The man bowed to Alex, who bowed back.
"My apologies for being against what was presented to us by her Majesty. I promise I won't say a single thing if you can prove yourself," the man said.
"My apologies for it coming out of the blue too," Alex said. "I'm sure there was a better way for all of this to go down, but unfortunately we ended up having to fight for it."
The man bowed. "Let us begin then."
Alex nodded and stood in front of the man. "Please begin."
The man looked at him weirdly, and so did the crowd that was below. "I believe it is only right for the weaker one of us to start," the man said.
"I agree," Alex replied. "That is why I am letting you go first."
The man felt a pang of anger that he quickly let go of. "Very well, if that is what you wish," he said.
His hands moved in front of him and suddenly water appeared from all around the atmosphere as it gathered into an unstable mass in front of the man.
Blue aura gathered around it that got bright enough to be visible in daylight. Then, he shot the water toward Alex.
Alex saw the water flying in his direction and moved a single hand in front of him. A layer of fire appeared on his hand that grew to extreme temperature in an instant.
When the ball of water arrived next to him, he simply caught it, as if it were a small piece of rock someone had tossed at him.
The water immediately fizzled out from within his fiery arm, which itself vanished, leaving pristine skin that didn't have any damage.
"Would you like to go again?" Alex asked the man.
The crowd watched in silence and awe at the sight above them. The weaker ones in the crowd started assuming that the man had been a plant in the crowd, to make Alex look stronger.
However, the stronger ones, the ones who mattered, could see that the man hadn't held back much in his attack and that Alex had just as easily destroyed it.
This was a genuine match with a genuine outcome, and that surprised them even more so than normal people.
"That was Fire Dao, right?" someone asked softly.
"I thought I sensed it," another man said.
"He isn't hiding his cultivation base at all," another person said. "Is that what he can do normally?"
"He can fight so well on top of making amazing pills?" someone else said. "I wonder what else he can do."
The man in the sky was in awe as well for a few seconds before reacting to Alex's words. "Yes, I will attack again."
He didn't understand how Alex had outdone him despite being 10 realms below him. Was it dao? If that was the case, then he couldn't mess around.
This time around, the man brought out a sword. It was a thin blue sword with white edges that seemed to give off cold energy.
The man poured Qi into his blade and suddenly Alex could feel the change in temperature from all the way where he was.
'That's not a normal attack,' he realized. He could feel the world moving to aid the man.
'Ice dao or Cold Dao?' Alex wondered. He didn't know much about Water Qi to accurately tell which dao did what, but he could be sure that it was one of the two.
He brought out his sword as well, which he started flooding with fire Qi. At the same time, he used his True Fire dao on the sword that he was going to add to the attack.
The man slashed without warning, sending such a cold attack toward him that it left behind snowflakes in the air. It came flying toward Alex in a blue slash, and Alex slashed back.
The fiery aura in his sword exploded as it devoured the cold attack almost instantly. The attack continued on, reaching the middle-aged man who was forced to block it.
He was pushed back a step or two in the air, and he quickly looked back to see that his attack hadn't even reached Alex this time around.
"No way!" he shouted out loud in shock.
The people below him were shocked as well.
"That's two attacks," Alex said while standing calmly in the air. "There's only one last remaining."
The man took a deep breath and calmed down his heart. "Yes, I will attack."
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you," Alex said as his sword glowed a brilliant white light that covered him entirely.
"Sword Aura!" people started shouting when they saw it. They couldn't believe that someone so young as Alex had learned something like that. After all, Sword aura wasn't something that one could just learn.
And from what they could see, Alex had been in possession of such a skill for a long time now. He was used to having a Sword Aura.
"Unlike you," Alex continued. "If I don't win this battle, I will have to step down as a ruler. So forgive me if I go a little overboard with this attack."
The air whipped around Alex as energy filled his sword to a point that even the 10 elders on the stage were surprised. They had never seen how strong Alex was on his own, and had only ever known about his feats after the fact.
Today, however, they were seeing it on their own.
His opponent moved as well. A swirling blue energy appeared in front of him as it began to solidify. As long as he could defend this attack, he could at least tie the match. If neither of them won, the man would still come out victorious due to the way conditions of the duel.
However, even as he thought that he could feel the air around Alex. Something felt… wrong. Something felt dangerous.
He had never seen a dao like this, but he could tell it was a strong one. So, created multiple such defensive skills to stop Alex's attack.
Alex slowly opened his eyes and spoke. "Here I go."
Then, he slashed.
The brilliant white energy flew through the air at a rather slow speed. It was fast for most, but the stronger individuals could tell that the attack focused more on its power than its speed.
The man could have dodged the attack, but doing so wasn't the right thing to do here. Since this was a duel, he had to survive the attack.
He strengthened his frozen, swirling barriers even more and pushed it forth as the attack landed on the shield.
At that very moment, the attack landed on the first barrier, and all 7 of the newly formed barrier split apart at once.
The attack suffered basically no pushback as it flew toward the man up front. The man's eyes went wide in shock and tried to fly away, but it was too late.
Somehow, the attack had appeared right in front of him, and it was going to kill him.
"I'm… dead!" the man thought.
Just then, something appeared in front of him. A flash of red shined and the attack disappeared.
When he finally focused his attention in front of him, he could see Alex standing there. He had somehow flown in between him and his attack
He smiled at the man. "My apologies for going overboard. I should have known better than to not hold back more," he said.
"Hold back… more?" the man was shocked. Did that mean that Alex had held back, even after using that terrifying attack?
The man gulped and immediately bowed in front of him. "Thank you for saving me," he said. "Your Majesty."
Alex was a little taken aback by the sudden royal address. He wasn't expecting that.
"Thank you for humoring her Majesty's demand," Alex said and bowed the man back before flying back down towards the Scarlet.
"Good job," Scarlet said with a smug little smile on her face. Alex simply shrugged and said nothing.
Scarlet then turned back towards the group of people in her eyesight. "So, does anyone else have any more complaints?" she asked.
Not a single soul made a peep when the question was asked. There was no way they would oppose the throne when the new Ruler had proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with.
"You all may know your new Ruler as an alchemy master. He is the best alchemist in the entire continent, nay, the entire world," she spoke. "But that is not all he's good in."
"As you just saw, he is also highly capable of fighting someone strong. He is so strong, that he killed 6 out of the 7 Dark Phoenix assassins that were after him, all by himself."
The crowd was only starting to discuss it when Scarlet continued. "Just the day before, Alex came out of the Sundering Sanctum as the one who completed it. Not only that, on the same day, he went to the Kang family and singlehandedly destroyed most of the family, and killed many of their members for all the wrongs that I'm sure you are familiar with by now."
"On top of all that, he is only 50 years old," Scarlet said. "Do you have a better candidate to be your King?"
Not a single person could even deny that Alex was worthy.
A voice sounded from amongst the group. "All hail King Alex!"
The other people slowly spoke as well. "All hail King Alex!"
Alex watched around as the crowd unanimously started chanting his name, calling him the King.
"All hail King Alex."
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