" This round is very simple. Competitors will challenge each other. But there are specific rules, A competitors rank will determine his range of challenges, rank thirty competitor can't directly challenge rank one competitor. "

" The range of challenge is ten ranks. A rank thirty participant can challenge anyone from rank twenty to rank twenty-nine. But before we move to this phase, There will be additional battles to re-determine the rankings. "

" In this phase, Everyone will fight each of the competitors at least one time. We have already created a format for this, so the first battle will start right now. Rank 1 vs Rank 2, Stand in the battle platform and get ready for the battle. "

Athan and Sen jumped from the pillars before landing on the battle platform. After landing, Sen first took out a thing.

Athan was slightly surprised because It looked like a musical instrument, Zither. But taking it out in the battle means that it should be her weapon.

Seeing that the first match was between them, The spectators cheered.

" Who will win? "

" Idiot! Of course, Sen will win. "

" Who knows? That Athan is also a dark horse and is displaying some strange powers, most likely due to his unique physique. "

...

The middle-aged man then spoke his usual dialogue to start the match.

" FIGHT....ON! "

Sen made the first move with a severe expression as if she was not holding back anything.

*Ting...Titing...Taang...*

From the zither, Three colorful birds materialized before shooting towards Athan.

The birds were slender, beautiful, and, most of all, gave off a powerful and sharp aura.

Athan's face was also serious because he knew that there was no way to dodge these attacks as he felt that they were just like his Skyline blows.

He had already prepared his abyssal darkness for the defense, so instead of focusing on defense, he swung both of his hands and released Skyline's blows towards Sen.

Naturally, His Skyline blows were infused with abyssal darkness too.

Right after that, The birds reached him before one of them shined for a brief moment as it exploded into a blinding flashlight while another turned into many small whirlwind blades that started cutting Athan's body.

The last bird hit him like a truck on his chest and exploded.

The middle-aged man floating in the sky nodded as he was impressed by Sen's attack.

" It looks like she had already inherited the core power of Lady Zither and progressing stabely in it. "

Even he appeared a bit envious because someone who receives inheritance doesn't need to worry about going through practicing several order methods. They are given a perfect set of order forces, training methods, and techniques until they reached the limit stage of the inheritance they received.

All they needed to do was to constantly comprehend and train like crazy to understand the power and order of the inheritance to make progress and get stronger.

' What a lucky lass. ' The middle-aged man smiled wryly before turning to look at Athan.

" Cough...." Athan stood up as his whole body was practically covered in blood due to the second bird's attack.

Athan slightly frowned because he underestimated the power of the last bird, ' I should have used more abyssal darkness for defense. Most of it was consumed by the second bird and the last bird's exploding power caused a tremor through my body before damaging my internals explosivly. '

He saw that Sen didn't suffer any injuries as his Skyline blows seemed to have been nullified somehow.

Sen was also surprised that her first batch of attacks failed to take down the opponent as she had never failed to take down her previous opponent with just one attack.

She smiled seeing this, but the response she got was two more Skyline blows from Athan, who wanted to see how Sen nullified his abyssal darkness.

However, Athan had already guessed how she nullified his abyssal darkness as it was rather a simple matter of quality vs. quantity.

Indeed, Seeing the Skyline blows coming at her, Sen simply put her fingers on the zither. She didn't play her zither but simply put her hands on it.

Right then, a river materialized and started to flow around her. The river's color was azure blue with a rainbow hue in it.

The skyline blows hit this defensive river before they diffused but his abyssal darkness also started to break the defensive river.

But as expected by him, Although his abyssal darkness started to devour the river, The river was continuously supplied with more power to fight off the abyssal darkness. Just like that, his abyssal darkness got washed off due to low quantity even though it was a higher quality power.

Athan fell into thought, ' To defeat her, I will have to consume a lot of my abyssal darkness, both to defend and attack. And in this round, it seems like we will have to fight without much rest. Hmmm..'

He looked at Sen, who simply smiled at him.

Seeing this, Athan also faintly smiled.

But he had already decided what to do.

" I give up. "

Hearing this, Everyone was surprised. The middle-aged man was startled because he at least thought that Athan would give a good fight to Sen despite him knowing that Sen would come out victorious in the end.

" Are you sure? "

Athan looked at the middle-aged man and asked, " There are still ways that i can regain the top right? "

The middle-aged man nodded, " Indeed. Even rank thirty can become top rank as long as he posses the power. "

" Then I'll give up this match. "

Another reason was that his movement would get affected due to his injuries. He couldn't be any more careless about the pain, but his movement will be hindered since he was injured.

Sen grinned at Athan before saying, " If you think you can beat me after thinking about some strategy later, then you are mistaken. Anyway, Good luck for it. "

Both of them went back to the pillars but now rank one pillar belonged to Sen and rank two-pillar belonged to Athan.