491 Ripe, old man

After a short while, even I could clearly hear the content over which those elders at the bottom debated. And it didn't look like their debate would end any time soon!

"But he spared him! It was your idea to send the disciples first to gauge his strength! If not for his mercifulness, my son would be dead and his blood would be on your hands!"

The more I heard from this exchange, the less I power I could muster to stop myself from lying flat on the arena just in order to hear how this unexpected situation would develop.

In reality, rather than intentionally sparing that guy, I simply wanted to get rid of him with the least effort possible, and doing him in would require me to go for quite an extra mile in the situation that appeared, hence the result.

As the argument below the stage developed, I finally lost my patience and just sat on the rocks, listening in to the live show. From the escalating volume and intensity from down there, I could tell that the things were taking more and more interesting turns, yet I was worried that if I were to interfere at this point, those dumb elders would come to their senses and realise that while they were fighting among themselves, their real enemy was awaiting the next participant for his challenge!

But when even after quite a long time the argument only seemed to escalate, with some sounds of disciples or elders shouting the names of the techniques they started to use or claiming how they would skewer the other party with their priced weapon, I realised that I couldn't just stay and hear the proceedings.

"Hey, you there, ancestor or something. Are you going to get me my fight, or do I need to go down and kill them all?"

In the end, this challenge was something I issued, and if they all started to kill each other, I wouldn't even be able to test how strong their elders were! And if the worst were to happen and their leader would fall, I would lose my opportunity to challenge him in order to get the right to challenge the ancestor, forcing me to go through the entire process once again!

"Get your fucking hands off me! I will go!"

Instead of answering my question, I felt an eruption of a considerable strength from below the stage, before the opening of the area barrier was filled with a huge posture of an old man. 

With his white beard reaching all the way to his chest, he had the look of the typical anime old man, laughed at by everyone but capable of splitting the mountains in half in reality. Yet from the simple fact that he was an elder of the entire sect, capable of standing toe to toe with other elders, if not to say that even stronger than them from how just as the barrier closed behind his back, it was covered with a dense rain of energy coming from below.

Listening to him, I could finally make sense as to what was the main reason for the start of the strife down there. Considering my overall attitude, what was just a lack of will to spare my energy at killing a random disciple, was taken by them as an act of mercy!

"Speaking of honour, didn't bullying all the contestants that had the wits to stand up to your expansionist politic sully your honour and a good name in the first place? How come you are bringing these high morals now when they are useful to you?"

No matter what that man said, I didn't want him to go easy on me. If I was unable to test the level of strength of the elders, how could I gauge what their leader or even the ancestor would be capable of doing?

That's why rather than accepting this random stroke of luck, I decided to play hard as if the apparent kindness of the elder willing to fight with me wasn't capable of moving me.

"You certainly have the point here… No matter what I do or say, the shame of the direction in which the other elders pushed our once glorious sects will never be washed out of our record. That's why facing you will all my might is now my only choice to make amends for how I allowed this display of shame to happen!"

With those words, the elder threw back his majestic robe, allowing its clearly expensive material to fall directly on the dirty, rocky ground. Thankfully, rather than being stark naked under this long cloth, this elder who had the guts to face me sill wore simple, plain pants with only his ripe, bare chest exposed to my eyes. 

But considering the name of their sect, it was only to be expected that his chest would be the most developed part of his body, as the entire gorilla sect specialised on the techniques based on the chest.

For a moment, the thought of doing some fancy entrance to impress Eve who would be later watching all those events skimmed through my head, but with how easy I expected this fight to be, if I were to follow on this impulse, I would only make myself look pitiful and attentional after the match.

That's why, rather than flexing my muscles or showing off my power, I simply got into the position before freezing and awaiting the command of the ancestor that would mark the start of our fight.

"You may start!"