Alex arrived on the stage for his 3rd match. With 128 remaining candidates, the 64 different matches were now being held 2 at a time.
Alex's opponent this time around was a weaker man who he easily beat after a few rounds of attacks. His Ice Spears was too strong for the man to handle and as such he lost entirely.
He went back and waited and was finally called onto the 4th match.
Alex paused when he saw his next opponent. He couldn't help but frown a little when he saw the person's cultivation base.
'Saint core 6th realm,' he thought. 'That's… tough.'
He could certainly fight against someone like this with his blood aura, but using that would be certainly a dead giveaway of who he was.
'I will be fine,' he thought and got ready.
His opponent brought out a sword and started attacking the moment the match began. He sent slashes flying at Alex with quite a bit of ferocity.
Alex was surprised at how aggressive the man was with his attacks. He immediately used his Ice Spears and shot down the sword slashes.
He was still on the losing end after the clash, but he had stood his ground against the man.
The man was surprised that Alex didn't immediately lose at all. He had assumed Alex was weaker, so even if he stopped the attacks, the shockwaves and feedback from those alone should have knocked him back.
However, he was still standing as if nothing was bothering him at all. 'Did I mistake his cultivation base?' the man wondered.
Alex continued attacking with his icicles, sending them all in the man's direction. However, the man used his defensive skill to block all the attacks.
The two of them went back and forth for a bit before the man realized that he had to actually give it his all if he wanted to win here.
He took a deep breath and sent a strong sword slash in Alex's direction.
Alex could sense the strength of the attack and targeted it with his icicles. The many icicles landed on the single slash and the energies in them caused an explosion.
Alex prepared for the shockwave from the explosion, but before that could come, the sword slash came flying in his direction.
At the last second, he dodged to the side to get out of the attack's path. "What?" he couldn't help but be surprised.
'How was that slash suddenly so strong?' he wondered.
The man saw that his attacks had become successful and smiled. He immediately started slashing once again, sending multiple swords slashes flying in Alex's direction.
Alex sent his own icicles to strike them down, but once again, the sword slashes still flew in his direction. He managed to dodge it once again, but the situation wasn't looking good for him.
Each one of the slashes not only was strong due to Qi and Intent but there was something else in them that improved their strength.
'Dao of Cutting,' Alex realized. The sword slashes were exceptionally sharp and thus were far stronger than he had imagined they would be.
'He's going to cut through everything I can throw at him with how weak my Qi is,' Alex realized. If he wanted to win, he had to use a Dao of his own.
A sword flew out from his storage, not Midnight, and he quickly used it to send a slash of his own. The slash hit another attack the man had sent flying and stopped it cleanly.
'What?' the man looked surprised for a second.
He sent flying more sword slashes, but each one was stopped by Alex's own slashes.
"No way!" he blurted out as he realized that Alex was using the same dao as him. The Dao of Cutting. 'Damn him, he still had more to show.'
The man continued attacking, but none of them were able to do anything. In fact, as Alex started adding Sword Intent to his attacks, they got stronger.
The man finally felt a resistance that he hadn't since the start of the fight. Then the resistance increased when Sword Intent changed to Sword Qi.
He was now the one blocking instead of attacking. Each attack forced him back step by step. He tried hard to use other defensive skills or movement skills, but he couldn't get away from the attacks.
Then, Alex used his Sword Aura, and that marked the end for the man.
The elder himself had to show up to block the attack, as not only was the attack strength, but it also had the Dao of Cutting in it, which would've killed the man, instead of simply sending him flying.
Alex stopped once the man had lost and smiled a little before bowing toward the elder. He turned around to leave the stage, but before he did, he heard the elder's voice in his head.
'Are you having fun, your Majesty?' he asked.
Alex quickly turned around to look at the elder and realized he had been caught. He paused for a second as he didn't know what to do now. Did he give up? Was he going to be taken back to the stage?
'You can have some more fun if you want to,' the elder said. 'We won't stop you.'
Alex felt a smile form on his face on its own. He nodded toward the elder in thanks and walked away.
Once he was away, he looked toward the elders on the stage and saw a few of them looking toward him.
'How did they know it was me?' he wondered. He had definitely not used any skills that were in his regular repertoire.
He wanted to know, so he decided to ask. He went invisible and teleported back on stage.
"How did you recognize me?" he asked. "Was it my sword skill? My concealment skill? How did I give myself up?"
The elders were surprised at his sudden arrival and had to look for him for a second before realizing he couldn't be seen.
"Your majesty," one of them said. "I think you forgot where we are right now."
"Where we are?" Alex looked around. "The arena?"
"No, the city," the elder said.
Alex was confused. "How does that—"
"Do you remember what you needed to do when you first came to this city?" the elders asked.
"I…" Alex's eyes widened. "Wait, wasn't the Aura Detecting formation around the city already deactivated?"
The elders smiled. "It was, but we reactivated it. We couldn't let our King disappear without our knowledge, so we had to know. Since the formation holds your aura, it was easy to find you."
"Tsk! And here I thought you used some great logic based on limited knowledge of what I was showing. Turns out you just used the formation," Alex said. He sighed for a bit and shook his head.
"Forget about it, I'm going back to fight," he said.
"Have fun, your Majesty," the elders said.
Alex looked back at them for a second before shaking his head and teleporting away. He arrived back in the crowd and waited for his turn to arrive.
With the number of people that were still fighting, that would be any time now.
