(MC POV)
My disciples won the preliminary rounds easily as expected so there weren't any surprises there.
Obviously there was a huge uproar over the results seeing that the girls didn't care who they defeated and several of the participants that people had wagered to win were eliminated easily without having a chance to fight back.
From the shouts and cries of rage, I could tell that a lot of people already lost a lot of money from the preliminary rounds alone.
In fact, a lot of them were glaring at me like I was the source of their woes. Which I suppose I actually am, considering I did rig this in my favour a little.
The glares they were sending me was also enough to tell me just what they were planning to do once I walked outside of this place. If the gods were not here, they would have already leapt from their seats to attack me already.
How stupid.
The next round started after a short break, the organisers separating the participants up to duel each other in round robin style match ups for each division.
It goes without saying that my disciples proceeded to utterly decimate their competitions, they didn't even need to resort to using their Techniques either. A quick punch or even a kick here and there was enough to finish off their opponents which was simply their way of showing how beneath them they were.
The people who had bet on their opponents sunk into the pits of despair, some of them had even started breaking down on the spot.
Even within the VIP area, the supposedly top Practitioners of this Plane were freely expressing their rage and anger at the results.
"Damn it! I bet all my money on him! How could he let himself lose like that!"
"This… This can't be… I even stole the Sect's money to bet on them… How am I supposed to explain this to Sect Master…"
"I'm ruined… I'm absolutely ruined… They told me to bet everything I had on their disciple because she would win for sure… Yet she was immediately frozen by that fox girl and defeated…"
"""It's all because of that bastard!"""
I paid no attention to the insults being thrown at me.
"Quite impressive, you've practically made everyone who even holds any influence in the Sky Plane your enemy already," Sect Mistress Hua mused, looking especially satisfied with herself for some reason. "I can help you, you know? You just need to hand over that Sacred Treasure and I can even assist you in escaping from this city alive."
"No thanks," I rejected without a second thought. "Your time and effort is better spent on thinking about how to save yourself later."
"Imbecile," She spat, turning her gaze back to the front and deciding to ignore me for the rest of the tournament.
For the finals, they decided to combine the three stages into one giant arena, which means each division would have their finalists fight each other one after the other.
At this point though, everyone already knew who was going to win, although there were a few out there who were clinging to the last vestiges of hope.
There were some attempts at sabotage but I had discreetly dealt with them before they could even get close to my girls. No one would even remember they existed.
Thus, the final rounds started with Lian Li first.
Lian Li's opponent was a young man wielding some kind of sword. From the chatters around me, I quickly learned that he's ranked number ten amongst some new generation Practitioner rankings and his sword is a Sacred Treasure that can cut through anything, supposedly.
Apparently they were quite confident that he could win for some reason, did they already forget that Lian Li literally called down Divine Lightning in her preliminary rounds? Did they seriously think his sword could protect him from that?
Heck, even from here, I could see that the participant himself has zero confidence of his victory, but I guess he isn't able to simply forfeit because of some reason. No doubt his Sect Master or someone else had forbidden him to give up.
The signal for the fight was given and the man immediately drew his sword and rushed towards Lian Li, hoping to cut her down before she could do anything.
All of us watched as the sword was slashed towards her neck, several people were at the edge of their seats, some even cheering and thinking that was the end of the match.
The cheering stopped abruptly when they realised his sword had stopped when Lian Li had raised her arm to block it, the blade failing to even draw blood from her skin.
"How disappointing," Lian Li sighed before delivering a devastating blast of lightning from her other hand that struck her opponent in the chest.
The man was blasted back into the air before another bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, piercing through his chest and eliminating him instantly.
Just like that, Lian Li was crowned the winner of the first division without much fanfare.
She even sighed and muttered aloud how disappointing her opponent was for more emotional damage.
With the amount of money I gave Master Hei to wager, I think I have enough to buy a quarter of the city by now?
"She… She blocked the Sacred Treasure with her arm?" Sect Mistress Hua muttered.
The arena went into an uproar, many of them claiming Lian Li cheated somehow.
The followers of Sect Mistress Hua turned to her, "They must have swapped his Sacred Treasure to replace it with a fake right, Sect Mistress?! How could he have been unable to cut through her arm?!"
The woman turned to me but I was still busy ignoring her.
To my surprise, she shook her head, "That cannot be… The Gods are here after all… If they had done something to cheat like that, the Gods would not remain silent…"
The organisers quickly announced the start of Kiyomi's match despite the chaos in the viewing stands. There was no way they could do anything else especially when the gods weren't making any noise about the results.
Kiyomi's fight, if you could even call it that, was even shorter.
The poor man she was faced with barely had any time to do anything before he was frozen solid as soon as the fight started.
Kiyomi then blew him off the arena before turning around and walking off.
To rub salt into the wound, she didn't even look at her opponent once and was busy combing her tails the entire time.
Manami's match was… Well…
When she stepped onto the stage, she made a show of lighting the area around her on fire, the flames hot enough to melt through part of the stage.
The woman who was her opponent immediately announced her withdrawal from the tournament and Manami was declared the winner right after that.
And… That's the end of the tournament, well done everyone, thanks for coming!
Now to collect my winnings!
And also to deal with all these people who have been glaring and cursing me ever since the start of this tournament.
I wonder how I should slap them?
