"Does he not get hurt? Is he even feeling pain from my techniques? And why is he so bent on getting close to me? He can also use techniques and if I remember correctly, his aim is quite good." Ha Kun muttered to himself whilst running.
Yang Zhai suddenly saw a moving body appear in his eyes. This body was trying to run away from him. Yang Zhai knew that it was Ha Kun. He could use techniques to attack Ha Kun now if he wanted to, but he did not. If he did that, he would make others suspicious that something was wrong with him. After all, why did he chase Ha Kun if he wanted to use techniques? He could have used them from far away as well, but he did not.
And in the next round, his opponent could use this weakness to their advantage. But, if he only fought with his physical body, then the others would think that Yang Zhai was showing off in front of them. People would think that he wanted to let others know that he did not need to use any techniques to win against Ha Kun, his body was more than enough. And this was also beneficial to Yang Zhai if others thought like that.
As Yang Zhai's speed was faster than Ha Kun's, he soon managed to reach Ha Kun. During this time Ha Kun attacked Yang Zhai several times, but because he could at least determine the location of the moving objects now, he managed to dodge Ha Kun's techniques.
Yang Zhai without any further delay jumped toward Ha Kun and punched him heavily on the right shoulder. As the force was applied only on one side, Ha Kun's right side became heavy and his body rotated a little. Ha Kun's front appeared in front of Yang Zhai, but Ha Kun's body did not stop, it was still being pushed back by the force. But Yang Zhai kicked Ha Kun's stomach before Ha Kun could even fall back and slid away from him by the force of his punch. When Yang Zhai punched Ha Kun's shoulder, Yang Zhai had jumped and when he kicked Ha Kun in the stomach, he was in the air. From the punch to being kicked in the stomach, it took only one to two seconds.
Ha Kun fell onto the wooden stage and slid along the stage. His body only stopped after sliding on the ground for a few meters.
One of the reasons that Ha Kun was rendered helpless this early was that he had lost the battle before the fight even started. He was scared of facing Yang Zhai from the start and had said it himself that he lost the battle before it even star. His determination to win was lost before the battle, and a person without determination would not give their full effort.
And then Ha Kun was scared. And when a person is anxious, they make foolish mistakes: like, just now, Yang Zhai could feel that Ha Kun's technique was indeed at rank 1 mid-stage, but its power was not concentrated enough and was chaotic. Thus, even though Ha Kun was at rank 1 mid-stage, he could not properly take advantage of it.
Yang Zhai did not stop and ran toward Ha Kun who was dragged along the ground —by the force of Yang Zhai's kick— on the wooden stage.
Yang Zhai stopped in front of Ha Kun, who was lying straight on the ground, his arms were spread open and were on the ground. His face was looking at the sky. There was blood coming out of Ha Kun's mouth, and his right shoulder was also bloody.
Yang Zhai clenched his right hand into a fist and moved his arm a little back, getting ready for another punch.
Then he pushed his fist toward Ha Kun's face with enough force that would not kill Ha Kun.
"I give up," Ha Kun hurriedly said.
Yang Zhai's punch suddenly came to a stop, and it was only one inch away from hitting Ha Kun's face. Ha Kun's hair moved a little from the pressure that was produced by Yang Zhai's fist.
Ha Kun's eyes widened after seeing this. Sweat appeared on his forehead. To him, this fist was as heavy as a mountain.
Is he trying to kill me? Thank goodness, I gave up before his fist hit me: Ha Kun thought to himself.
"Yang Zhai wins the round. He will be moving to the final round." Elder Wang said loudly who was standing below the stage.
After he said this, two healing cultivators came and began to heal Ha Kun. After stopping his blood, they took Ha Kun with them to give him proper treatment. Of course, they also healed Yang Zhai, even though he was not heavily injured, his body was still hurting and bleeding a little bit. And fighting like this in the final round was not good.
"Ok, Ci An and Hong Mi, get on the stage. You will be next." After dealing with Ha Kun and Yang Zhai, elder Wang asked for Hong Mi and Ci An to get on the stage.
Both Ci An and Hong Mi went up on the stage and took their positions on the two sides of the stage.
"Begin," Elder Wang said loudly.
After elder Wang said this, both Ci An and Hong Mi began to run toward their left and both activated a technique.
Coincidentally, the technique activated by Ci An was the fire technique and the technique activated by Hong Mi was a water path technique. And as such, both of their techniques clashed in the middle of the stage and both techniques disappeared into nothingness, leaving behind the smoke.
As the fire was weak against water, Ci An's fire technique was equal to Hong Mi's water technique. Fire technique power was reduced in front of the water technique. As there was not much difference in their ranks and the power of both techniques, the fire technique used by Ci An could not overcome the weakness of fire against water.
When Ci An saw this, she changed her tactic and began to run around the stage.
Hong Mi used two more techniques, but could not aim perfectly at Ci An. Ci An's speed was abnormally fast, even faster than Yang Zhai whose body strength was strong, it was obvious Hong Mi failed to hit Ci An; After all, speed was something that could be used to avoid even the attacks that could not be defended against.
Hong Mi then summoned water and dropped it on the ground, making it wet. He did that to reduce Ci An's speed. He was hoping that Ci An would slip and fall down.
However, it was of no use because the boots that Ci An was wearing were made for rough situations, they could help Ci An run on the wet ground as well.
Ci An then activated a summoned wooden hammer in her right hand. This hammer's handle was one foot in size, and the hammer's head and face were thick as a grown man's fist. She ran toward Hong Mi at full speed and threw the hammer at Hong Mi's chest when she was a few meters away from him.
"As I thought, Ci An has already reached Rank 1 third-stage. Interesting, did elder Cu Gil give her a Blue Gem?" Yang Zhai —who was also standing below the stage— sensed the aura of Ci An and Hong Mi. Ci An's techniques were definitely at Rank 1 third-stage and Hong Mi's techniques were at Rank 1 mid-stage.
Of course, he could not see her use the hammer or other techniques because Ci An and Hong Mi both were more than five meters away from him, he decided everything with their aura. But Yang Zhai did not need to see their fighting style as he knew it from his previous life. He was only being cautious and wanted to observe if there were some changes in their fighting style or not. This research could have undoubtedly helped him, but unfortunately, his eyesight did not support him.
*****/*****
1-Hammers: The use of simple hammers dates to around 3.3 million years ago according to the 2012 find made by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University, who while excavating a site near Kenya's Lake Turkana discovered a very large deposit of various shaped stones including those used to strike wood, bone, or other stones to break them apart and shape them.[5][6] The first hammers were made without handles. Stones attached to sticks with strips of leather or animal sinew were being used as hammers with handles by about 30,000 BCE, during the middle of the Paleolithic Stone Age.