The Regressor and The Reincarnator

The tournament was about to start after 3 days and to 'protect' me from my 'ice-cold' cousin, the leading elder that interrogated me decided to let me stay with the other inner court and chief court disciples.

The violent guy was locked somewhere else in isolation for three days by the elder.

The second day after coming into the sect's inn, I had a visitor.

I was surprised. It was my manipulative cousin. As I thought, she had arrived with fanfare to boost her reputation.

I copied my cool ex-vegetable cousin and replied, "You don't qualify to meet me."

But this was a tough opponent. Instead of being enraged, she made an even more pitiable and wronged expression and sobbingly said, "Why brother? WHY? What did I do to deserve this?"

With just one move, she made the focus of the proceedings shift from the fight of the two ex-bullied guys in the tournament, cousins from a rival sect, to their 'arrogant bootlicking cousin' behind the scenes.

I knew I had to say something. I just decided to mimic her tone and said in a 'miserable' voice, "Didn't you say you won't talk to me because you love my boss? Why are you back again? To stab another blade in my heart?"

After seeing me bullish*tting like a champ, my cousin, who was expecting a cold or distant reply, was shocked. She didn't reply for an entire minute.

By now the crowd gathering around the inn had increased. Everyone wanted to know why a beautiful disciple was shouting to meet a guy from their rival sect who was replying from a second-storey window. People's imagination was dangerous.

My manipulative cousin slightly panicked as well. She had been trying to woo her senior brother and cousin, the ex-vegetable guy for a long time. He already considered her his property. So, when the news that his girl loved someone else reached him, who knows what he might do.

But she was supposed to be a 'saintly maiden' that doesn't scream, 'Bull*hit' or 'Shut the f*ck up'.

Therefore, she made an even more miserable expression, almost fake crying, and said, "...so you've resorted to using lies, huh. Perhaps the fault lies... in me."

Seeing her so miserable, a few guys from the crowd quickly began offering her consolation. I was about to puke. How were these guys even believing that stupid acting?

But since it was a competition of grief, I wasn't about to lose, "No it's my fault I never understood you."

The drama was over soon as she jerked her head and left while flicking a tear from her eyes.

When the news reached both the guys, their expressions were in complete contrast. The violent guy was quite happy that everyone considered the girl who was always kind and loving to him his woman but he was also annoyed by the fact that she straight up denied any of their involvement and just called it lies. He decided to prove himself in the tournament.

The ex-vegetable guy, on the other hand, met her directly and asked about it. She didn't reply and let her tears do the explaining. He was thoroughly enraged this time around, 'How dare these little kids lay their paws on my belonging!?'

When the tournament finally began, our love triangle or wait, love square was already a well-known pastime story to the new arrivals. Many people took quite an interest and were waiting to see how things would turn out during the tournament.

3 days later, the tournament finally began. There were lots of new and old rivalries between people from the different sects and everyone was waiting to duke it out.

I joined the spectator stands, separated from my sect. I was treated like a celebrity there. People already knew of my poor reputation and my involvement with the two rising stars of their respective sects.

I didn't know how were they supposed to conduct the combat tournament for 5 sects but it began with a one-versus-one battle. Two guys from two other sects were casting low-grade magic spells. I was quickly bored, they were just Grade-3.

After 10-15 or such battles, one of my cousins finally went on stage, it was my 'frosty stone-faced' cousin. She was fighting a guy from the physical cultivation sect.

Surprisingly, she was already a Grade-7 cultivator. The leading elder from my sect that interrogated me in a fierce tone was now convinced that I was under her thumb.

His face darkened again when he saw her quick reflexes. He wondered whether any of the disciples he had brought were that impressive.

After winning the fight, she ignored the cheering crowd and 'graciously' left the stage.

When the first day was over, the enmity of the two rivals had already reached its peak. They had some intense murderous stare showdowns, arousing the crowd's interest further.

The next day, fights continued as usual but towards the end of the day, a very interesting match-up happened, the ex-vegetable guy versus the violent guy.

It was finally about to happen. I was cheering up. I looked at other participants and saw my 'frigid cold' cousin sneaking peeks at the violent guy. I snickered quietly. This was rich.

There really was a lot of drama going on around these guys' lives, oh wait, I'm now involved as well. Anyway, their epic battle began with a face-off where they just stared at each other with murderous intent.

...

The archangel of death stood on the moon of the cultivation world at this point, looking at this seemingly inconsequential fight with a complicated expression as he muttered,

"One of them is a reincarnator from the earth with a violent personality and a miserable previous life experience and another is a regressor who has traveled to his past, back when he was still disabled with a treasure that caused temporal distortion. Both of them have used treasures or techniques that pierce through the fabric of time. The question here though is, does it warrant death?"

...

As the angels of death literally loomed over them, the two guys sensed each other's cultivation level and were quite shocked.

The ex-vegetable, the regressor, an individual that reverted to a former state in time with their memories intact, spoke first, "I didn't expect you to be hiding so deep, too bad we ended up meeting earlier, otherwise, you'd have reached the finals."

Both of their aura was at the peak of the Qi Refining realm, at Grade-9 but he wasn't worried about his opponent. In his previous life, this guy didn't even exist, therefore this time, he was an unknown variable in his plans to grow stronger quickly and stop the invasion of the demon realm which he had failed to do in his previous life and had lost his life full of regrets.

Hence he wanted to research this guy since he regained his senses but he had much more important things to do, the first being, becoming... stronger.

When his soul adjusted in his old vegetable body, the feeling of extreme weakness seemed new to him, who had reached a high cultivation realm in his previous life.

He wasn't worried about his opponent being the same grade as him. With his supernatural, combat sense, no one had been able to fight him at the same cultivation realm for a long time.

There was of course no need to take a 'noob' cultivator seriously. He decided to play with this variable in front of him and try to extort any secrets surrounding this guy.

The regressor was still fine since he was the legacy disciple of the sect leader of the sword sect, but the reincarnator's cultivation base raised a lot of questions, especially as per his identity as merely an inner sect disciple.

The elder leading them was stunned as well.

If he recalled correctly, this guy was just a Grade-3 Qi Refining cultivator a year or so ago during the inner sect selection tournament.

If he knew the guy was as talented as this, he would have apprehended the guy that was secretly acting under orders of the legacy disciple of the women-only sect and pretending to be this talented disciple's subordinate.

The crowd was astonished as well. How were these guys the supposed 'newbies'? From their cultivation base, killing intent, or their expressions, everything matched the soldiers that went through 100 battles.

The violent reincarnator noticed the expressions of the spectators and regained a bit of his recently lost pride but the words of his ex-vegetable cousin triggered his suppressed rage again. He was the number one assassin back at his home planet, the Earth, but he was betrayed by his comrades, which led to him being reborn in this cultivation world.

How was the number one assassin so incautious and reckless, you ask? Oh well, he has already reincarnated, who cares about his past anyway.

He had been itching to cultivate since he knew he had reincarnated in a cultivation world but he never had any cultivation techniques to absorb Qi. The breathing exercises from his previous life weren't working.

When he got into the sect, even when he knew had the trashiest constitution for cultivation, he still picked up the cultivation manual provided by the sect to try his best.

The manual reminded him of a book he had read in his previous life, just a day before being betrayed by his brothers, 'Supreme Temporal Assassin Art'. He never thought the first cultivation manual he read would trigger that memory.

He was overjoyed, quickly beginning his practice. For most of the year after that, he practiced according to the manual and had his talent upgraded! It was something wild and heaven-defying.

By the time of the tournament, he was already a Grade-3 in just over 3 months. Even though he had overestimated his cousin as much as he could, he still didn't expect this twist. He was still certain of his victory though. There was no way a guy as young as his opponent would even be able to predict his move before being assassinated.

He didn't reply, he was no good with words. Sensing the mockery in the voice of the other guy, he was therefore prepared to send him on a trip to the underworld.

"DIE!"