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.
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