If Heaven hadn't given birth to me, I would be arrogant.

At this moment, the audience in the dueling arena, except for the seats occupied by high-ranking imperial officials, was filled with boos. However, our protagonist, Zong Laomo, who was being booed, was not ashamed at all. He picked up the fire stick on Xiao Hei's body, weighed it in his hand, and said, "This will be my weapon!"

Seeing the weapon in Zong Ze's hand, the referee's face turned red, and he looked at Zong Ze with a fierce gaze: "Are you deliberately humiliating me? I am, after all, a nobleman of the empire, yet I have become the referee of this farce!"

So the referee didn't say anything more, waved his hand, and announced the start of the duel!

In fact, it wasn't just the referee; Zong's opponent, Fox, was also furious with Zong Ze, wishing he could kill him with a single spear thrust. Seeing the referee wave, Fox didn't hesitate; he spurred his horse into a charge!

Seeing Fox charging menacingly toward him with a spear in hand, Zong Ze didn't react at all. He just stood there in the arena, seemingly still studying the fire poker in his hand!

"Hehe!" Old Fox in the stands chuckled as he looked at Zong Kuang and said, "General Zong, why don't you just admit defeat? I think my nephew Zong Ze seems a little scared!"

"Admit defeat? Bullshit! No one in my family has ever admitted defeat!" Zong Kuang's expression returned to normal. He knew his son's character well. As much as he was shameful, Zong Kuang would never admit defeat!

"Heh! General Zong!" Fox maintained his standard aristocratic smile, but his words were sharp: "Look at the weapon in my nephew's hand, it's just a fire poker. And look at Fox's equipment? If you don't admit defeat, do you really think my nephew can win?"

"Yes!" Lan Qizhan chimed in with a smile, "General Zong, if you can't win, just admit defeat. I'll share some of my winnings with you! I think Xiao Ce is doomed to lose, so admitting defeat now will at least prevent you from getting hurt!"

"You can't say that!" Old Flort couldn't stand it anymore and said, "Perhaps Zong Ze knew what was going on. Look, didn't he make a move?"

At this moment, everyone saw Zong Ze move. He held the fire poker high in the air, then swung it down forcefully, pointing the tip at Fox who was charging straight at him, and shouted, "Lie down for me!"

A burst of laughter and boos erupted from the stands, with someone even shouting, "Little Duke, do you think you're a magician? Besides, magicians don't use spells like that, hahaha! Uh..."

Just as everyone was laughing, suddenly Little Fox let out a neigh and collapsed to his knees with a thud. The momentum of his forward charge caused him and Fox on his back to roll three times on the ground!

"Hiss!" The entire audience gasped. No one could understand it. Some even exclaimed in horror, "Could Zong Ze really be a magician? But this magic is too powerful! We can't even sense the magical fluctuations. He just knocked his opponent and his horse to the ground like that?"

Even Lan Qizhan asked in surprise, "Old Marshal, is your grandson really a magician? What kind of magic is this? He defeated his opponent with just one sentence?"

Zong Xiaozhang was also astonished. Although he knew that his grandson was a dual cultivator of magic and martial arts, he had warned Zong Ze not to reveal any magic. Moreover, as a martial god, he could clearly sense that Zong Ze had not used any magic at all. So how did he manage to do that?

Only old Flort, standing to the side, noticed something. The old prime minister sighed softly and said, "This child, I thought he was just bragging at first, but I never expected him to actually do it. Such a simple method, and our empire has been fighting for hundreds of years, yet we never thought of it!"

"Teacher! What did you say?" Seeing Flote speak, Lan Qizhan quickly asked, "Did you figure out what kind of magic Zongze was using?"

"Hehe! I can see that!" The old prime minister chuckled. "What Xiao Zongze used could be called magic, but it wasn't really magic either!"

Seeing the confused look on the middle-aged man's face, the old prime minister continued, "Once, Xiao Zongze and I were talking about the Bright Empire. When I mentioned the Bright Empire's renowned Light Heavy Armored Knights Legion, the little guy said with a disdainful look that if he had a battalion of infantry, he could wipe out the entire legion!"

"Nonsense!" Upon hearing this, Zong Xiaozhang slammed his hand on the armrest of his chair and said, "Old man, you believe whatever this kid says? You know what reputation the Light Heavy Armored Knights have on the continent. They are known as the battlefield crushers! Don't even mention an infantry battalion, even ten infantry regiments would be asking for death!"

“That’s right!” Zong Kuang chimed in, “I’ve also done research on this heavy armored legion. Human wave tactics are completely ineffective against this legion. Anything under their hooves will be crushed into mincemeat!”

“That’s what I thought at first too!” Old Freud sighed again. “But now it seems the little guy was right, and he’s shown us with his actions that he really can do it!”

"How did you do that?" When talking about fighting, especially against the heavy cavalry of the Bright Empire, the old marshal got excited and forgot about the duel below, and hurriedly asked.

“Take a close look at the ground, and you’ll see how Little Fox’s horse fell!” Seeing the puzzled looks on everyone’s faces, the old prime minister prompted, “There are many small holes in the ground, slightly larger than the diameter of a horse’s hoof. Little Fox’s horse accidentally stepped into one of those holes and fell!”

With the old prime minister's prompting, everyone realized that there were indeed several small and deep pits where Little Fox's warhorse had galloped, and Little Fox's warhorse had accidentally stepped into one of the pits, causing it to fall over!

"This is impossible!" Old Fox was the first to speak. "I checked this place today, there wasn't a single problem. How could there be so many craters? It's a conspiracy, there's a conspiracy here..."

"What kind of scheme are you plotting?" The old prime minister interrupted Fox rudely. "As the Minister of Finance of the Empire, you can't even see the hole caused by the thorn seeds. I really don't know how you became the Minister of Finance in charge of the country's finances and food!"

"Thorn seeds?" Old Fox dared not refute the old prime minister's scolding, and could only ask with a sullen and puzzled look, "This is a dueling arena, not a farm. How could something like thorn seeds appear here?"