337: If you don't fry it and I don't fry it, when will the fish grow up?

In the end, the three Elders used 'smurf' accounts to fight on behalf of their Sects. Even with their cultivation suppressed, they were not opponents that ordinary Cultivators could contend with.

After each defeated the Disciples of the opposing Sects, the three of them entered the finals together.

Meanwhile, Long Tianxing entered the semi-finals because his opponent voluntarily withdrew from the competition.

In the semi-finals, he faced that unorthodox Cultivator once again.

That unorthodox Cultivator excelled at fighting by borrowing others' Luck, which usually allowed his combat power to increase significantly.

In the previous match, he had borrowed another contestant's Luck to defeat a Sword Cultivator at a critical juncture.

As for the contestant whose Luck he borrowed, due to their misfortune, something happened before the match that forced them to voluntarily withdraw.

He had intended to repeat the same trick for this semi-final, only to find that among the other seven opponents, three had Luck that couldn't be borrowed, and three seemed borrowable but carried a stench of bad Luck that made him afraid to touch them.

The only one left was his opponent, the Child of Destiny, Long Tianxing.

Borrowing an opponent's Luck while fighting them was originally a great taboo of his Sect, let alone when the opponent was a Child of Destiny; he simply didn't dare to borrow it.

Once he couldn't borrow Luck, his own shortcomings were fully exposed. Under the blessing of the other party's good Luck, he ultimately reaped the consequences of his own actions and was easily defeated by Long Tianxing, who was only at the Core Formation Stage.

Because Long Tianxing defeated this person who had ascended through shady means, he took on the infamy of the 'inside job' and was reviled by the crowd.

The unorthodox Cultivator, on the other hand, couldn't understand it.

Isn't it normal for a Child of Destiny to have good Luck?

Why are so many people angry?

Oh, so it's just a bunch of 'African Kings'—people with terrible Luck for too long. No wonder they're green with envy.

Unfortunately, while the unorthodox Cultivator saw through this and said nothing, the sensitive Long Tianxing took those discussions to heart.

With an increasingly heavy heart, he once again went against the choice of his original fate, determined to go all out in this battle he was destined to lose.

As the referee gave a loud shout, the arena once again transformed into a Small World.

Before his eyes was a desolate rocky landscape, with brown boulders everywhere, sand and dust swirling up from time to time, and withered grass drifting by.

Long Tianxing had made his final preparations.

He knew clearly that any one of the three people opposite him was not an opponent that could be defeated by relying on a Nascent Soul Magic Treasure.

But he also understood that those three would never view him as their primary target; they would inevitably fight each other.

In such a chaotic melee, if he fished in troubled waters, he might actually be able to defeat one person first and secure a spot in the top three or even second place.

That was his ultimate goal.

He had never thought about taking the top spot; he only wanted to prove himself to everyone once.

He, Long Tianxing, was not part of an inside job!

Can't laugh, can't laugh yet.

At this moment, Zhu Ming was suppressing his laughter, his whole body trembling slightly with excitement. But whenever he thought about how he could give the two youngsters a harsh lesson in a moment, he couldn't help but curl his lips upward.

Zhou Yan had once studied the training methods of their Liyan Holy Land; it was more like the path of special forces.

It emphasized 'you are strong, but the imaginary enemy is always stronger,' requiring one to constantly chase and surpass one imaginary enemy after another.

Therefore, they were always suppressed in the early stages, which also gave them a certain special psychology toward 'noob-stomping' matches.

The other two Sects were actually much the same.

After all, who could resist laughing out loud when beating up the junior Prodigies? This was a rare opportunity for the old to bully the young; if they didn't fight now, they really wouldn't be able to when they got even older.

"Begin!"

The moment the voice fell, Long Tianxing suddenly exerted force and charged out first, attempting a Physical Body assault to show he was absolutely no coward.

Then he saw those three appear in the center of the field a step faster than him, their three arms slamming together, erupting with a startling impact.

Long Tianxing could feel the terror of that power, yet he still gritted his teeth and charged forward against the shockwaves.

Then, a flash of white light.

"Long Tianxing? Long Tianxing?"

Hearing someone calling, Long Tianxing slowly opened his eyes and saw the clear sky through the shade of the trees.

A youth reached out to pull him up, standing with hands on hips and smiling at him.

"Long Tianxing, how were those three guys? Did you give them a good lesson?"

The youth even pumped his fist as he spoke.

Long Tianxing only shook his head with a smile, then raised his hand toward the sky, looking at the sun through the gaps between his fingers.

The sunlight was still dazzling.

"They... are super strong!"

"I didn't even have time to use my full strength before I had already lost."

"To be honest, I even feel a bit sorry for them. After all, standing on the same stage with a Core Formation Stage like me must have been quite a buzzkill."

The youth immediately showed dissatisfaction.

"Xiao Long, what kind of discouraging talk is that! The battle isn't over yet; the Xiao Long I know wouldn't give up so easily!"

Long Tianxing withdrew his hand and looked at the high-spirited youth before him, whispering to himself.

"Won't give up easily... huh?"

Back to reality.

The instant the referee announced the start, the three figures disappeared simultaneously and reappeared in the center of the field at the same time.

At this moment, a hint of astonishment flashed through their eyes.

The three Elders, who had all originally wanted to strike first to intimidate the others, now had their three arms pressed together, locked in a contest of strength.

The more force they exerted, the more they could feel the power pushing back, and the greater the surprise in their hearts.

"Damn, how are these juniors so strong?"

The same thought flashed through the minds of all three.

Meanwhile, Long Tianxing had already been sent flying by the shockwaves generated by the three's collision, not even having time to sacrifice his Magic Treasure.

His so-called 'charging against the shockwaves' was actually him having already fallen into a revolving lantern-like hallucination.

The deadlock lasted only for an instant.

The three almost simultaneously released their strength and retreated.

Zhu Ming was the first to act; his retreating left foot slammed into the ground, his body exploding back in the opposite direction, his right fist wrapped in dark red firelight as it blasted straight toward the Fourth Elder's face.

The flames clung tightly to his knuckles, not at all ostentatious, yet wherever they passed, the air distorted into layers of heatwaves.

Fast, so fast it didn't seem like a speed a Nascent Soul Stage should have.

The Fourth Elder didn't even look at the fist.

His body retreated along the airflow of the fist as if weightless, while his left hand made a guiding motion to his side. Dozens of arm-thick, dark green vines suddenly erupted from the rock crevices, coiling toward Zhu Ming's ankles and waist.

Almost at the same time the vines appeared, the Fourth Elder's right hand was already gripping an ancient golden bow. The bowstring was silently drawn to its full extent, and a silver pellet shot out—not at Zhu Ming, but straight toward the space between the eyebrows of Wang Wu, who was about to close in from the side.

Without warning, and impossible to predict.

Wang Wu's forward momentum came to a jarring halt, a yellow paper Talisman already clamped between the index and middle fingers of his right hand.

The Talisman spontaneously ignited, and a translucent tortoise shell phantom instantly condensed in front of him.

The silver pellet struck the tortoise shell. There was no loud bang, only a soft 'pfft' as the tortoise shell and the Talisman simultaneously shattered into points of light.

Wang Wu used the force to spin, a pitch-black short sword sliding from his left sleeve, slashing back toward the side of Zhu Ming's fist wind with terrifying precision.

"Clang!"

The short sword collided with the fire fist, actually producing the sound of clashing metal.

Zhu Ming's fist strike went off course, grazing the edge of the Fourth Elder's clothes. The fist wind set a boulder over ten meters behind him ablaze, exploding it into a rain of fire.

And he himself was made to sway slightly by this sword strike, allowing the vines beneath his feet to tighten their grip.

The Fourth Elder had by now landed on a stone pillar thirty meters away. The bowstring vibrated again, and three silver pellets in a triangular formation locked down Zhu Ming's left, right, and overhead paths.

His left hand pressed down toward Wang Wu's direction; the ground beneath Wang Wu's feet instantly churned into mud, turning into a turbid whirlpool, while sharp wind blades silently formed above his head and slashed down in a crisscross pattern.

Wang Wu released his short sword, which turned into a black light to shred the mud bog beneath him. His body shifted horizontally like a ghost, the wind blades grazing his back and plowing several deep grooves into the ground.

Without looking, he slapped the ground with his right hand. Seven or eight palm-sized wooden Puppets jumped out of his Storage Pouch, growing to human size upon landing. With red light glowing in their eyes and swords in hand, they pounced toward Zhu Ming and the Fourth Elder.

At the same time, a pale purple mist erupted from his mouth and rapidly spread. Wherever it passed, the sand and stones hissed, revealing its extreme toxicity.

Zhu Ming let out a low roar, the flames around him surging, and the vines binding him instantly charred and snapped.

Facing the three incoming pellets, he did not dodge. His fists collided in front of his chest, and a ring of dark red fire violently expanded outward.

As the fire ring made contact with the silver pellets, the trajectory of the pellets visibly slowed for an instant.

In that one instant, Zhu Ming's body twisted at an incredible angle. Two pellets flew past his ribs and temple, leaving behind bloody streaks and the smell of burning.

The third one, however, ultimately struck his left shoulder blade. His body shook violently, and he let out a muffled groan as a burst of blood erupted from his shoulder, but his forward momentum became even faster, heading straight for Wang Wu, who had released the Puppets.

The Fourth Elder's pupils constricted slightly.

The Magic Treasure he had temporarily refined could actually be interfered with for a moment by this fire energy?

Holy crap, this youngster!

This was by no means an ordinary fire technique!

He wiped his finger across the bowstring, no longer using pellets but a green wind arrow as solid as substance.

The arrow disappeared the moment it was released.

In the next instant, on Zhu Ming's path forward, a straight and extremely thin black crack suddenly split open—it was a mark carved by an ultimate wind blade.

Wang Wu was equally alarmed.

The moment the fire ring vibrated, he felt his Divine Sense connection with several Puppets blur for a split second.

Are all the Nascent Soul Stages of this generation at this level?

Seeing Zhu Ming bathed in fire, charging like a Vicious Beast and smashing through two Puppets, Wang Wu also bit into a pre-prepared imitation blood bag and spat a mouthful of imitation essence blood onto the small black flag in his palm.

The small flag surged in size, a ghostly wind howled, and countless black sands poured out from the flag's surface, sweeping toward Zhu Ming.

The great battle between the three had completely erupted.