The tournament concluded with a frankly gripping match between a girl from the Tree of Stalwart Amber and a Knight from the Spice Republic's Army. The knight used a great sword that created waves of frozen seawater to alter the landscape in the arena’s ring. The young cultivator used a mixture of ballet-like martial arts and a literal cloud that spat a constant stream of thunderbolts at the young knight.

It’s funny how moves that were so slow, and clumsy, and flatly inadequate to the eyes of everyone with even the least bit of significant strength and skill, could still hold enough beauty to steal one’s breath away. The knight’s forceful swings and gallant charge drew my admiration. The cultivators' flowing motions and airy movements made me feel a sense of wonder and delight.

Jack says its because watching these juniors fight is a bit like seeing the future. The common view was that by paying close attention to the kids who managed to do well with crayons, chalk, and finger paints, one could draw hints about who’d be rocking the world with pastels, ink, and acrylics in the future.

I wasn’t so sure about all that, but I will admit to leaning real forward, and cheering extra loud, as that girl knocked out that Knight’s teeth. So maybe it's just that some people will always love a violent spectacle regardless of the skill level.

The girl won, and received the applause and accolades of all us cultivators and sect-folk. Meanwhile a lot of the secular folk just sort of phoned it in, because that last match had turned into a litmus test for a lot of people’s plans to try and wipe the board clean, by wiping out the sects in their area, and bringing their regions under secularized rules.

Meanwhile, the temples, and the HOA-reps who happened to be present, were just sort of watching both sides, while giving the appropriate amount of applause to both the winner and the runner-up, because admittedly even if this tournament was a replacement for most of the wars we “could” have been having, it didn’t really serve as a perfect replacement for how a battle between any of the factions would really go

Also, considering that the Temples and HOA had the most actual immortals behind them, if things ever turned violent, they’d probably sent both the sect-folk and the secular factions, skittering home likes scared spiders. That was one major reason that the temples and the HOA made up the majority of the tournament’s “unbiased” officials. They were quite literally above this all.

Anyway, once that final match was over it was time to tabulate the final results. I, and every other, cultivator in here with a half-decent memory, already had a rough idea of the results. Our Tree of Passionate Verdance would go home with 20 to 25 people in the top ranking. There was a reason that the TPV was considered one of the most powerful sects, if not the most powerful sect, in the middle-realm. The Tree of Stalwart Amber would walk away with around 15 or 20 of the top rankings. Dominating most of the top 50 of the final ranking.

Outside of the final winner and runner-up that top 50th rank was basically just our people. Anyone trying to mess with our placement in the final rankings for the tournament would end up seriously pulling the tiger’s tail. Both the Tree of Passionate Verdance, and the Tree of Stalwart Amber, had tacitly looked away when our rivals tried to play tricks with the match setup and some of the rulings. We did so for the sake of keeping our inferiors from getting overly desperate. Also, some of the more arrogant amongst the higher-ups, likely didn’t think any of our opposition’s petty plans would have any real impact.

The point being, that after being such good sports after all those shenanigans, you best believe that every Elder in either the TPV, or the Tree of Stalwart Amber, was quite ready to jump into some old school gangster shit if our rivals and peers tried to play any tricks with the final results. With

The rest of the hundred ranked warriors named within the final results of the tournament came from all the other factions. While I wasn’t really into this petty sect versus sect, faction vs faction nonsense, there was something nice about seeing our people on top like that. Getting trophies big enough to chug ale from, while everyone else basically just got metal sipping glasses.

Jack put the feeling into words for me, quite nicely.

“Hm, I might not be into dick-measuring contests, but having ours beat most of theirs by a solid inch, or so, makes me feel a little bit proud…”

“Yeah…” I said. Agreeing and nodding.

Just as we settled down to watch the competition get wrapped up with some speeches from the head representatives, the leading sects, and tournament officials, there was a massive “Boom”. An explosion that shook not only the arena but the entire continent of Lima and the entire 14th Pearl.

“Hahahah!” cackled an unknown voice.

“Greetings to those who have scorned us and betrayed us. Rejoice! You have been given the chance to see the birth of a new world order!” laughed the speaker. An old man in a hooded robe.

“Bastard! Who dares!?” cried the king of one of the myriad small countries that had sent people to the arena.

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The next three hours and thirty minutes were occupied by this old weirdo and the other old freaks who’d gathered behind him, reading out a long and drawn-out salutation. They’d popped out from nowhere and were all wearing the same tattered robes, so I could at least give them points for a solid entry, even if they “were” making a nuisance out of themselves. Their “salutation” was 40-percent manifesto and 60-percent petty grudges that the old man and his cohorts seemed to have with the factions who’d gathered at the tournament today.

Jack and I weren’t really paying attention. This wasn’t just because the strange attackers’ villainous monologues were extremely boring. It was because Ancestor Fang had quietly used sound transmission to order Me, Jack, and High-Elders Trefor, and Miya to try and evacuate our people and the disciples of the other allied factions from the arena. I guess it was clear that no matter what things were going to come to a fight, and he wanted to get the juniors clear before he and the other seniors within the arena went to clash with the evil old fogeys who’d crashed the tournament.

“Oh...Shit…” said Jack.

“What?” said Elder Miya.

“It’s a spatial-lock,” I said. My brow furrowing.

“You mean can’t break it?” said Trefor.

“We could try to break it...but some crazy bastard essentially sealed this bitch up with dynamite. Rather than hardening the space, they’ve set a feedback enchantment in place that’ll ensure a critical weakening of the fundamental space if we're not able to unseal the space properly. And If we force the space open the affected area will be torn apart…” said Jack.

“Tch...And what if we get the juniors and mortals to fly out of the affected area?” said Elder Miya. Thinking quickly and doing an impressive job of keeping calm and level-headed.

“That’s just the problem…” I said.

“These assholes somehow locked down the entire middle-realm,” said Jack.

*************************************************************************************************************

Meanwhile, the robed old man had finally taken down his hood. Revealing a head full of striped silver and black hair and prominent cat ears.

“So...My fellow brothers and sisters on the path. Do you remember me now?” said the old man.

There were several gasps from the crowd that I only really understood when I took a peek at the overall situation with my data-sampling and data-analysis and realized that this old man had quite the reputation.

“Zeng Zhiqiang?! You’re supposed to be dead!” cried one voice. Sounding shocked to the point of fainting.

“It’s the Storm-Tiger Tyrant!” cried another one. Filled with clear despair.

“Kahaha! Yes, daddy’s back, bitches...I’m back for revenge! I’m back to crush those who stood against me! I’m back to take what is mine! Kneel to your grand-daddy, weaklings. Or rather, kneel to your new god-king!” laughed the cat-eared old man. His domineering aura created ghastly distortions in the sky that looked oddly like cat-heads, or the yawning maws of phantom tigers.

I stopped paying attention to what was happening in the arena. My [Tale of the Crafter] and my [Tale of the Arcanist] had given me clues as to what I needed to do, to try and unravel the spatial lock that had fallen upon the middle-realm, but now I’d spotted an even bigger issue.

“Fuck me...Are you serious?!” I said. Growling as I noticed a major anomaly in the middle-realm’s data-flow.

“What? What’s gone wrong now?!” said Elder Miya. Her facade of perfect composure cracking a little.

I passed the information to Jack, whose expression turned to grim and just a tad feral, a cold smile crossing her face.

“Nothing much...These idiots just called something even more troublesome out, is all. But that’s fine,” said Jack.

“We’ll fight fire with fire and setup another spatial-lock to keep the worst of it from touching the juniors and the regular folk...then we’re all going to need to take those idiots down before they self-destruct and bring us down with them,” I said. Burning an immense amount of spiritual-energy as I began to setup up another illusory parallel-world that would serve as a buffer for the real world.