All 16 different groups were done fighting, yet the tournament didn't stop.
Once all 256 competitors had passed through the top 512, it was back to the start with the Top 256. Only this time, it would be 4 groups in a single day instead of just 2.
Alex arrived at the arena to sit and watch the day's matches. With 4 groups a day, his match would be on the 3rd day, so he didn't need to be anxious about anything, but today he did.
It wasn't just him, however. All 256 different young men and women that say here today were both nervous and excited, for today was the day the Emperor, as well as the heads of all the different families and sects, would come to watch the competition.
The past 2 rounds were child's play. They were simply there to filter out the weed, so the true elites of the empire didn't need to be there. However, almost every single one of the top 256 were True Emperor realm cultivators now.
So, every fight fought henceforth would be worth watching.
Alex looked towards the massive pillar where the Emperor, the patriarchs, and matriarchs, as well as different sect leaders, would stay and watch the matches.
Each one of these people would be looking at him when he fought. There was hardly anything he could do to stop them from finding out his secrets.
'Whatever, I've kept it hidden long enough,' Alex thought.
The matches soon started and everyone watched intently. After all, no one wanted to miss the fight between two True Emperor realm cultivators.
Alex watched the fight between an Earth and Metal elemental cultivator against a Spearman from one of the lesser-known sects.
'He knows Spear intent,' Alex thought. Alex remembered this person fighting before, but he hadn't shown spear intent at that time.
Which meant that he had decided to start revealing part of his abilities to everyone.
The Spearman's cultivation base was 1 realm higher than his opponent, so he managed to win against him. However, it wasn't an easy fight.
After all, the Earth and Metal elements were one of the Empowering combinations of spiritual roots, so the cultivator had much more powerful Earth attacks in general as compared to other people.
Once the fight was done, a few staff members got up to the stage to check the state of the ground where the fights happened and fixed it if there was any problem.
After that, the next match started.
The day held a total of 32 matches in which everyone that passed was a True Emperor realm. The few True Kings that had made it up to this point were slowly weeded out.
The same happened the next day when 32 more people made their way through to the Top 128, where they could be considered the elites of the younger generation.
And the same would happen on the third day as well.
Alex walked onto the late in the day. His match took place late afternoon as he was one of the final 4 matches of the day.
Alex stood in front of his opponent, a woman he knew fought with puppets.
Until now, she had only brought out a single puppet to win her fights, but there might be more this time around.
Alex didn't waste his time either. Everyone had already seen him, so he brought out Pearl early on.
Pearl came out in his giant form where he was the size of a massive tiger. That was, the cute Pearl could end up looking threatening.
The woman also brought out her puppet, but only one of it. It was a True Emperor 3rd realm puppet, but there was only one.
'She's underestimating me and Pearl,' Alex thought. The girl herself was in the True Emperor 2nd realm, so she must've imagined that this would be an easy match.
After all, this was the round where the True Kings were weeded out.
Alex looked at the humanoid puppet and saw the swords embedded in its arm. He brought out his own sword.
Since poison was simply not allowed in the battle, he wouldn't risk using the poison sword. Aside from that, his best sword, the one he couldn't use would be useless for the most part if he wanted to use ranged attacks.
After all, he could only use Sword Qi to throw out attacks with this, and this was way too soon for that.
Therefore, Alex was forced to bring out a new sword. It was a simple-looking sword, not unlike the poison sword, but he had only refined it for a few days now.
Hopefully, it wouldn't cause him much problem.
The referee for his match this time around was a Saint realm from the Broken Ravine sect.
As Alex and Pearl got ready, so did the girl. When the referee saw that, he started the fight.
Alex sent Pearl to fight the puppet. With his strong body and cultivation base, a True Emperor 3rd realm puppet would be just about the amount of strength Pearl could produce.
However, Pearl was a living, breathing being with his own thoughts and knowledge.
The puppet lacked that completely. Which meant the girl would have to constantly focus on it for the most part.
If he could distract the girl, Pearl would easily win against it.
So, he did. He didn't know what the girl's own powers were, but he knew he had to keep her occupied so she couldn't focus on the puppet at all.
Alex dashed at her, surprising the girl. She knew what cultivators did to fight against puppet masters, but she hadn't expected Alex to run at her, given their cultivation base difference.
She immediately brought out a formation place and threw it on the ground in front of her.
Before Alex could reach her, a barrier sprung forth from the formation plate as it solidified right in front of Alex.
Alex hit the barrier with a bang and was stopped. He got back up and hit the barrier a few times, but it was going to take more than that to get rid of this barrier.
He quickly turned around and saw Pearl's glowing paw hit the puppet, but that did nothing.
Since the girl was inaccessible at the moment, Alex decided to go fight the puppet instead.
Alex ran up to the puppet, and even as he did, a sword came swinging in his direction.
Alex swung his own sword from down to top as he parried away the attack. However, at the same time, the puppet's upper body spun with no relation to its lower body and the 2nd sword came at him as well.
Pearl attacked it at the same time and the puppet stumbled backward.
Alex realized that the puppet had free upper movement, so he needed to be careful. While he thought that, he thought of what else he could do at the moment.
The girl could see every single move of his clearly and counter it while remaining inside the barrier. He needed to counter that somehow.
Alex knew the exact way to do so.
Pearl dodged one of the sword attacks, while Alex blocked the same one to get thrown away from the puppet.
When he landed, he was right in between the girl and the puppet.
Alex turned around towards the girl and smiled. That smile would be the last thing the girl would see for a while.
A blinding light originated from right behind Alex as a miniature sun the size of a watermelon appeared on stage.
Alex kept the heat of the sun to a minimum, but the light it produced was unimaginable.
"Argh!" the girl cried out as she was forced to close her eyes. The sun was too strong for her to look at what was going on.
Even most of the audience didn't see what was happening from the brightness.
Fortunately, unlike the girl, they could simply put their hands in front of their face to block off the small sun from their vision.
This maneuver wouldn't have worked if the girl had spiritual sense, but it was pretty apparent she didn't. If she did, she would be controlling a far stronger puppet.
Alex went back to the puppet that was now on default fighting mode and fought it until Pearl was able to beat it.
Once the puppet was defeated, Alex turned off the sun and turned around to look at the girl.
The girl looked at them in shock and brought out another puppet of a slightly lesser strength this time around.
However, to get it to fight, she needed to get rid of the barrier, and that was all Alex needed her to do.
Because after she did that, it was an easy victory for him and Pearl.
* * * * *
The Emperor sat quietly in his room in the tower as he watched the battle that just concluded below.
He saw Alex and Pearl fight their way through an opponent that for all intents and purposes should have won, but she didn't.
"I didn't know he was this strong. I would have tried to have him join the Royal disciples if I did," the princess said from the side. "I can't believe he can fight against True Emperor realm puppets and react in time against them. He didn't seem like a fighter to me."
The princess spoke, but the Emperor didn't listen to a single word of hers since things were finally starting to make sense to him.
"It's all coming together," he said. "Now I know why he took him under him."
