(MC POV)
It turns out, the Qilin just brought me to another part of the arena instead of following the goddesses for some reason.
The Qilin trotted to the other side of the building and easily climbed up the side by jumping through the air as though there were invisible platforms, landing on top of the roof to let me look down at the stage below us.
"Why here?" I asked.
The Qilin's only response was to lay down on the roof and nothing else.
I figured maybe the view was better from here or something so I got off from its back to look around.
I don't see the goddesses around anywhere so I assume they must have already hidden themselves somewhere.
It seems like this place not only looked like a colosseum but it was also built like a colosseum with audience seating arranged around the perimeter to face the arena in the centre.
Currently, the place was filled to the brim with people whom I presume to be members of the various divine families. The fact that they were actually walking around instead of levitating also told me that this must be 'sanctified' ground.
The various patriarchs of the divine families were gathered in the middle of the arena to exchange pleasantries, though it's quite obvious to me that the tensions between them were quite high.
Most of them were eyeing the patriarch of the Gou family who wore a permanent scowl on his face, probably aware of what everyone else was thinking.
Oh, Long Er's father is also there too, though he looks like he hasn't slept since last night.
"Patriarch Gou, what a surprise, I was actually expecting the Gou family not to show up this year!" A bearded old man with white hair mocked.
Patriarch Gou sneered at him, "You would like that wouldn't you, Patriarch Miao? Are you asking for a fight right now?"
"Tsk, tsk. Always the violent one, aren't you? Wasn't this what landed your family in its current state in the first place? Perhaps it would be a better idea if you just retired and stepped down."
Patriarch Gou looked like he was going to retort with something when someone came in between the two, "Alright now. No one is here to watch the squabbles between the two of you. There's other ways to settle your differences and everyone is waiting for the event to start. So shall we?"
On the surface, it might look like this new guy only wanted to separate the two but you could see by the way he was looking at patriarch Gou that he's not doing it for his sake. If I had to guess, he didn't like the two of them and just wanted them to shut up.
He then turned to Long Er's father, "Patriarch Long, if you can do the honours?"
The man stepped forward robotically and looked up into the crowd, "I… Declare this event open."
Everyone seemed quite surprised by his words and there were some scattered applause here and there.
Patriarch Miao went up to him, "What happened to your usual eloquent speech, Patriarch Long? Don't you usually regale us with your tales and such?"
He shook his head, "I have… Experienced perfection… And realised how imperfect everything is… Nothing has a point… Anymore…"
And showing that the conversation was over, he simply turned around and walked back to his family.
Yep, he's definitely still broken.
Well, he was asking for it when he challenged Iris after all. What did he expect would happen? He's already quite lucky that Iris found the situation amusing enough to play along instead of just Ending everything.
The other patriarchs were obviously confused by his behaviour but they didn't question it and simply let the competition start.
From what I could tell, the competition operated on a single elimination style where competitors from various families would duel against each other on the field and move up the ladder to fight their next opponent.
I don't know the people enough to know who were the favourites but I could at least guess from how loud the cheers were when certain people went up for their turn.
The one with the loudest cheer seemed to be some young man with a ponytail looking like the really typical arrogant young masters with his paper fan and smug look, so I focused on that fight instead.
As though fate had ordained it, the fight was between a member of the Miao family against the Gou family, with the Miao family guy getting the loudest cheers.
The Miao guy made a show of tossing his fan away and goaded his opponent on before the fight begun.
The fight between the two was brutal to put it simply.
The one from the Miao family was clearly superior to the one from the Gou family and he showed him no mercy.
Not only did he beat him handily using his own divine domain, he even proceeded to beat up the guy from the Gou family with his fists, breaking his opponent's limbs and demeaning him the entire time.
People from the Gou family started protesting in outrage but were quickly blocked by the people from the Miao family from intervening, leaving them with no choice but to watch their own family member get beat up publicly on stage.
Wow… I mean I've seen this happen in the other Planes too but this was still quite sad to see even now.
Like that guy literally has four broken limbs and his face was beat up so badly his mother probably wouldn't recognise him anymore. The guy even surrendered multiple times but the Miao guy just continued to beat him and the judges didn't care.
If this wasn't a sign that everyone was against the Gou family right now, I don't know what is.
Only after the guy was literally beaten half to death did the Miao guy stop and walk off with a satisfied smirk.
The Gou family people rushed up to bring their participant down while the patriarch pointed at the Miao family patriarch angrily.
"What is the meaning of this, Patriarch Miao?! He has already surrendered multiple times! How dare your participant do that to him?!"
"What are you talking about, Patriarch Gou? No one heard him surrender at all. I'm pretty sure he was even goading our guy on which was why he taught him a lesson. Isn't your family notorious for raising such rabid dogs?"
"Are you declaring war on my family?!"
"Hohoho~ You are saying some dangerous things, Patriarch Gou. If I said I was, what are you going to do about it?"
"You and me! A fight to the death, right now!" He roared, leaping up onto the stage.
He even released his divine aura that forced several younger people on their knees from the pressure pushing down on them, all the while glaring at the other patriarch with clear hatred in his eyes.
I could see that a number of people from the Gou family were also slowly getting into combat stances, no doubt waiting for their patriarch's signal to start attacking.
Wow, that certainly escalated quickly.
Looks like things are proceeding as the goddesses have predicted.
