Earlier before the second round about to start.
"Ning! Wear this. Make sure you don't fail like Shen Fei did. The Patriarch is at his wits end. He will punish the whole clan if we fail again." (Shen Ming)
"A gold rank armor? Isn't it a little much. Nie Li is still a bronze rank right. My power alone can beat his @ss up." (Shen Ning)
"You fool! Don't underestimate that kid! Having merged with his demon beast even if it's the weakest demon beast requires to be at least silver rank. Have you seen how fast he merged with it. Don't be like Shen Fei!" (Shen Ming)
"I think he merged fast because he have a weak panda as a demon beast. Typical commoner strength. Young master Fei is just a failed genius. He's all talk but in the end he is just a useless spoiled kid." (Shen Ming)
"Just don't fμck up or its our @ss on the line! Make sure you end him in this match! Don't play around!" (Shen Ning)
Shen Ning nodded and made his way to the stage.
The crowd started to shout for their pick for the winner.
"Last match, I lost a ton of money on Shen Fei! This time, I must win it back!" (Audience member #1)
"Shen Ning is a 5 star demon spiritualist, there's no way that heavenly marks idiot with a panda spirit will win this match!" (Audience member #2)
Nie Li, although still pissed. Walked over to say hello to his opponent.
"Hello, eh-..." (Nie Li)
(FWOOOSSSHHH!)
"Haaaaaaaaaaaahhh!" (Shen Ming)
Shen Ming started to merge with his demon spirit, the sacred scarlet bear.
"Ooohh~! It's the sacred scarlet bear! This will be a shoe in win for sure for Shen Ning!" (Audience member #1)
"He didn't even greet and went straight to summoning the demon spirit. How rude!" (Nie Li)
Nie Li then merged with his fanged panda, which gave laughs from the audience.
Then the match started. Shen Ning attacked furiously, but Nie Li just avoided every attacked Shen Ning did.
"You brat! Haa!" (Shen Ning)
Again and again, Nie Li avoided and run away from the attack.
"The heavenly marks family brat keeps on running away! Don't you have the guts!" (Audience member #1)
(BOOOO! BOOOOO!)
Shouts from the crowd of dissatisfaction on Nie Li's performance was irritating the crowd.
"Have some backbone!" (Audience member #2)
Yang Xin then talked to the heavenly marks patriarch.
"Can't you guys switch another demon spirit for Nie Li? Why is he using that trash?" (Yang Xin)
"You've misunderstood director Yang. We've brought him more than a hundred thousand demon spirits! To tell you the truth, we have no idea why Nie Li chose this." (Nie Hai)
"He probably has a good reason for this." (Yang Xin)
"Stay There!" (Shen Ning)
Shen Ning started to throw out multiple fireballs at Nie Li since close combat is not working. Nie Li was just avoiding and running away.
(Fwoooosh! Fwoooosh! Fwoooosh!)
A quarter of the stadium was filled with fire balls and smoke.
"Whoa! Such amazing power!" (Audience member #1)
"Shen Ning is too strong!" (Audience member #2)
"Humph!" (Shen Ning)
Shen Ning have a smirk on his face. The area were Nie Li is was covered by black smoke. He thought he already dealt with Nie Li when out of the smoke, Nie Li ran out with a little burn mark at the back of his clothes.
"Ah, ah! Hot hot!" (Nie Li)
This angered Shen Ning.
"Then how about this! Haaaaah!" (Shen Ning)
A pillar of flame came down on Nie Li but Nie Li avoided the flame pillar attack by jumping out of the way.
"Hoo~ that was a close one..." (Nie Li)
"Aaaaarrrrggg!!! Then take this!" (Shen Ning)
He increased the fire balls and put more power into it. The flame pillar takes too much spirit force. It was only good as a finisher. So he used fireballs instead.
"So you really can dodge! Then how about this!" (Shen Ning)
He jumped really high up and started to descend fast.
"Aaaaarrrrrhhh! Flaming Meteor!!" (Shen Ning)
"Sh*t!" (Nie Li)
"You can't escape!" (Shen Ning)
When Shen Ning was really close to Nie Li. Nie Li smirked.
"Just kidding hehehe... Gravity field!" (Nie Li)
(KABOOOM!)
Smoke filled the arena.
"My god! The strength of the scarlet bear is amazing! (Audience member #1)
"It's comparable to a gold rank demon spiritualist! Ning fought pretty well. It showed off the strength of a gold rank. He must have trained really hard. I'll make sure to reward him well for this victory" (Shen Ming)
"Hahaha, Nie Li should be dead. Shen Ning did pretty good. (Shen Hong)
Yang Xin was shocked as well. She was worried about Nie Li.
Wasn't Shen Ning a silver rank demon spiritualist? Nie Li.. is he..." (Yang Xin)
Most if the crowd was already celebrating until the smoke finally cleared and it came as a shock to see Nie Li was kneeling on the ground tired, while Shen Ning was collapse out cold in the center of the crater. Both fighters are in their normal form instead if a merged spirit form.
The crowd began an uproar.
"Nie Li seems okay!" (Audience member #5)
"What about Shen Ning!" (Shen Ming)
"Shen Ning didn't even hit the target but instead hit the ground and was left unconscious!" (Audience member #1)
"So Nie Li did something." (Yang Xin)
Nie Li was sure that Shen Ning was out cold for a good 24 hours and wouldn't wake up for awhile. He felt a little refresh seeing his opponent is beat up but still had this anger building inside him. So he didn't notice Shen Ning was wearing a gold rank armor.
Shen Ning woke up and realized what have happened to him. He spent all his spirit force on that last attack, so he had to rely on his strength alone. He saw Nie Li is distracted. He was pretty much badly injured. So he used all his strength and launch his final attack bombardment.
"Hhaaaaaa!" (Shen Ming)
"What the f--"(Nie Li)
(Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!)
A non-stop assault on Nie Li's face was launched by Shen Ning. He knows that he messed up big time. So the least he can do is weaken Nie Li before the next match.
Nie Li on the other hand merged with his fanged panda once again. He finally noticed the gold rank armor. Since there is no rules having an armor in the match, he just let it go. He also understood that from the last attack, Shen Ning was heavily injured and all his spirit force is used up. So he was fighting on fumes. He then blocked Shen Ning's attack and went behind him and karate chop hom behind his neck with a power of a gold rank demon spiritualist. Once again Shen Ning was knocked out cold. This time it will be for awhile. Then Nie Li unmerged from his fanged panda.
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!... I let my anger control me and didn't notice he was wearing an armor." (Nie Li)
The crowd went wild with anger.
"Sacred family! What kind of trash are you putting out there!" (Audience member #1)
"Everyday, you say you're a major family filled with geniuses! But look at this fight!" (Audience member #2)
"How did they loose w matches in a row?" (Audience member #3)
"The bankers are the sacred family and the alchemy association. They must have been cooperating with each other! This fight might be rigged!" (Audience member #4)
"Dammit! That's disgusting!" (Audience member #1)
"But alchemy association is extremely wealthy, why would they do such a thing?" (Audience member #6)
Shen Hong was very very moody. He couldn't believe Ning was just as useless than his worthless son. But he saw some effort he made to weaken Nie Li for the next match. So he will bet on everything for the next one.
Nie Li on the other hand was raising his hand on victory. But instead of praises and booing, he heard a lot of giggling and laughing.
"Why is everyone looking at me and laughing?" (Nie Li)
When Nie Li passed by the divine family seats. He looked at Kwangsoo with anger in his eyes and looked at greeted Ziyun.
"Nie Li, you seemed pretty attached to the panda huh?!" (Kwangsoo)
"(pfft!) Hi N-Nie Li ...(giggle giggle)" (Ye Ziyun)
"Hahahaha!" (Zhenlong/ Lian Jian/ Audience)
Nie Li was flustered. He doesn't understand why he is greeted with laughter instead of praises. He then walked over pass Shen Hong to his seat next to the patriarch Nie Hai. Yang Xin was also giggling.
"Patriarch! Why is everyone looking at me funny?" (Nie Li)
"(Pfft!) I think you forgot to undo your panda merge hahaha!" (Nie Hai)
Nie Hai gave Nie Li a mirror and saw why everyone was laughing. During the last attack of Shen Ming, he got hit both his eyes and mouth resulting in black bruises. So imagine Nie Li with 2 rounded black eyes and an oblong fat lip with a bruise around it.
Nie Li felt like he just want to hide his head on the ground like an ostrich. But he still has 1 more round to do and he made up his mind to run back to his room to ice his face afterwards. But the humiliation of being the butt if all jokes will stay with him forever. Furthering his anger now directed to Shen Ning fir doing this to him.
At the resting area of the sacred family side. Shen Ning woke up. Shen Ming was very angry with him and ask for an explanation on how he could have miss.
"I really don't know how Nie Li did it. But while I was nearing him during my flaming meteor, I heard him say Gravity field. All of a sudden a force so powerful pulled me down doubling the force of my attack resulting in rebounding back to me. But thanks to the gold ranked armor, some of the force got absorbed and didn't injure me further. But the attack cost me all my soul force. I think Nie Li is just pretending to be weak because I could have swear he was smirking right before that gravity attack. So Xiao, be careful on the next match. I think he is still hiding something." (Shen Ning)
"I see, so we were fools to fall into his trap. We surely underestimated this Nie Li. Be careful out there Xiao. You are our last chance to get everything back. The Patriarch said to win at all cost. Even if we don't kill him, as long as we win. We can always wait until the demon lord finish preparing the horde. We can finish him during the attack. Also wear the same kind of armor as Shen Ning and also take some demon spirit strengthening pills. We can no longer afford to underestimate our opponent." (Shen Ming)
"I will not fail you. My scarlet dragon eagle will beat Nie Li and see all his hidden moves. I will not let Nie Li humiliate our sacred family even further." (Shen Xiao)
"That's good. I also have the okay to reward you 20 million demon coins if you come out victorious in this match." (Shen Ming)
"I will follow elder's instruction!" (Shen Xiao)
Back in the stadium audience hall.
"I think I will bet on Shen Xiao on this next match!" (Kwangsoo)
"Huh? Aren't you pro Nie Li fir this fight. You even said that he have the power to go against a black gold demon spiritualist?" (Zhenlong)
"That was before, but he looked a little injured, weak from lack of sleep. His concentration looks bad and he looks like he got a lot on his mind. The outcome might favor the sacred family." (Kwangsoo)
"Alright! I'll put our bets in then!" (Zhenlong)
He called his servant to place the bet towards Shen Xiao. Ye Ziyun also put in the same bet. The audience near them overheard Kwangsoo's advice and started to line up into the betting polls. The ratio this time is 2:1 for Shen Xiao.
Nie Li and the heavenly marks family still bet on themselves. Since the limit is only 100 thousand, it wouldn't matter if they loose. They won millions in the first match.
"All bets are off! All or nothing! Bet everything in your ring and I'll match it!" (Shen Hong)
"Are you kidding? There's almost 600 million demon coins in here with hundreds of advance pills. These are worth billions." (Nie Li)
"I can match that up to 2 billion! Do you still dare you coward!" (Shen Hong)
Nie Li was already pissed off from anger, jealousy and humiliation. Being called a coward further enraged him.
"Fine! I'll accept you deal! Just don't go crying to me if you loose badly!" (Nie Li)
He then gave Yang Xin his ring and Shen Hong gave a banker's receipt for 2 billion demon coins. Yang Xin acts as the banker to hold the bets.
"Are you sure it is wise to bet everything on the next match Li?" (Nie En)
"Don't worry elder En. Have a little faith in me. I will.show you how powerful I can be in the next match. I will release all my anger and stress on this one." (Nie Li)
So the next match was about to get announced between Nie Li and a gold ranked demon spiritualist named Shen Xiao.