Rumble-!
The World Origin Energy that had been gathered above the killing formation condensed into the form of a green cloud.
Strong winds howled as this green cloud quickly grew thicker and denser. Its very presence stirred the entire platform as if they were in the vicinity of a natural tornado.
Even Fourth Prince Mosha could not help but frown when he sensed the sheer magnitude of energy that was contained within this green cloud.
Taking the chance when Fourth Prince Mosha was distracted, Lu Tianzi hurriedly stepped away from him.
The last thing he wanted was to be defeated by Fourth Prince Mosha when victory was already this close at hand!
As for Fourth Prince Mosha, he only took a moment to regain his senses, and immediately chased after Lu Tianzi.
Right now, he was thinking the same thing as Lu Tianzi.
Rather than challenging the might of the killing formation, it would best if he could defeat Lu Tianzi before the killing formation was able to show its full effect!
But how would it be possible to catch Lu Tianzi when the latter was fully concentrating on evasion?
The enhanced Flowing River Silent Strides was put on full display as Lu Tianzi continued to maintain the distance between him and his opponent. Thanks to that, Fourth Prince Mosha was unable to even get close!
And at this moment, from the green cloud of energy, hundreds of bamboo swords shot out towards Fourth Prince Mosha.
The speed of these bamboo swords was no joke.
Facing this ferocious onslaught of blades, Fourth Prince Mosha had no choice but to immediately abandon the plan of chasing after Lu Tianzi.
Even so, his feet did not stop moving. He continuously weaved in and out as he continued to dodge blade after blade that kept smashing into the ground where he was standing just a moment before.
Whatever he could not dodge, Fourth Prince Mosha was forced to parry with his sabres.
Even though these looked like mere bamboo swords, they were actually made of pure energy. Their hardiness and durability, as well as the strength before them, none of them were similar to anything a normal bamboo sword could achieve!
But by relying on his powerful physique that had been further enhanced by the activation of his bloodline, Fourth Prince Mosha was actually able to fend off whatever bamboo blades that he was unable to dodge in time!
However, the attack from the killing formation was far from over.
Wave after wave, bamboo blades were fired towards him without end.
It was as though the killing formation had already locked on to him, bent on continuing this fierce assault until there was no longer anything left of him!
Truly unstoppable!
This was the might of a killing formation that had been set up by Beimu Fei of the Beimu Clan!
Oh, except for the last part that had been completed by Lu Tianzi.
Bit by bit, Fourth Prince Mosha started to be forced back by the relentless assault. Small wounds started to appear all over his body as blade after blade started to sneak past his defence, scraping past his skin.
Even if he had managed to fend off a single wave of attack, a second wave would immediately follow, and then a third, and a fourth…
Unless he could keep this up until the killing formation was deactivated, he was bound to falter sooner or later!
The spectators watched on with mixed feelings.
From the looks of it, Fourth Prince Mosha was about to fall!
While some were looking forward to it, others were feeling regretful and indignant that the strongest of the Four Stars had to lose in such a manner.
But at this moment, Fourth Prince Mosha suddenly roared as he concentrated all his Slaughter Essence energy within his twin sabres.
In exchange for receiving a few direct hits from the bamboo swords, Fourth Prince Mosha bought himself some time to gather his energy before slashing out with both of his arms!
Scarlet Moon Slash!
Two brilliant red crescents followed the path of his sabres as they were fired out into the sky, straight towards the green cloud of energy that was the source of his problems.
These two crescents of pure energy smashed apart all the incoming bamboo swords as it advanced, finally smashing into the hovering green cloud.
Boom-!
A shockwave was sent out in all directions due to the collision.
But what was perhaps more important was that both the red crescents and the green cloud dispersed simultaneously on impact!
The spectators were dumbfounded.
With his absolute strength, Fourth Prince Mosha had actually forcefully dispersed the green cloud of energy that had been summoned by the killing formation!
But Fourth Prince Mosha did not exactly get away unscathed either.
During the time required to gather enough energy for that last attack, he had left a wide opening where he was directly struck by a few bamboo swords, and had suffered a few grievous wounds as a result.
However, his current state should still be more than enough to deal with his opponent!
Lu Tianzi stood there as he watched Fourth Prince Mosha turn towards him, but he was extremely calm at the moment.
"Do you believe that this is it?" Lu Tianzi taunted even as Fourth Prince Mosha started walking towards him.
"Even with my current injuries, you will not be my m-" Fourth Prince Mosha was answering halfway when he suddenly felt his senses screaming at him, warning him of impending danger!
Behind him, the green cloud had reformed after dispersing!
And with that, bamboo swords naturally fired towards him once again!
Lu Tianzi had already expected this, and that was why he had remained calm all along.
Killing formations were naturally not this easy to break apart, and Fourth Prince Mosha knew it just as well.
However, it should have taken longer than this for the killing formation to once again gather the World Origin Energy from the surroundings after it had been expended.
What changed it was Lu Tianzi's touch!
Having witnessed Fourth Prince Mosha's ridiculous strength, Lu Tianzi decided to tamper a little with Beimu Fei's design when completing the formation earlier.
Though this meant that he had to spend a bit more time planting additional formation flags, the speed at which the killing formation gathered energy had received a significant improvement.
From the looks of it, this improvement was well worth his time and effort!
But this time, Fourth Prince Mosha did not turn around to deal with the incoming bamboo swords.
Instead, he decisively charged straight at Lu Tianzi, pouring all of his strength into a single sabre as it gave out a brilliant red glow.
With this one final strike, he intended to send off Lu Tianzi and claim victory in the battle royal!
Once he claimed his position as the victor, he would no longer need to care about the killing formation anyway!
But even when facing this full powered attack from Fourth Prince Mosha, Lu Tianzi remained calm.
Before his Limitless Mirror Eye, the flow of energy within Fourth Prince Mosha had been completely laid bare.
Even though Lu Tianzi was unable to see through his opponent's cultivation technique and predict his moves like in the case of Beiqian Ming, it was still possible for him to find the point at which energy density was at the lowest!
That was exactly where he would strike!
Lu Tianzi drove his Slaughter Essence energy and channelled it into his Torrential Sabre, activating the Astral Way Inscription before slashing out towards Fourth Prince Mosha.
At the same time, Fourth Prince Mosha arrived before him, mercilessly bringing down his glowing sabre.
And just like that, sabre smashed against sabre!
Bang-!
Lu Tianzi was thrown through the air from the collision, flying a dozen metres before smashing into the ground. Even then, he continued rolling a couple of times before finally coming to a stop.
Pu-!
Lu Tianzi spat out a mouthful of blood as he felt a sharp pain running through his insides, as though half of his internal organs had been crushed from the earlier impact.
As expected, Lu Tianzi simply could not compare in a frontal clash!
Thankfully, he never needed to win out in that clash.
He gritted his teeth and endured the pain, slowly climbing back to his feet to face his opponent that had remained standing a dozen metres away.
Or to be exact, it was an opponent who was slowly dissipating into beams of light.
In the end, despite winning out in the clash, Fourth Prince Mosha had failed to claim Lu Tianzi's life. That was when the bamboo swords struck him in the back, claiming his life instead!
With that, Fourth Prince Mosha had been defeated.
Cheers instantly erupted from the spectators!
Since even the Scarlet Moon Overlord did not voice his objections, this meant that the use of a killing formation had been allowed. Even if the victory was not truly reflective of their relative levels of individual strength, a win was a win!
This random participant at a mere Intermediate Essence Condensation realm had eliminated three of the Four Stars, including the strongest Fourth Prince Mosha, to claim victory in this battle royal!
When they thought about that, the fact that he had relied on a killing formation to win in the end no longer seemed to be as significant. After all, he had personally defeated the other two members of the Four Stars!
Facing the thunderous applause coming from all around him, Lu Tianzi let out a deep breath before deactivating the killing formation.
It was finally over!
At this moment, the light emblem of the greater formation intensified once more.
This was not the killing formation set up by Beimu Fei and Lu Tianzi, but the one that encompassed the entire main platform, set up by Formation Master Beimu and the Scarlet Moon Overlord even before the start of the Scarlet Moon Heroes Meet.
Just like earlier when the battle royal started, it cast out an intense light that blinded the eyes of the spectators for a moment.
After which, the formation light subsided to the point of completely vanishing, signalling the deactivation of the formation.
As the formation was deactivated, the spectators found that there was no longer anything left on the main platform, except for the damages that had been dealt to the flooring.
The faceless avatar of Lu Tianzi was gone.
Be it the planted formation flags or some stray weapons that had been dropped earlier, all these items had also vanished without a trace, as though it had all been nothing but an illusion from the start.
And with that, the numerous participants that had been seated in deep meditation slowly started to open their eyes one by one.
Lu Tianzi was no exception.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself once again below the platform, seated beside Nanlan Qianxue and the others from Bluenight City.
Before they could even start to discuss about what happened, the Scarlet Moon Overlord's voice reverberated across the Battle Arena.
"Hahaha! That was a truly wonderful display by the young talents of my Scarlet Moon Kingdom, a fitting finale to the Scarlet Moon Heroes Meet! Since they had put in so much effort on their part, it is only right that I reward them accordingly! But before that, we naturally have to reveal the rankings. It is time for us to see the true faces behind those faceless masks!" the Scarlet Moon Overlord remarked heartily.
As soon as he finished, the Scarlet Moon Overlord pointed out towards the sky.
A wisp of brilliant red light was shot out from his finger and flew straight up, finally stopping as it remained hovering in the air above the Battle Arena, overlooking all participants and spectators alike.
Then it suddenly exploded into beautiful fireworks.
With its explosion, beautiful red glitter rained down upon the participants.
The moment this glitter came into contact with the participants, an illusory number started to appear on their palm.
And this number was what represented the exact rank that the respective participants had obtained in this battle royal!