Tianyi stood there stunned. 

This was an open declaration of love! 

Tianyi wondered whether Nanfang Wubai had a hole in her brain for using this precious chance to openly declare her intentions rather than focusing on being qualified to enter the secret realm. Not to mention Tianyi still had the appearance of a child who had just entered their teenage years.

Unless Nanfang Wubai had a special interest in young boys? And who would openly express love in such a way in front of everyone?

Even though Nanfang Wubai’s confession was spoken in dulcet tones and had a hint of shyness, creating a very alluring contrast, Tianyi only felt wariness. His intuition was warning him to be extremely careful against this unknown cultivator.

“Buzhou Immortal Sect disciple, Xi Tianyi, please advise.” Tianyi cupped his fists towards Nanfang Wubai. His intentions to fight couldn’t be more evident.

Nanfang Wubai showed an expression that made her seem truly disappointed at Tianyi’s reply, and she half-heartedly cupped her fist. “Myriad Sun Sect disciple, Nanfang Wubai, please be gentle~.”

Tianyi shivered again when Nanfang Wubai said gentle. Everything in his body felt repulsed by her. Tianyi felt blood rise up his throat and instantly brought his handkerchief to his face. However, Nanfang Wubai didn’t seem intent on attacking and simply raised her hand from her sides and displayed her broad sleeves as if to say she was not up to anything.

Tianyi was alert and released his spiritual senses. Although he did not purposely cultivate and was still in the early Core Formation Realm, that did not mean Tianyi didn’t make any improvements. He cultivated the Three Pure True Self Visualisation Technique every day. And thanks to his painstaking efforts, his soul barely reached the threshold of the Nascent Soul realm, and his spiritual sense was naturally more powerful than the majority of the Core Formation Masters here.

He cannot claim to be the only one with a soul at the Nascent Soul realm while in the Core Formation realm, but in terms of soul strength, he was one of the strongest at the Core Formation Realm on Heaven Shroud Island.

Tianyi frowned. His spiritual senses didn’t capture any rippling of qi as if Nanfang Wubai truly was open with her intentions, but he sensed a strange absence of space the size of wood splinters.

Tianyi coughed even harder, but his body began to release a strange pressure that made his outline seem to dissolve and blur into the environment. It wasn’t a true spell or technique. He simply released his true qi of chaos from his pores, creating a small film of destruction protecting his body.

All the while, Tianyi stared at Nanfang Wubai, who still had a mesmerizing smile on her face and hands spread apart as if to say she had no ill intent.

Tianyi pricked his eyebrows as he felt something touch the film of destruction that layered his body. 

His eyes hardened as he realized what was attacking him. They were thin sewing needles attached to strings, each of them was undetectable. He could sense the distortion of space that hid the needles, but he couldn’t detect the strings at all.

'What a sinister method.' Ever since he had gone through the Blood Absorption Ritual, Tianyi had gained an intense hatred for needles. 

Tianyi raised his free hand upwards and then smashed down towards Nanfang Wubai. Although he was a fair distance away, Nanfang Wubai felt as if she was under tremendous pressure and she saw an illusionary palm seemingly formed from heaven itself, crushing down towards her.

Nanfang Wubai didn’t show any change in her demeanor, and strings unseeable by the naked eye erupted from all her body and pierced through the illusionary palm. The illusionary palm began to dissipate, and before it could reach her, it had already lost its form and dissipated.

All that it left was a breeze that made Nanfang Wubai’s hair flow in the wind. “Ah...sweetheart, if you wanted to touch me, you can directly do it. No need to use a proxy. I won’t mind if you want to directly touch me with your hand~.” 

Tianyi coughed even more. Ever since Nanfang Wubai had opened her mouth, his goosebumps had never disappeared. Especially now that Nanfang Wubai hugged herself and squirmed erotically. He even had half a mind to rip her tongue out, just to make the goosebumps disappear. Screw being a gentleman!

He didn’t close the distance but rather distanced himself from her and pointed his finger at her. Instantly blurry spears made of what seem to be grey clouds were formed and shot towards Nanfang Wubai. Since his Heavenly Suppressing Palm didn’t work, Tianyi abandoned using that move and instead agglomerated his chaotic true qi into weapon shapes using a simple spell.

His true qi of chaos was not easy to manipulate due to the ever-changing nature of it, aggravated by the constant imbalance of yin and yang in his body. However, after years of cultivation, forming them into shapes and launching them was still doable. It was a brutish method, but the destructive power of true qi of chaos was not to be underestimated.

Although Nanfang Wubai felt great danger from the grey cloud spears, she still continued to hug herself as invisible strings shot towards the grey cloud spears. However, her expression finally changed when her invisible needles were destroyed upon with the grey cloud spears. Even the strings were being destroyed as the destructive qi wormed its way towards Nanfang Wubai through the strings.

Nanfang Wubai instantly disconnected the strings and dodged the grey cloud spears. 

“Sweethearts attack is really impressive, but such an attack, how many can you use?” Nanfang Wubai asked.

Tianyi didn’t say anything as he continued to form hand seals and point his finger at Nanfang Wubai, volleys after volleys of grey cloud spears pierced towards Nanfang Wubai. 

With the increasing number of spears attacking her, Nanfang Wubai could no longer leisurely dodge and in both her hands appeared a golden needle with a red string attached to it. She shot the needle out, and a barrier made of red thread covered in a golden glow appeared and shielded, blocking Tianyi’s line of sight. 

Tianyi stayed expressionless as he increased his attack, and in mere moments the barrier was destroyed, but Nanfang Wubai seemed to have disappeared. Tianyi didn’t panic as he pointed his finger in a seemingly random direction and directed his grey cloud spears there. 

“Ah, your eyes are so sharp. I feel naked before you~!” Nanfang Wubai appeared in the air and was surrounded by red threads to the point that Tianyi could not make out her appearance with all the red threads. 

Tianyi’s eyes twitched, and he increased the number of grey cloud spears. Although Nanfang Wubai continued to dodge, soon her thread defenses were destroyed, and a grey cloud spear pierced through her abdomen.

In that instant, a second Nanfang Wubai appeared behind Tianyi and reached out towards his head!

Nanfang Wubai’s eyes shone with glee as her hand inched closer and closer to Tianyi’s head, with him seemingly none the wiser. Her face turned ashen as a short grey cloud short spear appeared behind Tianyi and shot towards Nanfang Wubai’s head. 

She tilted her head to dodge, but the spear still left a gash on her cheek. Not staying any longer, Nanfang Wubai flipped away from Tianyi. At the same time, Tianyi felt a tiny prick on his head as he looked back to see a strand of his hair being pulled away by a red thread.

Nanfang Wubai reeled in the strand of hair and stroked it lovingly. “Sweetheart is really amazing. I thought that sweetheart needed to point the direction where the spears went, but sweetheart was actually lying. What a bad man! But...I like that~~.”

Tianyi’s eyes began to grow increasingly cold. His hand reached towards the sword sheathed on his waist, but Nanfang Wubai next action shocked him.

“I forfeit. Getting a lock of sweetheart’s hair is enough for me. I’ll be sure to treasure it and hug it whenever I sleep.” Nanfang Wubai even gave a wink at Tianyi and blew a kiss before she jumped off the arena.

Tianyi felt incredibly stifled. He even contemplated jumping off and hacking that damn pervert into pieces. Of course, that was only a wishful thought. Unfortunately, Tianyi still had a strand of reason and thus did not chase after Nanfang Wubai. 

Tianyi coughed into his handkerchief even more until he finally calmed down his agitated emotions. Tianyi felt the corner of his lips twitch when the next contestant jump onto the stage.

He was a gaunt male who looked to only have skin on his bones. But his hair was extremely short to the point that he was almost bald, and what little hair he had was singed. His stupidly thick robes weren’t clean with burn marks all over and reminded Tianyi of an astronaut suit.

“Eternal Night Sect Disciple Baoja, please advise.” 

Tianyi felt his lips twitch even more. "Buzhou Immortal Sect Disciple Xi Tianyi, please advise.” 

After the two greeted each other, the air tensed, and to Tianyi’s surprise, Baoja flew into the air on a small basket he brought out. Tianyi wondered what Baoja wanted to do, and he soon found out as tiny round iron balls fell towards him. Once they neared him, they exploded brilliantly, with each explosion being at least ten meters in diameter.

Tianyi instantly deployed his true qi as a barrier, greatly reducing the shock and explosive power of the bombs. He stayed on the defensive and waited for Baoja to reveal another move, but after more than ten minutes, the explosions still hadn’t stopped. 

“Is he...carpet-bombing me?” Tianyi asked himself with a bit of incredulity. 

But no matter how long Tianyi waited, the bombs never stopped. 

Finally, Tianyi couldn’t wait anymore and unleashed a torrent of grey cloud spears. When the grey cloud spears pierced through the iron balls, they detonated, but the spears only decreased in size and continued onto their course towards Baoja. 

Baoja frowned. “Just what are these spears made of? Even my bombs couldn’t destroy them. They seemed to be made of qi, yet this power is nothing like I ever experienced before.”

Baoja wasn’t idle because as soon as the spears neared him, his body became blurry, and the heat surrounding the arena instantly surged upwards. The grey cloud spears passed harmlessly through the blurred form of Baoja.

“What is this? A heat mirage, but it can’t be so simple. Even my spiritual senses can’t pinpoint his location.” 

Since he couldn’t pinpoint Baoja and snipe him, Tianyi decided to make up his deficit with numbers as hundreds of group cloud spears surged towards Baoja. When that didn’t work, Tianyi added another hundred.

What Tianyi was the least afraid of was using his true qi! In fact, if the amount of true qi in his body was expended by fifty percent, his combat prowess might even increase by a hundred percent.

Baoja seeing that the situation wasn’t good for him as Tianyi didn’t seem to be running out of true qi anytime soon, abandoned the basket he was on and started to fall towards Tianyi.

Tianyi naturally saw the blurred form of Baoja falling towards him and sent the grey cloud spears at him. This time the grey cloud spears didn’t harmlessly pass through Baoja, and instead, Baoja’s form became clear for a single moment and shone brightly.

BOOOM!!!

Tianyi’s lips once again started to twitch. “He stopped carpet bombing and instead became the bomb himself? He didn’t die from that suicide bombing, right?”

Tianyi’s worries were unfounded as once the smoke from the explosions cleared, Baoja’s form was revealed, and he was still flying towards Tianyi. With the true qi of chaos clouds destroyed, Tianyi instantly retreated with a giant leap as the place he was standing on became charred black from Baoja exploding himself once more. 

Baoja only looked a little bit worse for the wear as smudge coated his face and robes.

Tianyi's heart felt really tired. Not only did he have to deal with a weird pervert in the first round, but the second one was even stranger! He was a pervert with a hobby of blowing himself up. Tianyi couldn’t see any change in Baoja’s expression, but the more Baoja exploded, the greater the power.

Grey clouds began to disperse from Tianyi’s body until it completely covered him, but it didn’t stop there as the grey cloud grew larger and larger until it formed a grey cloud giant that took up more than thirty percent of the arena.

This was Tianyi’s self-invented technique, Inner Outer Reversal Form. To say it nicely, it was just a trick to use one’s qi to form a giant around the user. This technique would quite literally be useless to anyone else, as the expenditure was simply not worth the results.

But it was perfect for Tianyi.

Although Baoja resisted Tianyi’s cloud giant form, his explosions simply couldn't extinguish the cloud giant before Tianyi could replenish it, and soon he was caught. The grey cloud ground away at his robes and destroyed their defensive properties, but before the grey cloud's destructive power could reach Baoja, he was thrown out of the arena.

Tianyi sighed as he waited for his next opponent. He seriously regretted coming into the arena so early. Once he stepped up, all the weirdos came out of the wood. 

The next person to step up was a man in his early twenties wearing purple robes, a gold coronet, and had a jade fan in his hand. Eight out of ten females would fall in love with his looks.

'This one at least looks normal, and his bearing is great too. But...why do I feel like I’ve seen this from somewhere.' Tianyi was sure that the man before him wasn't a Dragon Emperor clone because the sense of familiarity didn’t appear, nor did he have a similar appearance. But Tianyi still felt like he had seen this image somewhere. 'Seeing that fan reminds me of the fan Sect Master Yun gifted me. Maybe I should refine another one?'

“I’ll give you one chance. Step out of the arena before you get hurt under this king’s might.” His voice was regal, but there was a strong sense of disconnection from reality.

Tianyi felt like his face would get a cramp from how much his lips twitched in a single day. 

“Buzhou Immortal Sect Disciple Xi Tianyi, please advise.” Tianyi cupped his hands half-heartedly.

“Hmpf, not knowing what is good for you.” The man folded his fan and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am the crown prince of the Gan Dynasty, Gan Linyou! But others called me the Esteemed Sage Ascendant Soul Venerable sent by the Wise Nascent Trigram Immortal of the Nine Great Heavens.”

Tianyi felt that his face would be permanently stuck in the dumbfounded expression he currently had. There were so many wrong words in that title that he didn't even want to think about it. Tianyi just made a backhand motion, and to his absolute not-surprise, his Heavenly Suppressing Palm sent the Esteemed Sage Ascendant Soul Venerable sent by the Wise Nascent Trigram Immortal of the Nine Great Heavens out of the arena.

When the next person who appeared in the arena was a man without both his arms, Tianyi could only look at the sky and release a sigh.