Numerous people crowded together and pushed back and forth in front of the Blood Fighting Pit.
Many Qi warriors who had come to the Blood Skull’s headquarters to purchase spiritual materials and spiritual tools, as well as the other guest elders in the city, all came to this place upon hearing about the upcoming battle between Nie Tian and s.h.i.+ Nan.
Recently, Nie Tian had become a sensation in Shatter City. Almost everyone was curious about him.
s.h.i.+ Nan, on the other hand, was s.h.i.+ Hui’s nephew and, as a guest elder of the Blood Skull, he also enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in Shatter City.
Therefore, the moment people heard about their upcoming battle in the Blood Fighting Pit, they put their business on hold and came to watch the fight.
The disguised Dong Baijie and Dong Li were among the crowd of people.
After a.s.suming completely different appearances, the brother and sister pair looked no different from the other onlookers, and blended in perfectly.
Standing in the crowd, they observed Nie Tian, who was standing at the gate of the Blood Fighting Pit, from afar.
Smiling, Dong Baijie said to Dong Li, who was standing right next to him, “I didn’t expect that we would be able to catch such a good show so soon after arriving in Shatter City. Nie Tian is a newcomer who’s being regarded so highly by the Blood Skull. It’s only natural that the other guest elders are not happy about it. Nie Tian is at the early Heaven stage, and s.h.i.+ Nan is at the late Heaven stage. Who do you think will win?”
“Although I hate Nie Tian’s guts, I would still give the odds to him. I think he’ll beat that s.h.i.+ Nan person rather easily.” With a frown, Dong Li looked at the swaggering s.h.i.+ Nan and said with a disdainful tone, “I’ve heard about s.h.i.+ Nan before. He only became a guest elder of the Blood Skull because he’s s.h.i.+ Hui’s nephew. His actual battle prowess is about the same as any other Blood Skull member who is at the late Heaven stage. Nie Tian has killed a number of men like him already.”
Face grim, Dong Baijie asked, “Did you see him kill them?”
Nie Tian being able to take his fragmentary star mark from him in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had a great deal to do with the fact that he had been badly wounded at that time.
If he hadn’t gone through many fierce battles, he didn’t believe Nie Tian would have had the ability to s.n.a.t.c.h the fragmentary star mark from him.
Therefore, when he first came to the Realm of Split Void and heard of Nie Tian’s battle results from Dong Li and Han Mu, he had been rather skeptical, a.s.suming that there might have been some exaggeration in Nie Tian’s accomplishment of killing several dozen Heaven stage opponents in a row, some of them even being at the late Heaven stage.
“Of course I did.” A bitter expression could be seen on Dong Li’s face. “Not only that, but I had a brief personal encounter with him in the Void Illusion Mountain Range. You know me. I wouldn’t even break a sweat if I needed to kill a man like s.h.i.+ Nan, even though we are both at the late Heaven stage.
“The same goes for others who are at the same stage as me, with the only exceptions being the truly talented ones from the powerful Qi warrior sects.
“But Nie Tian...” Dong Li sighed. “Even though he’s only at the early Heaven stage, every time we engaged in battle, he had the upper hand.”
Dong Baijie’s expression flickered as he nodded and said, “If that’s the case, let’s place a bet on him. We both suffered major defeats from this kid. Let’s win some money through him to at least make up for our losses.”
Song Li’s eyes lit up. “Good point.”
In the midst of their quiet discussion, s.h.i.+ Qing returned.
“Well...?” s.h.i.+ Hui asked in a loud voice.
s.h.i.+ Qing nodded and said, “The battle is authorized.”
s.h.i.+ Hui grinned. “Good! Everyone, now you may go and place your bets!”
Immediately afterwards, the Blood Skull member who was in charge of the gambling center at the gate of the Blood Fighting Pit started crying out for gamblers.
“Let’s open the gate,” s.h.i.+ Qing said.
After hearing his words, another Blood Skull member opened the gate to the Blood Fighting Pit and let Nie Tian and s.h.i.+ Nan in.
One after another, the crowd of idlers gathered at the gate to place their bets with spirit stones.
The majority of the crowd placed their bets on Nie Tian, with only s.h.i.+ Hui, the guest elders with him, and a handful of others placing their bets on s.h.i.+ Nan.
After all, many of them knew that s.h.i.+ Nan had only become the Blood Skull’s guest elder because of his relation with s.h.i.+ Hui, and that his battle prowess was not very outstanding.
However, Nie Tian had created such a huge sensation lately.
Even if his accomplishments were exaggerated to some extent, the fact that he had successfully escaped the pursuit of the Fang and other Hunters and returned to Shatter City alive was proof enough of his toughness.
As a result, nearly eighty percent of the people bet in favor of Nie Tian.
After hearing the crowd of idlers who relished drama shouting by the gate while placing their bets on Nie Tian, s.h.i.+ Nan looked very grim.
s.h.i.+ Hui and the guest elders with him also had grim expressions on their faces, as if none of them had ever expected that Nie Tian would have such high popularity.
They didn’t know that many among the crowd of spectators had safely returned to Shatter City from their exploration trips precisely because Nie Tian had attracted the attention of practically all the Hunter organizations in the area.
Some of them had even learned about the Fang’s schemes from the messages Nie Tian had left for them, and thus had withdrawn safely from the dense forest in the Void Illusion Mountain Range.
They all felt indebted to Nie Tian, so they naturally placed their bets on him.
“Come on, people! 50 spirit stones and you can watch the battle in the Blood Fighting Pit!” A Blood Skull member cried loudly at the gate.
Everyone, including s.h.i.+ Hui, Dong Baijie, and Dong Li, paid their entrance fees and walked into the Blood Fighting Pit.
Nie Tian and s.h.i.+ Nan were standing at the center of the enormous fighting pit, with numerous paying spectators around them.
It was the first time Nie Tian had been inside the Blood Fighting Pit, so he glanced around curiously.
In the middle of the s.p.a.cious fighting pit was a round stone stage that was 100 meters in diameter. A spiritual power ward had been established at the perimeter of the the round stage, preventing spiritual power attacks from shooting out of the stage.
Outside the edge of the round stage stood a circle of bleachers, which were gradually being filled with spectators.
After a rough count, Nie Tian found that there were already about a hundred people sitting on the bleachers.
All of them were making remarks about Nie Tian and s.h.i.+ Nan with red faces, seeming even more thrilled than the fighters.
s.h.i.+ Qing and the Blood Skull official who was in charge of the fighting pit beckoned for Nie Tian and s.h.i.+ Nan to wait for the spectators to finish placing their bets and getting to their seats before announcing the start of the battle.
When it was about time, s.h.i.+ Qing warned them loudly, “Hua Tian, s.h.i.+ Nan, you’re both guest elders of the Blood Skull. I want you to know that this is not a battle of life and death! Keep your agreement in mind, and stop when a winner emerges.”
With an aloof expression, Nie Tian turned his head to stretch his neck, although he cursed s.h.i.+ Nan in his heart.
He remembered that both Pei Qiqi and Li Ye had warned him not to attract too much attention a few days ago.
Furthermore, he was aware that if he caught too much attention in Shatter City, it would only be a matter of time before his true ident.i.ty was exposed. At that time, the Heaven Palace Sect would surely come for him.
However, the thing people want the least always turns out to be the actual result. s.h.i.+ Nan and s.h.i.+ Hui were obviously using this incident as an opportunity to cause him trouble.
Now that they had sought him out to mess with him, he definitely couldn’t tolerate it, and thus agreed to this battle.
Seeing the bleachers being filled with more and more spectators, Nie Tian secretly cursed s.h.i.+ Nan for causing so much attention. All he wanted was to finish the battle as soon as possible.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
Wisps of green-blue lightning jumped out of s.h.i.+ Nan’s fingers as he summoned his lightning power. Simultaneously, s.h.i.+ Nan, who cultivated the lightning incantation, took out a blue-green hammer from within his bracelet of holding.
With a slight wave of the hammer, rumbles of thunder echoed out from it.
In the next moment, even more fine, green lightning bolts flew out of s.h.i.+ Nan’s fingers, and were infused into the thunder hammer in his hand.
s.h.i.+ Nan shot a glance at s.h.i.+ Qing, who was observing from afar, and said, “Relax, I won’t kill him! But since he dares to fight me in the Blood Fighting Pit, I can’t let him walk out of here so easily!”
BOOM!
A loud and crisp roll of thunder echoed out from within his thunder hammer, as if the hammer had turned into a giant ball of lightning and crashed towards Nie Tian.
Within the Blood Fighting Pit, accompanied by rolls of thunder, numerous dazzling lightning bolts flashed across in the air.
Nie Tian looked up and felt a stabbing pain in his eyes, realizing that the lightning contained formidable power.
“Fancy, but not practical!” He let out a cold harrumph as he secretly formed a two-meter radius chaotic magnetic field around him.
At the same time, since he wished to end the battle as quickly as possible, he rapidly summoned his star power and prepared to cast a short-range Stars.h.i.+ft.
SHEW!
In the blink of an eye, he appeared right in front of s.h.i.+ Nan, as if he had teleported.
As s.h.i.+ Nan was enveloped by the magnetic field, his spiritual power immediately fell into a state of chaos, and he experienced an agonizing pain in his mind.
Without any hesitation, Nie Tian summoned the different types of power within him and launched a Rage Punch towards s.h.i.+ Nan’s chest.
BANG!!!
s.h.i.+ Nan was sent flying backwards like a cannonball. After cras.h.i.+ng heavily into the spiritual power ward at the perimeter, he collapsed to the floor.