213 Your Majesty (1/2)
”I am sure that you are confused,” Li Chen chuckled when she saw Xue Wei's expression. ”This is actually not all that uncommon,” she continued, and the younger man waited patiently for the rest of the explanation.
”Here in Cloudsoar City and within the Chengzi Kingdom as a whole, Earth Knights are considered heavyweights. In fact, they are quite something here, able to establish a power that can dominate a whole region or city. However, back in the center of the continent where he came from, he was nothing more than the lowest ranked Primordial Beast Hunter.”
”When he could not compete against the Primordial Beast Hunters in the center of the continent, his only other option was to seek further out where the Primordial Beasts were also weaker.”
”In the end, he, like many other Primordial Beast Hunters, has been tempted by the black markets located in the various cities to participate in these cage battles against Primordial Beasts.”
”No one here minds that the fighters are Primordial Beasts. In fact, they root for them during the battles, but this is also a Primordial Beast Hunter's dream as the beasts are on their own, unable to gather support from Fierce Beasts or other Primordial Beasts.”
”Not only this, the rules state that the winner of the match can take anything off their opponent, including their corpses. So if they manage to bring down a Primordial Beast inside one of our arenas, their earnings will not be limited to merely what was available to them in the wild; they will also receive their winnings from the cage battle.”
”In the center of the continent, many Primordial Beast Hunters engage in cage battles against Primordial Beasts. In fact, some of the best hunters are very active in the black market society.”
Xue Wei took a moment to digest the information. He was actually a little astonished. ”Do the Primordial Beast Hunters always face Primordial Beasts or are they sometimes up against humans too?” he could not help but ask curiously.
Li Chen looked at him praisingly.
”Not too dumb are you?” she chuckled. ”Yes, they are also put up against normal humans. In those situations, they often choose to fight and give it their all as well. Although they are the hope of humanity, many Primordial Beast Hunters have a bloody past; more than half have already experienced killing another human.”
”I see.” Xue Wei was not shocked by this fact. In fact, he himself was rather numb to the feeling of killing by now, and since he had accepted the fact that he was a Sovereign Beast, he felt no special connection to either humans or beasts. They could carry on their little war with one another as they pleased. All he wanted was to get his revenge against the Ice Harpy and return Wang Xiaoyun to his side.
Xue Wei had been listening to Li Chen's explanation of the two fighters, Lu Yuping and Jia Lu, but now he returned his focus to the fight that was ongoing in the cage.
At the start, Jia Lu had held the upper hand because of his outstanding physical strength, but after Lu Yuping had transformed into his true form as a Golden-Furred Cloud Leopard, he had regained some of his momentum.
Lu Yuping was from the leopard family, which naturally meant that he was extremely agile and fast. Where Jia Lu previously had been able to hold Lu Yuping down, he could no longer even touch his tail and was constantly a step too late to intercept him.
However, moving at such rapid speeds was also taxing for Lu Yuping. Constantly pushing his senses to the limit to figure out where the club might hit next in the rather narrow space of the cage tired him out, so Lu Yuping slowly began to slow down.
Lu Yuping was tired and started making mistakes, showing openings to Jia Lu. One of them was so big that Jia Lu started laughing as he rushed in with his club.
Right at that moment, Lu Yuping's eyes turned blood-red. Lu Yuping was a Primordial Beast with the strength that equaled a seventh layered Earth Knight. It was impossible for Lu Yuping to be without innate abilities, but up until now he had used none of them, only fled.
Unfortunately, this realization came too late for Jia Lu. An instant after he had charged at Lu Yuping, whose eyes had turned red, a red crescent moon blade appeared above the latter's head that descended straight on the former.
This crescent moon blade moved so fast that Xue Wei only saw a blur before both Lu Yuping and Jia Lu came to a standstill.
Lu Yuping seemed extremely worn out. His golden fur was soaked with sweat and he was out of breath. Jia Lu, on the other hand, stood completely still, his eyes showing disbelief.
For a few moments, the only sound you could hear was Lu Yuping's hurried breathing. Then, suddenly, Jia Lu collapsed, his head severed neatly from his body.
Silence enveloped the place for only a brief moment, but then a loud cheer erupted, followed by an uproar. Although the odds for Lu Yuping winning were rather high and the payout from the betting quite small, every little bit mattered to these people, so they were ecstatic now.
Lu Yuping left the cage in his beast shape. He was larger than any mortal leopard by more than three times and his figure was awe-inspiring as it moved through the underground world's cave.
He vanished into a room that was carved at the end of the cave. After around half an hour, he reemerged as a human, neatly dressed in new robes with a haughty expression on his face.