Instructor Pan gave one minute for the next contestants to prepare themselves. From the students' side was an ordinary-looking girl named Mei Ling.
She was thin and small in stature, and despite being 16 years old, she looked like she was 11. She was at the third stage of the foundation establishment realm and from the choice of weapon, she looked to be a sword user just like Ren Jie.
Her opponent was Jin Zhang also known as the 'infernal demon Zhang'. Despite the emaciating experience prisoners were subjected to in Requiem, his physique was still enormous and burly. He looked like a bull in human skin as his entire body radiated suffocating heat. He had no weapons and just viciously clenched his fists as he eyed the small Mei Ling who was about the size of one of his thighs.
Jin Zhang loved fighting and would use any opportunity he could get to engage in combat and most were usually to the death. During one of his ventures, he came across a small town in the middle of nowhere where he heard a rumor that it harbored a reclusive expert with great spear skills.
Jin Zhang in typical fashion sought after the expert and when he found him, he asked him for a duel to the death. The reclusive expert had a family at the time which was the reason he decided to abandon the rogue cultivator's life and settle down peacefully.
With a lot to lose, he rejected Jin Zhang's request and even offered to refer him to various cultivators and even special tournaments that Jin Zhang would enjoy due to the nature of those tournaments. However, Jin Zhang heard none of it, as he was as obstinate as a bull.
He wanted a thrilling fight with the reclusive spear expert, one in which they all went all out, so he devised a plan that would force the reclusive expert to fight him in all earnest. Behind the simplistic brute face hid a sinister person who would do anything to get a thrilling fight.
So he hired an assassin organization he was familiar with and had them kidnap the wife and daughter of the reclusive expert along with slaughtering the small town he lived in, so they could lure him out, to make the kidnapping a success.
Jin Zhang waited a year before the plan was put into motion, which was a success. After he received the wife and daughter in his custody he beheaded them both and came to the reclusive expert's doorstep with each of their heads in his hands.
The reclusive expert mad with fury gave him the fight he so desperately wanted. Jin Zhang managed to defeat and kill the expert but not without receiving nasty wounds of his own that left him unconscious in the small town.
A rogue cultivator acquainted with an inquisitor of the Order happened to come across the town and reported the matter to the inquisitor. Jin Zhang had already left by the time she appeared, however, after a few months, the inquisitor investigating the matter managed to track and capture him.
Of the inmates present, he was the newest having only been at the Requiem for seven months. He had a cultivation base that was at the seventh stage of the foundation establishment realm, and from what Yang Qing read about him, he practiced an incomplete blue-grade art by the name, of Marauding Fangs of the Fire Bull. An art that boosted all his physical abilities to insane levels along with destructive power.
Yang Qing couldn't wait for the fight to start. Meanwhile, some of the students were already surrounding Ren Jie asking him about the details that happened when the fight was about to end. They were still in disbelief at how Ren Jie pulled it off despite seeming to be on the losing end.
Yang Qing, Instructor Pan, and some of the seasoned inmates were the ones who saw what happened more so Yang Qing and Instructor Pan.
While Ren Jie seemed like he was being pushed back and struggling, which in part was true, it was also deliberate on his part. He used being pushed on the edge, to read the pattern of attacks from Zou Hong, while he continuously familiarized himself with his own arts. He had only been practicing them for four months, and despite being at the blooming stage already, understanding and experience were two different things. He needed enough time, to condense his understanding to experience, which being on the defense helped him do.
As for Zou Hong, while his attacks seemed rampant, unplanned, uncoordinated, random, and reactive, something done on a whim even with unpredictability follows a routine. While his attacks seemed random and unpredictable, they were filled with predictable patterns. Attacks no matter how random would follow subconscious choices, and for some keen enough, they would be able to detect those choices. From the muscle movement, twist of the body, handling of the weapon, positioning and so much more.
Zou Hong's unpredictable attack patterns had patterns in them ingrained from the countless battles he had over the years. He could fool many, but his muscle memory and natural movements would sell him out to anyone with enough defensive skill which was the foundation of the Institute's teaching on defense. It involved analyzing and breaking down an opponent's habits down to the unconscious ones in the smallest time possible and Ren Jie was able to do that, which was credit to him because most would not be able to do it in under four months. The only way someone like him would be able to pull it off is if they poured themself wholly into it for those four months with no rest to the point of breaking down.
With his attack patterns deciphered, the rest was easy, Ren Jie timed his defensive counter perfectly so that he could halt the attack long enough to deploy a blue-grade soul technique that paralyzed him long enough to be struck down. It was a meticulous and thorough approach.
A minute passed by and Instructor Pan announced the start of the next match between Mei Ling and Jin Zhang.
Similar to the first fight, few words were exchanged with only Jin Zhang being the one to say a few words which fell along the lines of' he was truly happy to get a worthwhile fight, especially with the dangerous vibes he was receiving from the ordinary-looking small Mei Ling.
A thrilling fight was what Jin Zhang asked for, and a thrilling fight he got. Mei Ling matched him power for power, attack for attack, she did not bother to dodge. It was a simple bloody and ruthless brawl. One used his fists that could shatter and incinerate a mountain while the other was tyrannical with her sword.
Jin Zhang laughed joyfully the longer the fight went on, even with his eyes and body covered in blood and his breath ragged. He kept swinging and swinging his fists bringing chaos and destruction as it met with the other equally destructive force.
Mei Ling was covered in blood too, however, her whole demeanor was calm and still, like it wasn't her that was fighting and she was nothing more than a detached spectator.
20 minutes passed by with the two opponents still going at it, however, when the clock approached the half-hour mark was when things started to change, and the bloodied stalemate was broken.
Before the thirty-minute mark, the speeds and the weight of their attacks seemed to be more or less similar, however, that gradually changed after half an hour. Mei Ling's attack grew more powerful and faster, as a tide movement sound was produced from her attacks.
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