THE MARTIAL KING - Season 7 Episode 86

According to the rules that the middle-aged man narrated, the pre-qualifying test consisted of two stages.

At the first stage, the contestants would need to defend their pagodas. Their performances would determine how many points they got. The pre-qualifying test was all about the points. Only the top three contestants, who got the most points of the lot, would qualify to enter the main draw match.

Zen’s points were on display on one side of his pagoda. It said zero at the moment. A crystal ball, recording the times the pagoda had been attacked, was set up on top of it.

A resounding toll came from the sky as Zen observed the situation.

As the sound trailed off, a thick line of black dots appeared at the end of the grassland.

“There they come!”

Zen’s eyes glittered. His gaze focused on the black dots. Spiders with three eyes on their heads marched at him. Dim light shone from their eyes. Individually, these three-eyed spiders were not dangerous, but when they showed up together in numbers, they could be perilous.

As per the rules, they were to attack Zen and his pagoda. The pagoda would get destroyed if attacked more than twenty times, which in turn would mean that Zen got knocked out of the contest.

Zen had to kill as many spiders as possible and keep them away from the pagoda if he wanted to be in the running at all.

When they closed in on him and came within a certain range, the bowman on his pagoda drew an arrow and launched it.

The shaft went hissing through a three-eyed spider and sent it collapsing on the ground.

The pagoda in itself had counterattacking capacity. Each time a shaft flew from its top, a three-eyed spider was killed. The bowman was as quick as a snake. The arrow seemed to kill its prey wherever he sent it.

However, despite the bowman’s accuracy, he could only kill one spider at a time. Too many three-eyed spiders swarmed towards the pagoda. It looked like a sea of spiders was about to flood the arena. The bowman wouldn’t be able to defend the pagoda all alone by himself. Zen had to contribute in the fight.

“Kill!”

Zen charged at the spiders at the right time.

The creatures were not tough to deal with, but because there were at least a thousand of them, Zen and the bowman needed to kill them as swiftly as they could. Otherwise, Zen would fail at this stage, even in the case that tens of the three-eyed spiders managed to pass and attack the pagoda.

With a single swing of his sword, more than a dozen spiders were hacked to pieces, turning into spots of light of different hues and colors, then vanishing into nothingness.

Zen swerved his sword and leaped here and there. Wherever his sword went, the spiders got chopped up and disappeared. Together with the archer, whose help was undeniable, soon Zen took out most of the three-eyed spiders.
The first round of attack wasn’t so difficult, so he decided not to use his more destructive moves. He was not the quickest in this match, but that was fine.

The number of the remaining three-eyed spiders was dwindling fast. Zen angled his body and charged again, slashing at any spider coming into his view. Since the pagoda could take twenty attacks at most, a smallest mistake on his part could be disastrous.

Just as Zen had assumed, compared to the other contestants in this magic array, he was rather slow at his task.

Standing at the top of his pagoda, Owen looked at the sea of three-eyed spiders and drew his machete from over his shoulder. Cyan gales spiraled around him. He waved his arm at the spiders and shouted, “Blade Storm!”

Centering around him, the gales spread out in all directions and turned into half-moon shaped blades, cutting the spiders to pieces on their way.

The pale-faced man, who had provoked Zen just a moment ago, was now swaying like a phantom. It was not until the three-eyed spiders were about thirty meters away from the pagoda that he roared with a gloomy smile, “Ultimate Phantom Hand!”

Countless phantom hands emerged from his body as he shook it. Each of them dashed toward a three-eyed spider, clutched it, and smashed it to smithereens until it turned to a speck of light and vanished.

In the palace outside of the magic array, three elders looked on. With them was the middle-aged man who had explained the rules to the contestants.

One of the elders was Michael, the head of a branch of World Commercial Alliance. He had met Zen once before.

This Martial Arts Contest was the grandest event of World Commercial Alliance. Michael himself had been sent over from Cloudy City to supervise the event.

“The four hundred contestants being examined today seem stronger than those from yesterday. The first contestant to finish the task used up only nine seconds or so. Even the slowest one used a mere five minutes,” the middle-aged man said. The large Picture Slab before him caught his eyes.
Almost as huge as a wall of the palace, it not only displayed what was happening inside the magic array, but also recorded how many times each pagoda had been attacked. In the first round, all the contestants had defended their pagodas well. None of the pagodas was attacked by the spiders, so the original number, “20”, beside each contestant’s name remained unchanged on the Picture Slab.

Michael nodded. “Indeed. It seems the competition is quite fierce today.” His eyes shifted to the contestants who were the slowest to kill the three-eyed spiders.

When he saw Zen’s name on the Picture Slab, his eyebrows raised in two arcs.

“Show me the images of this person,” he said to the middle-aged man.

The latter wondered why Michael was interested in the teenager named Zen. Operating on the Picture Slab, he remarked, “This boy is strange. His strength is only at the third grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm, but to everyone’s surprise, he managed to pass the entrance examination. However, he doesn’t stand out among the contestants. He was the last to finish the first task.”

“It’s him!”

As Michael saw Zen’s face on the Picture Slab, his face broke into a delighted smile.

“‘Him?’ Who is he?” asked the middle-aged man.

Only the heads of the major sects and the senior leaders of World Commercial Alliance were aware that Zen had come back from the Dragon Soar Arena. The middle-aged man knew nothing of it.

“This young lad is the runic expert who performed the Perfect Brushwork. He’s a member of Cloud Hall,” Michael replied with a smile.

“The runic expert who can do Perfect Brushwork! And a member of Cloud Hall! This boy? Have you taken the boy for somebody else?” the middle-aged man asked and then his mouth twisted into a pout. Working for World Commercial Alliance, he knew how important a runic expert was. Moreover, he could do the Perfect Brushwork. ‘If he really is who Michael says he is, why did he sign up for the Martial Arts Contest? Besides, as the peak of all fourth-tier sects, Cloud Hall holds a few places for the main draw match, so its disciples don’t have to compete against the third-tier sects and independent warriors to pass the pre-qualifying test and enter the main draw match. In addition, runic experts ordinarily don’t even know how to fight, so why is he here?’ Doubts flew to the middle-aged man’s mind one after another.

“I know him. It is him,” Michael confirmed. “Alas, I don’t know why he took part in the Martial Arts Contest either.”

“No wonder he was so slow in the first round. It took him five minutes to exterminate the spiders. I’m afraid he won’t make it to the fifth round after all.”
“The fifth?” Michael shook his head and smiled. “He is supposed to make it to the tenth round.”

Another elder grinned at this. “Elder Mo, I think you think too highly of this young man. The seventh round is the beast attack. I assume the boy will only make it to the sixth or seventh round at most. He’s likely to fail in the sixth round.”

The elders knew the magic array like the back of their hands. It wasn’t easy to defend the pagoda. As the levels progressed, the beasts too successively got stronger. The first rounds were relatively easy, but after the fifth round, every task got at least twice as difficult as the last one.

Although the elders disagreed with each other about which stage Zen was likely to fail at, they all agreed that he wouldn’t pass the examination.

After all, it was common knowledge that runic experts weren’t strong. And Zen was only at the third grade of the Illuminating Soul Realm.

About a dozen martial arts practitioners, who were at the ultimate level of the Illuminating Soul Realm, had passed the entrance exam already. This time, all the contestants who had passed the pre-qualifying test and who also ranked among the top three were at high grades of the Internal Elixir Realm.

So much weaker than them, how could Zen pass?