Chapter 390: The Thunder Tiger Battle

Xiao Shou soon discovered that although the Heaven Origin Grand Competition had been brought forward, most of the contestants were still the same people who had appeared in the original story. Their signature moves and methods were also more or less the same.

The only difference was that because of the earlier timing, their abilities were considerably weaker than they had been in the original story.

It seemed that although some parts of the plot had changed, the inertia of the original storyline was still at work.

Just as Xiao Shou became more absorbed in watching the matches and stopped letting his thoughts wander, the eighth Spirit Transformation stage match ended.

Under the control of the Holy City elder, a new round of number matching began.

After one breath, the elder announced, "Number Six and Number Ninety Nine, please come onto the arena."

"Phew! Fortunately, it isn’t me." Xiao Ran who had been nervously waiting secretly patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. At this moment, she still had no confidence that he could defeat that person.

The cultivator holding Number Ninety Nine had a similarly miserable expression. He was a cultivator from the Azure Frost Sect, and he walked toward the arena with heavy steps.

Everyone below looked at Fu Young who was standing leisurely on the arena waiting for his opponent.

They could not help sighing sympathetically.

Normally, Spirit Transformation cultivators had very few idle conversations or meaningless remarks because their state of mind had already improved considerably.

Unfortunately, encountering Fu Young was simply too frustrating.

Just before the battle was about to begin, someone watching from below could not help saying,

"What a pity for Senior Brother Li!"

"Listen to yourself. You make it sound as though Senior Brother Li is definitely going to lose. I watched his matches on the first day. He isn’t nearly as powerful as the rumors claim. He was even almost defeated by Venerable Gu of the Ninefold Elixir Gate!"

"That’s right. Senior Brother Wei of the Divine Armament Sect was only one move away from winning. He was about to succeed, but his spiritual energy ran out, so he lost by the narrowest margin. Fu Young only won by luck."

"Ah! What do you mean by ’won by luck’? I thought the same thing at the time. Since Senior Brother Wei was only one move away from defeating him, I figured that I was one realm higher than Senior Brother Wei, so I would definitely be able to defeat him easily. I never expected the final result to be..."

"What happened in the end? Don’t keep us in suspense!"

"One move away from victory, yet defeated!"

"Ah!"

"That can’t be!"

"After I lost, I stayed below the arena and watched. I discovered that every opponent who fought him used all their techniques, only to run out of spiritual energy, have their treasures malfunction, their talismans fail, or encounter some other problem. Every battle looked as though they were only one step away from winning, yet they somehow lost by the slightest margin."

"It wasn’t until the tenth challenger, Senior Brother Su from the Holy Sword Sect, stepped onto the arena and was knocked off with a single move that I realized how naive I had been."

"That’s really... If he was doing it deliberately, wouldn’t everyone have noticed after he came within a hair’s breadth of losing every time? They aren’t Foundation Establishment or Golden Core cultivators. They should have been able to notice something was wrong!"

"It was too convincing. The atmosphere during the battles was so tense that even the spectators became completely immersed in them. No one thought to consider anything else. Sigh, we were all fooled."

"This fellow is probably extremely powerful. In the first nine battles, he controlled the pace of the fights and made everyone feel as though they were truly fighting for their lives. Only after he had fulfilled the requirement of ten challengers did he reveal his true strength."

"Exactly! Unfortunately, everyone only realized it when he defeated Senior Brother Su. By then, we had already helped him gather all ten challengers. Sigh~~~!"

"Wait! Doesn’t that mean Senior Brother Li is in danger?!"

While everyone was discussing the arena challenge matches, the battle on the Spirit Transformation stage had already begun.

By this point, Xiao Shou had completely forgotten about not thinking about Fu Young or paying attention to him. His divine sense ignored everything else and focused entirely on the Spirit Severing competition arena.

On the stage, Fu Young’s opponent helplessly cupped his fists and said, "I am Li Zhenyu of the Azure Frost Sect. In the upcoming battle, I hope Your Excellency will show me some mercy."

That polite attitude definitely means something is wrong. Young’er, be careful. Don’t let this seemingly sinister fellow catch you off guard!

Xiao Shou muttered inwardly as he kept his divine sense firmly locked onto Li Zhenyu, afraid that his beloved disciple might accidentally fall into a trap.

However, on the stage, Fu Young remained perfectly amiable. He cupped his fists in return and said, "Eternal Prosperity Sect’s Fu Young. Fellow Daoist Li, you’re too modest. I heard of your reputation when I was still young."

"Fellow Daoist Fu, please!"

This brat... He had clearly been mocking him, yet there was not the slightest flaw in his words!

Damn it...

Li Zhenyu maintained a fake smile as he spoke, but his hands showed no mercy. He formed hand seals so quickly that they became impossible to distinguish with the naked eye, and even divine sense had difficulty following them.

Everyone saw that in less than a second after he began forming the seals, a massive thunder tiger took shape before him and opened its jaws before pouncing toward Fu Young.

This was a spell battle. Only spells could be used, and all other methods of combat were forbidden.

The spell Li Zhenyu had used belonged to the thunder element. It seemed that he possessed a Thunder Spirit Root.