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The crowds went on placing their bets onto the next contestants. Meanwhile, Shen Lu by Duan Li"s side were rubbing both of his hands together eagerly, as a sinister smile appeared on his face, looking at all those spirit stones piling up nicely.
"What a crooked fella.." Shen Murong commented as he looked at the latter with a weird and wary gaze.
For someone like Shen Lu, even though he knew that Duan Li"s pocket was already loaded and unfathomably deep, there was no harm in getting the extra income for their party as well.
As the saying went, If a chicken could lay one egg at a time, ten chickens would make that ten eggs at a time! It was but a simple logic without a flaw!
Duan Li chuckled slightly at this sight, he knew about the merchant side of Shen Lu, and the crowds had already fallen under these scheme of his. But if it could make the audiences to feel more satisfied about this duel where stakes were put into places accordingly, then it could be considered as a meritory service executed perfectly by Shen Lu instead!
After all, if the audiences really enjoyed this, then they would surely gave a positive outlook towards his party as a whole later on. Thus, that would only work to their advantage for the future.
"The second battle is about to start, all bets are now closed! To Sui Shunyuan and Xu Rong, please come atop of the platform right now!" Shen Lu spoke out.
Duan Li couldn"t help but to nod at the latter. Shen Lu really has that natural appealing voice of a commentator which caused the whole Duel hall to have that surreal atmosphere to it as the crowds cheered crazily!
Tap! Tap!
Two figure currently stood atop of the platform right now. One was a male student, while the other was a female. Judging by their uniform, one could already tell that they were both soph.o.m.ores.
Sui Shunyuan has a medium-long black hair that flutters constantly even when there was no wind blowing at him. His stature was not that big either, but he was quite tall, similar to Duan Li. What made him really stands out though, was his aura that emanated a sharp contrast to his dull appearance. This aura of his feels chaotic and viscous, as if looking straight onto a patch of an abyss!
Duan Li"s brows furrowed when he looked at this man. His instinct told him that this man was a little bit unstable in its state of mind.
On the other hand, the crimson coloured hair Xu Rong, was an elegant and a beautiful woman that had managed to capture the hearts of some of the audiences at first sight. Although she has quite a bit of a haughty air to her with that smug smile she was wearing right now, this only serves to add to her overall attractiveness and showcased her boldness, like a bright, shining ruby!
"What a beauty! If only I could have her as my wife, then I would be set for life!"
"Dream on! Xu Rong is not meant for someone like you. Besides, I heard that she could get a little bit nasty when feeling unsatisfied. Being a pyromancer, she would burn you to cinders at the drop of a hat!"
"I"m more concerned about that Sui Shunyuan fella. Although he looks like nothing at all from here, I got the feeling that he is quite the dangerous man!"
"Indeed, I saw him before when he returned after a mission. His body reeks of blood! When I accidentally met with his eyes, it feels as though I"m looking at the embodiment of carnage himself!"
The crowd began to broke into discussion as they a.n.a.lyzed both of the contestants.
"Duan Li, that Sui Shunyuan person is quite dangerous." Shen Murong spoke out with a grim countenance.
Even from where he stood, all his body hairs were standing on its end, as if his entire being felt wary about that man on the platform.
"En. It seems like we got someone with a deep history to him." Duan Li nodded.
...
After Shen Lu inspected both contestants for a while, he then shouted out.
"Begin!!"
Xu Rong instantly went all out and churn her spiritual Qi rapidly, as flames coiled around her body, forming an armor made out of pure flames!
The crowd exclaimed excitedly and cheered when they saw this.
"I must not get near to this man, something feels off about him!" Xu Rong remarked inwardly as she leaped 5 steps to the back.
Her instinct was screaming in front of this man and urged her to keep her distance. In the first place though, she was a Spellcaster that specializes in medium to long range combat. Thus, this was not a problem for her at all.
Looking at the other party warily for any sudden moves, she soon unconsciously laid down her sights towards the latter"s eyes, by which she shuddered in surprise.
Those eyes.. it was as if he disdained of all life!
Suddenly though, Sui Shunyuan spoke out slowly.
"Why.. are you so far away?"
When this sentence came out from him, the entire Duel hall went silent as a foreboding sense crept up to them.
"Come." Sui Shunyuan beckoned.
Immediately after this, Xu Rong felt her body to become weightless as she found herself to be pulled towards the other party slowly.
"What"s happening?!" she clenched her teeth as she tried to lodge her feet deeper onto the platform. It was useless however, as the mystical force that pulled on her does not seemed to be affected by this.
"This art.. impossible.. the Gravity pull?!" Shen Murong exclaimed in disbelief.
The Gravity arts were known to be legendary, and consisted of seven main forms; Pull, Push, Cascade, Null, disintegrate, Reform and Decimate. Each has the ability to defy the natural law of things and was thus graded on the upper level of Mystic arts, - level 7 Mystic arts!
"No.. it only appears that way. Look at her feet, it was subtle, but her feet was moving forward on its own slowly." w.a.n.g Xiolun spoke out as he managed to caught something.
Being a senior with numerous experiences behind him, it was only natural that he could at least saw this much.
"However, it should be a skill art that relates to controlling others like the gravity arts too, perhaps illusion!" he continued as he cupped his chin.
...
Xu Rong was quite livid as of now. No matter how much she ordered for both of her feet to stop, they still moved on their own accord! It was only with her strong willpower that the speed had reduced a quite a bit.
"Oh? You are able to resist me? What a tenacious woman.. a little bit Interesting." Sui Shunyuan chuckled.
Hearing that smug sentences being spouted out by the other party, Xu Rong immediately snapped!
"Fire Javelin!"
Streams of flames coagulated around her as they formed several long stretches of flames that looked extremely sharp, reminiscent of the real javelins.
Pshew! Pshew!
The Fire Javelins bolted forwards toward Sui Shunyuan, but the latter does not even seem to have the intention to dodge!
With a wave of his hand, these Fire Javelins swerved around him, as if being obstructed by a triangle wedge.
Seeing this, Duan Li"s eyes gleamed as he came into a realization.
"It"s not illusionary arts.. this is possession!"
Possession arts? Does that mean.. this Sui Shunyuan person is part of the Shin.o.bi clan?
Both w.a.n.g Xiolun and Shen Murong cupped at their chin.
...
On the contestants seat, both Wei Shang and Wei w.a.n.g narrowed their eyes slightly as they had also made the same deductions.
No wonder the air around Sui Shunyuan was familiar to them. It turns out that the latter was also part of the Shin.o.bi clan like them.
The problem was, they didn"t know from which part of a family clan does this man belongs to.
After some digging inside their heads, they finally recalled.
10 years ago, there was coup in a remote clan by the mountains called the Sui clan. They were known to be reclusive and would not open their gates to any outsiders at all.
In addition, the Sui clan was rumored to be a master of the puppeteer arts. But one day, the head of the side family rebelled against the main family and managed to subdue the entire clan overnight after making a thorough preparation for several long years!
All of the core members from the main family were killed and the rest were treated like slaves. Back then, the Sui clan was not part of the Jiu Empire, thus no action was taken on them.
It was only fairly recently that the new Sui clan decided to join the Jiu Empire.
But 2 years ago, that new Sui clan was wiped out completely all of a sudden! Rumors has it that another Shin.o.bi clan whom was close to the previous grandmaster of the old Sui clan took revenge in order to ease the vengeful spirits on that mountain.
Because the Sui clan was located very far away from the core influence of the Empire, the news was only made known a week later after that incident occured when travellers pa.s.sed by their mountains, only to smell that it reeks of death!
Eventhough the Empire had quickly dispatched the police force and declared a wide arrest warrant for the perpetrators soon after, in the end, not even a single one was caught.
With this information swirling in their minds, both came to the same conclusion as they looked at one another.
Was Sui Shunyuan a survivor from the Sui clan ma.s.sacre?!
...
Back on the platform, the Fire Javelins that was thrown at him floated gently besides him right now.
"Impossible! How are you able to control my Fire Javelins?!" Xu Rong exclaimed out in disbelief.
"Hmm? How indeed.." Sui Shunyuan lazily replied.
With a flick of his index finger, the Fire Javelins bolted straight at Xu Rong with top speeds.
"Don"t think that just because you could control my Fire Javelins meant that you could use them against me! Dream on!"
"Fire Twister!"
BOOM!
The fire armors wrapped around her swiftly exploded as they spun around her, creating a tornado of fire that engulfed the Fire Javelins entirely.
Seeing this, Sui Shunyuan smiled as he rose up one hand.
"I surrendered." he spoke out with a flat tone.
"..." Xu Rong.
"..." Duan Li and his party.
"..." the audience.
That was anti-climatic!
...