With no one knowing his name, Long Tian's sudden appearance in the small arena against Jiang Xue shocked everyone.
However, the most shocked one was not even Jiang Xue, it was Qin Ling, who immediately screamed.
"JIANG XUE, JU-"
However, before she could even finish, another voice came from close-by.
"Captain, you would not ask for your subordinate to surrender after you made a captain go against Chen Ning, right?"
At that, the five people from the military still in the participants area looked at her.
She gritted her teeth and was about to say something when the captain continued.
"Don't think that just because you are from a big clan you can do whatever you want, Qin Ling! If you truly go against what you said before, I will report you to a lieutenant."
And then, without giving a chance for Qin Ling to say or do anything, he yelled.
"Sergeant Jiang Xue, you better fight or you will be considered a deserter!"
Qin Ling and the captain then continued to argue, with her looking extremely anxious.
Back in the arena, neither of the two had moved. Jiang Xue already knew what would happen if she gave up now, Qin Ling's opponents would use it as a way to attack her.
But she also knew that she had no chance against the man in front of her. So she just stood there, ready to try and react to anything that happened.
After waiting for a while for her to attack, enough for it to become a little awkward, Long Tian realized he would have to attack first.
So, he just started walking towards her.
Jiang Xue immediately tensed up, moving back a little before gritting her teeth and deciding to attack Long Tian.
She reached him fast and attacked him with her sword as fast as she could, slashing horizontally so he would have to dodge backwards.
However, his next move shocked her. He simply raised his hand and caught the sword with it.
The expected sensation of cutting through flesh never came, the sword stopping dead on its track.
Jiang Xue used a Sacred-Blood sword, so it was not shocking that she, with only her 23 of fitness, could not use it to cut through a Super Armor.
After catching Jiang Xue's blade, Long Tian simply stepped forward, invading her guard, and delivered a punch to her stomach.
She immediately was sent flying and fell outside the platform relatively harmlessly.
She did not have time to even use her flying beast soul, one second she was in the middle of the platform, the next, she was already out of the boundary of the light barrier around it, eliminated.
This shocked some people. They all thought that he would kill her just like he had killed that hammer guy from the shelter gang from before.
Almost no one had seen him punching people out of the platform during the battle royale, so they thought he was going to kill all of his opponents in the tournament. Just like many people such as the Shelter Gang had been doing.
This caused great relief in Qin Ling, who immediately stared daggers at the captain that was still in the tournament and looked around to find Qin Ling.
But it caused Chen Ning and his gang to become enraged, as it was now clear as day that this guy had targeted them before.
As soon as he returned, insults and curses started coming from the people of the shelter gang, that were less than 10 by now.
But other people were more focused on looking at the screen above the participants area, that now clearly showed his name, Long Tian.
Qin Ling and Chen Ning ordered people to go after information on this name immediately.
The spectators started to discuss who that man was. No one made the association with the Long Clan, not even Chen Ning.
After all, true members of the Long Clan are extremely rare, and more than that, he would be informed if there was a member of the clan in the shelter.
The matches continued as people continued talking about the mysterious green armored man that was called Long Tian.
The Long surname is not exclusive to the Long Clan, quite the contrary actually, as multiple people name their children with the Long surname, as they think it can attract wealth and power.
Once the first round ended, Long Tian appeared in the platform against a bow user.
Long Tian immediately moved, as staying at a distance against an archer was a bad idea.
The man barely had a chance to draw his bow before receiving a blow in the stomach out of nowhere, being sent flying out of the platform.
This only confirmed for Chen Ning and his gang that Long Tian was not one to kill his opponents, and that he was targeting them.
This time, there were no insults, but Chen Ning and the others were staring at him with murder in their eyes.
The next round, Long Tian's opponent was from the Shelter Gang. He was strong, with about 26 of Fitness, but that did not change anything.
As soon as they appeared on the platform, Long Tian moved at a speed that surprised even Chen Ning and arrived by the man's side, summoning his sword and decapitating the man.
He had been using a Sacred-Blood armor and used a great sword, but Long Tian's sword cut through both armor and neck without effort.
The body and head fell to the ground before disappearing. Long Tian returned to the stands soon after.
This time, he could feel even more anger from the Shelter Gang, and Chen Ning had abandoned his indifferent façade and now looked at him with a serious face.
He had showed a fitness of almost 40 when killing that guy just now, so it was not a surprise that Chen Ning would take him more seriously now.
The next fight, Long Tian's opponent resigned before the start of the match. He was not from the shelter gang; he was probably just afraid of being killed without even seeing how.
So Long Tian went directly into the final fight for the top 10 spot.
After watching a fight between a man with a primitive flying beast soul and a dagger user, the final came.
He would fight the man with he primitive flying beast soul.
As soon as both of them appeared on the platform, the man already had his wings summoned and tried taking to the air.
However, he had barely made it 1 meter above the ground when Long Tian reached him, punching him in the chest in a way that he went directly backwards, not giving him a chance to stabilize in the air.
Once he teleported back to the stands, Long Tian heard the sanctuary voice in his head.
{You are now part of the Top 10 of your shelter, congratulations.}
Being Top 10 meant that his name would be on the Arena Ranking Board.
This was a board that appeared after the tournament in the arena.
It showed the top 10 of the Shelter and some other rankings from more advanced phases of the tournament.
The matches for the final Top 10 spot appeared.
The strongest was a tall woman with 27 of fitness who ended up winning. She used a martial art that involved a lot of kicking. She also had a Sacred-Blood armor, which is how her legs were not amputated when she fought against blade-users.
After the woman teleported back to the participants area, ten people remained.
They were Han Fen, the guy with the massive sword, Qin Ling, Chen Ning, the captain that confronted Qin Ling earlier, Web-Crossbow woman, the young man with the Z-Metal sword, the second strongest from the Shelter Gang, Long Tian and the woman that used a leg martial art.
Long Tian sat alone close to the pit where the small arenas were. The three military and three shelter gang people each sat together, while the rest sat alone in seats far from each other.
At that moment, the sanctuary voice sounded once more.
{Second Stage completed. The third stage will begin in 12 hours. Participants may leave the arena but must return in 11 hours or they will be considered forfeited.}
After that announcement, a giant door appeared on the top of the stands in the participants area.
Long Tian immediately started walking towards it, ignoring the enraged looks from the shelter gang and the wary look from the others.
The fights had taken over 10 hours in total, and now he wanted to go back and eat something and maybe get some sleep, not that he was tired, but he did not have anything else to do.
As soon as he touched the door, he was teleported back to outside the arena in the shelter.
The shelter looked almost the same as before he entered. But the streets were empty and the sky was starting to darken.
He immediately dashed towards a small road between some buildings, and not even ten seconds later, people started pouring out of the arena, with some still looking for his figure.
After making sure he was not being followed by anyone, Long Tian removed his armor, covered his face with his hoodie and made his way to a market to buy some meat.
…
In the building that the military gang had occupied.
Qin Ling was seated in an improvised office, with a chair and a desk in an otherwise empty room.
It had been some hours since the end of the second stage, but instead of resting, she was trying to find anything she could about Long Tian.
She had sent Jiang Xue back to the alliance to search there while her people were looking through every rumor and information from the past months.
She had been feeling frustrated. This person appeared out of nowhere, was stronger than her and possibly even Chen Ning, and had had the opportunity to kill Jiang Xue in a setting that would leave her without the opportunity to neither defend her nor go after vengeance later in the alliance.
Just as she was about to leave her office to rest for a bit before the next stage in the tournament, there was a knock on the door.
"Enter."
As her voice echoed, the door opened, revealing Jiang Xue.
She entered and bowed a little before starting.
"Captain, I have informed Lieutenant Qin and after some research we have come up with a few possibilities of who this Long Tian might be."
Seeing Qin Ling nod, she continued.
"There are many people with this name in the military database, but those in the first sanctuary number less than a million. Unfortunately, we can't know for sure their specific beast souls. And those that match the fitness all are very well documented and are not in our region."
"So based on everything we found, he is either a member of some clan, a civilian that has not yet reached 20 years and therefore was not tested by the military, or…"
Jiang Xue then hesitated, feeling unsure of this possibility herself.
"It's okay, you can speak freely."
Jiang Xue nodded and said.
"The last possibility was not thought of by the Lieutenant, it was just an idea that came to mind when I was helping with the research. What if he is from the Long Clan?"
As soon as she said that, Qin Ling's face changed and she fell into contemplation.
But after some time, she shook her head.
"That is very unlikely, Long Clan members wield too much power and respect for us to not know if there was one in our shelter. Besides, why would a Long Clan member be killing what are basically his subordinates, as Chen Ning is a dog of the Long Clan."
Jiang Xue just looked down.
"You don't have to feel down, it's important that you share your ideas with me. But let's keep this one between us for now. If this possibility becomes more likely in the future, we can report it back to the Lieutenant."
Then, Qin Ling stood up and walked up to Jiang Xue, hugging her before walking away. She said one last thing before leaving the office.
"As we can't know his identity for sure yet, let's wait and see what will happen. For now, I am going to sleep a bit before going back to the arena."
And she left.
…
Meanwhile, in the center of the shelter.
This area used to be the turf of the military gang, but after Chen Ning took ownership of the shelter from Qin Ling, this area naturally fell under his gang's control.
There used to be a giant tower here, that had been built by Qin Ling to be their headquarters using her powers as shelter owner, but now, there is a massive castle-like structure in the center, with giant walls surrounding it and only one gate of access.
On the center of the castle, in what appeared to be a throne room, Chen Ning sat down while some of the people from his gang were reporting in front of him.
As soon as the second stage ended, they also left the arena and tried to find Long Tian, but could not find him anywhere, and no one had seen him either.
So Chen Ning ordered an investigation on him while he returned to the alliance and used the Long Clan's channels to find information about this person.
But he had returned empty handed to the sanctuary.
He had been disobeying some orders from the clan for a while now but he figured that no one would care as long as he did not go against the clan's interests.
So after not finding anything, he also discarded the possibility of Long Tian being from the Long Clan itself.
Neither Chen Ning nor Qin Ling had found anything on Long Tian because his existence was not public knowledge yet, as Young Masters of the Long Clan are only announced to the world after they pass the Dragon Test or they reach 20 years of age and have to go the military.
So the military did not have information about Long Tian. Well, at least Qin Ling did not have access to information about him.
And the Long Clan would obviously not tell Chen Ning about their secret Young Master.
In this way, the hours of the night passed, with some resting and others spending their time in a myriad of other ways, both inside and outside the sanctuary.
But as the next morning came and the time for the tournament to resume approached, everyone made sure to be back, rested or not.