Eldritch Horror Theatre - Ch. 82: King of the White Tower (Part 4)
Upon seeing his first opponent, Fu Qian momentarily thought the Black Knight had gotten a new paint job.
To think it was another guy covered in armor!
Although he didn't look as flashy as the Black Knight, he could still be considered armed to the teeth.
Not listening to the referee's nonsense at all, Fu Qian looked up with great interest to observe the stands.
Up in the stands, it was practically a craft exhibition of the Ring Archipelago right now, with a dazzling array of all sorts of appearances.
Three arms and four legs, scaly skin and long tails; the various anatomical structures that challenged human imagination were truly a sight to behold.
Accompanied by the occasional howling, it felt as if he had stepped into a Roman Colosseum.
Except the beasts had all run up into the stands.
Fu Qian wasn't an intolerant person; in fact, he was quite supportive of various body modifications.
In his words, he respected an individual's freedom to develop their body toward perfection.
The problem was that these Grafting crowds in the stands had absolutely zero aesthetic appeal in their designs.
Clay dolls molded by kindergarteners with their eyes closed would be more pleasing to the eye than this.
As the old saying goes, looks are combat power; if it's ugly, it definitely isn't strong.
Regardless of the White Tower Company's technology, their taste was just too terrible.
In comparison, that Succubus Woman on the beach was already pretty good.
"3, 2, 1, the match begins."
At this moment, the referee finally announced the start of the match, and almost instantly, the opponent strode forward.
Amidst a whistling gust of wind, a gleaming greatsword slashed over.
Under the protection of his armor, abandoning defense to directly use a greatsword-type weapon to insta-kill the opponent; even if counterattacked, it would at most be trading an injury for an injury.
It had to be said, this was a rather reasonable strategy—provided the two sides could even be called opponents.
Facing the incoming cold gleam of the slash, Fu Qian neither dodged nor evaded, simply stomping his foot on the ground.
Amidst a thunderous explosion, dust billowed, and bricks and stones flew everywhere.
The seemingly incredibly sturdy arena was directly stomped into a deep pit by this single kick.
Under the violent impact, the opponent was blasted entirely away, smashing into the ground along with his sword, unable to even crawl back up.
The entire process took no more than five seconds.
...
The referee, who had two tentacles protruding from his arms with an eye at the tip of each, stared at the deep pit on the ground with all four of his eyes, remaining silent for a long time before returning to his senses.
Seeing that Fu Qian had no interest whatsoever in stepping forward to land a finishing blow, he finally helplessly announced the end of the match.
When Fu Qian returned to the lounge, the other three were all absent. The four priestesses almost simultaneously looked over at him, their expressions slightly complicated.
Looking around outside, Fu Qian soon spotted the energetic young man.
At this moment, he was standing in one of the arenas. His opponent was a woman who practiced the philosophy of "the less you wear, the higher your defense," her flesh flashing amidst her movements.
Because her techniques also mainly consisted of close-quarters grappling locks, once the fight started, the entire scene could be described as an eyesore.
The audience in the stands, however, really bought into this routine. Amidst their ghostly wails and wolf-like howls, all sorts of random trash were frantically thrown toward the arena.
The young man was clearly not a Beyonder, but it could be seen that he had undergone thorough training.
With agile movements going back and forth, and barely managing to keep his eyes clear in the face of his opponent's fleshly assault, he eventually won the round with great difficulty.
And after his opponent collapsed from exhaustion, he likewise very gracefully did not add a finishing blow, drawing a wave of boos from the stands.
After returning to the lounge, he finally couldn't hide his excitement.
Facing the priestess's hero-welcoming gaze, he somewhat awkwardly took the towel, not forgetting to shoot Fu Qian a glance, his face tinged with vigilance.
Totally unnecessary!
Fu Qian shook his head in his heart.
Although I don't know how you got tricked into coming here, there's really no need to treat me as a potential opponent.
Soon, the other two also returned one after another. Surprisingly, all four of them had made it to the next round.
There was no interval between the two rounds; soon, the energetic young man was called out.
Very unfortunately, his luck was not so good this time.
His opponent was a bald, burly man, his entire body knotted with muscles, and his face covered in crisscrossing scars, looking extremely ferocious.
Of course, none of that was the main point; this guy was clearly a Beyonder.
Almost the instant he stepped into the ring, a fiery, burning heat emanated from his fists.
Under these circumstances, the young man knew he wasn't a match, but clearly didn't want to admit defeat easily.
Thus, he gathered a hundred thousand percent of his focus, staring at the opponent's every move, vainly hoping to drag out the fight for a bit.
However, his opponent gave him absolutely no such opportunity.
Accompanied by a flash of fire, the young man was sent flying, rolling all the way to the edge of the arena before stopping.
At this moment, his entire upper arm was completely deformed and charred black, and the man himself passed out cleanly.
This was even the result of his quick reflexes, having raised his arm in front of his body at the very first instant.
According to the rules, this kind of direct loss of consciousness did not count as surrendering or giving up, and they could still enjoy the promised condition, which was to obtain a permanent pass.
This guy might have been thinking exactly that.
Fortunately, his opponent similarly disdained delivering a finishing blow. After one punch, he stood in place, his gaze on the referee on the field, waiting for him to announce the result.
However, the latter delayed taking any action, instead staring at the fallen young man.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1—
Five seconds later, the young man's body jolted, and a burst of yellowish-white flame erupted from his arm, instantly swallowing his entire body. The fireball quickly burned him into a lump of char.
Only then did the referee slowly and methodically announce the bald man's victory, while the stands erupted into an even more enthusiastic cheer, utterly satisfied.
Just as expected!
Fu Qian shook his head.
As they say, what you can't get through violence, you equally can't get through reason.
Some loopholes are there precisely for you to exploit.
This guy was still too naive.
Fu Qian looked to the side. The young man's priestess was expressionless, skillfully packing up his belongings, preparing to mail them back together with his ashes when the time came.
At this moment, Fu Qian heard someone call his name; it was time for his second match.
Unsurprisingly, after stepping onto the stage, Fu Qian saw the scorch marks of the young man in the corner.
It could be seen that the cleaners had been very dutiful and responsible, but they still couldn't scrape it completely clean.
By this time, his second opponent had already taken the stage early, looking over with a provocative face.
"3, 2—"
Before the referee's countdown could even finish, a black shadow carrying a cold gleam had already rushed up, its body drifting erratically like a ghost.
Fu Qian looked up at the referee, who remained completely indifferent.
So that's how it is. Fu Qian suddenly remembered the rule of the Ring Archipelago—whatever is not explicitly forbidden is permitted.
The referee did indeed count down, but in the rules read earlier, there was no stipulation that you absolutely had to wait for the countdown to finish before attacking.
Facing the aggressively charging opponent, Fu Qian twisted his body, raised his foot, and accumulated his power.
BOOM!
Amidst an earth-shattering roar, half of the arena collapsed directly. A deep pit nearly ten times larger than the previous one appeared in everyone's eyes.
Inside the deep pit were two broken corpses.
If he remembered correctly, the rules didn't seem to say you couldn't kill the referee either.
After two seconds of dead silence, a climactic roar of cheers erupted from the stands.
(Author's Note: Thanks to "Reality is a Dream" for the tip, thanks to every book friend for your support, thank you all!)
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