Chapter 633: Planned Cowardice…that has to be an adage somewhere…
Zhen Xing was just about to try and provide Zhen Liu some word of encouragement, as strange as it sounded, in regards to him being able to fight soon enough.
Before he could, however, one of those little teleporting orbs of energy that was used yesterday to bring people to their matches, entered the lounge room and began to fly towards Zhen Xing.
Zhen Liu managed to squeak in a word of good fortune before Zhen Xing got teleported away though.
“Good luck out there.”
*FWIP!*
“Buh…,” Zhen Liu groaned before flopping back onto the table. His actions had briefly caught the attention of the other contestants in the lounge area, but they quickly ignored him again once they had satisfied their passing curiosity.
As Zhen Liu laid there on the table out of boredom though, Nepherage decided that now would be a good time for a word of encouragement…or something like that, this was a very strange funk.
[It’s fine, milord. Hurricroak. If these opponents decided to surrender so quickly after being informed you were their match-up, then that means they realize just how powerful you are and don’t wish to sully your honor by flailing about miserably before you defeat them,] Nepherage said in confident comfort.
While Zhen Liu couldn’t turn his head to stare at Nepherage directly, he could at least flop his arm that Nepherage’s bracelet onto the table space in front of him so he could mimic the action of giving her a strange look.
To outside onlookers though, this looked like Zhen Liu was just moving his limbs about in boredom.
‘On the one hand, I appreciate the ego boost. Thank you.’
[You’re welcome.]
[On the other hand,] Hurricroak picked up where Zhen Liu left off, [it is incredibly anticlimactic that we are not earning our victories through hard earned battle and bloodshed like the maestro’s cousins. I appreciate an easy victory now and again myself but two surrenders in a row? That’s bullshit!]
‘Yeah, that.’
From what Zhen Liu remembered, back when he was Thomas Lee and not able to summon/create demonic warriors at the drop of a hat, most of the time when this kind of situation occurred in the novels and comics he read, the protagonist would end up entering a tournament and have a few easy victories at the beginning of the arc and/or be part of a team that was notorious for being weak and having a terrible losing streak.
This, in turn, would lead to the audience and his opponents to begin doubting his capabilities and make terrible jokes about how he was “super lucky for having such easy victories” and “oh, the heavens must be smiling on him because he’s secretly so weak”, or some bullshit along those lines.
Instead, in a surprising subversion of that trope, plot point, whatever, Zhen Liu ended up being overestimated because of his early victories and now he was just sitting here with his thumb up his ass. He had figured his taunting would’ve encouraged his opponents to try and take him out, not scare them away.
‘Well…if I’m going to be sitting here doing nothing anyways, I might as well use this opportunity to play spectator instead.’
In a funk about the lack of action, which was possibly spurred on by the kaijin’s own bored feelings flowing through his connection to them, Zhen Liu began to watch the matches that were going on in the other arenas at the moment via the mirror-like aether tool display the organizers had set up the day before.
‘Huh…looks like the others are holding their own quite well despite most of them breaking through only recently…then again, they were also doing fine yesterday and that was when they were having to deal with their formulas being whacked out because of you guys possessing them…wait, how much of their formulas did you guys change?’
[Not too much, milord. It’s nowhere near as dramatic as what had happened to Patriarch Zhen Shi, but we did still give them a pretty good boost in performance and gave them the ability to make use of the type of aether that make us up…if that wasn’t obvious enough,] Nepherage answered with a surprising amount of sass. [They shouldn’t be able to notice completely until they look over their own formulas though.]
‘Ah.’
A part of Zhen Liu thought that maybe he should be disciplining the kaijin more, since he was technically sassed at, but he also recognized that he did ask a question that had a very obvious answer in retrospect.
He was all set to bring his focus back to the battles on display, wanting to see just how much of an improvement his cousins had made in regards to cultivation thanks to his interference, when Spring Brawler decided to ask him a question he did not expect.
[Wait a minute…ringmaster? Each of these blocks had eight warriors participating in them, right?]
‘Uh…yeah.’
[So that means, in a round robin format, you’d need to win the most out of seven possible matches in order to be considered the victor, right? With a tiebreaker occurring in the chance that two people somehow end up with…I think in this case, six wins and one loss?]
‘That is objectively correct.’
[But that would also mean, the most exciting bout in this sort of format would be a scenario where there are two fighters, each with six wins and no losses at this point, with their match being the penultimate decider?]
‘I…I’m getting the feeling you’re about to inform me of something that’s gonna make me curse the heavens…again.’
[Probably, uh…take a look at the match records on the display over there.]
‘Okay…’
Not wanting to move from his seat, Zhen Liu lazily turned his head towards where the match records were being displayed in real time and focused his gaze at the part that pertained to his specific block.
‘What am I looking for exactly?’
[Ring Master, just pay attention to the win and loss records of your entire block. You’ll see what got me thinking.]
(Un)surprisingly, while Zhen Liu wasn’t able to see what Spring Brawler wanted to show him right away, the kaijin were able to notice it immediately.
And for whatever reason, they weren’t sharing their discovery.
[Spring Brawler, what are you on abou-oh.]
[Oh…this is going to be interesting.]
[Uh…oh…]
[Oh this is going to be one hell of a performance.]
‘What the heck got you guys all…hold up…’
As Zhen Liu continued to stare at the round robin block containing his name, a strained expression began to form on his face as he began to realize that the worst case scenario for him was about to occur.
‘Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me…’
[Yeah…I don’t think those two guys who surrendered did so because they were afraid of humiliating themselves…I think they surrendered on purpose…because they recognized what was going to happen once they did…]
[Oh those guys definitely had friends place bets on this,] Hurricroak commented.
Whether it was by fate, luck or a bunch of old bastards rigging a competition for more interesting results, the match that would determine whether or not Zhen Liu would be able to make it to the finals of this competition was going to be, essentially, a sudden death match.
For Zhen Liu’s final opponent was not some schmuck on a losing streak, someone with a middling performance or somebody who had suffered a loss earlier on an otherwise flawless record.
Instead, Zhen Liu was about to face off someone with a record that was identical to his own of six wins and zero losses.
And to make matters worst, it was also the only guy in this entire competition that actually had the ability to not only hurt him, but the kaijin as well.
Ren Jin Yan.
‘Ya know…a wise man once said, ‘do not attribute malice to actions that which is easily attributed to stupidity’…I have no idea if that applies to this situation, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate.’
[… Murphy’s law?,] Spring Brawler suggested.
‘Probably that, yeah…wait, why do you know Murphy’s Law?’
[I listen in on the lessons Logos and Pathos design for the children.]
‘Ah…’
_____________________________________________
‘So my final opponent is going to be Zhen Liu… perfect,’ Ren Jin Yan noticed as _he stared up at the round robin match tracker.
A strange look flitted across their face for a second before settling on a surprisingly wide smile.
As the happy thought of facing Zhen Liu and his unusual aether puppets dance through their head, their aether began to circulate a touch more violently than before and produce an aura that could only be described as “battle hungry”.
‘It doesn’t take a genius to notice you’ve been holding back this whole tournament, Zhen Liu. Maybe if I can force you to bring it out, maybe I can finally find someone I can call an “equal”.’
Ren Jin Yan sat there with a pleased expression on their face as a result of this realization…all the way up until the teleportation orb finally made its appearance.
‘Don’t disappoint me now, puppet boy…’
