The sky was a tinge of red in what was mostly black. Darkness had enveloped the land hours after the volcano's eruption.
Alex and the tow walked through the falling ash that gathered around their feet and arrived at their destination; a group of 20 cultivators whose cultivation base went from Saint Foundation 8th realm to Saint Soul 2nd realm.
None of them seemed part of the same group or even part of the same Kingdom. Each one wore a different color robe, and some even seemed like they were rogue cultivators.
'So weak,' Alex thought. He had come to challenge stronger people, but it seemed he was mistaken. None of them were as strong as he had hoped they would be.
Alex didn't feel like challenging any of them.
There people there stirred at his sight and some of them quickly greeted him. Most of them were surprised to see him there.
Alex was only about to reply to their greetings when he was cut off.
"I challenge you!" the man that he had arrived with challenged the strongest of the group. The girl that had a cultivation base of Saint Soul 2nd realm looked at the young man with a slightly angry look before rejecting him.
The man said nothing and moved to the second strongest one. "I challenge you!" he pointed and spoke.
That person rejected him as well.
The young man wasn't done yet.
"I challenge you!"
"I challenge you!"
"Fight me!"
"Come on, let's fight."
"Let us see what you've got."
The man didn't stop at all, going through the entire 20 people before he was completely rejected. But somehow that didn't despite the man. He stood tall with a grin on his face.
"Your Majesty, your turn," the man stepped aside.
Alex thought for a bit and was about to say something when Shan Wangjiu looked at the first girl.
"Will you fight me? You seem as strong as me," he spoke to the girl. He wanted to use every possible instance to fight someone close in power to him.
Not only that, he hadn't done the fight of the day either. It was still late in the afternoon, so he had over 20 hours to search for more fights, but the faster he found someone he could challenge, the better it was.
If not, he would have to accept challenges from people that he couldn't win against. He did not want to do that just yet.
Not when he had barely any more Losses left.
The girl looked at him without a word, considering the challenge wordlessly before shaking her head. She rejected that fight as well.
"The next one. That one," the other man pointed Shan Wangjiu toward a man who was behind the girl who had just been rejected.
"No," Wangjiu said. "He's a little too weak. I want to fight someone strong like her."
"Just do it," the man said. "Why are you here if you won't do it?"
"I just follow His Majesty, nothing else," the young man said.
The man looked at him and sighed. "You're not useful at all," the man said before turning to Alex. "Your Majesty?"
Alex thought for a bit and asked. "Are you guys all done with your day's losses?"
The girl shook her head. "Not yet," she said. "We're hoping to meet someone we can win against so that none of us would have to lose."
"You have 20 people," Alex said. "You will last the next 11 months if all of you share your losses."
The girl shook her head. "That would be true if we had no loss. But we're weaker cultivators and have been relentlessly challenged by stronger cultivators. Now, we don't have that many losses available to us."
"What we do have, we have to make use to last as long as possible," the girl said.
Alex hadn't thought of it that way and nodded a little. "So you haven't fought for today. I was hoping to find someone to fight, but it seems I won't have the chance."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," the girl spoke and bowed a little.
Alex shrugged. There was nothing he could do here besides forcing them to fight, and he didn't want that.
"You won't fight, Your Majesty?" the man next to him asked.
"No," Alex said. "I'll see if I can find someone else."
"I see," the man said. "Well, you won't have to go far away. You can fight one of them right here."
Just as he said that Alex turned around, sensing an aura that was quickly moving in this very direction. His spiritual sense covered them and it was a man and two women who were flying in this direction with an incredible speed.
None of the 3 of them were from the same group or sect; Alex could tell at least that.
They arrived and landed next to the man, their faces in a wide grin. "Woah! So many," one of the girls said excitedly before turning toward Alex. "Oh, His Majesty is here too."
Alex was a little curious about how everything was going to play out next. He had an idea where everything was going, so he had to just wait and see.
After they greeted him, they turned toward the group of people, and the girl challenged the strongest girl.
Challenged for the third time, the girl from the large group frowned and rejected the challenge. But immediately the newly arrived man requested a battle as well.
That the girl couldn't reject.
She reluctantly accepted and fought. Against the group of strong individuals, she lost very quickly.
Having won his fight of the day, the man laughed excitedly. But it only lasted as long as it took for one of the girls to call out his name.
"Do it already!" the girl said and the man nodded.
Then, he challenged another person. He was rejected by the next person in line and didn't want to lose. And then, the man moved on to another.
The girl who had just lost understood what was happening. Panic filled her heart at once.
"I challenge you!" the girl turned to one of her friends at once.
The group of 4 realized that she realized as well. "Faster! She'll go through them quickly!" the man who came with Alex shouted.
Chaos began.
A race began to see what would happen faster. Would the outsiders challenge them first after getting rid of their possible rejection, or would the group manage to get done with everyone's first fight by the time it had all ended?
Alex watched in amazement as challenges were thrown around one after another, the grown-up men and women acting like children to do so.
In the end, the outsiders managed to give 4 of the 20 people Losses before everything was calm once more. The 20 of them glared at the 4 of them, and some even glared at Alex and Shan Wangjiu.
Then, the four people turned toward Alex as well.
Alex grimaced. It was fine if they challenged him, but if they challenged Wangjiu, it was very much possible that he would be taken out of the secret realm.
Alex doubted he had any more Loss he could afford to gain.
