Prelude To Battle

After the 5th round Qiang Mei Hua left no longer interested in watching the fights. Her father and Hu Wenxi stayed behind. Due to the excessive punishments the stadium received the past few rounds it was decided that the tournament will be postponed until 3 days after. This would give the 4 finalist's some rest as well as allow the crew to repair the stadium.

As Hu Wenxi observed the two individuals of interest he finally remembered why he got a feeling of deja vu. This is too similar to what happened in ATG, even his name's similar. Of course many differences existed but Yun Xiao Che did heavily resemble a certain infamous back on earth.

However Hu Wenxi also knew a lot of differences existed, in fact several of the key players in ATG did not exist here. He looked up and saw the White Dragon Emperor leaving with several other Demon Ascendents and wondered, 'did that female dragon exist and I didn't know about it?' However Hu Wenxi knew he couldn't accuse Long Chi Bai on nothing especially on something as trivial as this. He just hoped Yun Xiao Che won't get anyone important pregnant.

The same situation as Long Chi Bai happened with Sam. While his character was terrible he hadn't done anything too outrageous hence he couldn't take action without sullying his image. He knew for a fact a certain Celestial Star kingdom would love to overthrow him. Even more so now that the Blades are on the case.

The star king had always been ambitious and hoped to be the overlord of the upper realm. However despite his Human Immortal cultivation he was nothing in front of Hu Wenxi. "It seems these days, they just get bolder and bolder" Hu Wenxi signed, several kingdoms, sects, and organisations had already been removed in the past 200 years. In retrospect it wasn't that long ago the north hill kingdom had thought of rebellion.

Hu Wenxi knew the source of them of course. Ever since the final battle 200 years ago he had been at odds with a distant stellar power. That empire spent millennia's to get bypass their enemy's blockade in order to conquer Thousand Flames upper realm. Several sects and kingdoms were backed by them.

Hu Wenxi's appearance threw their plants out of whack. His conquest was swift and he removed the bugs one after another, even the True Immortal elder then sent was repelled. At that time Hu Wenxi just became a Human Immortal and barely had a grasp on his throne's power. It was only with the newly established Zodiac formation was he able to send the True Immortal running.

The current him was much different then before. While he was still a True Immortal he was fully confident in defeating that True Immortal on his own. Of course he knew that True Immortal specialised in stealth and escape and did not posses much attacking nor defensive power. However he still needed the throne to kill him for real.

A True Immortal held full control over one of the five Heavenly Qi. This made their bodies invincible to anything other then another True Immortal. It was also the method to become Immortal as a Human Immortal needed to fully comprehend and merge with a Heavenly Qi to attract the Heavenly Tribulation. Passing that would allow you to step into true Immortality.

Thinking of this Hu Wenxi could feel the water Qi bubbling inside him. Soon he would need to face the tribulation too. The annoying thing was that Heavenly Tribulation is scaled to how strong you are. Nothing can fool them as they are apart of the Heavenly Tao. At his power level Hu Wenxi knew his tribulation would be a nightmare to overcome.

Years ago he had sent his double out on adventuring missions in order to search for treasures. Thankfully most of what he'd found were useful. Hu Wenxi was referring to his second true body.

A rarely known fact was that when a Core Formation expert reach Nascent Soul stage he/she could birth more then one nascent souls. This process required a very stable foundation and as such you must prepare for it during Foundation Establishment realm. Hu Wenxi did not know this at the time. He'd always followed the advice from novels of his time on earth and constantly held himself back from breaking through to Core Formation realm.

This led to his father and elders to look at him in disappointment as they though his earlier talent was a fluke. It also allowed the more popular Hu Wang Tian to rise to enter the spot light once more. During his early days Hu Wenxi was heralded as a true genius for reaching Foundation Establishment at age 11. Everyone though the future chief position will go to him over Hu Wei's son even though Hu Wei was the chief at the time.

However when Hu Wenxi stayed at Foundation Establishment for the next 59 years, he was slowly forgotten about. He wasn't mocked, others were just disappointed at him. It wasn't until he turned 70, middle aged for a Foundation Establishment, that he broke into Golden Core and Nascent Soul consecutively. He actually birthed 4 Nascent Souls thanks to a combination of him continuously studying, cultivating, and adventuring. His power at the time was ridiculous.

Even Hu Wei at the time was no longer his match and he was at Xiantian realm. It didn't take Hu Wenxi long to break through again and by the time he turned 112 he had reached Xiantian. When he was breaking through from Spirit Transformation he discovered that by fusing his nascent soul into a severed body part and half of his true soul, he could create a second true body.

As such he fed one nascent soul to his original soul to get a power boost, this was the case with many experts in the same dilemma as him. He then fed his second nascent soul to his other nascent soul and merged it with his flesh and half of the his soul he cut off. The result was the formation of a second true body identical to him at the Nascent Soul realm.

Since then that body did most of the adventuring while Hu Wenxi conquered Thousand Flames upper realm. The second true body also allowed for new opportunities for him that he never would've gotten if he had not made it.

With the arena cleared up and repairs underway Hu Wenxi went on a walk to pass the time. He was thinking of how to deal with Celestial Star kingdom's defiance when he came across taoist Infinity Heaven and Sam together. Curious he went closer to see what was going on.

Sam had his while crew of anime cosplaying followers with him. A quick divination told him their pasts, surprisingly they were arrogant young master archetypes that Sam befriended as well as the rivals of an enemy Sam killed. This enemy heavily resembled a generic xiaxia protagonist cardboard cutout. Unreasonable, arrogant, had a cheat and liked to face slap.

Sam's past however was unknown to him, something seems to be blocking him. Taoist Infinity Heaven however greeted Hu Wenxi with politeness while Sam seemed to disregard him. In fact Sam seemed a little peeved.

"Don't turn you back on me you old fart, I'm not done with you" he pointed rudely at taoist Infinity Heaven while his entourage all nodded.

"Young man, his majesty is here" taoist Infinity heaven said with open hostility, something this kind old man almost never did.

"So what, I'm Sam god's chosen and I demand that…"

Hu Wenxi silenced Sam with a wave and asked taoist Infinity Heaven, "Whats going on fellow taoist".

Infinity Heaven quickly answered, "I questioned his participation as he previously held too low amount of points. Instead he accused me of rigging his failure to acquire points. When I tried to inform him that it was he that lost he got all defensive and pointed at me". At this point he seemed a little flustered and even ashamed.

"Go on" urged Wenxi.

"Yes your majesty, this young man then accused me of being a pedophile for confronting him. As such I lost control and slapped him across the yard. Then he attacked me with surprising force. I was impressed so I tried to make amends and recruit him to my sect. Instead he doubled down on his claims and began insulting me. That's when you arrived"

"So much for Human Immortal, you couldn't even defeat me." Sam called out. His 'friends' all nodded their heads "Yeah, Yeah, Sam's the best" "No way you can beat onii-sama" "Yeah Sam-K-K-Kun is the B-B-Best".

'What in the actual fuck' Hu Wenxi was shocked at the behaviour of Sam's group of followers most of whom are female. He saw their previous status as sanitises and heroic talents. Now they seem to be dancing to Sam's tune exclusively like the characters in a react fic. 'Oh god why am I remembering those now'.

"I can't stand bullies" Sam crossed his arms in confidence. "As a former victim myself I always act with justice. All you people know is using your powers to get your way."

"Yeah, yeah, Sam-Kun". "Sam-Kun the best"

Sam smiled, "And with the help of my friends. I'll never lose, because they give me strength to defeat you. They are my precious people, and I will protect them". All of the women besides Sam blushed and looked away.

"What are you on about, don't hind behind others" Taoist Infinity Heaven was pissed, quite unlike his normal demeanour. Hu Wenxi frowned, Sam was too much. He had attacked and insulted a prestigious figure like taoist Infinity Heaven.

"You're no longer allowed to participate" with this decision made Hu Wenxi was about to calm Infinity Heaven down when he heard Sam yell. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS" Sam was charging at him with his knife sword.

However he neglected one thing. His target was the emperor and you don't fuck with the emperor. In less then 0.1 second Hu Wenxi had made his move.

BOOM!

Sam's injured body smashed against the walls of the stadium causing it to collapse on top of him. This drew the attention of everyone nearby. As more and more people arrived taoist Infinity Heaven informed them of what's gong on.

Before Hu Wenxi, several of the girls collapsed in tears anime style and began crying for Sam. Some of them rushed to Sam's aid helping him up from the rubble. "No Mimi-Chan, I'm fine: he said, evidently he was tougher then he looked.

"You BEAST" screamed one of the girls who charged at Hu Wenxi. However before she reached him she exploded into red mist. One of the old men from Azure Sky continent looked heart broken but did cry. He simply hung his head solemnly.

"NO" Sam released blood curtailing scream and charged at Hu Wenxi, this time several Martial Saints acted and in a flash Sam was stabbed, cut, punched multiple times. "Honourless scum, attack his majesty your emperor like this" one of the saints bit back. However Sam despite his injuries slowly staggered to his feat".

"Because... Because of you, because of you, because of you. Mimi-Chan's dead" Sam cried while all of a sudden his hair turned yellow. 'Oh you have got to be kidding' Hu Wenxi never though he would have this too, 'just how many anime does his power come from'.

"RAAAGGGGHHH" Sam roared and his hair went fully gold while his power skyrocketed shocking the saints. "What is?" Before that saint even finished he was punched in the face. This caused him to be blown back by hundreds of kilometres.

"I won't forgive you" Sam snarled with tears in his eye.