Return Of The Demon

When Bai Yun arrived at the arena, there were already a lot of people there. Bai Yun realized that compared to his arena, the others were relatively emptier. After a moment of thought, he understood the reason.

Bai Yun was the tenth seed in this tournament. Not only that, he had only fought once before. Thus he was a very mysterious person with not much known about him. So naturally, he would attract attention. Especially from the other top seeds.

When Bai Yun reached the arena, there was already a fight going on in the arena. His fight was scheduled to be the next one.

Bai Yun stood near the arena and patiently watched the fight. The two people fighting were much weaker than him but they were close to each other in strength. So the fight continued on for a while. Finally one of them won by a fluke. But the one who won did not see to be in a good enough state to continue on.

Once they were done, it was Bai Yun"s turn next. He calmly walked up to the arena and waited there for his opponent. A few moments later, he saw a young man walk up to the arena.

The young man got up and stood there arrogantly. "You better get down before I make you into minced meat." The young man said.

Bai Yun simply smiled at him in response. It was obvious that the young man hadn"t done a thorough job in researching his opponent. If he had, he would not have said so. But BaiYun couldn"t fault him in not checking up on the opposition. After all, Bai Yun did not even know the youth"s name.

The referee asked the two of them to get ready. Bai Yun simply stood there calmly without even taking out his weapon. The young man on the hand took out a great saber.

"Begin." The referee shouted. The moment the fight began the young man ran forward with his saber. Bai Yun stared at him calmly.

Just as the young man was about to reach him, Bai Yun finally made his move. He took a single step forward and grabbed at the hilt of the saber. The young man was startled and tried to shake off Bai Yun. But before he could do so, Bai Yun spun around and drove his elbow into the throat of the young man. The young man grasped at his throat and took a few steps back. But before he could stabilize himself he froze.

Bai Yun stood there with the young man"s saber in his hands and the tip at his neck. A single drop of blood slowly coated the edge of the blade.

"Do you concede or should we continue?" Bai Yun quietly asked.

The young man stared at Bai Yun with fear. "I-I concede." The young man finally stammered.

"Bai Yun wins." The referee declared.

Bai Yun smiled and retuned the saber to the young man. The young man was feeling weak and actually dropped the saber once before he quickly picked it up. Bai Yun simply turned around and left the arena. He was done for the day. He two more fights tomorrow. But other than that he was quite free.

Bai Yun was walking back to the meeting place with old Hai while thinking abuts the a.s.sa.s.sin G.o.d"s movement technique. He had already mastered the first part of it: wind motion, but was far from mastering the second portion, soundless motion. Even though he understood the principles behind it, mastering it seemed to be quite a difficult feat.

Just as Bai Yun was thinking and walking, he found his path suddenly blocked. Bai Yun looked up to see a young man in a huge coat standing in front of him. But due to their age, Bai Yun was much taller than the other guy. But it seems like the young man was not intent on looking up at Bai Yun. Thus instead of looking at Bai Yun"s face, he looked at his chest.

Bai Yun was quite interested in this child that just appeared in front of him. He seemed to be different from the rest.

"Can I help you?" Bai Yun asked him.

"I don"t know what the matter with the organizers is, ranking you higher than me. If this is all that you are good for, then you will be dead before you can you how you died." The young man replied.

Bai Yun suddenly understood the situation. The young man must have been seeded lower than him. And since Long Tian was generally considered as an unknown person, he must have felt wronged.

"You know its never a good idea to look down on your opponent." Bai Yun kindly reminded the young man.

"I will do whatever I want. Who are you tell me what to do? You better just hope that you make it to the round of sixteen so that I can deal with you personally." The young man said. Then he finally looked up at Bai Yun, snorted and left.

Bai Yun was more amused by this exchange than anything else. He simply shook his head and went on his merry way. There were a lot of people staring at him due to the conflict. Bai Yun could also sense a few rather powerful presences around him. He figured that they must be the other seeded compet.i.tors.

Bai Yun returned home and continued his training. He wanted to increase his strength as much as he could. Even though he was sure that he could defeat Zhang Zi with his current strength, he was still a bit concerned. Zhang Zi knew his true ident.i.ty. Which means that Zhang Zi also knew just how long he had been training for. So he would be prepared for a great increase in Bai Yun"s strength. So if he had prepared a counter for him, things could turn problematic. Thus Bai Yun had to be prepared for all eventualities.

The next day Bai Yun had two more fights. It also ended quickly just like the first one. Considering Bai Yun"s strength, it was almost too easy for him.

The next couple of days pa.s.sed by more and more quickly. Bai Yun had a couple of fights every day. Since there were a lot of people partic.i.p.ating in the tournament, there was no time to rest and do things one by one. If they only held one round per day, it would take too long for the tournament to end.

Soon the round of one twenty eight began. This was the first major round in the tournament. This was the first round in which seed partic.i.p.ants would fight against each other.

All the seeded contestants had survived till now. Most of them had had it relatively easy. But all the people who had survived until now were quite strong. Each battle was going to be much harder than the one before.

There was also a change in the number of arenas. The number of areas had been reduced to thirty two. There were sixty four matched to be had, and they will take place in two rounds. The number of arenas was finally reduced so as to make sure that no one missed the major matchups.

That day both Bai Yun and Zhang Zi had fights in the second part of the round. But Bai Yun came early enough to watch the first part. Until now he had not cared about the fights of other seeded compet.i.tors. Bai Yun had figured that their opponents would not be powerful enough to push them to their limits. So Bai Yun had not bothered to check up on his enemies.

But today at least some of them would be forced to show their true strengths. It was always better to have some idea of the opponent"s strengths before a fight. After advising others not to look down on their enemies, if he himself did so, it would be quite funny.

Since there were thirty two fights happening simultaneously, Bai Yun was unable to focus on all of them. But he still looked at the major ones.

Bai Yun was surprised by a couple of the fighters. For example, both the second seed and the sixth seed impressed him with their fighting prowess. They were quite different from the others and were fighting quite well.

At the same time, there was also an unseeded compet.i.tor who was fighting well. He was up against the twentieth seed but was easily suppressing him. It seemed as if there was finally a worthy dark horse in the compet.i.tion.

As he watched the unknown fighter, Bai Yun felt that he was familiar. But he just couldn"t place him anywhere.

As he walked around the arena, he ran into Bai Qing. Bai Qing was one of the dozen people the Bai clan had send to partic.i.p.ate in the youngster"s tournament. He also had his fight in the next round and was the third seed. Bai Qing did not recognize Bai Yun but knew that he was the tenth seed. So the two of them just nodded to each other as they pased by.

Soon the fights in the first round were over. Most of the higher seede particpants won against unseeded or lower seeded partic.i.p.ants. The notable exception was the dark horse Bai Yun had noticed. He won against the twentienth seed, creating the first major uspset of the tournament.

Now it was Bai Yun"s turn to fight. He was up against an unseeded cultivator in this round.

Bai Yun took out his sword. From now on there would be no more weaklings. What if someone like the dark horse turned up, and he lost because he was careless. He would never hear the end of it from Zhang Zi. And his parents wont let him off easily either.

Bai Yun"s opponent for this round was a young woman. She held a soft sword in her hands. She was quite good to have made it till now. But unkuckily for her, she ran into Bai Yun.

When the referee ordereed the start of the match, neither of them moved for a while. This was a first for Bai Yun in the tournament. Usually, the others would come charging in and he would easily disable them. But it seemed as if neither he nor the young woman was of the type to start a conflct.

But Bai Yun was in a hurry to end the fight. He wanted to check out his other opponents. So he finally made a move.

Bai Yun moved and closed the distance using wind motion. He thrust his sword at the young lady. She simply defended it. Bai Yun then took another step and swiped his sword again, but it was once again blocked. It was the first time Bai Yun had to make more than a single move in the tournament.

But with just the two attacks, he had already felt out the opponent. She was using a defensing sword technique to battle him. He knew all he needed to know.

Bai Yun then struck out with full force. The young lady had to take a step back to defend herself. But before she could stabilize herself properly, Bai Yun once again stabbed out with his sword. The young woman tried to defend the strike, but with a shake of his wrist, his sword slid past hers and struck her hilt. And at the same time, Bai Yun rapidly vibrated the sword, to generate an extra shock. Even though not to the extend of Zhang Zi"s shockwaves, his extra power was enough to make the young woman loosen her grip. And the next second, Bai Yun struck her sword and it flew off of her hands.

The young woman seemed surprised at the sudden change in the fight. But before she could recover, Bai Yun"s sword point came to rest on her neck. The young woman softly sighed and said. "I concede."

After the referee gave Bai Yun the victory, he quickly left the arena. As he walked out, he saw both Zhang Zi and Bai Qing leaving, along with a couple of others. Bai Yun quickly remembered their faces, as it meant that they were strong. He then looked at the rest of them, but he couldn"t find anyone else who was worthwhile.

There were still two more rounds today. Bai Yun couldn"t wait for time to pa.s.s.