BOOOOOOOOOOM
Bruce's gauntlet collided with the demon's dagger. The result was uncertain for a moment, but everyone knew the outcome the moment they saw only one person remain in the arena.
"Congratulations, you're now ranked 10th among the new recruits" The examiner said to Bruce.
Bruce quietly walked off the arena and headed to the resting area. He was exhausted from the fight. He had always thought that he would be invincible in the Divine King realm, but he was wrong. His opponent would be able to defeat him had he not used the secret arts.
Bruce let out a small sigh and fell asleep. All he wanted to do was to take a long rest to recover all his energy.
As Bruce fell asleep, the matches went on for the other 18 candidates. Some matches were quite short while some matches were extremely drawn out. After 8 hours, all the matches concluded.
"The remaining 10 contestants will now battle for the upper rankings!"
Bruce grumpily woke up when he heard the announcement. As luck would have it, he was in the first match again.
His opponent this time was a dragon. The Peak Stage Divine King dragon looked at him in contempt and arrogantly taunted him.
"Puny monkey, forfeit if you know what's good for you" The dragon laughed.
'Is this deva Vu?' Bruce ignored the dragon and stabilized his breathing.
"Battle Start!"
The dragon's height was comparable to a building. Compared to Ao Shen, the dragon in front of him was much more threatening.
"Burn monkey!" The dragon began the battle by blasting a gigantic fireball at Bruce.
Bruce blocked the attack with a wall of water and earth, but the fire managed to penetrate his barriers. Seeing that he would lose the attrition battle against the dragon, Bruce went on the offensive.
"Primordial Fist"
…
"Dragon Ascend"
Bruce's gauntlet began to glow brightly, and an image of a dragon appeared behind his back. The dragon was greatly surprised by the dragon's image and took Bruce seriously as he sensed great danger coming from Bruce.
"It's too late, stupid lizard" Bruce muttered as he immediately jumped in front of the dragon using Tiger Descend to increase his speed.
"Don't blame me for this because this is a battle to the death"
Bruce smashed his fist into the eyes of the dragon.
"AHHHHHHHH" The dragon screamed in pain as his eyes were blinded.
The dragon began to stomp around the arena crazily and spit out fires across the arena.
Bruce took the opportunity and jumped in front of the Dragon's chest to land the final blow.
"Stars Annihilation"
A huge hole appeared in the dragon's chest, but the battle wasn't over. Due to his sheer rage and overwhelming power, the dragon managed to grab Bruce and attempted to squeeze Bruce into mincemeat.
'Fuck, how does this bastard have this much power left' Bruce stared at the hole in the dragon's chest while desperately trying to get out of the dragon's palm.
With all his powers, Bruce released all his elemental energy from his body creating a mini bomb with himself in the center.
"ARGHHHH" The dragon screamed in pain when his hands were destroyed by Bruce's final attack.
The dragon fell to the arena with his huge body crushing Bruce. With whatever strengths he had left, Bruce managed to get out of the dragon's body and remained alive.
"Congratulations, you are now ranked 5th" The examiner concluded the battle and signaled people to help Bruce to the resting area.
Bruce fainted as he was dragged to the resting area.
After what seemed to be an eternity, Bruce woke up.
"How long was I out?" He muttered.
"You were out for about 12 hours" The person who oversaw taking care of him replied.
Bruce looked up at the voice to find a young woman staring at him.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"I'm your caretaker until the assessment is over" She replied with no emotions in her voice.
"I see"
"May I get some water and food?"
"Walk over to the audience area and you can get anything you want over there" The young woman showed Bruce the way to the audience lounge.
"Thanks" Bruce slowly got up from the couch and made his way to the audience area.
When he entered the area, the people there briefly glanced at him before continuing their conversations. Bruce ignored all the glances at him and made his way to the food.
When he bit into the sandwich, he found it to be extremely refreshing and his stamina was slightly restored. Even the water that he drank had healing effects on his body. Bruce crazily chomped down on the food and drink like a beggar. He didn't care that people looked at him weirdly.
As Bruce enjoyed his meal, he looked down to the arena and saw that the matches were still ongoing. Judging from the matches' results, all the other matches came down to a battle of attrition. All the candidates after him were somehow eliminated surprisingly. Which means that all of them were unconscious before the match ended.
Bruce sighed as he looked at the candidates. All these people would be treated as once in million years rare talent and yet they were in here battling against one another for a chance of survival.
The last battle finally began and both contestants came out onto the arena.
A muscular man stood on the battlefield against a being that Bruce would never expect to find in the Nether Realm, an angel!
The angel has an extremely beautiful face as one would expect from the race. However, her face is much more beautiful than the angels he had met before.
She wore a tight black dress that showed off her beautiful curves. In her hand was a sword that was dyed red from the blood of her enemies. The most surprising part about her is that her wings are completely jet-black.
Everyone in the audience immediately became interested when the angel showed up on the battlefield.
"Battle Start!" The examiner announced.
"Surrender or die" Those were the only words that came out of the angel.
The muscular man, contrary to his physical appearance, was a runemaster. He summoned countless runes around the battlefield.
"Don't be too overconfident, little girl" The man smirked.
'This person must be at the master level of rune magic' Bruce concluded after seeing the runes that the man created. It was his first time seeing runes of this complexity besides the ones that the Monarch created.
The runes began to activate and created shockwaves across the arena. When the shockwaves went near the angel, she casually swung her sword in a crescent path and all the shockwaves were negated.
Her black wings opened, and a dark storm swept across the arena causing the runes to crumble to pieces.
"Impossible…" The man said in despair when he saw his runes destroyed instantaneously.
The angel didn't say anything and swung her blade in his direction.
'That must be sword intent' Bruce was surprised to see such a powerful sword user in his generation.
The man was immediately sliced off in half along with the walls behind the arena. Most of the battles thus far have lasted for at least a couple of hours. Yet, the angel was able to defeat the man in minutes.
For the first time in his life, Bruce felt admiration toward someone of his generation. He closely looked at her beautiful figure as she walked off the stage. Every movement from her body was elegant and proud.
'Shit, did I just fall in love?' Bruce fell into deep contemplation.