Alex arrived at the Battle Hall again. This time around, he was hopeful that he was going to get a rather strong fighter to train against.
"Who is my opponent this time around?" he asked the man that was assigned to him.
"Yao Bujiang," the man said.
"Yao Bujiang…" he went through the list of names he had learned about previously, and if the information was right, then this person was most definitely someone either in the late Saint Foundation realm or early Saint Core realm.
Alex nodded and gave an appreciative smile. "Yao… like the Yao family?" he inquired.
"That information is not ours to reveal," the man said.
A while later, Alex left with the man to go to the arena where he met his opponent.
Yao Bujiang was a tall man with long flowing hair. He looked young, almost as young as Alex himself, but someone's physical feature was never a good judgment of their age with cultivators anyway.
He wore blue and orange robes and brought out a sword as he got ready.
Alex looked at the man's cultivation base and smiled. 'Saint Core 1st realm. Finally,' he thought.
The man was instead surprised. "Has there been a mistake?" he asked the staff member who could only tell him that there was no mistake.
"But… he can't be my opponent, right? He's too weak," the man said.
"Worry not, brother Yao. The Hall hasn't made any mistakes," the staff member assigned to him said and walked away.
After that, only Alex and the man were remaining.
"I hope they didn't make a mistake for your sake," the man said with a sigh.
"Don't worry, they haven't," Alex said as he brought out Midnight as well.
"So, do you have any rules before you want to start?" the man asked.
Alex shook his head. "We can start as it is," he said.
"Good, let us begin then."
The man's sword suddenly lit up with Sword Qi as he slashed it in front of him with his single hand.
Alex covered his own sword with Sword Qi and targeted the incoming attack. The two Sword Qi slashes struck each other in midair with neither of them winning against the other one.
Alex realized that his Sword Qi was obviously stronger than his opponents but with their cultivation bases so high, that was going to make little difference.
The man was surprised to see the result of their match. He hadn't expected to meet someone this strong with such a low cultivation base at all.
'Is his Sword Qi very strong?' he wondered.
He used his sword Qi again and slashed, which Alex blocked again. After this time, Alex dashed forward and went on the offensive.
The man dashed a moment later and the two of them clashed in midair. Alex swung his sword with both hands, but the man only swung with one. As a result, he was on the weaker side during this clash.
He was pushed back a bit and he couldn't help but put on a surprised expression.
"You're strong," he couldn't help but say. "I'm sorry I underestimated you."
Another sword appeared on the man's left hand and he got comfortable with it as if he had been using it for a long time.
He crossed his arms and slashed the two swords, sending an X-shaped sword slash toward Alex.
Alex's sword turned green with white layered on top of it. He let go of the sword slash which struck the incoming attack, creating a massive explosion midair that made the formations around the room flicker.
The force of the explosion alone was enough to be devastating for someone that wasn't in the Saint realm yet.
Alex got ready to send out another attack only to realize that the man had moved ahead of him. He employed some sort of movement technique to quickly appear next to Alex and swung his sword.
Alex swung his sword too and blocked the first sword, but before he could realize that he had blocked the sword, another one came from the other side.
The movement of the sword was slow to his eyes, but his body couldn't keep up. He was too slow to move his body, but his Qi wasn't.
A barrier appeared next to him that blocked the sword. It was a rather weak barrier and the man's attack was definitely stronger, but that little instance of buffer allowed him to get out of the way of the attack.
Without stopping, he got back on the attack. He swung his sword at the man, who used both his swords to stop it. He was pushed back a little and Alex moved back as well, creating a gap between the two of them.
The man tried to lower the gap between them, but before he could move, Alex's sword came from above.
He wanted to stop it, but he was a little scared this time around. After all, it was nearly 10 meters long and a meter wide.
He jumped back, even more, to dodge and send some metal sword slashes to stall for time.
Alex, however, didn't give him much resting time. He used his massive sword to continuously attack the man, forcing him to use his movement skill, multiple attack skills, and a few defensive skills.
A metal barrier shattered and the man moved out of the way. He struck Alex's sword, but the sword was sturdy enough that he couldn't even put a scratch on it.
Starforged Tungsten was a naturally tough ore that was hard to mine, to begin with. Having a sword made out of its purest form, tempered to perfection, and then Blood refined would certainly create something that was impossibly strong.
Midnight shrunk instantly and then grew again as Alex swung at the man again.
The man was starting to get annoyed by the fight as it was barely even a fight for him with how frustrating the sword was.
Every attack he did would either be blocked by the sword or destroyed by it. The sword also let Alex fight from a distance away without coming victim to the man's two swords and that was causing him to slowly lose the match.
"Fine, you asked for it," the man said and jumped back away from Midnight. Alex was about to continue when his Demon Eyes saw something.
A massive amount of golden light poured out of the man's body, surprising him quite a lot.
'Golden light… metal Qi?' he wondered.
The Qi converged on itself around the man's body as it started becoming visible to the naked eye.
Under normal circumstances, Alex would have attacked the man to stop him from using whatever skill he was using, but now wasn't such a case. Since he had come here to fight strong individuals he couldn't otherwise, he decided to wait and see what the man was going to do.
The golden light formed some sort of spherical prison around the man and out of that sphere came 4 different appendages, all of which looked like flexible arms with swords instead of a normal palms.
The man was now controlling 4 swords instead of two and his body was giant enough that Alex couldn't just stay away and fight with his giant sword.
Alex swung his sword and sent a sword Qi slash toward the man when he thought the object was done forming.
The man saw the incoming attack and swung one of the 4 arms of the sphere which stopped the attack with rather ease.
Alex frowned a bit and sent out a few more slashes, but each one of them was stopped by the 4 arms. Not a single one got anywhere close to the sphere at all, let alone the man.
"What's that? Some sort of defensive technique?" Alex asked the man. He was genuinely curious about it.
"Huh? Do you not know about our family's signature skill?" the man asked.
"I'm afraid not," Alex said. "But that does make it all the more fun.
He sent out a few more attacks, but every single one of them was blocked by the giant arms.
'How can I beat him?' Alex thought. There had to be a way for sure. He looked around with his Demon Eyes and saw something.
There was Metal Qi coming out of the man constantly which was aiding the sphere. Each time he attacked or was attacked, the Metal Qi in his body would reforge it.
If Alex wanted to win this thing, he need to attack so hard that either the sphere broke, or attack so much that the regeneration couldn't keep up at all.
"I've been meaning to practice this for a while, anyway," he thought as he threw Midnight into the sky.
The man watched in confusion for a second and was surprised as Alex brought out 20 new swords that also flew in the sky.
There were 3 at the front, 6 at the back, and 12 behind them.
The 21 Sword Array was his strongest normal attack. He had stronger Dao and Blood Aura based attacks, but amongst the ones that anyone could use, this was the strongest skill.
Not only was it a sword-based attack, which meant that he could use his Sword Aura on it, but there were also 21 different swords in this attack, each adding onto the damage enough to make a difference.
The swords started spinning in the sky like a drill as Alex prepared to attack the man and his spherical encampment with arms coming out of them.
He poured in Sword Intent to start with and sent it forward to attack.
