Chapter 15 Minutes Later

After Wang Tanzhi retrieved the [Titanium Alloy Jinhua Ham], he, Jian Jun, and Zhao Yun followed Heike Kiyomori across the bridge together.

Although Date seemed somewhat displeased, he didn't stop them. After all, that strange monk was his superior, and… he had already witnessed Xiao Tan's strength.

Thus, four of the six players in this script had successfully entered the barrier beneath Koshiji Castle, having cleared the threshold of the Martial Arts Tournament. One person, [Bei Ling Xiao Gu], had already been killed in action.

The last one still drifting outside… was Feng Bujue.

…

Fifteen minutes later, still at the iron-chain bridge in front of the main gate of Koshiji Castle, another group of figures arrived in a mighty throng.

"Hmm?" Date gazed into the distance and muttered, "Another batch?"

This "batch" he spoke of numbered more than a dozen, consisting of powerful figures from various timelines.

Five were from the King of Fighters universe…

The four of them were Goenitz of the Gale, Chris of Destiny, Shermie of the Wild Lightning, and Yashiro of the Parched Earth. These four were all powerful individuals capable of manipulating natural phenomena through their own willpower, and were known as the "Four Heavenly Kings of Orochi," the stronger four of the "Orochi Hakkesshu."

The other was Rugal Bernstein. He was the most frequently appearing boss in the KOF series, with a professional background as a black market arms dealer, as well as a genius martial artist. He possessed genius-level martial arts awareness and intelligence, capable of absorbing his opponents' martial arts secrets, instantly comprehending them, and converting them to his own use. As a veteran boss of the series… he was undoubtedly the original nightmare for players in the arcade era.

Then, there were four military commanders from the Dynasty Warriors universe…

They were Dian Wei, known as the "Ancient Evil," Gan Ning, the "Wu Fighting General," Zhang Fei, the "Man of Ten Thousand Foes," and Honda Tadakatsu, the "Devil of Heihachi." They were super-fierce generals from the four major forces in Dynasty Warriors. None of them were pretty boys; generally speaking… the uglier they were, the more ruthless they were. A handsome guy like Zhao Zilong would definitely have no chance of winning against those brothers.

Next, there were two people from the Thunderbolt universe…

One was the invincible Japanese myth known as "Peerless General," the "God of War" Gen Musashi. Accompanying Gen Musashi was Mo Zhaonu, known as "Japan's Most Beautiful Boy," whose appearance was even more beautiful than a woman's. Mo Zhaonu's appearance could be said to have raised the "average attractiveness" of their group, while also further highlighting the ferocity of the four Dynasty Warriors generals beside him.

Finally, mixed in with this group… was a strange fellow. He was wearing a long purple suit, a [Smiling Face] mask, and had his hands in his pockets, walking inconspicuously in the middle of the group.

"Tch… make way, make way." After the group approached, Date glanced at them and ordered the soldiers behind him to let them pass.

The dozen or so people didn't speak to Date, but silently crossed the bridge.

Date watched the people pass by one after another, initially without any reaction, but suddenly… he saw Feng Bujue in the crowd.

"Chotto matte!" Date immediately shouted in Japanese, pointing at Jue-Ge and saying, "You, stop right there!"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue paused, turned his head, and replied, "Are you talking to me?"

"Nonsense! Of course I'm talking to you." Date walked straight toward Jue-Ge and stopped a meter in front of him. "Who are you?"

"Huh?" Feng Bujue replied, "You don't even recognize me?" His ability to lie through his teeth was truly top-notch. "I'm Wei Yan!"

"Hmm? So you're Wei Yan?" Zhang Fei, who was in the crowd, turned around to look at him.

"I say… Uncle…" Chris, who was walking in front, covered his face and shook his head, muttering to Yide, "Can you not make things worse…"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Date wasn't easy to fool either. He immediately shouted at Jue-Ge, "It's not like I've never seen Wei Yan before. You don't have a single thing in common with Wei Yan except for wearing a mask! And the mask you're wearing is completely different from his!"

"Ah… well, it's like this." Feng Bujue replied calmly, "A while ago… my lord complained that my hairstyle looked like a black rapper, my clothes looked like a beastman exhibitionist, my posture looked like something out of *Cosplay Planet of the Apes*, my moves looked like Ninja Turtles, and my speech sounded like an autistic patient… I thought to myself, I'm still a general, with a name and a title. Even if I can't write poetry, I know a lot of characters, so I'm practically a cultured person… It's really not good to show myself in that image all the time. So, I got a haircut, changed my clothes, fixed my bowlegs, learned rap from the strategist for half a month, and lost some weight along the way." He paused, pointed to his face, "The old mask didn't match the new look, so I bought a new one."

"Who are you trying to fool!" Date was astonished. It was the first time he had seen someone lie so calmly and at length. "Who are you really?"

"Sigh… Brother Feng, I think it's better to give up." Mo Zhaonu, who was at the back of the group, said, "I told you a long time ago, it wouldn't work…"

"Brother Feng?" Date heard this and looked at Jue-Ge suspiciously.

"What Brother Feng?" Feng Bujue continued to play dumb. "Please call me General Wei, or Wenchang."

"You little…" Veins popped out on Date's forehead, and he clenched his fists. "Are you deliberately trying to mess with me…" He had already accumulated a lot of anger from the previous battle with Xiao Tan, and now Feng Bujue poured fuel on the fire, naturally igniting it again. "Speak! Who are you really? Or else I'll cut you down right now!"

"Alright, alright…" Seeing that his plan to "sneak through" had failed, Feng Bujue activated "Plan B."

This plan… simply put, was "Plan B." To put it completely, it was the "Show Off Plan."

"Since you sincerely asked!" Jue-Ge said, taking a big step back, straightening his back, striking a pose, and reciting, "I shall mercifully answer you!"

"Can we go first…" Goenitz, who was walking in the front, didn't even turn his head, already knowing what Jue-Ge was going to do, so he just closed his eyes and asked in a deep voice.

"Sigh…" Gen Musashi sighed, "Forget it… we've already heard it once anyway, it doesn't matter to hear it again…" The subtext of his words was—we've already suffered one spiritual contamination, another one won't lower our sanity.

"Just asking you to give your name… what exactly are you trying to say…" Date also felt that something was wrong. Looking at Jue-Ge's posture, it was as if he was about to start a storytelling performance…

"Listen carefully… I am!" Feng Bujue took off his mask and began to speak eloquently, like a rushing torrent, "A green pine on the summit of Mount Tai, standing tall and proud in the vast sky. Eight thousand miles of storms cannot topple it, nine thousand thunderbolts cannot break it…"

He had only just started, and he had already stunned all the demonic soldiers and generals present. Clearly, none of the guys under Orochi had ever seen *Shajia Creek*.

"As the saying goes… laughing, I watch the vast ocean shatter a thousand armies, planning, I control heaven and earth and calculate cause and effect. Without awareness, without fear, I lightly treat life and death, neither ghost nor god, I resemble a mad demon…" Jue-Ge's narration was far from over, "Within the three realms, among the six paths, my mighty name is well-known and known to all…"

"You are… Feng Bujue?"

Unexpectedly, Date interrupted Jue-Ge after only a few sentences of his introduction, and asked this question with a painful expression and a tentative tone.

"Eh?" Jue-Ge was also stunned for a moment, "You actually know me?"

"Phew…" Date let out a long breath, "It really is you…" He rolled his eyes, "I've never met you before, but… I've heard your name, your poem, and some of your deeds… from Orochi's mouth…"

"What?" Feng Bujue asked curiously, "I'm already so famous?"

"This is what they call 'good deeds don't go out, bad deeds travel a thousand miles'…"

"Sure enough, his evil reputation is widespread and known to all…"

"By the way… why did we agree to help this guy infiltrate the Martial Arts Tournament?"

"I don't know… but I feel like it would be terrible to become enemies with this kind of person… uh… just thinking about it gives me goosebumps…"

Date hadn't answered Jue-Ge's question, but the "companions" around him had already had such an exchange… As a result, even the demonic soldiers who were just passing by at the bridgehead cast disdainful and disgusted glances at Jue-Ge.

"Anyway…" Date's expression became very strange. He took half a step back and said, "Since you're Feng Bujue, then… you can go in…" He was still a pretty honest person, not forgetting to add, "I don't want to fight you…"

As someone who could be resurrected infinitely by the Demon King and wasn't even afraid of death, he didn't want to have too much to do with Jue-Ge, which showed… that Feng Bujue's reputation in the multiverse… really had a problem.

"Oh, okay." But Jue-Ge himself was indifferent to the reactions of everyone around him. He just shrugged and said, "If I had known I was so famous here, I wouldn't have bothered pretending to be someone else. It's a waste that I planned such a realistic disguise."

"Realistic my ass! Who would fall for that!" Date really wanted to shout that out, but he held back. Compared to getting involved with Jue-Ge… he felt that suppressing his desire to吐槽 was more rational.

…

At the same time, beneath Koshiji Castle, at the Martial Arts Tournament arena.

A fierce battle was unfolding on a wide arena.

In fact… this "Musou Martial Arts Tournament" held by Orochi had already started a few days ago.

There was only one arena, with no so-called "preliminary rounds, semi-finals, finals." The format of the competition was simple. Each match, the "reporting statue" would randomly announce two names, and then the people who were called would go on stage to fight. The battle had no time limit, and would end when one side died, conceded, or lost the ability to fight. After a winner was decided, the victor could step down to rest, waiting to be called again next time; and the loser would no longer be called, but could still stay here to watch the battles.

And so on… until the last ten people were left, Orochi would personally arrive, and then there would be a 1v10 final battle.

As for the principles and rules by which the reporting statue announced the names… no one knew. The function of that lion-headed bronze statue was to announce the results after each battle, and then announce the next pair of combatants and declare the start.

In this tournament, everyone who passed through the bridge and came to the arena would be called at least once. If they felt that their strength was insufficient and they would be eliminated sooner or later, they could directly concede when they were called.

Of course, most of the people who came to this venue wouldn't do that. As the top powerhouses in their respective timelines, who didn't have some pride? Although everyone's ultimate goal was to defeat Orochi, how could they know who was stronger or weaker without trying?

In this timeline, it was difficult to say who was strong and who was weak. Logically speaking, how could a faceless demon general like [Jiao] be a match for Jian Jun Shi Er Hen? Any third-rate extra from the Thunderbolt universe could instantly kill Jiao. However… here, some inconspicuous extras might be on par with those popular characters.

So… most of the participating powerhouses came with the mentality of "exchanging pointers, discussing martial arts." They didn't know if they could stay until the end… The outcome of each battle was unknown.

However, not everyone participated with the above mentality. Among the crowd, there were also many arrogant and self-centered figures… In their own universes, they played roles similar to Orochi. These guys didn't care about temporal distortions or the suffering of living beings… Some of them couldn't stand Orochi's arrogance and were prepared to teach the Demon King a lesson; others were simply bloodthirsty and loved war, born for war and coming for war; and still others were martial arts fanatics who only cared about pursuing their own cultivation realms, not caring how the world changed, only wanting to find masters to test their abilities…

In short, this Martial Arts Tournament… was very interesting, just as the Demon King had expected.

"That's the Martial Arts Tournament arena, right?" When they came within a few hundred meters of the arena, Xiao Tan pointed to the distant high platform and asked.

"That's right." Heike Kiyomori, who was walking in front of Xiao Tan, Jian Jun, and Zhao Yun, replied, "This is the Musou Martial Arts Platform that I personally built…"

This "Musou Martial Arts Platform" that he spoke of was slightly higher than the ground of Musou Plain, with an overall circular shape and a radius of two hundred meters. The material of the arena itself was no different from the stones in the wasteland, but after each battle, the arena would automatically restore itself in a very short time, and the traces of the battles would be filled in. In addition, the entire arena was surrounded by a spherical barrier, with the lower half of the barrier resembling a bowl buried in the ground, and the upper half resembling a dome covering the arena. This barrier was more powerful than the Fire River Barrier around Koshiji Castle, and neither physical nor mental interference (below a certain intensity) could penetrate it. It ensured that people below the arena could not secretly interfere with the outcome of the battles above, and also effectively prevented people below from being accidentally injured by the fighters on stage.

"Alright, the three of you, I'll escort you here." After a few seconds, Heike Kiyomori added, "Any further, and there will be more people. If others see you walking with me, I'm afraid it will cause misunderstandings."

"A straight body is not afraid of a crooked shadow." Jian Jun replied in a deep voice, "It's just walking with you, the three of us have a clear conscience and are not afraid of being misunderstood as Orochi's lackeys."

"Hehe…" Heike Kiyomori chuckled softly in his muffled thunder-like voice, "Alright, then let's just say that I'm being paranoid. Farewell!" With that, his entire person turned into a huge demonic aura, soaring into the sky, heading towards Koshiji Castle in the vortex.

"Then…" After Heike Kiyomori left, Xiao Tan looked in the direction of the arena and muttered, "...Shall we go to the arena to take a look?"

"Yes." Zhao Yun nodded in response, "I've already seen a few familiar seniors, and I was just thinking of going over to pay my respects."

"I've also seen a few seniors, and I'm going to go over and say hello." Jian Jun said.

"Oh… then I'll… just find a spot and watch by myself, I guess?" Xiao Tan replied.

The three of them exchanged a few more polite words, and then each went in a direction.

Within a few hundred meters around the martial arts platform, there were "spectators," or rather… participants. Most of these people had excellent eyesight, and they didn't need to crowd around the stage like we do at open-air concerts. These people were basically standing in groups of three or five, relatively loosely on the wasteland, watching the battle on stage from a distance. Only a small number of people were standing at the edge of the stage, vaguely forming a circle of not-so-tight human wall.

"Hmm… Sister Yu has indeed already entered…" Soon, Xiao Tan spotted Li Ruoyu's figure in the audience.

Almost in the same second, as if she had sensed someone's gaze, Li Ruoyu suddenly turned her head and cast a cold look at Xiao Tan.

"Uh…" Xiao Tan shuddered from the glare, "How did she find me… intuition… so scary…"

He didn't know that the scary things had only just begun…

"Hey, Wang Tanzhi." Suddenly, someone called Xiao Tan from behind and patted him on the shoulder.

"Ah!" Xiao Tan hadn't recovered from Ruoyu's assassin-like gaze, and was patted without warning, so scared that his hair stood on end. "What? What's up? Who is it?" While asking questions incoherently, he shook off the other person's hand and suddenly turned around to retreat quickly.

"Hehe… don't be nervous, it's me." Qi Sha looked at Xiao Tan's reaction and found it funny, "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting like a frightened bird?"

"Oh… it's you…" Xiao Tan breathed a sigh of relief, but half a second later, he held that breath again, "That's not right! I should be nervous if it's you! What do you want? Are you planning to attack me before going on stage?"

Qi Sha shook his head and smiled, "What are you talking about? If I wanted to kill you offstage, I would have taken advantage of your distraction just now and ambushed you directly, why would I greet you?"

"Hmm…" Because what the other person said made a lot of sense, Xiao Tan was speechless.

"Don't worry." Qi Sha said in a very straightforward tone, "The Martial Arts Tournament has a rule—fighting offstage is not allowed, and violators will be disqualified and kicked out." He pointed to the sky, "This place is, after all, beneath Koshiji Castle, and thousands of demonic soldiers and generals are right above our heads, ready to descend from the sky at any time. Even those godlike guys around here don't dare to fight in private, how would I dare to attack offstage?"

"Oh…" This time, Xiao Tan really breathed a sigh of relief, "Eh? By the way, how did you know about the rule against private fights?"

"The rules are on the stone tablet over there." Qi Sha said, pointing to a boulder about fifty meters outside the edge of the arena, "Let's go, I'll go with you to take a look, and by the way… I also want to chat with you."