"Xing Chongzhi, are you okay?" The judge for stage 7 patted him on the shoulders when he showed no response even many moments after leaving the stage.

"W-What happened to me just now? Why am I standing outside the stage?" Xing Chongzhi finally snapped out of his daze and proceeded to look around with a puzzled look on his face, clearly unaware of what had just occurred.

"You were killed by the young man." The judge revealed to him.

"What! How is that possible?! I was pretty sure I had him at that moment!" Xing Chongzhi expressed disbelief. In his mind, he'd successfully connected his strike, killing Yuan.

Nobody there blamed him for his reaction, as it was a normal response for someone who'd just experienced the Dragon's Gaze at point-blank.

The judge shook his and began explaining everything that had happened, shocking him even further.

"Dragon's Gaze?! What?!" Xing Chongzhi turned to look at Yuan, who was still standing on the stage, with a flabbergasted look on his face.

"You are part of the Royal Family?!" Xing Chongzhi asked him, as everyone knew that only the Royal Family could learn such a profound technique.

"No?" Yuan said.

"You're not? Then how did you learn the Dragon's Gaze? That's something only the Royal Family can learn!" Xing Chongzhi and the other spectators only became more puzzled after hearing his words.

However, before Yuan could respond, Xi Meili suddenly said, "He's from the Royal Family."

"Eh?"

Both Yuan and Xing Chongzhi turned to look at Xi Meili, and on Yuan's face was a surprised look. Since when did he become part of the Royal Family?

'Yuan, just follow along with me for now. I'll explain to you later.'

Xi Meili's voice suddenly resounded inside Yuan's head.

Yuan nodded while looking at her before clearing his throat and speaking out loud, "T-That's right. I am actually from the Royal Family. I wasn't sure whether I should reveal my identity or not before…"

The spectators gasped in shock after learning this. To think the Royal Family had a third child!

"He may be from the Royal Family, but he isn't related to our Royal Family in the way you're thinking." Xi Meili suddenly said, clearly that misunderstanding.

"What?"

The spectators' thoughts went wild with theories, and they could only think of one thing after pondering for some time— that Yuan had married into the Royal Family! In other words, he was Xi Meili's husband!

"C-Congratulations, Princess Xi!" The people there suddenly bowed to her.

"Eh?" Xi Meili raised her eyebrows, wondering what they were thinking.

"You have finally found your partner after 10 thousand years! Congratulations!"

The spectators congratulated her again.

"What?!" Xi Meili's eyes widened with shock. How in heaven's name did they get to that conclusion?

"That's wrong! He's not my husband! We're just friends!" Xi Meili refuted their claims with a flushed face.

And she continued, "Furthermore, he's a human!"

"W-Wait… What? He's a human? How is that possible?" Everybody there turned to look at Yuan with shocked looks on their faces.

How the hell did a human appear in their Ancient Dragon City? And how could a human belong to the Royal Family? Nothing about his background made sense!

"His situation is a complicated one. Do you guys remember the nine pillars of light that occurred not long ago? He was the one who released all pillars of light and summoned the Dragon Ancestor." Xi Meili revealed to them the truth.

"What! H-He's the one who was behind that?! A mere human?!"

A commotion quickly started in the Ancestral Dragon Temple.

"Uhhh…" Yuan wasn't sure what was happening, so he said, "Are we still fighting?"

The judge snapped out of his daze and said, "R-Right! Does anyone still want to fight him?!"

The spectators exchanged glances with each other.

After a moment of complete silence, a dozen people raised their hands at once and said, "I want to fight him even more now! I have never fought a human before!"

"Me too! Let me fight him!"

Since there were so many people that wanted to fight Yuan, the judge decided to ask him again.

"I'll fight until I can no longer fight," Yuan said.

"Great! Then let's start with you!" The judge randomly pointed to one of the spectators with his arms raised.

A moment later, the fighter appeared on the stage with a lance in his grasp.

'What kind of weapon is that? It looks like a spear, yet the head looks slightly different.' Yuan wondered to himself as he held the Empyrean Overlord in front of him.

The fight started after the judge left the stage.

[Bloody Sword Strike!]

[Dragon Lance!]

Ding!

The fighter could feel his arms shaking violently after their weapons collided.

'What a powerful attack! It feels like I am fighting against a mountain!' The fighter cried inwardly as he slid backward on the stage until he was at the edge of the stage.

'That was close! I shouldn't fight him head-on! He's too powerful!' With that in mind, the fighter started to dodge all of Yuan's attacks while retaliating with his lance that had an advantage in range due to the long handle.

However, even with the range advantage, the fighter was unable to land a single hit on Yuan due to his profound movement technique.

"What kind of movement technique is he using?! He's leaving a trail of flames as he moves, and I cannot predict his movements at all!"

"It's probably some profound human movement technique we have never heard about before."

The spectators were mesmerized by Yuan's movement techniques, completely unaware that he'd learned it from a phoenix.

After a few minutes of fighting back and forth, Yuan finally managed to defeat the fighter after taking him by surprise with his movement technique that had suddenly improved drastically, almost as if he had a breakthrough in the middle of the battle.

[Your comprehension for 'Vermilion Phoenix Dominating the Heavens' has reached a new level]

[Vermilion Phoenix Dominating the Heavens Mastery Level (1) → (2)]