Chapter 166 A Small Fortune

Darren and Aries stood on the arena.

At once, most of the audience lost their interest. Some of them were even seething with anger and cursing. They had spent so much money in order to buy those tickets, and it was all a waste. There was no use watching a boring competition where you already knew who the winner would be.

Meanwhile, on the arena, Darren looked at Aries, the man standing opposite him, from head to toe. Based on Darren's intuition, he felt that Aries' strength was not that powerful. At most, he had probably just reached the ninth stage of the Mysterious Realm.

"Why do I have to fight with such crap in my first round? I have never felt more humiliated in my whole life," Aries sneered, knowing what Darren's cultivation stage was.

By now, Darren had seen so many people like this one who were arrogant, yet completely good for nothing. He could not care less about what Aries said. Instead, he wondered about what he could do to earn more ink stones in the next competition.

'If I take him down with only one movement, others will realize how strong I actually am. If that happens, people will change their bets and stake their money on me, and I, in turn, will earn much less ink stones than I am earning right now, ' Darren thought. After he pondered over the issue for a while, Darren decided to fool around with Aries. In order to disguise his real strength, he planned on getting some small injuries on purpose, so that he could make a fortune out of the next game.

"Fuck off, you scum!" Aries roared as he lunged his fist towards Darren.

Since Aries achieved the ninth stage of the Mysterious Realm, his fists grew tremendously powerful. Each of his punches became equal to almost ten thousand pounds of force. Because of this, the battlefield was made with titanium stones. A rule cultivator was even hired to build proper protection around it in order to avoid his immense strength from harming the audience.

Darren pretended to dodge his fist and flee in panic. Everything went as he had planned.

"What? He didn't die?" someone yelled in shock. The audience could not believe their eyes. After seeing Darren's actions, the audience suddenly became considerably interested in the fight.

"How about we all put a bet on how long he can survive?"

"That's a great idea. I bet he will not even survive the second punch."

"I think that guy is not that bad. It is obvious that he is trying to conceal his real cultivation base. I bet that he is going to lose at the third punch."

Now, the audience became highly involved and motivated as they found a new way to earn some extra money.

Darren had been playing with Aries for nearly an hour.

It took no effort for him to skillfully dodge all of Aries' fierce attacks in the nick of time. He would also let himself suffer some small damages on purpose in order to fool the audience into thinking that he would lose the game.

'Alright, this is enough, ' Darren thought to himself. Darren decided not to play anymore now that the audience had started to get pissed at him.

This time, Aries dashed towards Darren, gasping for his brea

gainst him instantly regretted their decisions, thinking that they should have bet their ink stones on Darren instead.

The moment Darren's blade intent enveloped the man, his eyes filled with sheer terror.

As expected, numerous bloody stains appeared all over his clothes as he was thrown out of the battlefield.

A while later, he struggled to get up from the floor with blood covering his body. He dragged his own broken body towards Darren and knelt in front of him as he trembled in fear. "Thank you so much for not killing me, sir," he said.

"Just go," Darren replied casually.

It was not easy for that man to risk his life to earn those ink stones. And Darren didn't have any hatred towards him, so he just let him go.

"Thank you, sir." After expressing his gratitude, the guy dragged his broken legs behind him and left the battlefield.

…

"Jaya, get your butt over here."

Up on the grandstand, Jaya chuckled in the corner. He was in a good mood after making a good fortune from the bet. So naturally, he was pissed when someone interrupted his good mood by growling at him.

"You bastard! Can't you keep it down just a little? What's wrong with you?" Jaya was a normally nice guy, but getting a scolding from his subordinate really irritated him.

"Humph! Don't be so arrogant. If I'm guessing correctly, that guy should have been killed in the first round. You are ready to report to the accountant and get the pension for his family, right? Are you trying to defraud the pension off the money shop? I have already informed our lady and she has already arrived here. Just pack your luggage and get lost," a young man shouted. He was the young man who was scared to the ground in front of Darren's sword intent earlier.

"Fuck off!" At this point, Jaya was already seething with anger.

"Jaya, you have served in our money shop for so many years. I can't believe that you would do such a terrible thing. You deserve a tough punishment! Humph!" A voice coming from outside interrupted them. A girl was walking near them, and her tone was filled with anger.