By convention, at the opening ceremony of the tournament, the emperor of the host nation was supposed to take the stage, deliver a speech, and make his presence felt.
But the Sun Moon Empire's emperor already had one foot in the grave—hell, the dirt was practically up to his neck. Forget coming to the Soul Fighting Competition to give a speech; he could not even get out of bed. Naturally, the job of taking the stage and showing off fell to Xu Tianran.
As hundreds of thousands of people throughout the arena shouted "Regent King" in unison, Xu Tianran felt good, but not completely good.
Damn it, why isn't that old bastard dead yet? As long as he's alive, I'm still just the crown prince!
This kind of power, this feeling of Sovereign's Descent, made Xu Tianran feel as though he were floating on air. Yet the words "Regent King" were like a huge green-headed fly suddenly dropping into a delicious bowl of soup. For a moment, he did not know whether to swallow it or spit it out.
It felt awful.
Still, Xu Tianran kept a smile on his face as he read from the script, wrapping up the classic emperor-showing-off segment that came with every tournament before announcing the official start of the competition.
As was customary for every tournament, the first team to take the stage in the elimination rounds was the previous tournament's champion. This year was no exception. The Shrek Team, opening the elimination rounds with a victory, was the first to compete.
There was not much to say about the result. No matter how badly Shrek had fallen off this year, they were not a group of nameless cannon-fodder factions that could challenge them. They easily claimed their first win.
After that, the matches