Pretending To Be A Boss-Chapter 816 - 25 Ranking Battle_2
816: Chapter 25: Ranking Battle_2
816 -25: Ranking Battle_2
[Why?]
“The Red Emperor has dominated this sea for hundreds of years, and no creature has been able to defeat it.
But now that you have appeared, I am very curious to know whether the legendary supreme treasure really exists.
Although it is of no relevance to me, if you defeat the Red Emperor, you will be the future Lord of the Starving Sea, even a god!
I am merely seeking early to find support for myself.”
Tang Xian’s tone was sycophantic, just like that of an ancient flatterer from a thousand years ago.
Junlin was exactly the type that fell for this.
Yet internally, he held even greater contempt for Tang Xian.
A weakling aspiring to rely on me?
Ants never know their strength.
Junlin decided to feign agreement with Tang Xian.
As for becoming the Lord of the Starving Sea after obtaining the Beast God inheritance, he had no interest in it.
By that time, he would let Tang Xian be bullied by the creatures of the Starving Sea. novelbuddy.cσ๓
With this in mind, Junlin snorted coldly and said:
[If you want to help me, you need to prove that you have the qualifications to do so.]
“I will fight my way to the brawl.
That’s the best proof, and once it gets to the brawl stage, all you need to do is watch.”
Junlin’s gaze swept around the arena.
There were terrifying squid, massive fang-covered sea creatures.
There were also sharks that, even from a distance, exuded a sense of bloodlust and ferocity, among many other peculiar creatures.
Each looked challenging to deal with, at least for someone who had taken on a human form.
Junlin nodded and said:
[If you can survive until the brawl, then I will cooperate with you.]
“I will do my best to hold off the other creatures for you.
I also hope that once you become the Lord of the Starving Sea, you will look after me.”
[Hmph, we’ll see.]
…
…
The challenge mechanism of the arena is quite unique in the early stage, it’s a system of free challenge.
One hundred Challengers all have an initial ranking.
The ranking is based on the combat performance of these Challengers in the Central Sea Zone and Deep Sea Zone.
The ranking is updated in real-time by the sea monsters working on the behest of the Sea Demon, and the Challenger with a lower rank can challenge someone with a higher rank, but the gap must not exceed ten.
For instance, if Tang Xian is ranked eighty-two, he can safely choose to challenge rank eighty-one, or he can be aggressive and challenge rank seventy-two.
But he cannot turn around and challenge rank eighty-three.
The challenged party can choose to accept or decline the challenge.
If they decline, their ranking drops by one.
For example, if Tang Xian at eighty-two challenges rank seventy-two, and the Challenger at seventy-two thinks they can’t defeat Tang Xian, or that Tang Xian’s attributes counter theirs, or they just came out of a tough fight and decide to rest and avoid this one, they can refuse the challenge.
Then, Tang Xian becomes rank seventy-two, and the original seventy-two drops to seventy-three.
Challengers also need to calculate the risk.
If they fail the challenge – their rank won’t drop, but they are likely to get injured, and then be taken advantage of by those ranked behind them.
This is a very flexible and strategic competition rule.
Tang Xian can even feel the full malice from the person who set the rule; mere strength is not enough, one must also be adept at scheming and disguise.
But Tang Xian likes such rules; they give him room to maneuver.
“For someone like Junlin, who is initially ranked third, they naturally don’t need to challenge anyone, and probably no one among the top few ranks will challenge each other.
The Challengers will keep climbing up, and the competition will focus on places ten to twenty.
This is because only the top twenty will enter the final large melee phase.”
As the sea monsters excitedly explained the rules, and some sea creatures were still figuring out the meaning of the rules, Tang Xian stroked his chin and began to analyze.
“People naturally pick the softest persimmons to squeeze.
No one wants the bad luck of messing with the top few ranks; each one of them is a deep-sea king.
And the position of the twentieth rank will surely be fiercely contested by all sea creatures.”
Tang Xian’s guess was largely correct, as he had not been involved in the first few rounds of confrontations.
During this time, those who were originally ranked between twentieth and thirtieth nearly all set their sights on the twentieth place.
It was a deep-sea giant serpent.
In appearance, it bore some similarity to the White Phosphorus Serpent Demon, except the White Phosphorus Serpent looked more like a python, whereas this catastrophe-level boss creature, known as the Sea Trident Serpent, looked more like a cobra.
With its huge forked tongue flickering, the serpent seemed to be in bad shape.
It was as if countless creatures were waiting to tear it apart.
Yet, no one dared to provoke the top five sea creatures.
The order of the contestants was decided by the sea demons, and Tang Xian had no idea when his turn would come.
Although the arena was enormous, some sea creatures were also of considerable size, making it impossible for many battles to occur simultaneously.
So there was a lot of downtime during the competition, which Tang Xian did not waste, using it instead to gather intelligence.
During this period, Tang Xian witnessed many strange battles.
For example, the fourth battle—a strange creature named Sea Mud King fought against a whale that Tang Xian did not recognize.
The battle didn’t have the feeling of any impactful physical combat; it was just the Sea Mud King getting rammed repeatedly by the whale.
The spherical Sea Mud King had virtually no means of resistance and was only passively taking hits.
However, the powerful whale’s body was gradually losing the mud covering it.
The Sea Mud King’s lines were terrible:
[Ah…
stop bumping into me, you’re too big…
I’m going to take on the shape of a whale!]
The creatures of the deep sea evolved in bizarre ways, and though Tang Xian had thought the Sea Mud King would be crushed in this fight, he didn’t expect that once the whale was completely covered in mud, its behavior would become extremely odd.
It performed a series of ridiculous acts and began to ram challengers outside the arena continuously.
It even provoked Junlin, ensnaring itself in a deadly encounter where Junlin tore it apart.
The moment the giant whale was torn—praises from the sea demons rang out, and countless spectators outside the arena started shouting as well.
Only then did Tang Xian remember that one of the arena’s major highlights was the bloody slaughter.
Tang Xian himself would not underestimate these sea creatures; after each battle, he would summarize their unique characteristics.
“Just now, Sea Mud King seems to have near immunity to physical attacks, much like the test subject by Xi He—a mud man who, no matter how ferociously attacked, or even torn to pieces, could pull himself back together like mud.
But Sea Mud King has different properties; if its mud completely covers its opponent, it might be able to manipulate them mentally.”
Not only this battle, but nearly every battle brought some extremely interesting information to Tang Xian.
After several battles, Tang Xian confirmed that the sea demons were actually manipulating the order of matches from behind the scenes.
Because in several subsequent matches, those ranked below fiftieth were chosen to confront each other.
Yet not a single one ranked above fiftieth was called.
Tang Xian didn’t find it boring, as he guessed there were likely several others like Sea Mud King playing possum.
Since the rules of the arena had been ongoing for centuries, they were enough to suggest that rankings were just a marker.
True combat power could only be known after a real battle.
But those sea creatures at the top of the rankings were already impatient to see a powerful confrontation,
Under the influence of the red crystals, this impatience became even fiercer.
The sea demons were well accustomed to this scene, and after seventeen consecutive low-ranking fights, they finally arranged for a top-tier matchup, instantly causing the atmosphere in the entire arena to boil over.
Even Tang Xian did not expect that either Red Emperor or the sea demons would arrange such a match.
“It seems they are still quite concerned about this dark horse, so eager to verify,” Tang Xian thought.
Junlin, ranked third, was called upon by the sea demons, and all the sea creatures that were wary of Junlin took pleasure in his misfortune.
According to the rules, Junlin could only challenge the first and second place.
Those were the strongest ferocious beasts in the deep sea; in their view, it was a fight where the strong would weaken each other.
Tang Xian was also curious to see what sort of strength the new Judgment Chief had.
