Half an hour later, the competition that would determine who would be qualified to enter the Martial
Spirit Graveyard began.
There were about two hundred disciples of the Sword Spirit Sect that participated and they glared at
each other with extreme hostility. Of course, they wanted to grab the opportunity to enter the graveyard,
so they would do whatever it took just to win that. Hence, the most logical strategy was to immediately
look for the weakest warriors among the participants.
Most of the disciples in the competition had already participated at least once, so they knew what to
expect and what to do. If they wanted to get to the final battle, they needed to try their best to avoid
facing opponents that were much stronger than them. Moreover, no one was allowed to join hands with
other disciples to fight one opponent. It meant that all battles should only be one-on-one. Therefore, it
was a must to find a weaker opponent to avoid being forced to battle a stronger one.
As the competition started, the stronger disciples instantly found their targets and took action. The
whole area became chaotic in a flash.
All of the disciples who participated in the competition were at least at the fourth grade of the Spirit
Realm, and they should be equivalent to the warriors at the Heavenly Stage. Therefore, any spiritual
skill that they unleashed would easily cause damage to an area within a ten-meter radius at the least.
Those at the sixth and seventh grade of the Spirit Realm could obviously cause more extensive
damages. Thus, in the battle among stronger spirit warriors, it was very easy to be accidentally injured
if one wouldn't be attentive to their surroundings.
During the fierce and chaotic battle, the entire competition area was filled with spiritual lights and sword
auras. Everyone released their most powerful skills in an attempt to incapacitate their opponents as
soon as possible.
On the other hand, Rocky wasn't targeted because Tessa pretended to fight him. With that, she could
protect him from stronger participants, and they could stall for more time.
Their tactic became rather effective. Before long, the number of disciples in the area began to rapidly
decrease, but the two of them didn't even need to genuinely battle other disciples.
After an hour had passed, there were only less than a hundred disciples left standing in the area, and
the number was still decreasing steadily. At that point, almost all of the remaining disciples were at
least at the sixth grade of the Spirit Realm.
In fact, with the pair's ploy, Rocky became the only participant whose strength was below the sixth
grade of the Spirit Realm.
At the same time, all sorts of contemptuous remarks rang out around the area.
"Basil is such a coward!"
"That's right. Can you believe how shameless he is? He relies on a woman to protect him?"
"I really don't understand why Miss Tessa is so determined to protect and help that guy!"
For a brief moment, several disciples couldn't help but make some disdainful comments towards
Rocky.
"Hannah, isn't that strange? What exactly is Tessa's relationship with Basil?" Even Harrison found it
unusual that his daughter would go to great lengths in order to protect Rocky.
"Huh? I'm not sure. They're just friends. That's what I know," Hannah said as she pretended not to
know anything.
"Humph! I have to talk to Tessa about this later. She is engaged to Miguel, so she can't act this nicely to
another guy," Harrison remarked in a dissatisfied tone.
"Well, we both know that Tessa has been against that engagement for a long time, and she's still in her
rebellious stage. I don't think that it's a good idea to bring that up. She might throw a tantrum again if
you mentioned that," Hannah retorted.
"Fine. I'm going to find a nice timing then." Harrison nodded, knowing that Hannah was absolutely right.
Soon enough, two disciples at the sixth grade of the Spirit Realm suddenly interfered in the staged fight
of Rocky and Tessa, thus forcefully separating the two from each other.
"What do you think you're doing?" Tessa said to one of the disciples as she glared at him coldly.
"Miss Tessa, I know that you're just pretending to fight this guy to protect him! Everyone knows that he
cured Nightshade. That's it! It's beyond unreasonable that you're helping him in the competition like
this!" a disciple in blue said as he tried to rebuke her.
"Fine then. Since you deliberately got in between us, I assume that you're prepared to fight me. Which
one of you should I deal with first?" Tessa's tone became rather vicious. She was a bit frustrated that
she could not protect Rocky anymore.
"Hey, I'm going to deal with Miss Tessa. You take care of that guy and don't show him mercy!" the other
disciple said as he swiftly approached Tessa.
Then, the disciple in blue stared at Rocky with murderous intent.
"Tell me. Who sent you? Is it Xavier?" Rocky's eyes narrowed as he tried to confirm his hunch.
"Hey, brat! How dare you address my captain so casually?! You offend him to no end, and you shall
pay for that," the disciple in blue said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, so what are you? A devout follower of Xavier?" Rocky grinned as he shook his head.
"What's so funny? Do you think you can defeat me?" the disciple glared at Rocky in exasperation.
"Of course. There is no need for me to show you any mercy." Rocky's expression suddenly became
serious.
"Ha! Show me what you've got and quit yapping!" the disciple roared in fury. In an instant, he raised his
sword that quickly transformed into five snake-shaped sword shadows and slithered their way towards
Rocky.
"Eat this! Sparkling Snake Attack!"
The next moment, the five snake-shaped sword shadows entangled Rocky's limbs and body.
As soon as the disciple saw that Rocky easily fell victim to his sword skill and was unable to move, he
continued to control his sword and prepared for the finishing attack.
When the crowd saw that, there was an immediate uproar. Almost all of the disciples believed that
Rocky must be in a tight spot.
However, Ramon, who was also standing in the crowd, knew that it was not that easy to take Rocky
down. 'Humph! You're the one who's doomed if you think that that is all it takes to defeat Basil!'
Just as the disciple in blue was about to deliver a fatal blow, Rocky, who was supposed to be tied up by
the snake-shaped sword shadows, suddenly disappeared.
"What the hell? Where is he?!" The disciple was panic-stricken, not knowing how Rocky easily
escaped.
All of a sudden, Rocky emerged in front of the disciple and clasped his hands on him. Then, he
pretended to be afraid and shouted, "Don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"
While Rocky pretended to be a weakling, the disciple started to have difficulty breathing as he was
being held too tightly by Rocky. Despite struggling too hard, he was unable to break free from Rocky's
arms.
Before long, the disciple's spiritual aura suddenly weakened until he finally collapsed into Rocky's
arms.
"Oh? I'm sorry!" By the time Rocky let go of the disciple, he was already unconscious and he fell
straight to the ground.
The people were dumbfounded again when they saw the turn of events. They didn't expect that a
disciple at the sixth grade of the Spirit Realm would actually be overcome in that way.
"Tsk. That guy is as reckless as ever." Ramon shook his head as he broke into a cold sweat. He just
wasn't a fan of how Rocky sneakily took his opponent down.
When Tessa also saw how Rocky managed to make his opponent unconscious with such an
unexpected move, she couldn't help but chuckle loudly. On her side, she had also taken care of her
opponent without using much effort. Now that they had overpowered their opponents, they quickly
resumed their staged battle.
"Tessa, I think those two were sent by Xavier," Rocky said softly as he glanced at the defeated
disciples.
"How despicable! He was pulling off that kind of stunt in the middle of this competition?" Tessa scoffed.
"Well, I should guess there are more coming." Rocky imagined that Xavier wasn't that careless to just
send a couple of sixth-grade Spirit Realm disciples to deal with him. After all, the competition was his
best chance to deal with Rocky.
"Then you must be extra careful! We don't know when exactly they are going to strike," Tessa warned.
Soon enough, the area started to clear up. Only a few disciples remained, and most of them were at
the seventh grade of the Spirit Realm. From here on, the battles would be much fiercer since they were
all powerful masters at the peak level of the Spirit Realm.
Just as Rocky expected, two disciples at the seventh grade of the Spirit Realm quickly appeared in
front of him and Tessa.
In that case, their pretend battle would no longer work. Facing the other disciples would be inevitable.
"Well, there's no choice but to do this. Tessa, pick one of them," Rocky said casually.
"Hmm. The one in black seems to be a bit weaker. I'll leave him to you. Do your best to get past him."
Tessa made the choice since she was quite familiar with the two disciples that confronted them.
"Of course," Rocky replied with a straight face.
Immediately after, Tessa engaged with one of the disciples, while Rocky and the disciple in black stared
at each other with aggressive gazes.
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