Chapter 3930 — The Outcome Is Settled?

Without lifting a finger, he had merely drawn a lot and sailed smoothly into the next round, and on top of that had pocketed a free ten points. For a moment, every newcomer's gaze toward Wei Zhao was filled with envy.

"What goddamned dog-shit luck. To think he'd run into something like this—it's enough to make you see ghosts!" Meng Zhou stood rigid, unable to stop himself from cursing under his breath.

In his eyes, that stupid pig of Wei Zhao's might have a terrifyingly high level, but its true strength was no match for any combat-type spirit pet present. After all, once spirit beasts were bound into spirit pets, suppression by rank and aura between them no longer had any effect. A Heaven Thunder Pig, a spirit beast that couldn't fight, might be as high-level as could be—but once it stepped onto the arena, it was still trash.

Who would have thought that in the first round Wei Zhao would draw such a perfect cherry of a match, and riding the coattails of that weakling Zha Wu, advance directly. The very thought of it left a knot of frustration in one's chest.

But then Meng Zhou reconsidered. So much the better, he told himself—best if the next round's draw pits him against this lord. Then he'd have the Blackback Staff Ape tear that stupid *pig to pieces on the spot, and make that grandstanding boss spew blood for once!

Of the sixteen newcomers of Azure Cloud Pavilion, four—Zha Wu among them—had failed to subdue a spirit pet. So by the law of probability, in the eight first-round matchups there was a theoretical possibility that two people without spirit pets would be pitted against each other, and how to arrange things then would have been rather awkward.

Yet whether by the referee's deliberate arrangement or by the will of heaven, no such awkward matchup of two of those four came to pass in the first round's eight matches. Four of the eight, Wei Zhao's among them, were direct byes.

Wei Zhao, Xiao Che, Li Zhengming, and another newcomer of middling strength were all beneficiaries of the first round. That is to say, although there were eight matchups in the first round, only four were actually fought out in blood and sweat.

And of those four, apart from Meng Zhou's Blackback Staff Ape's easy crushing of its opponent to advance, another matchup proved a regular clash of titans, full of interest—the focal battle of the first round.

The two sides were Murong Zhen's Butterfly Queen and Qiao Hongcai's Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle.

The Butterfly Queen's strength was beyond doubt. A mid-Heaven-rank level placed it easily among the top three spirit pets present—and besides, the numbness and stiffness afflicting everyone including Meng Jueming was all thanks to it.

On the other side, Qiao Hongcai's Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle was likewise no easy foe, and could be counted the spirit pet with the greatest potential in the whole assembly. Though still only a fledgling, its strength had already reached the early Heaven rank, and it belonged to a race born to fight. Its ferocity in battle was by no means to be taken lightly.

Such a clash of two mighty spirit pets would have been worthy of the grand finale, yet here they were meeting already in the first round—truly beyond anyone's expectation.

Had they not been frozen stiff by paralysis, the Azure Cloud Pavilion newcomers would long since have been crying out in astonishment, rubbing their hands in eager anticipation of this rare spectacle. Unfortunately, it now took them the strength of nine oxen and two tigers merely to turn their heads; to watch, they could only strain their eyes sideways, all wearing the bitter expressions of wronged wives.

Even as they spoke, the Butterfly Queen and the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle had both soared into the air, each on guard against the other, circling up into the sky.

Normally, under standard spirit-pet duel rules, as in the newcomer challenge matches, there were arena bounds: fall outside the arena and you were eliminated. But these two were both flying spirit pets, and for them there was no such thing as falling out of the arena, so the referee adjusted the rule on the spot: whichever of the two fell to the ground would be counted as eliminated.

"Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle, let's seize the initiative—use Claw Strike!" Qiao Hongcai commanded the eagle.

In spirit-pet battles, the master could not intervene directly, but could assist the fight with verbal commands.

After all, once a spirit beast was subdued into a spirit pet, because the spirit-pet talisman over-brainwashed it, much of its wildness and intelligence was bound to weaken. Left to act freely, it would often turn dull and clumsy, and only the master's commands could make up for this and help it bring out its full fighting strength.

At Qiao Hongcai's order, the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle launched its attack at once, its form flashing like lightning as it pounced straight above the Butterfly Queen's head and slashed down ruthlessly with two sharp talons.

The talons of a full-grown Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle were hard and sharp enough to rival divine weapons. Qiao Hongcai's fledgling, even if somewhat inferior, had the innate gift of a warrior race behind it, so it would not be far behind.

"How vicious! To bare such cruelty against my Butterfly Queen—such a beautiful, dreamlike creature—what a crude, unromantic wretch!" Murong Zhen shot Qiao Hongcai a feigned glare of reproach, then laughed softly: "But it doesn't matter. Butterfly Queen, let's play with it a while."

To the onlookers, the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle's talon strike was already blindingly fast. Were any of them in the Butterfly Queen's place, they would have had no choice but to take it head-on. The Butterfly Queen, however, responded with ease and composure.

Butterflies were never rigid, domineering creatures, and the Butterfly Queen was no exception. Even at mid-Heaven rank, in a straight contest of force it would never be a match for the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle.

But then again, it had no need for a straight contest. With nothing more than a graceful flutter of its wings, it lightly evaded the talons.

And as it beat its wings, flecks of crystalline blue light drifted down from them. Below, the crowd straining their heads upward all felt their eyelids twitch in unison—wasn't this the very culprit that had reduced them to their present sorry state?

Qiao Hongcai, however, showed not the slightest panic. He commanded in a low voice: "Use your wings and blow it back!"

The Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle beat its wings furiously at once, and a gust of wind scattered the crystalline blue light. So long as it did not touch them directly, the Butterfly Queen's paralyzing powder could have no effect!

"Hmph, you think that will free you? What wishful thinking! Butterfly Queen, give this filthy bird a proper bath with your blue vortex!" Murong Zhen sneered with contempt.

As her words fell, the paralyzing powder that the eagle had just blown apart eerily gathered itself back together. At the same time, the Butterfly Queen began spinning at high speed around the Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagle, shedding ever more paralyzing powder from its wings, until in moments it had condensed into a small tornado.

And unlike a normal tornado, the one before everyone's eyes was riddled through with flecks of blue light. At first glance the sight was lovely and dreamlike as a painting—but the moment one recalled that all that blue light was potent paralyzing powder, a chill ran down every spine. R1152