Chapter 606: Orbital Battlegrounds
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Zhen Liu was thrown completely off guard as Ren Jin Yan had essentially dominated the conversation, gave him the verbal equivalent of a flashbang of knowledge about his grandfather, before just…leaving him to go and do something else.
A small part of him was tempted to go and confront Ren Jin Yan about the things he had said about him, his grandfather and apparently the questionable reputation the latter had, and have him explain further about everything he had just info-dumped.
However, the brief interaction he shared with the man left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he didn’t want to aggravate that feeling further, lest he did something he was going to regret.
Besides, he had to go and prepare for the upcoming matches anyways…or so he told himself while.
As such, he decided to just walk back to the lounge area and push out the dragon force boy’s words out of his mind for the time being.
He could think about those words later when they could finally face each other in the arena properly.
‘Wait…now that I think about it…how are they going to host eight different round robins at the same time? In another marble space again? Or maybe…’
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[And now we’re just leaving the area before any of us could get a good luck on that guy,] Razorstella noted, [what is our timing right now?]
[Terrible?]
[Precisely, Spring Brawler. Precisely.]
[DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!,] Hurricroak cursed and raged, [I was this close to winning the bet!]
[You mean I was?]
[Silencio magma puta. Silencio!]
[Make me.]
[Aish!]
[Y’all….get way…into gambling…so…much…]
[Can you blame us?,] Hurricroak retorted.
[The lot of us can’t exactly stretch our legs without possibly causing an incident or three to occur no matter where we go. That being said, I do look forward to wiping the floor with our lord’s soon-to-be opponents.]
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<{" Ladies and gentlemen, the break is coming to an end. Please wrap up whatever personal business and return to your assigned seat. If you are an active contestant, please return to the lounge areas now."}>
Heeding the words of the elder, both audience and contestant alike, returned to their respective assigned areas in anticipation for the upcoming round. Additionally, the ones who did so early were greeted by a rather amazing sight.
“Whoa! Look at those floating arenas!”
“I guess that explains how they were going to get away with having eight round robin matches happening all at the same time…”
“Man, that is clearly an accident waiting to happen, I still think single elimination would’ve been safer and cleaner.”
The Wisdom Elder had painstakingly manipulated the [Myriad Marble Garden] during the break to not produce eight little pocket dimension in which the contestants could be seen fighting but never heard, but instead, to produce eight large floating arenas in which sixty-four young warriors would fight with one another for the sake of audience.
Unlike last time, where each of the arenas took place in a different biome in order to demonstrate more “realistic” conditions, this the time the arenas were of standard build and made of solid chunks of stone that proved quite damage resistant as the Wisdom Elder stated that the arenas could withstand the might of even a full powered Aether King.
This may have been overkill, since the majority of the contestants were young warriors at the Aether Master stage, but it didn’t hurt to be a little…overprepared, since it was cheaper to future-proof damage than it was to repair it in the long run.
The arenas continued to float in the air under Zhen Lung’s guidance, idly floating in a circular manner as if they were orbiting around him, right until the intermission had ended and it was time to pick up the competition where they had left off.
However, before they could actually begin though, the Wisdom Elder had a surprise announcement to make.
<{"Now before we begin this tournament up again, the Zhen Clan's Head has decreed that in order to give our warriors a chance to fully demonstrate their capabilities at their peak conditions, we will be extending this tournament into the next day. As such, we will be doing exactly half of the matches today and the other half tomorrow. We will start up again first thing tomorrow morning,"}> Zhen Lung informed the audience and fighters.
<{"And to the warriors out there worried about the possibility of sabotage or being late to the tournament because your lodgings are on the other side of the city, do not worry. The Zhen Clan's Head had also decreed that accommodations will be provided to those who wish to spend the night here under our protection. We do not however, take responsibility if you decide to sleep in."}>
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A collective murmur of surprise rang throughout the crowd as soon as this announcement was made. While the idea of a multi-day tournament wasn’t new, the fact that it was happening for this one was a bit of a shock.
Those who had attended the Zhen Clan Competition in years prior knew that the Zhen Clan themselves would only host the tournament for a day at most, due to the fact that it took place during the Sapling Festival.
They understood that not everyone wanted to watch a tournament all day, even other clan members, so they always tried to make it an event that was short yet memorable. That said though, a large amount of people in the crowd actually didn’t mind it.
“Hey, another day means another chance to place more bets right? Plus I didn’t have anything else planned to do while I was here anyways.”
{Hmmm. That additional day means some warriors will have an advantage over their peers, because they’ll have more time to try and formulate a response…}
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Zhen Lung was silent for a moment as he allowed the crowd to digest the news, it was a rather last minute announcement after all, before deciding to get things going again.
<{"Alright, now with that announcement out of the way, let's introduce our first set of fighters...NOW!"}>
*CLAP!*
“WHOA!”
In a rather dramatic fashion, Zhen Lung reinforced his hands with aether and clapped them together to create an echoing sound that drew everyone’s attention towards him.
As the clap echoed out, eight different displays made of aether appeared over each of the arenas, displaying the name of sixteen fighters that would be fighting the first bout.
Arena 1: Zhen Man vs. Bianca de Ferros
Arena 2: Iona Ecaredies vs Masato Iori
Arena 3: Zhen Xing vs Lin Jing
Arena 4: Alvis de Howlite vs Isadora Rulen
Arena 5: Sun Fu vs Danbu
Arena 6: Guo Tan vs Norman Strong
Arena 7: Zhen Liu vs Zhen Rin
Arena 8: Mao Gou vs Ayatsui Bayo
<"{To the warriors who's names are displayed as such, please remain seated. You will be summoned to your respective arenas, shortly.}">
Soon after making that statement, sixteen different colored orbs of light proceeded to manifest above Zhen Lung’s head, moments before flying off in different directions towards the various lounge areas that dotted the arena.
Couple seconds after that, the participants themselves teleported into their respective arenas.
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“So…you guys think this will end before or after the time we’d eat dinner?”
“Hopefully before, to be honest.”
“Oi, look alive. I think those orbs are for us.”
Soon after Zhen Liu returned from the restroom, he and his cousins proceeded to just talk in order to kill time and wait to see if they were going to fight in the first round.
It didn’t take too long for two little orbs of lights to pass through the lounge door and stop immediately in front of Zhen Xing and Zhen Liu.
The former looked surprised at the fact that he was going to go fight first, while the latter looked a little annoyed.
“Well…looks like we’re up first.”
“Shit…I wanted to hang back and see how the people in my block were going to fight first. Oh well.”
“Good luck you two,” Zhen Yue said. “Show them how we do it back in Stone Claw, aight?”
“Will do.”
The orbs of light floating in front of the two warriors appeared to have waited for these well wishes to be made, because after Zhen Yue said her piece, the orbs proceeds to float even close to Zhen Xing and Zhen Liu before ballooning in size and engulfing the two completely.
Before they could say anything or make any forms of exclamations, Zhen Xing and Zhen Liu had been teleported directly into their respective arenas, immediately opposite to their opponents.
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‘Alright, did everyone make it into the arena with me?’
[It would appear so milord,] Nepherage answered. [All kaijin and zakos are here and accounted for.]
‘Okay, cool, so just like we discussed. I’m going to open-‘
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‘Oh…I guess we’re going to do it like this then…’
