Against The Heavens

Li Yang was not the only person who finished his battle in one hit, but he was the only one who left a young beauty vomiting on the ground, so by the time the first day ended, he had been the only one who had gotten booed at. Li Yang had taken part in another three battles during the first day, but none of his enemies had reached a level of strength where he had to exert much strength to beat them.

Even after the day ended, there was no one that left the plaza. The contestants and judges were cultivators, so going 10 days without food, sleep, or drinks was not much of a problem for them. As for the normal mortals in the audience, they could buy food or drinks from the various peddlers that wandered around the area. It was a bit tougher for them to go without sleep, but most simply chose to sleep in their seats, rather than miss the spectacle.

The second day was more exciting than the first day, as the battles would only get tougher and more exciting the more days pa.s.sed. It was also during the second day that they started fully using the inner arena, showcasing all those that had a chance at reaching the top 10.

During the second day, Li Yang only fought in two battles, both of which he finished in 10 moves or less, giving him plenty of time to observe the other contestants as well as the judges. Thanks to his observation, he managed to notice a few things that he found somewhat interesting.

The first thing was that the number of contestants had increased by a little, almost 50 new people sneaking in, unnoticed by the audience. These newcomers all had one thing in common, and that was the fact that they were hiding their actual strength. His current strength was still low, so he was unable to properly see through the technique they used to hide their cultivation. But from what little he could see, he guessed that they were all at around the Immortal Rebirth realm, quite a bit stronger than any of the other contestants.

Of course, since Li Yang was able to see through the fact that they were hiding their cultivation, the judges were clearly also able to do the same. But none of the judges spoke up about the newcomers, even keeping a closer eye on the fights that the newcomers were taking part in. Their inaction caused Li Yang to hazard a guess that these newcomers were probably members of the clans and sects who had been chosen to take part in this contest, making it easier for the clans and sects to accurately judge the strength of the contestants they were interested in.

Another interesting thing he had found was that there were quite a few people here who used some very interesting laws. There was one contestant that used the law of blood to force his opponents to mimic his own movements, one that used the laws of sound to disturb his opponent"s brain, and even one that used a rudimentary version of the laws of motion, changing the directions of the attacks that were launched at her.

But even among the interesting laws he observed, there was one that stood above them all, the law that one of his two opponents had used. Not only did the opponent move strangely fast, at times he would make Li Yang"s movements slow down so that he could land his attacks easier. At first, Li Yang thought that he was using the laws of speed to alter the speed of the two, but after exchanging a few moves, he discovered the truth.

It was the laws of time! A teenager from some small village was able to use a basic form of the laws of time, speeding up time around his fist, or slowing down time around Li Yang. The law of time was one of the peak laws, only below his own law of destruction or Fang Ying"s law of creation, to be born with an affinity for this law meant that the villager had excellent luck.

Li Yang still managed to easily beat the opponent, but just as he guessed, once the third day of the contest rolled around, the kid was no longer partic.i.p.ating. It was not hard to guess that the sects had also figured out his laws, starting a small battle over who would get to take the kid in.

But Li Yang was able to perfectly understand their actions. Even when he was at his peak and wandered the universe, he had only ever known five people who used the laws of time, each of them horrifyingly strong. Of those five, Dai Shu was a friend of his, the second and third were people he had only met shortly, while the fourth and fifth had both been killed by him after what could only be described as an apocalyptic battle that he only managed to survive since he was supported by Fang Ying and the others.

During the third day of the contest, Li Yang fought six battles, winning four and pretending to lose the other two. The opponents he faced in those two battles both had a cultivation that had reached the early stage of the Ascending Heaven realm, the Ascending Foundation stage. While it was possible for Li Yang to beat them, it would require that he show off his fusion with Jinwu and Shenlong, something he had no intention of doing.

For a brief period, he had thought about activating the Burning Hope technique taught to him by Jing Yimu, checking if it would give him enough strength to beat the two. But in the end, he decided that there was no point in doing that, so he just pretended to put up a good fight before surrendering.

The fourth and fifth day pa.s.sed in a very similar fashion, with Li Yang losing a few fights and winning the rest. When the sixth day rolled around, Li Yang noticed that the girl who used the laws of motion had stopped partic.i.p.ating, so he guessed that she had been sneakily snapped up by one of the sects or clans.

It was halfway through the seventh day of the compet.i.tion that a change finally happened in the usual pattern. His token lit up with the number 1, meaning that he had been called onto the central stage. And not only had he been called onto the central stage, but his opponent was also one of the newcomers that he guessed were used to gauge the actual strength of the contestants.

The opponent he was facing this time was another girl that could only be described as an enchanting beauty. She had cyan hair that was tied into a neat ponytail, an oval and cute face, smooth and unblemished skin, and crystal clear black eyes. She was clad in a loose robe that was deep blue in color. When the two stepped onto the stage, the girl ignored the loud cheers that were calling her name, cupping her hands and giving Li Yang a polite greeting.

"Qing Luoyang. please be careful once the battle starts."

Qing Luoyang had hidden her cultivation so that it looked like she had only reached the late stage of the Xiantian Rune realm, a point where it was unlikely that her opponents would immediately surrender. Li Yang had beaten a few such people during the contest so far, so the audience was expecting to see a nice battle. Of course, there were also quite a few that remembered his actions against Jia Xinyue during the first day, so they quickly booed him, yelling at him not to do the same to Qing Luoyang. Li Yang could only ignore the crowd, returning a polite greeting.

"Li Yang. I will do my best."

With the greetings over, they both immediately launched their attacks. Li Yang dashed forward like a bolt of lightning, Qing Luoyang waving her hand in response. Nothing happened when she waved her hand, making it seem like she hadn"t even bothered to put up a defense, but Li Yang knew better.

He threw his body forward, landing on the ground with his shoulder first. When he threw himself to the ground, there was a faint breeze that pa.s.sed by the back of his head, a few of his hairs getting cut loose and drifting to the ground. As he landed on the ground Li Yang froze a part of the arena and used the momentum of his previous dash to slide forward on the ice, not giving up on his attack.

Qing Luoyang waved her hand again, forcing Yao Jun to push himself up from the ice and launch himself into the sky. Just as he left the ice, hair-thin cuts appeared in the ice, slicing it into tiny pieces. He had seen Qing Luoyang fight before so he knew that she used the law of strings and the law of wind, giving her extremely great slicing power, almost on par with the law of slicing or the law of dividing.

Li Yang was not someone who was fond of playing pa.s.sive, so after he launched himself into the air, he sent out an explosive burst of fire from beneath his feet, pushing his body forward.

Qing Luoyang sent out several more threads at Li Yang, but he quickly clapped his hands and used another explosive burst of flames to push away the threads. He was almost within arms reach of her so he didn"t want to be forced to put distance between them again.

When his body started to lose speed and drop down he caused several pillars of ice to rise up from the ground of the arena, using them as support. Qing Luoyang sliced them apart with her strings, but Li Yang was able to simply freeze them again, covering the arena in strangely shaped pillars.

With a kick on one of the pillars, he was able to launch himself forward and arrive within arm"s reach of Qing Luoyang. Li Yang was well suited to close combat, while Qing Luoyang was more suited to mid-range combat, so the moment he got close, things took a bad turn for her.

She pushed out with both her arms, forming a wave of wind to push Li Yang away, but Li Yang simply raised up a quick wall of ice to block the wind. He didn"t even lower the wall of ice to launch his attack, he simply coated his fist in crimson flames and azure lightning, punching directly through the ice and landing a hit on Qing Luoyang"s face.

His fire and lightning scorched the side of her face, burning away half of her hair and leaving a mark on her cheek. She would be able to easily heal the mark and even regrow her hair, but as a girl who cared greatly about her appearance, having her face scarred and her hair ruined was infuriating, so she could not help but glare at Li Yang in a short outburst of rage.

"You!"

Her quick outburst of rage made her momentarily lost sight of what she had come here to do, swinging her arm at Li Yang to punish him for hitting her face and ruining her hair. With the arm approaching, Li Yang felt a strong sense of danger, so it was clear that Qing Luoyang had her actual strength in the attack. She quickly regained her calm and realized what she was doing, pulling back most of the strength within the attack, but it was too late to cancel the attack.

Faced with the attack, Li Yang could only disregard the fact that he didn"t want to show too much strength, acting on instinct. He activated both his own lightning based strengthening technique as well as the Burning Hope technique taught to him but Jing Yimu, pushing him to his second strongest state. He quickly pulled back his right arm, punched upwards with his left arm, and kicked out with his right leg. His left fist made contact with the underside of Qing Luoyang"s arm, Li Yang"s law of destruction flooding into it and attacking the Qi that was prepared for her attack, eroding and disintegrating parts of it. Meanwhile, his kick landed on the wall of ice he had created, shattering the wall of ice and pushing him backward, away from Qing Luoyang"s approaching arm. The shattered wall of ice turned into shards that flew at her, but Qing Luoyang completely ignored them, looking at Li Yang and her arm with a confused expression.

"Wha...?"

She was certain that the amount of strength left within her arm was more than enough to kill Li Yang, he shouldn"t even have time to react properly. Yet he had not only managed to dodge the attack, but he also seemed to have weakened it during that short moment where their two arms made contact. She wanted to question further, as she was uncertain if he had actually weakened her attack, but Li Yang quickly spoke up before she got the chance.

"Seems like I must train even harder if I wish to be able to beat you. This is my loss, I surrender."

Li Yang cupped his fists and quickly left the arena, returning to his seat and letting out a sigh. Not only had he been forced to briefly activate his two strengthening techniques, he was even forced to use a bit of his law of destruction. Had Qing Luoyang not pulled back most of the strength in her attack, he might have been forced to even show his fusion technique if he wanted to survive the attack. In the end, he could only let out another sigh and mutter to himself.

"Haah, let"s hope they just think it was a fluke."

There were very few explanations that could be used to explain how Li Yang had managed to block an attack like that, one that should instantly kill him. He could only hope that the sect people believed that it was Qing Luoyang who had pulled back at the last second, giving Li Yang the chance.