Chapter 749: The Top Four

After the battle, the dragonman youngster asked how certain Long Meng was of beating Qi Ci Lang.

Long Meng shook his head, “I didn’t gain much crucial information, I am unable to precisely determine that.”

This was similar to how the dragonman youngster was judging how he’d fight against Long Meng. Both sides had many trump cards still unrevealed, so it was difficult to deduce anything.

Qi Ci Lang’s conventional battle strength was already enough to deal with Bao Li Gen equipped with [Cold Pudding]. Unless the dragonman youngster personally acted, no one could force him to resurrect.

But the dragonman youngster wouldn’t do that.

He took his own prestige into consideration.

The masses never believed that the dragonman youngster was Qi Ci Lang’s match. After all, the battle strength the dragonman youngster displayed, although constantly soaring, was still steps below the peak.

Days passed, and despite the troubled coasts, the Ice Sculpture citizens still sank the entire country into a carousal.

They were rejoicing.

Every day was dueling day, and they immersed themselves in them and discussed them enthusiastically.

The duels every day were marvelous, brilliant, and varied. Gold level duels used to only happen every few months, now there were several every day.

Silver level duels no longer attracted the populace’s interest, in the late stage of the National Ceremony Grand Duel, gold levels were the protagonists. 

The dragonman youngster ultimately chose Gu Dong as his next opponent.

A direct battle in the arena made the dragonman youngster comfortable. The duel with Yi Jiu was more like a chase around the arena. 

Gu Dong’s movement speed was slower than the dragonman youngster, after all he was from the army, and paid particular attention to coordination and wasn’t a one man army. 

At the beginning, the dragonman youngster restrained himself and probed with attacks, observing Gu Dong’s methods. During this phase, both sides gave and took.

In the middle phase, the dragonman youngster went on a total offensive, drowning his opponent in a flood of attacks.

In the late stage, Gu Dong simply was a skiff in a furious storm.

Finally, he fell into the abyss of irreversible loss.

The entire audience cheered for the dragonman youngster’s victory. In terms of popularity, Gu Dong was not worth mentioning compared to the dragonman youngster.

“Next will be Bao Li Gen.” The dragonman youngster’s plan to integrate with the duelists was proceeding at a steady pace.

He was no longer the most popular duelist.

Qi Ci Lang snatched his limelight.

In the dueling arena, Qi Ci Lang dealt yet another heavy blow to his opponent, firmly suppressing and beating them up.

Qi Ci Lang deliberately didn’t use methods that could achieve victory, instead he toyed and terrorized his opponent.

“Hehehe…” His opponent’s painful struggle caused him to cheerfully giggle.

Like the intelligence reports said, Qi Ci Lang didn’t have the demeanor of an expert.

This also caused many spectators to feel uncomfortable, and those who originally supported Qi Ci Lang began to criticize him as a bully of the weak, that in the end he was an outsider that didn’t understand their country’s dueling spirit.

Qi Ci Lang continued his ways.

Besides him, Xun Liang was also continuing his ways.

After the former barbarian great fighter defeated Bao Li Gen, he was challenged by other duelists.

He didn’t refuse them and accepted each one after the other.

During duels, he would pray to the Barbarian God and offer up the battle.

The Ice Sculpture citizens didn’t feel good watching him do this, after all, anything involving faith was no trivial matter.

The Barbarian God was incompatible with the Ice Sculpture citizens’ mainstream faiths, and Xun Liang’s constant victories, from another point of view, was constantly reminding the snow elves of their humiliating history, when their ancestors were driven away from the Frost Continent by the barbarians, forced to migrate and wander before finally settling down here on Ice Sculpture Island.

Xun Liang’s battle strength was immense, and after Bao Li Gen, he never used [Mammoth Form] in battle again, but despite that, he still won every battle with absolute dominance.

The dragonman youngster watched many of his fight recordings, and he felt he was watching Long Meng’s duels.

Both were skilled, calm, and unperturbed. This indicated that even against gold levels, they weren’t being forced to fight with their full strength.

As the National Ceremony Grand Duel gradually entered the late stage, many duelists were eliminated.

Although many people were healed and could still fight, because they had too many defeats and too few victories, they knew what would happen and decided to withdraw from the stage.

Those unsure or harboring excessive hopes would be constantly taught a bitter lesson in the battles that followed and would be forced to stop dueling.

The day the dragonman youngster dueled Bao Li Gen, Long Meng entered the stage and carried out his first grand duel of this year’s National Ceremony. 

People crowded together for this magnificent and unprecedented event.

The Ice Sculpture citizens supported him above all other duelists.

Many of the dragonman youngster’s supporters abandoned his duel with Bao Li Gen to instead admire Long Meng’s dashing figure in battle.

Long Meng’s longstanding prestige in the Ice Sculpture Kingdom finally showed its might.

“Long Fu, do you know how long I’ve waited for this battle?!” Bao Li Gen roared.

He was very excited, finally his wish would be fulfilled in this battle.

Previously, too many matters had caused this formidable military general to feel exhausted in body and mind.

But now, his exhaustion was cleaned away, replaced by the pressing urge for vengeance.

Bao Li Gen’s battle intent was quite exuberant.

The dragonman youngster was expressionless as he fought.

Both sides went all out for a while and were equally matched.

The audience was amazed continuously.

The dragonman youngster was constantly growing, and after he absorbed many dragon corpses, his bloodline concentration underwent a qualitative change, boosting all of his attributes.

To the extent that he didn’t use his newly finished [Warrior Form] to fight against Bao Li Gen equipped with [Cold Pudding], the latter didn’t know his place.

Bao Li Gen was grave, and he secretly clenched his teeth, “Damn it, he was actually hiding so much power!”

“But I have an external energy core, I can wear him down.”

Bao Li Gen decisively changed tactics, wanting to use attrition to defeat the dragonman youngster.

The dragonman youngster was still mainly using basic martial arts or dragon martial skills, seldomly using battle skills, that inevitably caused him to concede ground.

No one could tell the dragonman youngster was deliberately restraining his battle strength.

Opponents were difficult to find.

The dragonman youngster drew from Bao Li Gen’s external pressure to constantly polish his martial skills.

Long Meng was not considered a great teacher, but he held nothing back in his instruction. The dragonman youngster’s gifts really were astonishing, and he studied Long Meng’s martial skills and insights. With the help of this duel, his previous diligent cultivation and training was tested in real combat one by one. Through direct experience that he made his own, he could solidify his foundation even more.

As Bao Li Gen fought the dragonman youngster, he felt like the latter was an ocean reef, no matter how wild and ferocious his offensive was, the reef remained as high, mighty, and motionless as it ever was. It did not fall, and furthermore, through the sea wave’s slaps, it became steadier and more tenacious.

Bao Li Gen’s attacks became more agitated.

“I am definitely using [Cold Pudding] at its full power; I am obviously using all of my skills. Why can’t I defeat Long Fu?!”

“Damn it, god damn it!!”

Bao Li Gen was an experienced duelist, and after he realized his defeat was ordained, he firmly clenched his teeth and threw himself at the dragonman youngster.

As he got closer, he flagrantly detonated the energy module, using it to produce a terrifying explosion.

The explosion’s bright fire battered the protective barrier, scaring countless spectators into fleeing the venue.

After the explosion waned, more than a meter of the entire arena floor vanished, leaving it in complete disorder.

Only Bao Li Gen’s head and half a palm remained after the suicide bombing, falling onto the edge of the arena.

While the dragonman youngster still stood as tall as before.

When Bao Li Gen charged at him, he felt something amiss.

At that crucial moment, the dragonman youngster activated his new racial magic [Divine Dragon Armor]. His many defensive items also displayed their function at that pivotal moment too.

“You got anxious.” The dragonman youngster coughed, then picked up Bao Li Gen’s head, “It’s true that the energy core explosion was very formidable, but without direction, it was unable to kill or injure me.”

Bao Li Gen was at the point of death, he weakly shouted, but because he had no vocal cords, no sound came out.

According to the unspoken rules, because of Bao Li Gen’s killing intent, the dragonman youngster was allowed to crush his head with his claw.

But the dragonman youngster didn’t just do that, on the contrary, he tore a healing scroll to give Bao Li Gen a chance to live.

Finally, he returned Bao Li Gen’s head to the military supervisor.

In light of the Ice Sculpture Kingdom’s strength, healing Bao Li Gen to how he was before was no problem. But due to how severe his injuries were, he definitely had to withdraw and could no longer participate in the National Ceremony Grand Duel.

This action caused the dragonman youngster’s popularity to soar once again.

And his defeat of Bao Li Gen also renewed the masses’ perception of him.

After this day ended, the populace talked with each other.

“I haven’t seen Lord Long Meng fight for such a long time. Seeing him today, he’s just as powerful as he always was.”

“Long Fu actually won too!”

“I saw through a magic image, Long Fu’s victory was very beautiful. As it turns out, his battle strength has already grown by so much.”

“He didn’t kill Bao Li Gen, he accepted Long Meng’s tutelage, and he has the grace of an expert!”

“Yes, I hated him before, after all he is an outsider. But now it seems that of the many outsiders, Long Fu is the one I dislike the least.”

The National Ceremony Grand Duel entered its final phase.

Only four truly active duelists remained.

They had the grandest prestige in separate ways. The unshakeable Long Meng, the one who forced Da Han into retreat Qi Ci Lang, the dark horse Barbarian God believer Xun Liang, and the one who pushed himself hardest into the limelight, the lightning speed grower, the red scaled dragonman Long Fu.

Whether ordinary or cultivator, all accepted that one of these four was the most likely to become the champion!

Of course, the populace were using all kinds of public gambling pots to wager on the possibility and hopes of which of these four would win the championship.

Long Meng and Qi Ci Lang were close to each other, the dragon and tiger vying against each other. Xun Liang followed close behind; he could not be looked down upon. Finally Long Fu was last, due to his die-hard supporters.

The populace was not in the know, and to them, it seemed Long Fu was a newly promoted gold level that was able to fight to this degree because he was mainly relying on his saint level aptitude bloodline and Long Meng’s masterful instruction. Long Fu being in the top four already exceeded expectations, not an easy feat in itself.