After the sanctuary voice ended, the screen above Long Tian's head changed, showing a bracket with names in each of them.
There were only 27 names on the outermost brackets, but at the top of the screen it said that this was just for the first top 10 spot.
Meaning there would be 10 more such brackets, each deciding one person who would enter the top 10 of the shelter.
Each person would face another in a series of matches until they won that spot, this was the knockout stage of the Shelter Phase of the tournament.
Long Tian tried to find his name but couldn't, he would only fight later.
One name that did get his attention was Han Fen and one person that he knew was a military captain, Bai Huang.
He had seen him win one of the battles royales using a bow, which had caught his attention, as there were not many bow users in this second stage.
He was a bit short, standing at just 1.9 meters tall and was very thin, almost looking sickly, but with his fitness, it was clearly just his appearance.
There was a sudden rumbling noise, and Long Tian saw that almost half of the platforms in the arena were lowered, leaving only 28 still up.
Then, 27 people disappeared from the participant's area.
The fights immediately started.
These ones were a bit more interesting to watch for Long Tian, as they at least had a decent level of fitness and had more experience.
Some matches were still a bit boring as someone with 10 of fitness was paired against someone with 15, but overall, most matches were actually hard to predict who would win.
Long Tian then started focusing on Han Fen and Bai Huang matches.
Han Fen had ended up against someone with slightly lower fitness, but the person had a Sacred Blood armor and a spear, so they managed to keep the massive man away from them.
Han Fen did not take out a weapon, just continuing to slap away the spear whenever his opponent thrusted it at him.
Long Tian could see that Han Fen trained in some special cultivation art, as his hands seemed to be extremely tough and were not being cut by the spear even when he slapped it.
Some cultivation arts could do that, they focus on a specific part of the body to achieve an effect comparable to a higher-grade art on that specific body part.
However, these arts were only a way to make up for the fact that someone does not have a high-grade Gene Art. Long Tian's one, for example, could achieve an even better effect than the one Han Fen was using, and his whole body was affected, not just the hands.
It's just that he had only been fighting against absurdly strong opponents and his art at the 11th level could not keep up.
Han Fen was in a deadlock with his opponent, but Bai Huang was not.
He had been paired against a woman using daggers.
Long Tian estimated her fitness to be around 18, pretty good for the average person, but Bai Huang's fitness should be around a 25, so the distance was just too great.
The only reason that the woman had not immediately lost was that Bai Huang was being held back by his bow. He was using a Sacred Blood bow from a creature that Long Tian did not know. But he was using a mutant arrow.
Long Tian found it a little strange that he did not have a Sacred Blood arrow. But this was the reason that the woman could last against him for a little while.
Some of the matches that had too much imbalance between the two participants started ending, barely five minutes after starting.
But both Han Fen and Bai Huang continued fighting their battles, but they were now starting to overpower their opponents.
The spear wielding man against Han Fen was starting to get tired, and Han Fen was using any opportunities he had to land punches on the man's body. The armor protected him, but some damage was still being made, as the man took some time to recuperate every time he was punched.
In Bai Huang's end, the woman actually had some holes in her arms and legs, with one particularly nasty one in her abdomen, but it seemed to not have pierced anything vital.
Some minutes later, the first one to end their fight was actually Han Fen.
He managed to knock the spear out of his opponent's hands and grab his neck. Before the other man could react, Han Fen twisted his neck, breaking it and ending the fight.
Fives seconds later, he was teleported back to the participants area, he greeted the other members of the gang and when he looked back to the arena and saw that Bai Huang was still fighting, he let out a smirk.
Barely two minutes later, there were only 5 fights still happening, and one of them was Bai Huang's.
The dagger woman was on her last leg, with multiple holes all around her body, blood continuously poured out, falling to the ground and making a small puddle.
She had only managed to last so long because her daggers were Sacred Blood, which allowed her to parry some arrows that would cause fatal damage.
Finally, Bai Huang managed to hit an arrow on her chest, which cause the woman to stagger back. He then stopped attacking and said.
"Give up now, or the next shot will take your life."
The woman gritted her teeth but reluctantly nodded, limping towards the edge of the platform and jumping off.
Bai Huang teleported back and was only greeted by two other people, a captain and a sergeant first class, the other military still in the tournament ignored him.
Long Tian had already realized that the military gang in the shelter was not very united. He had seen discussions on some forums and heard people talking in the streets about disagreements between the captains in the military gang.
He knew that Qin Ling besides being the strongest in the gang, was also a member of a Tier 4 clan, albeit not someone important, she was still a member.
Her clan was the Qin clan. He had asked Long Rue about it, and she told him some information about it.
At the start of their training, Long Rue had been reluctant to give information to Long Tian, as it was technically breaking the rules of the Dragon Test, but by that point, she had already broken too many rules to care.
The Qin clan is a clan heavily associated with the military. More specifically, all of their members are in the military.
They have a respectable amount of influence, and their patriarch is even one of the higher-ups in the military.
With that background, Qin Ling easily got the control of the military gang, with the resources from her clan also pushing her strength to the height it is today.
The other captains are obviously not happy with it. Many consider themselves to be capable of leading the gang.
Also, being the owner of a shelter brings in too many benefits. In the military, this is even more true.
Normally, a captain has 10 sergeants beneath them, each controlling 10 soldiers. But Qin Ling could control every singly soldier in the shelter, totaling more than 2000.
This gives her a great amount of influence, which for her is not even that important, as she has her clan. But for the other captains, who don't have such prestigious backgrounds, it could be a game changer.
When Qin Ling lost to Chen Ning, some captains had even cheered, and none had actually helped her against him, which is why he managed to take control from the military in the first place.
But then, when they wanted to gang up on him later, his subordinates appeared, and a stalemate started.
And now, they obviously were not happy with each other, and Qin Ling had lost a lot of influence with them, causing even more factions to rise inside her gang.
But this is the nature of the people, give them a taste of power, and they will crave for more, always.
When the last match ended, the screen, that had been updating in real time, finally had its last name necessary to start the second round.
In this round, because of the number of participants, there would be two people that would not fight. They would go to the next round directly.
Coincidentally, one of them was Han Fen. Bai Huang would fight a man who Long Tian had identified to have 20 of fitness, and he used a shield and a sword.
At this stage, each person was already someone capable of hunting Sacred Blood beasts, so each name was known throughout the shelter.
The stands around the arena were abuzz with discussions, and the sound was almost overwhelming.
Finally, the twelve people were teleported to the platforms and their fights started.
The weakest one had a fitness of 19, and the highest was actually Bai Huang.
This level, between 15 and 25, is the limit most people can achieve in their time on the first sanctuary. Those that reach 30 are already considered elites. This was simply because of the difficulty of hunting and the rarity of good Gene Arts.
Long Tian was paying more attention to the fights now. Although they were still very slow in his eyes, some moves and strategies utilized were interesting.
Particularly, every single fighter here was experienced, resulting in fewer mistakes and fights that depended even less on the fitness level.
Bai Huang was having even more difficulties this round. His opponent had a mutant shield, which was fully capable of blocking his arrows.
So Bai Huang had to constantly keep moving around the platform while shooting arrows.
Long Tian was observing and wondering why he did not just use his fitness to his advantage.
The answer became pretty clear when his opponent managed to get near him the first time.
Bai Huang had become a little relaxed in the fight and did not expect his opponent to actually predict where he would shoot, causing him to dash towards him while the arrow was in the air.
Bai Huang clearly panicked a little and tried to dodge. At that moment, it became painfully obvious to anyone that knew anything about fighting that Bai Huang did not know how to fight melee.
He dodged in a way that gave his opponent an opportunity to actually follow him. He sacrificed his footing for a distance that did not make him safe.
It was such a basic mistake that revealed that he probably only ever fought in groups, with someone in front of him so he could focus only in shooting.
Long Tian saw Qin Ling and a few others in the military gang shaking their heads while Chen Ning's gang laughed loudly.
Bai Huang should have lost, but his fitness saved him, giving him an edge in speed and reaction on his opponent.
As time passed, the other fights ended, and Bai Huang was still fighting.
He was injured; a sword slash had grazed him in the arm. Nothing too serious but somewhat humiliating for someone that should be stronger than their opponent.
The sword and shield guy was not in a good state, having had his legs shot a couple of times, he was slowing down, and it was becoming more and more obvious that he would lose.
He had not been able to close the gap between them for a long time now and was just passively defending from arrows from all sides.
The Shelter Gang, both inside and outside the participants area, started booing the fight, and other people soon followed, making a massive wave of boos and curses at the two fighters.
Finally, 10 minutes later, the shield man just gave up and went towards a corner and jumped, as his shield was almost breaking.
He probably could have continued for another hour or so, but he was losing blood and did not think he could win.
When Bai Huang returned, not even the captain that had previously greeted him went to congratulate him, only the sergeant, clearly a subordinate, still talked with him.
The matches being finally decided, and four fights would happen now, to decide the two people to fight for the top 10 spot.
Looking at the matches, Han Fen would fight an axe used that was almost his size, and the man was clearly stronger than him, with Long Tian estimating his fitness to be about 23.
Bai Huang was actually luck and would fight a man that was actually injured seriously in his last fight and was also the weakest in this round, with less than 20 of fitness.
As the four were teleported inside, a curious scene happened.
On one side, there was an epic battle between two giant hulking masses of muscle while on the other, there was a guy with a sword that was still bleeding in some places being bullied by another who could barely get any shot to actually hit the bleeding man.
The Shelter Gang started booing again, and the people soon followed.
The disparity was just too great. One had all the advantage but could not end the fight. While the other was actually at a disadvantage but continued fighting.
Han Fen had summoned a gauntlet as soon as the fight had started, clearly not feeling confident in stopping a Sacred Blood axe from someone stronger than him with his bare hands.
He fought with everything he had, using footwork, feints and even insults to keep his opponent from actually managing to land a hit on him.
The first time he tried to deflect the axe with his hands, his Sacred Blood gauntlets did not absorb all the impact, and he was sent a few meters back from the force.
His lucky was that the axe was clearly extremely heavy, and the other man took some time between attacks to recover.
Nothing too crazy, as the man knew how to fight, but in a fight between basically superhumans, fractions of a second count.
So, Han Fen would bait him into creating an opening and then punch him before retreating.
The man was wearing a Mutant armor, but that did not stop Han Fen's punches from affecting him.
The two fights continued for more than half an hour before something changed.
Bai Huang managed to hit his opponent in the head, instantly ending the fight. After he returned, not even his subordinate came to talk with him, and he just sat in the stands panting.
A loud voice came from the Shelter Gang.
"Wow Bai Huang, against an almost dead opponent you can finish faster than Han Fen, you are actually not hopeless!"
Then came laughing, mocking insults continuously being thrown before the other remaining captains stepped in and somewhat defended him.
More than defending him, they were defending the image of the military. But either way, the insults stopped, and everyone turned back to the fight.
Impressively, the axe man was more injured than Han Fen, who only had some bruises on his arms.
The armor on Han Fen's opponent had broken, and he was puking blood every time a punch landed.
The fight was pretty brutal but extremely fun to watch, as each move was heavy, and the punches made loud sounds when they landed.
Ten minutes later, the axe man was preparing to attack again when he faltered, too tired and injured to attack as fast as he wanted.
Han Fen immediately took advantage of the opening. He dashed full speed at his opponent and landed direct punch in his chin.
That hit caused his opponent to fall back, and he jumped after him, pounding his skull with punch after punch, a commotion rose from the spectators stands but was quickly drowned by the cheering of the crowd.
After 23 punches, the man's skull gave out and his body disappeared.
Han Fen stood up and roared victoriously, having just beaten someone with a higher fitness than himself.
After he returned, his gang cheered, and he shouted at Bai Huang.
"Just you wait little archer, I will show you how true man fight!!"
One minute later, the two teleported into the arena.
That was the brutality of the tournament, there was almost no time to rest, at least not in the earlier rounds.
As soon as both appeared, Han Fen, still in gauntlets, dashed at full speed at Bai Huang.
Bai Huang started shooting arrow after arrow while going backwards, but he quickly reached the edge of the platform, carefully baited by Han Fen to go towards the corner.
When Han Fen finally cornered him and started slowly walking towards him, Bai Huang finally cracked and cursed.
"Motherfu…"