Dual Cultivation God Returns-Chapter 979: Nothing personal

"...so the question now is, who is the brave one that will take on this challenge? Who will go in to fight the Titan Slayer, who rose from the position of a challenger to give others a chance to challenge him? If you are in Essence Awakening Realm and below, I would think twice before making a rush decision in hopes of claiming his fame, believing him to be an easy prey just because he already fought a tough battle. He clearly has something he believes in to issue this challenge, and as we already saw once, it doesn’t seem like this Titan Slayer is one to bluff with nothing to back it up. So who will it be? Who will..."

The voice of the commentator was now resounding throughout the arena. It was obvious to most who heard him that he was cautioning the lower cultivation realm people solely because he didn’t want to lose the hype of the public. No one wanted to see a boring, one-sided fight after the one full of excitement just before it, and it was indeed unlikely anyone below Essence Gathering Realm could pose a serious threat to the so-called Titan Slayer if he was confident enough to issue an open challenge.

At the same time, none of the Essence Gathering Realm experts really had motivation to join this challenge. It was, evidently, quite risky even for them, and also not an appealing endeavour. After all, if they won, they merely defeated someone in the Mortal Transcendence Realm who already fought a tough fight once - not exactly a glorious fame, and if they lost it was not only humiliating, but also fatal.

The only appeal was in obtaining whatever secrets this mysterious masked man had, but none of them were naive enough to think that the Crow King’s Nest would not want a significant cut of those secrets. It was too juicy of a temptation. Obtaining those secrets openly in view of everyone was simply putting a target on one’s back.

In short, the reward did not match the risk, resulting in an impasse where no one was willing to take up the challenge.

"How foolish, I was wondering how to go about solving this conundrum, but he went and did something like this all on his own...", the Elder of the Blood Skull Sect muttered looking at the fighting pit.

He certainly did not feel any pity for the fallen Elder of the Lament Scripture Sect, on the contrary he was gloating at this monumental failure and humiliation of the Righteous Sect, but the failure of his mission was also not a welcome result for him. Thus, this move from the masked man gave him a perfect opportunity to salvage the situation.

He wasn’t stupid enough to be absolutely sure in being able to win with ease after witnessing the previous battle, but unlike his ’colleague’, he had foreknowledge - a huge advantage, along with caution the other Elder did not have going into battle.

Of course, there was also the fact that the masked man already fought which had to take at least some kind of toll on him, while the Elder was in top condition.

Adding some other calculations, he considered his chances of winning to be quite high, and there was no guarantee he would get another chance - perhaps after a second fight the masked man would decide he was no longer in any condition to fight more.

"Watch these guys, I doubt they’ll try to do something stupid but who knows? We have to bring at least one of them back alive so they’ll tell their Sect what happened here", he then instructed his own Disciples, and then looking at the Righteous Path Disciples, sneered, "It seems, as fate would have it, I would be the one to avenge your foolish Elder and complete his mission"

And leaping over the railing of the viewing terrace, answered the commentator’s questioning speech, "I will take up that challenge"

Seeing his cultivation was roughly the same to the Lament Scripture Sect’s Elder, the commentator’s eyes shone with delight, and receiving a nod from someone nearby, the commentator’s voice once again filled the arena, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Daoists and dear guests of the Crow King’s Nest! We have a challenger! Please proceed to the fighting pit and wait for the start, there will be around 10 minutes for bets to be placed and other preparations to be complete"

And as the commentator began hyping up the bets again, which now were a lot more even, and with a lot more conservative payout values, the Elder of the Blood Skull Sect proceeded to float down to the fighting pit, eyeing the Titan Slayer who crouched in one particular corner of the pit.

Wu Long registered everything that happened, but wasn’t interested in it as much, as his gaze was glued to a trail of metal powder strewn on the ground in a long wide line - the only part of his metal that he didn’t summon back and restructure into metal pillars at the end of the previous fight.

Or rather, he couldn’t. The particles were too small, and required a far more delicate ability to control than he currently had.

The palm of his hand was now placed flatly on the ground amid the patch with a significant cluster of metal powder.

The Elder who chose to not land, instead hovering some distance above the approximate center of the fighting pit, chuckled, "Don’t bother, I’ve seen Sect Elders who spent thousands of years training in Metal Attribute control not being able to control metal powder that fine. From what I’ve seen you are quite a novice at Elemental Manipulation... which isn’t weird considering you haven’t even crossed the threshold of Seven Profound Realms in cultivation yet... so it is frankly a miracle you managed to pull that complex defensive technique at your level, and a testament to your talent, but that is not something solved just with talent alone"

"It seems so", Wu Long readily admitted the difficulty while standing up, dusting his hands and turning while floating up to the Elder’s level of elevation.

"Don’t like looking up, do we?", the Elder smiled.

"It depends", Wu Long shrugged.

"You said that once before, didn’t you? There on the street. ’It depends’ was essentially your answer to the question that it is not wise to get involved in disputes of others"

"That is because things are rarely absolute, if ever, are they not?"

"You don’t seem to be as hostile to me as you were to my ehm... companion"

"I don’t like sanctimonious hypocrisy, it annoys me. I don’t mind hostility as much, though I still prefer when it’s not as veiled as yours is"

"Hahaha, it turns out we have something in common. I even feel a bit closer now, to the point that now I feel it is a bit regretful that I’d have to kill you. If it makes it any better, it’s not personal - I have a job to do"

"Oh, I understand, no hard feelings here. It’s not personal for me as well - I need enough kills in the arena to receive a token"

"Hahaha, that’s quite a statement", the Blood Skull Sect’s Elder laughed, seemingly quite amused, but his laughter didn’t reach his eyes. The look in them never changed ever since the start of their conversation - a cautious and very scrutinizing gaze laced with cold calculations. And a slightly grim realization that this man was far more dangerous than he thought even after witnessing the fight with the Elder of the Lament Scripture Sect.

His eyes then stopped on the Hearts of Iron which now slowly rotated behind Wu Long, noting how much more smooth was the operation of each of the three artifacts, the moving parts on each now rotating and turning with guided precision.

’In such a short amount of time since the end of the battle, he’s gotten even better at it... what is this monstrous improvement speed? Was he only pretending to be a novice at handling the Hearts of Iron? Same with the Metal Attribute Manipulation? Perhaps he is far more advanced than he lets on?"

His eyes involuntarily darted toward the trail of metal powder.

"Don’t worry, I really cannot control it", Wu Long chuckled.

"Of course, as I said, I know Elders who couldn’t do it even after thousands of years of training...", the Elder smiled, inwardly cursing the fact he foolishly decided not to wear any mask to hide his expressions, envying this ’Titan Slayer’.

"Fighters, please take positions away from each other", at this moment, the commentator’s voice sounded, and Wu Long moved first after a slight polite nod, backing away with a relaxed look, which caused the Elder to once again curse inside and hurriedly follow suit.

"This time, I heard that the one who took the challenge to fight is also a Sect Elder, this time of an Evil Path Sect. Hmm, let’s see, that blood red skull on the back of his robe should be a good enough identifier... we’ll call him... Skull Warrior for now, yes that should do", the commentator spoke, filling in the final moments of preparations before the fight, "Hehe, interestingly enough both fighters are starting this round high above the ground, I guess Skull Warrior learnt from the final minutes of the preceding fight with the Righteous Warrior and decided to avoid being close to the ground..."

And after he made a few more final pre-fight remarks, he stopped talking, waiting for the start.