From the perspective of the Extreme Combat Association, battles with floating odds usually weren’t all that lucrative. However, floating odds also meant that the odds were at least stable, and the association wouldn’t lose funds on the match.
But then again, when a certain number of bets were placed, even battles with floating odds could become extremely lucrative.
“Jing Yan, I’m going to make sure that you won’t even get to cry from this. Just you wait!” Zhao Dengtian waved his hand in a vicious manner and gritted his teeth.
“Zhao Piece-of-sh**t, you might end up being the one crying, you know.” Jing Yan gave him a wide grin.
“Hmph!” Zhao Dengtian scowled at him, then turned and left the contestants’ preparation room.
At that moment, a middle-aged staffer walked onto the suspended platform in the hall.
“Ladies and gentlemen, all betting for the match between Li Tianfu and Jing Yan has now closed. The betting counters will not be accepting any more bets for this particular battle. We would like to thank you all for participating.”
The counters began to close as the man had announced, and anyone who still wanted to place a bet after that was ignored.
The numbers on the crystal wall stating the odds steadied completely by then.
Jing Yan’s odds were 22 to one.
Li Tianfu’s odds were one to 30.
The odds were extremely far apart. In fact, it was possible that odds had never been farther apart in the history of the Extreme Combat Association in Dong Lin City.
“The countdown to the battle begins.”
“Ten, nine, eight…”
The man began counting down.
Two figures emerged from separate passages on either side of the building. They walked slowly into the special ring that the association had installed on the second floor.
The crystal wall on the first floor suddenly glowed to life, showing an image of the ring. The gamblers who had just finished placing their bets crowded around the huge screen to watch.
Generally-speaking, bettors weren’t allowed to watch the battle directly because the association was concerned that having the bettors too near the ring might affect the contestants’ performance. Upon seeing that the money they had just wagered was about to be lost, some gamblers might even try to charge into the fight themselves if they could.
To prevent such accidents from happening, the gamblers were denied the right to watch the battles up close.
However, there were some private rooms on the second floor from which audience members could watch the fight with their own eyes.
“They’re here.”
“Li Tianfu! Li Tianfu is out…”
“That man dressed in blue is Jing Yan. He’s at the Seventh Heaven, yet he dared to challenge Li Tianfu. This is just ridiculous.”
“Do you guys think that Jing Yan will lose in a single hit?”
“Huh? Losing? More like getting killed! Half the people who have fought Li Tianfu ended up getting killed in the ring.”
When the bettors in the hall saw Li Tianfu’s silhouette on the huge crystal wall, they cheered rowdily.
In the ring, a man wearing a tight-fitting black suit walked toward Jing Yan. Pronounced muscles bulged all over the man’s body, promising that each of the man’s blows would have explosive power. He was none other than Li Tianfu.
“So you’re Jing Yan?” Li Tianfu asked, looking over Jing Yan.
“Yes, I am.” Jing Yan nodded.
“I know you. You’re the guy who had made it into the Precelestial rank, but now you’re only at the Seventh Heaven. What made you dare to fight me? Aren’t you afraid of death?” Li Tianfu’s voice sounded coarse and brutish, which made him seem somewhat dense.
There was a centipede-shaped black scar on his face, which made him look extremely ferocious and unforgiving. He held a long black saber with a thick spine in his hand, which emanated a sense of coldness.
“Death? Of course I’m afraid of death! But you aren’t going to be able to kill me,” Jing Yan said, his eyes glittering.
“That so, eh?” Li Tianfu wasn’t angered. He had no need to get worked up over Jing Yan. He deemed it imperative to face the man before him with composure, even if the man was clearly of lower rank than he was.
One could only use the full extent of their powers when they were composed.
A warrior needed to keep his cool even when fighting the weakest opponent he had ever fought. Such was the resolve that a warrior who had been through thick and thin should hold onto.
“We’ll see about that then.” Li Tianfu’s grin was distant and eerie, the kind that would send shivers down people’s spines.
Common, average warriors would have probably started shivering just from looking at that expression.
However, Jing Yan’s state of mind remained completely unfazed.
Shoop!
Clang!!
The shadow of the blade coalesced in an instant. A black flash appeared around Li Tianfu as he swung his blade.
The man summoned a raging burst of Vital Qi, bringing about an explosive blast in the process.
As his Vital Qi thundered up, Li Tianfu charged at Jing Yan like a beast with claws and fangs bared.
“Die!” Li Tianfu roared, and the black saber in his hand shimmered with unforgiving flash, then swung down onto Jing Yan like a storm.
“It’s starting, it’s starting!”
“Kill! Kill! Kill him!”
“I wanna see blood! I wanna see blood!”
Waves of excited cheering exploded in the hall on the first floor. All eyes were locked on the large crystal wall. Every single gaze was a hot, fiery one.
It was an incredible sight to see thousands of people being thrown into a frenzy.
But then again, not all of them had bet on Li Tianfu.
There were also a handful who placed some bets on Jing Yan as well.
Jing Yan’s odds were just too tempting. Even if they knew that the chances of him winning were near zero, there were still some who were unable to resist the urge to take a chance. It was worth noting that if Jing Yan emerged victorious, they would earn 22 times the number of Spiritual Stones that they had wagered.
However, there were still only a handful of people who bet on Jing Yan, and all of them had placed minuscule bets. The largest of the bets was only a couple dozen Spiritual Stones, with the exception of Jing Yan himself. He had placed the only bet of more than 100 Spiritual Stones that wasn’t in favor of Li Tianfu.
There were also some gamblers who had only placed one or two Spiritual Stones on him. Betting a Spiritual Stone or two as a form of insurance didn’t seem like a bad idea. Such a paltry loss wouldn’t really affect them anyway.
In a room on the second floor, Ran Qi locked her gaze on the ring. This battle had quickly become important, and she was concerned about how it would progress. She sensed the presence of another person by her side, and she spun around by reflex. Standing beside her was the president of the association.
“President?”
“I’ve heard that this match will be interesting, so I just dropped by to check it out,” the grey-robed elder said with a grin.
The man was the president of the Extreme Combat Association, and an important figure in Dong Lin City.
The president seldom paid much attention to any one battle.
While Li Tianfu didn’t fight every day, he made an appearance once a week or so. The president, on the other hand, never bothered to watch his fights. If the president had decided to watch this fight, it wasn’t because Li Tianfu was on the stage; the president had come to watch Jing Yan.
When a Seventh Heaven warrior had dared to challenge Li Tianfu, it had caught him entirely by surprise. Such a rare event had definitely piqued the president’s interests.