"Sword of Cleaving Above Earth First Form: Unto Sword"
Suddenly, a red light appeared in a circle around Ryu and in the blink of an eye, the light affixed itself to Ryu's blade. All this occurred in an instant.
He swung his blade in a circle and he proceeded to sheathe it, the crowd was surprised at what he did only for their expressions to change in the next instant as the heads of the 30 participants closest to him were neatly detached from their heads.
Silence pervaded the arena as all eyes were on him as the heads and bodies hit the ground. The cultivators who barely escaped the gates of Hades, well for now immediately took several steps away from Ryu.
In other parts of the arena, several figures who had been killing non-stop paused to look at Ryu marking him as a dangerous one as they continued their fights.
Ryu's mind was drawn into the past as he remembered a statement by David during one of their training sessions.
"The Sword of Cleaving technique is incomplete, the four forms and the subdivisions we have are merely the basic crowd control attacks, there are still close combat and better crowd control attacks but I can't look for those anymore, not in this state. I'll teach you others technique that you can use"
In the present, Ryu unsheathed his sword while calling out "Mekra Vibe", the sword in his hands began vibrating at an immense speed. Ryu raised his hand and suddenly threw it, the audience was perplexed by his actions only for them to observe it landing perfectly in the head of a cultivator who was trying to avoid fighting. Even before the sword hit its intended target, Ryu had already sped off in pursuit of it.
"Heh what a fool,how dare you throw your weapon away in a fight".
"My love, let's kill the fool together
Two cultivators approached him and blocked off his path attempting to cut him off from his weapon, the male among them using two short swords, the female using a spear.
In the blink of an eye, he clashed with the sword wielder, as the sword wielder slashed at him from both sides, Ryu jumped into the air making a backflip.
At this point, the spear wielder had already circled to his back. She threw her spear at Ryu who had yet to land on the ground and the spear grazed his shoulder. He stood up bleeding, he quickly picked up his sword as the sword wielder closed in on him.
"Fiery Haze"
The sword wielder suddenly cast a spell and the area around him and Ryu became hazy and very hot as the spell heated up the water in the atmosphere.
Two cuts of varying degrees appeared on Ryu's body as his assailant remained unseen, a spear almost hit him afterwards but he dodged it successfully.
"Show yourself, you cowards" Ryu shouted after another successful attack on him.
"And give you a free kill, that's not how it works kiddo" a voice came out of nowhere.
"There you are fool, thanks for revealing your location" Ryu grinned and sped towards his right swinging his sword. The opponent sword wielder blocked his hit with some difficulty.
Ryu suddenly stepped to the side, the sword wielder was confused only for his confused face to morph into a face of anguish and pain as a spear was lodged into his stomach.
"How dare you betray me you bastard, with how much I sacrificed for you" he yelled in a loud voice amidst the throes of death.
"It was a mistake, how could I have expected him to dodge" the spear wielder was in tears as she accidentally fatally wounded her beloved.
While the two were bickering, Ryu walked behind the swordsman and cut off his head, the female spear wielder fell and wept. Ryu walked towards her while chuckling.
"You know, if not for you he wouldn't have died so miserably so much for love, now it is time for you to join him and in your next life don't feed people dog food. Fools" he spat on their corpses and went off.
The audience was screaming with joy at this point seeing all the wondrous deaths occurring in the match as in other parts of the arena only a few people could be seen as the ground seemed to be dyed red with blood while a large number of people were still around in some parts.
About five hours after the first round commenced, the Arena Master appeared in the middle of the stage with a smile on his face.
"As of now 1000 participants remain I hereby declare the first round over, you have 2 hours to rest and recover your Mekra levels and of course no healing aids will be provided to you"
He paused and turned towards the audience who were cheering loudly
"As we usually have it here, the betting pools are open yet again, high odds and low odds are available. Who will the Deity of luck shine on yet again, stake wisely and reap bountifully. We meet again in 2 hours and you can explore the Coliseum until then. Adios."
The crowd cheered loudly with several of them heading towards the betting pools with confident gazes on them.
"I am the prophet of betting, Lord Takinator himself" one said in a loud voice.
"Mere prophet, I am the King of the pools who is feared by bookies. They call me the terror of Bookies".
Underneath the Coliseum the contestants settled into their respective rooms where they were met with an attendant who freshened them up in preparation for the next rounds as the real event was just about to start.
Ryu clenched his fist and thought to himself "This is just the first step for fate that landed this opportunity on my doorsteps, I shall overcome and eventually I shall gaze upon your headless body Hurin!!".
In the Burning Lights Sect, Hurin sneezed as he was cultivating "Weird, which ant thought of me now". He went back to his cultivation. Shockingly enough, all the miniature black holes on his back had vanished and all that was left was a seed.