The stand-off

(A/N: okay, a question about the pacing of the story. Just use like 10 seconds of your time and check this paragraph's comment and like the one that you think is better. Thank you.

To the guys from the future: don't waste your time liking the comments about pacing, I don't think I will come back to this and even if I do, the result is already in action so there is no point to it. Read more and get up to date with the novel so that your opinion would have an effect.)

Now that we only have 20 'players' left, the intensity would be higher and hopefully, the fight would soon be finished so that we can get back to our own fights for the day…

——(POV third person)——

Just in half of an hour the number dropped to 9 and in the same way from the start of the fights Lai Xinyue got most of the eliminations but the others were also active and tried to at the very least get the quota for the qualification. This resulted in an 'all or nothing' situation that makes the fights more interesting to the audience.

Jin Fen still blasted the sky every once in a while. At this point, it looked like some kind of signal so the number of people who would go after him decreased more because they thought this was a signal for other 'teammates' and they might be ambushed. This resulted in even fewer eliminations for Jin Fen.

If you are interested in Dai Bao and his boy band, they are still looking for Jin Fen but they somehow always miss him or are in different parts of the battleground so they were unable to locate him until now. They had one encounter with a participant and defeated him but that's it.

But now everything would change. Now everyone knows each other's location and can find each other and fight faster. There is something that you don't know, the participants know the location of each other but there is no name tag there so they don't know who is there.

For someone like Dai Bao who is looking for someone specific, this is an inconvenience. Well, this is exactly the reason they didn't put names there, doing so would only defeat the purpose.

In just only 5 minutes, the number dropped to 6, and finally, Dai Bao and Jin Fen found each other.

'Finally!' Li Huang thought.

"I thought you would never show up!" Jin Fen contemptuously looked at Dai Bao and his boy band and spoke before Dai Bao had a chance to speak first.

Dai Bao shook his head in ridicule.

"And I thought you would never come out of the hole that you had dug to hide yourself." Dai Bao said.

There was silence in the crowd as they know about these two or at least they thought they know. They were waiting for the epic stand-off.

"Don't talk as if you didn't bring your dogs here too, you don't seem as confident as you speak…" Jin Fen talked back to Dai Bao and made fun of him for using this scheme to fight against him.

"*hmph* What is wrong with taking care of a pig with dogs?"Dai Bao didn't even hesitate for a second to shit on Jin Fen and his own teammates at the same time.

The fun fact was that Dai Bao's lackeys didn't even flinch a little as if it was nothing.

'I have to applaud them for this performance, but is it really necessary to have all these talking before every fight? Can't you just start already?' Li Huang was internally cursing both sides for wasting time.

At the same time that Dai Bao and Jin Fen just found each other, the two other participants also were closing on each other.

From the location, they both know that a fight of 4 is definitely bloodier than this 1 vs 1 fight and also there is a high chance of teaming in there, so they decided to go toward the easier option.

Right the moment that Jin Fen started taunting Dai Bao, these two parties stood in front of each other.

One of them was Lai Xinyue and the other was a female disciple named Yi Zhihao. They started clashing without any unnecessary talks. The fight was in Lai Xinyue's favor as Yi Zhihao wasn't much stronger than her and Lai Xinyue's physique would help her here.

Back where Jin Fen and Dai Bao were trash-talking, they were almost ready to fight.

"There is no point in talking anymore, you have made me lose way too much time, don't expect to be able to walk away from here." Jin Fen said. He was going to find Lai Xinyue after quickly taking care of Dai Bao, but he didn't show up until now and Lai Xinyue didn't come to him even after all these 'signals'.

Somehow in Jin Fen's mind, going to the place that the explosions come from is logical and Lai Xinyue should have done so.

"For once, I agree with you." Dai Bao sneered and said.

The moment that they started to make a move, a sound resonated in the battleground.

"The round is finished. Stop all hostilities." The referee said.

It seems Lai Xinyue was victorious in her fight against Yi Zhihao and now with 5 remaining disciples, the competition is done.

Jin Fen and Dai Bao were red with shame. They didn't consider that the fight would stop the moment that there are only 5 participants left and they account for 4. If they talked less they could have at least fought a little but now they are laughing stock of everyone as they were all bark and no bite.

Li Huang among the audience couldn't stop his face from twisting.

——(POV Li Huang)——

"All this horse shit and no fight in the end?" I said without any care about someone hearing me.

"I think we have to get revenge for our wasted time in the finals." Hu Anjing chimed in.

"That… is a brilliant idea." I couldn't agree more with her on this. I mean even the crowd is giving face to the heavenly sword sect by not openly cursing these two assholes.

With this anticlimactic ending to the battle royale competition, we were ready to go back and have the first day of fights for 10 thrones.

In just a few minutes, the portals were ready and we got back to the heavenly sword sect stage that now had 10 thrones on it.

As I was going on stage for the fight I remembered something.

'Hu Anjing really jinxed the battle royale round…' I touched my temples. No point in thinking about it, whatever it was, it is done now…

After a short reminder about the rules of this round by grand elder Wan, we were ready to start. We got to choose the thrones in order of our fights so I was first and after me, it was Hu Anjing's turn.

To be honest about it, I have been thinking about what throne to choose for the past day and I think I now know what is the best course of action for me, I'm going to get one of the vice leader thrones.

There are a couple of reasons for me to do so. No one can argue that Hu Anjing is the strongest in this competition without a doubt so she can easily get this throne from anyone who is settled in it. But if I am the one on it, she would let me have it and this doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth. The other way is for me to fight with her for it and that is also not something that I want because it would be first and foremost draining for both of us before the trial so that is also not an option.

Now if she is on that throne, she has no problem keeping it and there is no excuse for her to not take it.

Okay, I admit that I don't have the patience for this responsibility, are you happy now?

I mean, I want to loot in the trial, I don't have time to think about others…