Chapter 57: A bloody tournament
The energy from the treasure entered Yun Jhin's head as it traveled inside his body, his cultivation was slowly getting pushed towards the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, his physical body didn't go through many changes but his soul was quickly mending itself.
The treasure was special, it would first go through the soul before pouring the energy inside the body, it was a treasure that helped both and that was why it was considered weaker than the one that the sect master had, most people focused on cultivating their ki as their soul would be passively strengthened, even though they wouldn't mind getting their soul strengthened, at some point in cultivation soul techniques would start becoming useless, soul techniques were mostly against people below your cultivation.
However that didn't mean soul cultivation was useless, some people could focus on cultivating their souls further to the point that they could easily dissect the opponent's soul before they realized what happened, this way they would be able to kill them easily, enslaving them was another thing, those above the heavenly realm couldn't be enslaved unless they opened the natural barrier above their soul consciousness.
If someone tried to forcefully open the barrier the soul would die and the body would explode, it was a protection mechanism, this was why Kong Luo didn't try to take over Yun Jhin's soul and enslave him even though he was almost 2 whole cultivation realms above him.
Yun Jhin enjoyed the cool feeling the treasure gave him as his soul mended further and his cultivation base slowly increased, his power was slowly stabilizing as his body broke through the 9th stage, however, the treasure started to crumble as more of its energy was used, it wouldn't last enough to power him to the King Realm, it was an unfortunate event but atleast he got to the peak of the ki cultivating realm.
Yun Jhin flexed his muscles as he got up from his cross-legged position on the ground, Kong Luo observed Yun Jhin's reactions and cultivation base as he looked at him flex his muscles and stretch his body.
Yun Jhin's aura took a deep red color as it flared to life his height increased to at least 2,50 meters, Kong Luo observed him with an interested look on his face as he commented:
"What a peculiar technique, with this you have a chance of winning the tournament, we should get close to the border soon and afterward we will just have to wait for the others to get to the arena."
Yun Jhin nodded at him as his muscles made popping sounds, his height returned to 1,80 meters, this was a technique he could use to fight King Realm experts, it did hurt his muscles and ki pathways quite a bit but he would only use it when it came to fights with King Realm experts above the 2nd stage, also the rules of the tournament didn't say he could lay down formations on the arena...
Even though giants were rather strong against formations dragons only had high elemental resistance, as long as he didn't use the formations to blast them with elemental power he would easily win.
Yun Jhin left the man-made cave along with Kong Luo, the general's entourage saluted him and collapsed the cave and filled it.
Kong Luo eyed Yun Jhin's back as they ran towards the borders of the upper continents, he was still skeptical of his intentions, in this world where not even husband and wife, brother and sister, etc. could truly trust each other, how could Kong Luo believe what Yun Jhin said?
He even left out a mark on him when he blessed him with the help of the treasure, he would be able to feel his location as long as he was 100,000 kilometers away from him, he would make sure he would get missions around this range if he won the tournament and joined the army.
He liked Yun Jhin's bloodline and talent but he wasn't sure about his battle power, while he needed to do the tournament to legally get Yun Jhin inside the upper continents, he also hosted it to see Yun Jhin's battle ability.
After another change of scenery and the passing of days, they finally reached the border of the Upper continents, there was a giant wall that was separating the upper continents from the middle ones, the wall was pitch black and constructed of Katchi Metal tempered with the soul force of thousands of Evil Lion seals.
Evil Lion seals were a special aquatic creature that was gifted and traded from the Black Tortoise planet.
The wall had only one relatively big gate made of hard Devil Oak Tree from hell, from time to time devil's would trade with Upper Ranked planets, after all, Hell wasn't that rich in resources, their most valued resources were each other.
Kong Luo approached the wall along with Yun Jhin and his entourage and he was stopped at the gate by a Tall man with two scars over his eyes, both of his eyes were pupilless and had a foggy white color, showing that he was either blind or cultivating a peculiar eye technique.
The man stopped Kong Luo and waved his hand while saying:
"Old man Luo, it seems you couldn't catch your daughter's killer eh? Who's this little guy, what a concentrated draconic bloodline, it seems like imperial blood too!"
The old man gazed at Yun Jhin as if he wanted to see through all of his secrets, it seemed he wasn't blind.
The man shook his head as he saw through his cultivation base and he said:
"Even if he was a King Realm expert he wouldn't be allowed in, you hosting another tournament?"
Kong Luo nodded his head as he approached the man and said:
"My friend Pei Fong, I know this is quite shameless for me to ask since you helped me with the other one as well, but could you throw out the arena again?"
Pei Fong scratched his bald head and then he put 2 fingers up, Kong Luo coughed then took two blood-red spirit stones out of his bag and passed them to Pei Fong.
Pei Fong smiled as he put the stones into his spatial bag and then walked through the gate of the wall as if it wasn't there at all.
Suddenly the ground started to tremble as an arena was thrown from the other side of the wall, it landed neatly on it's prepared spot creating a huge dust cloud and an earthquake as well, Kong Luo looked as nonchalant as possible as he told Yun Jhin:
"Now we wait for the others to join, they were the failures that Mijil beat, this could be said to be their second chance, don't disappoint me, as you know they would fight way harder now when they were given another chance, they might even kill you if you aren't well prepared."
Yun Jhin looked at the arena, it was a square-shaped white tiled arena, it was very simple and nothing was adorning it, but the material it was made from ensured that it was very sturdy to the point that King Realm experts fighting on it wouldn't damage it much.
Yun Jhin looked at Kong Luo who was now chatting with Pei Fong and asked him:
"Could I go to inspect the arena?"
Kong Luo waved his hand indicating that he could do whatever he wanted, Yun Jhin smiled inside as he saw the man's actions and walked towards the arena, he stealthily put down a few formations that could help him in the critical situations and also a big formation that he could use if he was ever cornered.
After a while one half-human half-dragon woman came and settled herself near the wall, she sat down cross-legged and ignored everyone, her lower half was that of a dragon and her upper half was human.
After more time passed, a man with draconic eyes, tail, and wings flew down from the sky and took another spot near the wall and waited.
More time passed and more people came, all of them had the same characteristics, they were all dragon hybrids, some of them had dragon tails, some of them had dragon eyes, the more draconic features they had the purer their bloodline was.
Yun Jhin was a special existence as even though he was a hybrid he didn't have any human DNA in him, there were also a few cultivation beasts hybrids but they were either from the Werewolf tribe, Werelion tribe and the Weretiger clan.
While the dragons wouldn't mind with who they mated, they should be atleast strong enough to handle their 'seed' or strong enough to impregnate them, these tribes were the strongest on the Azure Dragon planet, the Azure Dragon was a master of the five elements but there were no more True Azure dragons that could control all of the five elements anymore, it was due to the race-mixing and the low fertility of the dragons, however, there was nothing they could do about this.
Yun Jhin looked at his competitors and shook his head, most of them were around the 1st stage of the King Realm and only 2 or 3 were at the second, as for the third stage only the woman which came first was at this realm.
Yun Jhin realized that he overestimated them, after all, they were halflings that couldn't get in the upper regions after quite a few tournaments, most of them were middle-aged and only the other woman was rather young, she was still a little bit older than Yun Jhin, from what he could infer she was atleast 30+ years old.
There were no opponents at the 4th stage or above so he wouldn't have trouble winning, atleast that's what he thought.
Now that everyone was here Kong Luo opened his mouth and enhanced his voice with ki so everyone could hear it:
"Now that everyone has gathered to this new tournament, I will have to tell you the rules, they were altered just a tiny bit compared to before:
Rule number 1: Yun Jhin will stay on the arena and you will challenge him after you draw lots.
Rule number 2: Yun Jhin gets 10 minutes of recovery if he wins a fight.
Rule number 3: If you defeat Yun Jhin you will the one to continue fighting if you last till the end and win all of the matches you will follow me to the upper continents!
Rule number 4: All weapons are allowed, all types of injuries are allowed, crippling is allowed, killing is allowed, devouring your opponents to recover ki is allowed, forbidden techniques are allowed, low-blows are allowed, when it comes to fighting it doesn't matter what you do as long as you win, so practically everything is allowed.
Rule number 5: If you are thrown out of the arena you lose, you can forfeit if you tap the arena 3 times in a row.
These are all of the rules, please make a great show for me and Mr. Pei Fong here."
Kong Luo smiled as he threw a box which levitated towards the fighters, they all took their lot and the first to fight Yun Jhin would be a 1st stage King Realm man who had draconic eyes, that meant his bloodline was quite poor as it only went to his eyes, compared to the young man that Yun Jhin ate in the Earth kingdom his organs didn't achieve the fusion with his bloodline.
The man jumped on the arena and directly attacked Yun Jhin, no rules were saying that he had to wait for Kong Luo to say start, or that it was a normal match, besides being thrown out of the arena it was an all-allowed gladiator's deathmatch!
Yun Jhin smiled sweetly towards the man, Yun Jhin's sweet smile gave the half-human half-dragon opponent the shivers as he didn't know what to make out of his smile, but he ignored it and dashed towards him ready to decapitate him with his sword-hand technique.
Yun Jhin looked at him as he continued dashing and shook his head:
"My first meal towards the King Realm, come!"
The man frowned but he didn't say anything as he continued his dash, he scanned his aura earlier and realized that he was at the 9th stage of the Ki cultivating realm, he knew that if he took the initiative there was no way he would lose!
Yun Jhin moved his hand and the man fell down before he could get up Yun Jhin appeared in front of him and crouched near his fallen body, his hand went directly to his neck as he now held his head in his hand.
Yun Jhin opened his mouth like a hungry alligator and swallowed the head whole, he did the same with the body, he licked his bloody lips as he looked towards his other 'enemies' and hooked his finger towards his next opponent, he put his thumb over his neck and made a slashing motion indicating that he would end up as his current opponent, a meal for his empty belly.
Some of the fighters got frightened while the others got angry at Yun Jhin's provocative gesture, however, the woman at the 3rd stage of the King Realm just chuckled as she said:
"He reminds me of Mijil that bitch... I will enjoy eating him."
A dark peculiar light shone for a nanosecond in her eyes as she said that, her voice was very low but one of her 'colleagues' heard what she said but he ignored it, after all, everyone would hype himself up with such words before the fight, she was in the middle-pack so there was still quite a long while before she would fight but the man didn't think anything of it.
Kong Luo waved his hand and indicated that the next person could go on the arena and said:
"It seems Yun Jhin didn't waste much energy on that fight so he doesn't need his rest, next one go up!"
So the next one jumped on the arena, and Yun Jhin was ready for him as well!