First round 2

The noise Xiao Fan and Du Lan were making weren't, of course, going unnoticed by the other contestants, but right now, most of them had much more important things to do.

The weak ones were either hiding or trying to group with other cultivators nearby while the people who started close to a Body Activation realm cultivator were hoping that their luck was good, meaning that the beast next to him had run the other direction.

There was one sole contestant who took note of this noise, and this contestant hadn't had such a good meeting with monkeys, and so didn't bully the weak but sprung towards the noise.

Meanwhile, Xiao Fan and Du Lan after screaming, met somewhere around the middle of the play area on top of a roof.

They were almost on the different edges when starting but it didn't take them more than ten minutes of running towards the middle as no one was trying to give them trouble at this point and in the first place no one else was trying to rush towards the middle.

Only a few mortals had momentarily peeked at them from the shadows during their trip.

¨Fan'er!¨ Du Lan called when seeing her man.

Xiao Fan had been already looking towards the direction he knew she would come, greeted her happily back.

¨What should we do now?¨ Xiao Fan then asked her who was the one devising plans for their team.

¨Do you think we will be doing something else than gathering more marbles?¨ She looked back at him.

To her, the action was obvious.

¨You lead the way then¨ He nodded.

Truly there was not a whole lot to do at this point of the first round. This would go on for some time, and there was nothing else productive to do than bully the weak.

Just as they left, the figure of a woman came to the place they had been a few moments ago.

Du Huan, for a moment, sniffed the air and looked at the smallest dust formation that their boots had left before noting that it might not have been her.

The smell was different from her sister and the boots weren't either like Du Lan's.

Meantime, Xiao Fan, who was now listening to Du Lan's orders, was gazing with her at their first pray.

The unlucky cultivator in the first grade of Body Warming realm had escaped the first bullying of stronger people yet now his luck run out as he was scared lifeless by the two figures apprehending him into the ground.

Xiao Fan had simply come behind the man and then pushed his face into the ground while Du Lan picked the victims points before then swiftly disappearing from the scene.

The now poor man could only thank his luck that his head wasn't mushed by that sudden attack; however, getting robbed wasn't good either and so went to look for others like him.

For a while, the Body Activation realm experts were plundering tens of marbles while the huge majority of Body Warming realm people were getting angry as they were treated like prey.

What more was that there was no reason to challenge the other Body Warming realm cultivators.

However, they didn't have zero options, for they could form into mobs and hunt the hunters using numbers.

They reasoned that alone they weren't much, but if they mobbed a Body Activation realm expert together, everyone in their group might get marbles.

Fulfilling this the scene was shifting from the initial scuffles around the edges where a few building might crumble into tens of people hunting their previous hunters.

Soon Xiao Fan also started to feel this.

¨Two in front!¨ ¨Their coming out of the dam walls!¨ ¨Watchout¨

They were constantly calling out people who were surrounding them, and even if they were both Body Activation realm strong, they realised that maybe a hundred Body Warming realm practitioners was too much to fight at once.

Luckily before being hunted, they had gathered over thirty marbles each, and if it stayed so, they would be advancing to the second round.

Furthermore, it wouldn't be too hard to run away from them; however, when running somewhere, you always risked gathering more starved Body Warming realm cultivators.

Elsewhere the same thing was happening to every Body Activation realm cultivator who hadn't thought about joining these mobs or hidden in time. These people included Yuan Hua, Shi Yong, Qian Wei, Du Huan, and the two of them.

The only thing all of these people could do at this chaotic part was to run out their pursuers stamina, and be looking for opportunities to smack one of the pursuers could when they could.

One example was when Xiao Fan spotted a person coming out of a building running into the street to stop their escape path.

This proved to be a fatal mistake for him since only seconds were needed that two Body Activation realm cultivators to knock him down.

It was even faster than that.

When they had spotted him, Xiao Fan spoke in monkey language to Du Lan, who got the idea perfectly while the person trying to stop them only stared at them weirded out.

In his mind, he was thinking that why weren't stopping but screaming in some language he had never heard off?

For it, he never got an answer.

As Xiao Fan was running straight towards him in a charge, now seeing that he would need to stop a boulder coming towards him, he prepared for it.

Except, Xiao Fan never attacked, he just jumped over him.

The striker was Du Lan, coming right behind him almost as a shadow, who then knocked the man cold in one swift moment.

Outgunned and outplayed.

Floating past him, Xiao Fan looked back towards the man slowly falling into the ground ¨One down maybe fifty more!¨ He laughed towards Du Lan, who was now running next to him again.

Ten or so minutes later of this, Du Lan finally got enough of running and informed her new plan to him.

¨Okay, at this rate, we will never get to gather more marbles. We should try to face them for a moment and knock a few out at a time!¨ Du Lan conceived a new plan as running away was becoming stupid.

In the end, they were Body Activation realm cultivators.

Their hunters were just Body Warming realm weaklings, so why were they so afraid of them anyway? She reasoned.

Xiao Fan listening to this shouted that he understood.

Then both of them stopped their running, and when turning around, they drew out their blades from their sheaths.

The mob of people seeing that their prey had stopped running smiled a bit but soon came to a realisation.

It was the simple realisation that they were charging towards two Body Activation realm experts holding Body Weapons that could slice them in half with a swing.

Perhaps in a war, they wouldn't have thought a second time, yet this was but a tournament to which giving up on your life was stupid.

Thinking, so their speed slowed down for a moment before being pushed forward by the people behind them, not giving them space nor time.

Both of them seeing that their enemies weren't stopping did as they had practised before.

They laid their sword's tip onto the ground on the right side of their body, waiting to swing their swords at the incoming horde.

Still, no stop came, so both of them slowly sped up their weapons towards the impending horde coming towards them on the narrow street.

One sword of violet colour blocked one side of the street, and on the other side, a sword that was beaming pale yellow rays of light was blocking its side.

Together these swords were performing a kill zone.

Steel hit flesh.

As those two materials clashed, one wouldn't need to think what came on top.

And even if their flesh and bones were strengthened, the body weapons made quick work of any flesh that wasn't a realm higher.

After the initial cleave, three people were already lying on the floor stumbling down dead under the boots of Xiao Fan and Du Lan who weren't about to end their counter with just that.

When the initial hit had gone by executing the people coming first, he used the sword's speed to turn in around by letting the sweep go long before turning it around for another sweep.

Again the slight yellow colour went into the person's head who was coming at him ending the man then and there.

This time they were all only outgunned, for there is no skill needed in cutting down grass.

However, their window to counter-attack was already closing fast and seeing this Du Lan made her second strike, and then called the retreat.

Which made Xiao Fan, who was working with his instincts stop developing the third swing of his sword drop it, and blindly trusted to her call to retreat out of this skirmish.

Working as a pair, he let Du Lan command the bigger movements of his body, trusting that in the melee she would remember to shout what she was planning.

Luckily after the mob had seen that their enemies would kill them if it came to it had halted for a moment to look at their dead allies who had a clean-cut between their head and body.

These youths were nothing like the prisoners in the Bald Eagle Prison; they couldn't simply continue forward.

It had only taken a few swings from both of them to kill five Body Warming realm cultivators before running away both of their blades now painted in red.

Xiao Fan running way was thinking about the first person he hit.

The man had had a horrid facial expression when he had realised that his sword wasn't stopping and his allies had pushed him into a path of no retreat.

He had seen that there was nothing else than to try and block it with his hands.

The only thing that had achieved, however, was his hands also being cleaved straight through like it had been paper in front of the body sword wielded by Xiao Fan.

Luckily for Xiao Fan, he had seen enough mutilated bodies that a killing a person with a clean-cut didn't take a toll on his mind much.

Du Lan next to him, on the other hand, hadn't batted an eye at the begging eyes pleading her before dying.

For her, they were in the wrong; she was in the right.

The crowd, looking from their stands were mostly shouting as if this was gladiatorial combat while the few people who knew the dead could only weep at how their families had lost their future leader.

The general situation, however, didn't change a lot, as after looking at the dead allies for a moment most of them continued their hunt.

Though some of the people hunting them seeing this had decided to sit out of this tournament and fled out of the area.

Not worth it was the collective thought of these people.

Still, a considerable group of them continued chasing Xiao Fan and Du Lan, yet every time the two of them held their ground a few people would fall next to their feet before they run away again.

They could make some space between them, giving them enough time to turn around before quickly speeding away.

Losing them off their trail wasn't still feasible, but after they had begun to act on this new plan, they didn't need to flee like cravens.

By the time the fourth or fifth cycle of this happened, the chaser realised that this was going nowhere and their numbers had decreased enough that soon their prey could turn back at them.

Therefore many of them left again.

Others went back into face one of their plans of gathering even more Body Warming realm cultivators for their mobs and would soon continue.

Their only way to continue to round two of the tournament was still this way.

Du Lan seeing their chaser quitting, breathed a sigh of relief before telling the good news to Xiao Fan beside him.