked at Xiao Tian and said, “Fellow cultivator, shall we?”
Xiao Tian gave a nod before cupping his hands to say, “Please.”
As soon as he did, Song Gang charged out at Xiao Tian.
His fist was covered in a layer of spiritual energy as he punched out towards Xiao Tian.
Xiao Tian however wasn’t caught off guard by this at all and just calmly unsheathed his sword to face this fist. With a flick of his hand, he was able to parry this punch and move to the side of the Song Gang.
Then with another flick of his wrist, there were many rays of sword energy that fell onto Song Gang before he moved past him.
When he stopped, he sheathed his sword again.
Song Gong didn’t move, but…there also wasn’t a single scratch on his body.
The Iron Head Sect that Song Gang was from was a sect with a body cultivation technique.
That meant that they trained their bodies along with cultivating, which gave them much stronger bodies than those at the same level of cultivation. This body was what Song Gang relied on to block all of the sword energy that Xiao Tian had released just now.
It was also because of this that Song Gang had chosen to face Xiao Tian.
He had seen Xiao Tian fight earlier and he knew that none of Xiao Tian’s attacks would be able to hurt him.
Even if Xiao Tian was holding back earlier, he knew that it was impossible for Xiao Tian to hurt him with his sword energy.
So he had chosen this fight since he was assured of his victory.
Xiao Tian however didn’t seem to panic at all seeing this.
He naturally also knew that it was impossible for him to use his sword energy to hurt Song Gang after seeing how he had blocked all this sword energy with his physique alone.
Unless he used a special technique, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to Song Gang.
But Xiao Tian did have another technique that he didn’t use before.
Song Gang didn’t want to give Xiao Tian the chance to use any other techniques, so he immediately turned to charge at Xiao Tian again.
But Xiao Tian had already unsheathed his sword once more.
With a flick of his fingers, that sword started floating in the air.
Song Gang was taken aback when he saw this, but then his chin dropped when he saw what appeared around the sword.
There was this energy that appeared around this sword that seemed to envelop it completely.
When one saw this energy, they could feel the sharpness that was coming from it.
This was a sharpness that he didn’t feel before from this sword, it was a sharpness that he only felt after this energy appeared.
Song Gang only needed a single look to recognize what this was…
“Sword Aura…” Song Gang said in a slow voice.
As soon as his voice rang out, everyone in the crowd revealed shocked looks.
Those that were cultivators had already recognized this and those that weren’t…just felt that this sounded very cool and shocking.
Song Gang shook his head as he said, “How could you possibly have Sword Aura? That’s only possible if you’ve refined a Sword Heart and only the greatest sword cultivators can do something like that. I’ve never heard of someone doing that in the Qi Gathering Realm.”
Xiao Tian didn’t answer this question and instead said, “Fellow cultivator, this technique is hard for me to control, so I hope that you will be careful.”
He didn’t ask him to give up and he didn’t ask him to dodge.
He just asked him to be careful…
It was clear that Xiao Tian was looking forward to testing this skill on Song Gang.
Song Gang wanted to say ‘I give up’, but there was no chance for him to say this as Xiao Tian had already sent the sword flying at him.
The only thing that Song Gang could do was raise his arms covered in spiritual energy in front of him to block this sword.
When the sword made contact with his arms, he let out a cold breath of pain as blood splashed out.