Everyone is surprised when the head elder suddenly said 'begin'.
Some look around in confusion, but the few that are sharp quickly makes their moves.
Some attack the people near them. Some join forces to battle others. Some move away from the crowd to analyze the situation from a distance.
The slow ones quickly get thrown out of the dome.
Cloud moved right away at the moment the competition started.
Since he is in the right most column, he moves to the right instantly.
He is one of those who wants to analyze the situation first.
When he look back to the crowd, the situation is in chaos. Everyone is battling everywhere.
Two people are charging toward him.
To Cloud's surprise, the two are Xiao Fan and Fang Yue.
It appears that they have joined forces to attack him first.
Cloud isn't too shocked. He is only slightly surprised. It means that the two are putting him in high regard.
There are some times before the two clash with him. Cloud took those few seconds to see past the two, toward the crowd.
In those few seconds he was able to gain some sense of their strength.
But then he put away the thought and focus on the imminent clash first.
The two has already arrives before him. They start attacking right away.
"Forgive me brother. Since there are rewards for winning, I'll have to do my best. No hard feelings." Xiao Fan said with a smile while he start attacking from the front.
"There is no need for forgiveness. But since you target me, a little beating is due." Cloud replied with a slightly wicked smile.
Xiao Fan shivers when he heard that and saw the smile. He has a bad feeling and he start to have some doubt about his plan.
Yes, Xiao Fan was the one planning on targeting Cloud first. He asked Fang Yue and she agreed.
After journeying for some time, the two understands the dread of Cloud's strength.
They are impressed by his strength. And even after the training on the journey that significantly improved their combat power, they still think that they are below Cloud.
That's why they planned to get rid of him first.
If they chose to fight together with him first and battle him later, they are afraid that they won't have the strength to win then.
Cloud and Xiao Fan clash fist to fist. While that happens, Fang Yue circle behind Cloud to look for an opportunity to attack.
When the fists collide, the strength seems to be equal. Nobody is pushed back by the force.
But Xiao Fan wince when the fists collide. Although the force was similar, his fist hurt when it collided with Cloud's.
On the other hand Cloud seems rather calm.
Seeing this, Xiao Fan quickly follow up with another punch. His other hand punch forward and it clash again with Cloud's fist.
It hurts again when they clash but Xiao Fan can only gritted his teeth and continue punch after punch.
Fang Yue is also not idle. She start attacking Cloud's back with palms and kicks.
Cloud is dodging the attacks from Fang Yue while countering some with a kick. This all happened while he also engaged in a battle with Xiao Fan.
The two were shocked that Cloud can take their attacks in such a calm manner. He keeps his smile, seemingly enjoying the battle.
Seeing that, provoke the two and they attack more fiercely.
Let's see if you can keep grinning like that for long. Is what the two said in their hearts.
On the other side, the battle is raging even more fiercely. It has reached the peak and only several people are left.
Two groups of three are clearing some singled out disciples. After a few minutes, they've cleared everyone and there's just their groups left.
The two groups clashed. After some time, what seems to be the leader of one of the group is being pushed back.
He gritted his teeth and try to fight on but even with all his strength, he is still being overwhelmed by his opponent.
Soon he can't take the barrage anymore and a few hits start to push him back toward the boundary of the dome.
He keep trying his best until the end but he still ended up being pushed out.
The two girls from his group also followed him soon after.
Before, they can fight equally with their opponent. But after the opponent's leader pushed out their leader, it tilted the balance and they can't hold three opponent with just the two of them.
"I'm sorry." The leader said to the two girls beside him.
The girls only shakes their heads and they don't blame him. The opponent are indeed quite strong.
Now, there's just two groups of three left.
Three men that pushed out the last group and Cloud's group of three.
The three men are on the other end of the dome. While Cloud's group are still fighting on the opposite end.
When they turned, the three men looked on with interest.
"Weren't they seemed to be together?" Asked what seems to be the leader of the group.
"Yes, it seems the other two are attacking their number one." One of the two who seems to have a good memory reply.
"What should we do brother Yan?" Asked the other from the two.
The leader 'Brother Yan' think for a moment then speak, "It doesn't matter whether they have more number or less, let's just end this quickly." He said with confidence.
It seems that he's not interested in taking advantage of the situation to wait for less enemies.
The three then quickly move toward Cloud and the others.
When they got close, Cloud and the two stop fighting. The two are a bit disappointed that they didn't manage to push Cloud further, but they don't think too deeply about it.
What matters right now is dealing with the three new guests first.
"How about we continue after we deal with them?" Asked Xiao Fan to the two.
Fang Yue nodded and agree. While Cloud just shrugged.
"Hmph... Let's end this quickly." The leader of the three men just scoffed and said.
What Xiao Fan said seems to offend him.
Then the six of them clash. The leader of the men is targeting Cloud.
It seems that he's more interested in Cloud who appears to be the strongest of the three rather than Xiao Fan who offended him with his words.