The battle was locked in a stalemate.
On one side were the seventeen who accompanied Xiao Yan to the Divine Feathers Sect and on the other side were more than three hundred Heavenly Fate experts.
Xiao Yan's enemies were mainly divided in three.
First, there was Hua Ling with all of his sixty underlings, their cultivations ranged from 2-Fate to 5-Fate.
He knew that some of the newcomers from the Tiny World were really strong.
That's why, when he heard that they came to the Ghastly Ruins, he personally came with his whole force, leaving his Deity Lake undefended.
He wanted to overwhelm them with numbers!
Even if Xiao Yu wasn't here, he wanted the people from the Tiny World to know that having a Heaven Spiritual Root meant nothing if you didn't have a strong force backing you!
Xiao Yan's friends could normally dispose of this group in just a few minutes, but there was a much stronger group who allied themselves with them.
They were Gu Heng's underlings.
He was a 8-Axis Heavenly Axis, so he couldn't come to the testing grounds.
Same as Hua Ling, when he heard of the news of the people who rejected him coming here, he assembled all of the Heavenly Fate experts working for him.
They amounted to nearly three hundred, ranging from 1-Fate to 9-Fate.
He wanted his underlings to beat those arrogant people until they knelt and begged him forgiveness.
There was also someone who Xiao Yan didn't "offend".
It was Murong Yu, who was considered as the best student who arrived last year.
He was at the peak of 9-Fate Heavenly Fate and didn't join any faction yet.
Xiao Yan knew the "reason" why he was helping his enemies.
He was the kind of guy who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Probably, he feared that the newcomers from the Tiny World would become stronger than him, so he decided to hinder them.
Gu Yan was the one who handled him, and he was at the same time fighting several other people.
Basically, his clones were handling the strongest ones while the others were fighting the rest.
Don't look at their low cultivation, they were taught how to fight by Xiao Yan and his clones!
They could easily fight several people having the same cultivation as them.
Finally, there was the spectating crowd.
They numbered between four or five hundred, but most of them were just 1-Fate experts.
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Xiao Yan took a bottle of Demon Beast Blood and started drawing inscriptions patterns around the battlefield.
When he finished, he secretly told Gu Yan to act as if he couldn't fight anymore.
After blocking a blow, he threw himself on the ground and then he held his chest, breathing hard.
Seeing this, the onlookers thought that it was their chance.
They already knew that the bigger group belonged to Gu Heng.
Some of them thought that they would receive a fine reward if they helped his underlings.
So they no longer hesitated and joined the battle.
Earlier, they didn't know who would win, that's why they didn't help any party.
But now they were sure that Gu Heng's side was going to win!
More and more of the others also followed behind, not willing to let them be the only ones who reaped the easy rewards!
In the end, more than half of the spectators couldn't resist their greed.
{Seems like the others are not bullies…}
When the new mob of nearly three hundred people went inside of the range of his inscriptions, Xiao Yan smirked.
{I'm finally going to have some fun!}
He made a few hand-seals and a large dome of energy was formed around the battlefield.
Now, the students inside wouldn't be able to flee once they realized their doom.
Xiao Yan went for these newcomers first.
He didn't hold back and beat them as a warm-up.
They were after all the weakest on the battlefield!
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Thirty minutes later, Xiao Yan let out a sigh of contentment as the last of the newcomers fell unconscious to the ground.
There was a thrill that you simply couldn't get by sparring!
He then went for the weakest to the strongest, beating them until they lost consciousness and fell to the ground.
Some of them tried to apologize, but that had no effect.
When his friends no longer had any opponents, they went down to loot the raining men.
Xiao Yan already asked them to let him finish off the enemies.
Xiao Ning'er and Ye Ziyun couldn't help but smile as they watched Xiao Yan fighting.
They knew just how much he wanted to have a good fight and the smile he was having right now was confirming it.
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[In a corner of the Ghastly Ruins]
Two old men were speechless as they looked at Xiao Yan from afar.
They were elders of the Divine Feathers Sect, Nanmen Tianhai and Huang Yu.
"Since the beginning, they never panicked. It's as if they already knew that a lot of people would try to suppress them…"
"They used Gu Heng as a pawn, now thanks to him nobody will dare to try to bully them inside of the institute"
Looking at the unconscious students, he sighed, "I could almost have pity for those who were thinking of taking advantage of the situation"
"Right? He knew they would try to flee, so he made that barrier before revealing himself"
"Ming Fei was right, they can indeed take care of themselves"
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[The battlefield]
A few hours later, Murong Yu was the only one left.
He already knew that Xiao Yan wanted a duel by the way he dealt with the others.
Readying his sword, he made a beeline for his opponent, only to be blocked by another sword identical to his.
Xiao Yan took it from one of Gu Heng's underlings as he didn't want to use his overpowered artifacts against Murong Yu.
If he accidentally broke the sword of his opponent, it would spoil his fun!