The guard was walking through what looked like a deserted city. There were no tumbleweeds visible, so it wasn't deserted.
"Where the heck is that princess?! How troublesome."
Wu Tai was a royal knight at the Second Level Godly Mark realm assigned to look after the second princess of the Zhao Empire, all the while looking for the only cure to her innate constitution.
This cure was a rare plant called the Sacred Cotton which contained abundant amounts of Light energy to counter the excessive Dark energy within the princess.
Even though she looked healthy at the beginning, this princess would not live until twenty as the Dark energy devoured every other energy within her body.
Wu Tai was panicking as he was frantically looking in every nook and cranny of Backwater City. Luckily for him, this city was quite small, only a few thousand li wide. Compared to the whole Zhou empire, this city was but a grain of sand in the beach.
Another knight in full body armor arrived and came to report to their temporary leader the results of their search for the troublesome princess.
"What do you mean you can't find her?! Ask the locals!"
Screaming angrily at his subordinate, Wu Tai was running out of patience. When I get my hands on that princess...
The knight dared not call out Wu Tai for his hypocrisy, as he was too frightened to do so. He could only mutter a few words.
"B-but... sir, there are no locals!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well... what I mean... is that there is no one around these parts!"
.....
Inside the huge arena, Li Bai was sitting leisurely on his chair, looking indifferent. In truth, he was panicking inside. No matter what, even though he had the highest level techniques and artifacts, unless he used a talisman, there was no way a measly Mortal Mark realm cultivator like him could beat a Godly Mark realm cultivator like Zhao Mei!
Besides, there was also the fact that due to his enormous pride, due to him being at the top too many times, he could not back down from this fight or cheat with the legendary items he had in his storage ring. He could only accept it as if he was apathetic about the whole situation.
While Li Bai was looking at Zhao Mei like she was his hardest challenge, the crowd looked at Zhao Mei in dismay. They had acknowledged this girl as "just lucky" after witnessing her previous fights. As such, they subconsciously put her on the same level as Li Bai.
Zhao Mei had been observing this Li Bai kid from the start, and she could tell that Li Bai did not fake his emotions, especially when he was disappointed that his opponent was incompatible to fight.
Li Bai's Earth energy was simply too pure for Zhao Mei to accurately gauge his strength. Thus, she measured him to be at least at the Fourth Level Mark realm.
"Hmm, interesting!"
This Zhao Mei was curious about everything and had a cheerful personality, with a touch of scheming.
Li Bai hesitatingly went up the stage as the crowd went silent. As he stepped on the stage, Li Bai noticed abnormal fluctuations in the energy flow in the air around him. Furthermore, this was not the fluctuation that was caused by Earth energy, which one used to light up their gems to cultivate.
Instead, this energy fluctuation was caused by an overflow of a different energy. From the looks of it, the source was... Zhao Mei! No wonder he was unable to feel it observing from the chair previously.
Li Bai tried to determine the energy that was causing the fluctuation. He eventually succeeded, faster than he thought he would. It was the sinister Dark energy.
As such, this made Li Bai wonder: Does this girl absorb the Dark energy intentionally, or unintentionally, not knowing the implications of such cultivation?
Lost in his thoughts, Li Bai stood still on the stage, with his hand on his chin, giving off the impression that he was thinking about deep thoughts. The crowd sneered at him as they saw Li Bai's obviously fake expression, while Zhao Mei was dumbfounded by the sight before her.
"What is this child doing?"
While analyzing the actions of the child before her, she subconsciously let out some of her aura. The aura was not her Dark energy, which she was trying so hard to suppress, but rather the Earth energy, the amount of which already surpassed everyone present.
"This... this lass is at least higher level than me!"
All of them turned to the assumed strongest man in the arena, Zhou Gang. He was just as shocked as them, confirming that she did indeed possess prowess even more than they thought she did.
Li Bai finally recovered from his daze and pointed to Zhao Mei, saying a few words in the process of doing so. The crowd felt confused as they saw the scene unfold.
"Is he trying to concede?"
"I think so."
"You think so? I know so! Hmph."
"What did you say?!"
Bam!
"Why did you punch me?!"
Boom!
These people are easily provoked.
However, they could not hear Li Bai's words, so they could not confirm their various theories on what Li Bai said to Zhao Mei. When they saw Zhao Mei's next move, however, their mouths all opened wide, without the intention of closing any time soon.
"Did the lass Zhao Mei..."
"Yeah, yeah... I think she just did..."
The various elders of the major clans also watched in shock as the scene unfolded right before their very eyes.
Some of the allies of the Li clan felt confused inside, while the enemies, which far outnumbered the friends, all felt their hearts breaking, as if their wife just left them for another man.
The Zhou clan was neither of those two, so the elders' reactions were much more varied than those of the other clans.
Zhao Mei screamed out loud, "I concede!"
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If you want exposition dumps, go to the Webnovel site. I put the concise version here, while the long and elaborate version goes there.
