Drake Long left helplessly, but returned after midnight. The Devil Realm Emissary asked, "How did it go?"
"Mm, I found someone from Skybow Sect," Drake Long replied, then released the person.
The person, seeing the two powerful figures, was startled and asked, "Who are you?"
"You don't need to know that," the Devil Realm Emissary sneered. With that, he forced the man's mouth open and tossed in a pill.
The man panicked. He didn't know what kind of pill it was, but he was sure it wasn't anything good. He tried to spit it out, but before he could, he passed out.
"What?" Drake Long exclaimed.
"Wait outside for now. I'll call you in later," said the Devil Realm Emissary.
Drake Long nodded and left the room, leaving the unconscious man behind.
The Devil Realm Emissary squatted down, smiled at the unconscious man, and said, "I'll borrow your body for a bit."
As he finished speaking, a small stream of black qi emerged from the Devil Realm Emissary and entered the unconscious man's body. The man suddenly opened his eyes—at first they were pitch black, then returned to normal, and he began to sneer.
After everything was set, the Devil Realm Emissary called Drake Long in and said, "Take him back."
Drake Long saw that the man looked perfectly normal and grew curious, but took him away. The Devil Realm Emissary sneered, "Perform well tomorrow."
The man was sent back, dazed, to his own residence. When the others saw him, they asked where he had been, but he only wanted to say he'd been sleeping.
"Weird, why is Brother Shen so sleepy today?" someone asked suspiciously.
"Maybe he's got a match tomorrow and has been training like crazy. He's probably just exhausted," another person replied.
The others thought that made sense. As for the one called Brother Shen, he entered his room and felt so sleepy that, by the time he woke up, it was already the next day. He touched the back of his head and muttered, "Strange, what happened to me? Why am I sleeping in my room?"
He tried to recall what happened yesterday, but had no memory at all, no matter how hard he tried.
"Brother Shen, the match is about to start. Get ready!" someone called out.
Hearing this, the man replied, "Alright, coming!"
He composed himself and headed to the match.
As a member of the Heavenly-Immortal bracket, he wasn't in a rush and continued to wait for the three Earth-Immortal matches to finish. He happened to be scheduled as the second contestant for the Heavenly-Immortal group.
"Brother Shen, it's almost your turn. Do your best!" a fellow contestant encouraged him.
The man smiled, "Alright."
Soon it was his turn to take the stage. As soon as he entered, he fought with all his strength. Not far away, Drake Long frowned and muttered inwardly, "How is he acting like nothing happened? What did the Devil Realm Emissary actually do to him?"
At first, the man simply competed as usual, nothing seemed off. Everyone kept watching, until the match reached a fever pitch. Then the Skybow Sect man’s eyes started to darken, his expression became strange, his speed suddenly spiked, and he struck his opponent's back with a palm.
Boom! The person struck died instantly.
Another tragedy occurred, and the arena erupted. Both Skybow Sect and Jade Forest Sect members were shocked.
"Brother Shen, what's going on? How did your speed get so fast, and your strength so powerful?" the Skybow Sect members exclaimed. The Jade Forest Sect members were furious—if the rules didn't forbid pursuing after death, they would have rushed out to gang up on him.
Drake Long was secretly shocked. He carefully observed, only to find the man had reverted to normal, looking no different from before.
The Skybow Sect man who had killed someone snapped out of it, only then realizing he had just taken a life. "What happened?"
Even he had no idea what had just happened. He tried to search his memories, but couldn't find a single clue.
Seeing that he truly didn't know what happened, Drake Long realized he must have been tampered with—only he himself was unaware.
After Brother Shen left the stage and returned to the Skybow Sect area, his friends gathered around and asked, "Brother Shen, what happened to you today?"
"I don't know," Brother Shen replied suspiciously.
"How could you not know?" his friend asked.
"I really don't know," Brother Shen shook his head. The Skybow Sect leader walked over and asked, "What's going on here?"
"I don't know," he replied awkwardly.
"Don't let it happen again—but you weren't wrong. In these matches, it's either him or you," the leader said, seeming to care little about the death, as if it was normal.
As for the Jade Forest Sect side, things were already heated. As soon as they took the stage, it was a life-or-death struggle, and the atmosphere in the arena was boiling with rage.
A few nearly died on the spot due to their opponents' excessive force.