Dual Cultivation God Returns-Chapter 975: A fair fight

The hoarse voice of the commentator with a sore throat from shouting with excitement at the top of his lungs for the past hour hyping up the bets and announcing shifts in odds, was enthusiastically making a long speech about how this was the moment of truth, monumental scene, and so on and so forth, but this all went over the Lament Scripture Sect Elder’s head as he stared at Wu Long, grim faced and utterly humiliated by the fact there was now real doubt about this fight’s outcome.

"This is it, youngster... no rules, no guides, no crowd to hide behind, just you and me", he spoke using Spiritual Qi to cut through the noise and direct his words toward Wu Long.

This didn’t prompt any response from Wu Long, and with the mask on, it was up to the Elder to interpret his intentions, which, for an already angry man with a grudge, often led to assuming things that further fuelled their anger.

In this case, the Elder felt like this youngster was still mocking him,

"Do you feel it yet?", he growled the words out, "How foolish it was to be so nosy on a frivolous whim? But that was just one thing, you could’ve at least had a peaceful, somewhat dignified death. You’ll learn soon enough that it was even more stupid of you to mock and ridicule me"

"...and now, Fellow Daoists, it is finally time for...", the commentator’s pre-battle speech was winding down, as tension rose in the pit, and yet, interestingly for the audience, neither of the two took a fighting stance, standing tall, one in a dignified and overbearing pose, the other in a relaxed pose as if he was here on a stroll.

"I get why the righteous bastard is like that, but shouldn’t the challenger guy get ready about now?", were the words that were in some form or another, spoken in various parts of the audience.

And then, after the commentator was done with his speech, came silence during which even conversations in the audience died down, as tension became even tighter wound up.

And then, the loud sound of a gong signaling the start of the fight sounded like thunder, as all eyes were glued to the two people in the fighting pit.

The very next moment, the barrier shielding the audiences lit up, and the commentator’s loud voice exclaimed, "Aaand it’s off to the races! The Righteous Warrior released the pressure of his cultivation base which activated the arena’s protection arrays!!! How will our Challenge-... eh?... he seems... fine? Ohoho, I don’t know what’s going on, but it looks like it wouldn’t be as easy for the Righteous Warrior as he thought, he would actually have to fight this one"

The Elder, meanwhile, watched with wide eyes as the masked man in front of him stood seemingly unperturbed by the enormous, and still rising pressure of someone in a higher Greater Realm.

Wu Long simply reached into his robes around his neck, and by a thin chain pulled out a necklace.

"Of course! An Aura Resistance Spiritual Treasure!", the commentator bellowed with ’how could I overlook this possibility’ attitude, "Someone has deep pockets and good luck in obtaining things... then again, our Challenger had to have at least that much to even dare enter this fight"

The Elder scowled, even more enraged, "You little scum! You won’t be satisfied until you humiliate me even more huh?"

And the commentator’s voice immediately revealed the reason he was so insulted, "Interesting choice to reveal it though, I guess our Challenger has a taste for flair. It would’ve been far more strategic to keep the reason Cultivation Base Suppression doesn’t work on him a mystery and start the fight with that initiative... I guess we’ll know if it was foolish arrogance or confidence soon..."

However, Wu Long’s next move caused another bout of confusion, as his Spatial Ring glinted and three fist-sized metallic objects appeared, patterns and characters carved into them lighting up as they began floating around him.

"Hearts of Iron? Hohoho! I told you he’s rich! Now this is getting interesting Fellow Daoists..." the commentator got excited for a moment, but then paused, "... wait a minute... but our Challenger is only in Mortal Transcendence Realm... does he plan to use them just as physical bludgeoning weapons?"

The confusion also spread through the audience and was clear on the Elder’s face, until the latter’s expression gradually shifted to a mocking one, "Hahaha, is that what you were relying on? Spiritual Treasures of higher power than you have? How foolish..."

Meanwhile, Wu Long seemed to not pay any attention to either the commentator, audience, or even the Elder, as one of the Hearts of Iron floated above his open palm, and the various moving parts in it began turning and rotating, as if this mechanical "heart" was coming to life.

And the next moment, under the astonished gazes of everyone, thumbnail-sized metallic balls began coming out from five different openings that were revealed on the metallic heart.

"M-metal... He’s controlling metal...", the commentator’s voice still amplified by Spiritual Qi was quiet as he whispered instead of talking or shouting as always, and then roared along with the roar of excitement from the crowd, "He’s controlling an Elemental Attribute in the Mortal Transcendence Realm Ladies and Gentlemen! Those Hearts of Iron weren’t just for show or to be crudely used! This is simply unbelievable! Spectacular!!! Our challenger has far more secrets than I ever thought!"

The Elder’s eyes turned wild with both anger and astonishment, "That’s it! Time to pay for your insolence!"

He lunged forward, but Wu Long simply lightly pushed against the ground, gracefully gliding back just an inch above ground, with his Hearts of Iron and small metal orbs still coming out of now two of the three artifacts slowly rotating around him.

"The Righteous Warrior makes his move!!! Our Challenger decided to fall back! Look at this! It seems his speed is quite good, he’s managing to maintain distance! Is the Righteous Warrior too relaxed? Is he not giving it his all? No, look at that, both are still raising their speed! And the distance between them remains absolutely the same as it was before! This is amazing!!!"

As the speed they moved with reached a certain height, a few spots around Wu Long began distorting, and then something yellow was starting to become visible.

"Paper Talismans! Of course!!! Our Challenger certainly came prepared! Those seem to be the concealed type, but as they’re now operating at almost full capacity, they’re losing camouflage!"

The Elder gritted his teeth with frustration when he saw more and more paper talismans appear from Wu Long’s Spatial Ring, increasing his speed further, but at the same time, a different expression appeared in the Elder’s eyes.

Greed.

After all, the Death Arena’s winner had the right to spoils of battle, claiming ownership of the non-monetary belongings of the defeated while the money was to be handed over to the Death Arena.

Wu Long seemed to be slowly familiarizing himself with the Hearts of Iron, as the movement of mechanical parts was jittery and slow, and the metal just started to come out from the third one, a sign he finally grasped the simultaneous operation of all three.

Seeing that there was now considerable amount of metal floating around Wu Long, the Elder no longer dared to come at him barehanded, taking out two thin and broad-sided curved blades.

"Come here you little shit!", Profound Qi gathered around the blades, and as he swiped the blade, a slashing attack shot toward Wu Long.

Almost half of the small metal balls floating around Wu Long shot to his front, forming a shield, they started forming structures, connecting with each other as thin connecting beams shot out of them, each ball shrank the more the beams came out of them, making it clear it was the same mass being redistributed.

But the speed at which they moved and formed the structure was quite slow, and the slashing attack reached them before most arrived, and none fully formed a structure yet, thus cleaving through the makeshift defense. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

This, however, slowed down the advance of the attack allowing the late-arriving metal to form a secondary and tertiary defense layers slowing down and grinding down the attack further, giving time to build more defenses until it no longer had the speed to chase after Wu Long, and was soon passed over by the Elder, trailing behind him and eventually dissipating.

"Profound Qi! The Righteous Warrior used a Profound Qi attack right off the bat! It seems he recognizes our Challenger as a serious opponent, no time to play around using ordinary Spiritual Qi!", the gleeful voice of the commentator made the Elder’s face more and more gloomy as he continued to shoot out a second and third attack in quick succession.

"Our Challenger is managing to come unscathed so far, but it seems he still has trouble using Metal Element, as his defenses form too slow, and are mostly torn to pieces with relative ease, he is also losing control of a portion of the metal cut by the Righteous Warrior’s Profound Qi, as bits and pieces fall to the ground of the fighting pit. It is still quite a spectacular sight, a Mortal Transcendence Realm cultivator, managing to thwart attacks of an Essence Gathering Realm expert! Even if he has to constantly fall back, it still could be said he is holding his own against his mighty opponent! What a triumph for the former! What a humiliation for the latter!"

At first, it looked that every attack sent by the Elder was a desperate struggle for Wu Long, especially as the rate of attacks slowly rose up.

His not fully formed metal defenses continued to be torn down, and he was forced to pull out more and more spare metal from the storages of the Hearts of Iron, which were as vast as a comparable quality Spatial Ring, but still limited. It was also not known to the audience how much metal was there to begin with, it was possible that the Hearts of Iron were half-empty.

And yet, as time went on, people got a strange feeling that the response of the metal defenses got faster, the speed at which connecting structures formed between the metal balls was constantly rising, and soon, it took one less layer of defenses to slow down the Elder’s attacks.

The amount of metal Wu Long was losing was also gradually decreasing, as he recovered more and more debris and formed them back. Not to mention, there were now various sizes of metal spheres, some as big as a human head.

The Elder could see it too, and slight caution appeared in his eyes as he felt his attacks were having less and less effect, ’Not good... I’m a lousy long-distance fighter, I have to bring this into close-quarters fast!"

He tried short bursts of increased speed, but Wu Long simply took out talismans which had similar short boost effects every time, nullifying the effort.

"Oho!! It seems the Righteous Warrior is starting to feel pressure! Our Challenger’s response time grows faster, and it seems he gradually improves control over both the Hearts of Iron and the Metal Attribute itself! But could our Challenger maintain the expense of Spiritual Qi? He has been using high-level artifacts and a lot of talismans that should require quite a bit of Spi-... oh... what’s this? Hahaha! It seems I made a timely reminder!"

Under the enraged and flabbergasted gaze of the Elder, Wu Long took out a porcelain bottle and popped a couple of pills into his mouth.

"Hahaha! Unbelievable! He’s replenishing his Spiritual Qi right in front of the Righteous Warrior’s nose, and the latter can’t do anything about it!"

The cheers of the audience were now chanting "Challenger! Challenger! Challenger!", while more and more voices mocking and ridiculing the Elder could be heard.

"This is quite inspiring!", Hong Yue overheard one Core Reformation Realm cultivator in the audience speak to another in Mortal Transcendence Realm, "I never thought someone still in Nine Mortal Realms could fight someone in not just the first, but second Major Realm of the Seven Profound Realms!"

"Hmm, you’re right. I didn’t think it was possible either, but now that I see it, it seems... doable?", the other replied with barely suppressed excitement.

"Hah! If you have golden parents maybe!", an Essence Awakening Realm cultivator not far from them who overheard the conversation, grumbled with a slightly disdainful look, clearly not liking the authority of his cultivation base challenged, "Aura Resistance Spiritual Treasure Necklace of enough quality to withstand Essence Gathering Realm pressure, 3rd-tier Profound Grade Hearts of Iron with a lot of high quality metal alloy in storage, some sort of mysterious or even legendary artifact that allows one to control Elemental Attribute in Mortal Transcendence Realm coupled perhaps with exclusive cultivation technique to control that artifact, speed talismans, boost talismans, high quality Spiritual Qi replenishment pills, do you have any idea what a fortune all of this costs, not to mention he burns through the expendables like it’s nothing. He’s just burning money all to be barely able to hold on in one fight. And the outcome is still looking grim for him despite all that. Yeah you can do it, no one can argue with what we’re seeing - it’s clearly possible, but anyone who thinks it’s possible without the massive support of items out of reach for most people is insane"

"That’s right, some rich silk-born, no doubt blessed by some Heavenly cultivation talent by the Heavenly Daos from the day he was born allowing him to cultivate with ease, and tons of resources and artifacts handed to him on a golden platter", another Essence Awakening Realm cultivator chimed in, "The only reason I don’t root for the other side is because that’s a Righteous Sect bastard, but as far as I’m concerned the best outcome is they kill each other"

A dangerous look flashed in Hong Ye’s crimson eyes that began slightly glowing, as the man who spoke suddenly felt shivers down his spine and deadly unease, but Hong Yue’s hand softly landed on her twin’s shoulder, and as their eyes met, slowly shook her head.

"Fine", Hong Ye shrugged, and turning to the fighting pit again, spoke in a completely different tone, as if her previous murderous mood never existed, "Whatever, look at how cool he is! And handsome even if his face is hidden. Ah~~ such a dreamy man~"

Zhao Biren felt shivers standing next to them, his level of respect for Wu Long rising once again.

At this moment, a sharp spike formed next to Wu Long and shot toward the Elder all with an excited roar of the crowd. It was, of course, easily deflected by one of the Elder’s swords, but the look in his eyes showed how much of a shock it was for him.

"An attack! Our Challenger launched his first attack, Ladies and Gentlemen! A stunning development and it looks like it would not be the last, yes! There goes another one, hmm, targeting is very simple and straightforward for now, but you can’t blame him... we are witnessing a miracle! It might just become, a fair fight!"