Talented Martial Hero novel Chapter 166

Darren and Aries stood on the arena.

At once, most of the audience lost their interest. Some of them were even seething with anger and cursing. They had spent so much money in order to buy those tickets, and it was all a waste. There was no use watching a boring competition where you already knew who the winner would be.

Meanwhile, on the arena, Darren looked at Aries, the man standing opposite him, from head to toe. Based on Darren's intuition, he felt that Aries' strength was not that powerful. At most, he had probably just reached the ninth stage of the Mysterious Realm.

"Why do I have to fight with such crap in my first round? I have never felt more humiliated in my whole life," Aries sneered, knowing what Darren's cultivation stage was.

By now, Darren had seen so many people like this one who were arrogant, yet completely good for nothing. He could not care less about what Aries said. Instead, he wondered about what he could do to earn more ink stones in the next competition.

'If I take him down with only one movement, others will realize how strong I actually am. If that happens, people will change their bets and stake their money on me, and I, in turn, will earn much less ink stones than I am earning right now, ' Darren thought. After he pondered over the issue for a while, Darren decided to fool around with Aries. In order to disguise his real strength, he planned on getting some small injuries on purpose, so that he could make a fortune out of the next game.

"Fuck off, you scum!" Aries roared as he lunged his fist towards Darren.

Since Aries achieved the ninth stage of the Mysterious Realm, his fists grew tremendously powerful. Each of his punches became equal to almost ten thousand pounds of force. Because of this, the battlefield was made with titanium stones. A rule cultivator was even hired to build proper protection around it in order to avoid his immense strength from harming the audience.

Darren pretended to dodge his fist and flee in panic. Everything went as he had planned.

"What? He didn't die?" someone yelled in shock. The audience could not believe their eyes. After seeing Darren's actions, the audience suddenly became considerably interested in the fight.

"How about we all put a bet on how long he can survive?"

"That's a great idea. I bet he will not even survive the second punch."

"I think that guy is not that bad. It is obvious that he is trying to conceal his real cultivation base. I bet that he is going to lose at the third punch."

Now, the audience became highly involved and motivated as they found a new way to earn some extra money.

Darren had been playing with Aries for nearly an hour.

It took no effort for him to skillfully dodge all of Aries' fierce attacks in the nick of time. He would also let himself suffer some small damages on purpose in order to fool the audience into thinking that he would lose the game.

'Alright, this is enough, ' Darren thought to himself. Darren decided not to play anymore now that the audience had started to get pissed at him.

This time, Aries dashed towards Darren, gasping for his breath. He screamed in frustration upon realizing that there was nothing he could do to seriously hurt Darren. Seething with anger, he frantically threw his fists at Darren again and again.

Suddenly, a blade appeared in Darren's hand. But he was not planning on using it to kill Aries. Instead, he made it seem as if the blade slipped out of his hand by accident when he dodged Aries' punch. When the blade hit the edge of the battlefield, it bounced back and penetrated deep into Aries' thigh.

To everyone watching, it seemed like nothing more than a timely accident.

Feigning a headache, Darren stood up from the ground. He reached out his fists and lunged at Aries. Within a split second, Aries was thrown out of the battlefield.

Darren won the battle. But in everyone else's eyes, it was only by luck that he was able to defeat Aries.

"Shit! I can't believe that brat won. He just cost me ten thousand ink stones."

"Fuck! I lost thirty thousand! I'm so out of luck."

The biggest amount that anyone was allowed to bet on Darren was only five thousand ink stones since he had the odds of one to one hundred. But for Aries, on the other hand, there were people who bet over five hundred thousand ink stones. Eighty percent of the audience lost the bet.

The staff of the Prison Battle Arena grew giddy with excitement knowing that they had just made a fortune.

After the first round, they had a short break, so the fighters could decide whether they would like to continue or not.

"Ha-ha. You're so great. In this card are the ten thousand ink stones you earned from the last battle, as well as the five hundred thousand ink stones from the outside bet," Jaya praised Darren as he took out a card. The card was made of crystals that shone with yellow light.

"What is that?" Darren asked, confused. It was the first time Darren had ever seen a card like that.

"It is a coupon that has been specially made by Sky Pavilion. It is worth five hundred and ten thousand ink stones. You can exchange it into real ink stones before you leave. Furthermore, I will not take the one thousand commission from you," the elder explained.

"All right," Darren replied as he gave a slight nod. As he took the card from the elder, he found that there was another card in his hand. Obviously, the elder had also bet that Darren would win the battle, so he earned a lot of money as well. That was why he didn't need the commission before.