"Now that the first round of battles are over, it''s time for us to move onto the second round!"

    As these words left Clive''s mouth, the crowd immediately responded back with a crescendo of cheers and shouts, causing the young man to grin from ear to ear in response.

    Giving the crowd a bit of time to calm down from their excitement, it was only when the coliseum was mostly silent did he continue talking.

    "We started off this tournament with 1,536 participants. Thanks to the first round, that number has been halved to 768."

    "Now, you might be thinking. Isn''t that still a lot of people? Yes. It''s definitely a lot of people for sure."

    "Does that mean we''ll have to watch through more battles, then? Also yes. From what I''ve told, we''ll have to go through eight rounds at the very least just to get to a number manageable enough for the final round."

    Hearing a bit of groans and boos from the crowd in response to those words, Clive faintly let out a chuckle. "Of course, to not take up everyone''s time, we''ll be pretty much doing the same thing we did in the first round for the next few rounds!"

    "For the second round, we''ll be holding 40 battles per batch, allowing to move onto the third and other subsequent rounds much faster!"

    "Now, everyone! Are you ready for the second round?!"

    "Yeaaahhhh!!!"

    Letting the waves of cheers and applause echo throughout the coliseum in response to his question, the grin on the announcer''s face grew wider as he started to announce the participants that would make up the first batch of the second round.

    "For the 32nd battle in this first batch... 137 and 1,139. Please head to Stage 13."

    ''Oh? My number was called.'' Slightly taken aback by the fact he was part of the first batch, Valyr hastily left the spot he was at before making his way to the stage the announcer mentioned.

    Seeing that his opponent was already there by the time he arrived, the young man gave him a faint nod, only to get a faint nod back in return.

    "Ataraxia," said Valyr as he got into his spot. "You?"

    "Jin Wu," replied the man, his bulky dark garbs making him feel like an aloof person. "Let''s do our best."

    "Let''s do our best." The young man nodded in agreement, only to then nod at the arbiter the moment the latter arrived.

    Nodding back at Valyr in return, the arbiter gave both sides all the time they needed to get their buff skills up before asking them, "Ready?"

    Receiving nods from both Valyr and his opponent in response to his question, the arbiter went ahead and distanced himself from the stage before marking the start of the match.

    "Fight!"

    Whoosh!

    Kicking his mana circuit into high gear, the young man hastily chanted an incantation before shooting a massive orb of flames towards his opponent.

    With the fireball being as large as the miniature sun he conjured in the past through [Orb of Apyrhan], Valyr briefly thought to himself that he now had the fight in the bag.

    After all, his opponent had still yet to move.

    Yet, contrary to his expectations, Valyr''s opponent had a good reason as to why he decided not to move in the face of the fireball.

    "...[Shadow Bulwark]."

    It was because he had the ability to do so.

    Bang!

    Conjuring a massive wall of shadows in front of him at the very last second, the man calmly stared at the fireball as its might wreaked havoc towards everything except him.

    Though he did find it slightly disappointing that Valyr''s attack did cause half of the dark entities to disappear in exchange, Jin Wu found it a worthwhile exchange, considering the current impression he gave off to the young man.

    ''At some point, he''ll think that I''m an opponent he couldn''t beat,'' thought the man to himself, dispelling the defense he created before using it to conjure more dark entities.

    ''As long as I respond to all his attacks accordingly, he''ll eventually admit defeat, allowing me to move onto the third round.''

    With this thought in mind fueling him, Jin Wu decided to conjure a few more entities, planning to use their numbers to put a bit more pressure on the young man.

    Watching Valyr move away from the entities in response to his actions, the man''s earlier thoughts were reinforced, confident that the outcome he wanted would soon become a reality.

    Whoosh!

    Bang!

    Seeing that the young man threw another fireball at him from afar, Jin Wu went ahead and readied his [Shadow Bulwark], easily blocking what he felt was an attack out of desperation.

    Yet, just as he was about to dispel his defense to turn back into the dark entities, he noticed that there was actually a second fireball behind the first one he defended.

    "Wait..." Though, with how large it was, the man did not consider it a fireball anymore.

    If anything, it looked more like an actual sun.