A great number of participants on the eastern side of Zenith Mountain felt helpless when they saw that even people from the Great Eastern Alliance had been eliminated. They finally realized that Lu Yin was more focused on individual strength rather than status when he chose who to eliminate.
“Let’s rush through the checkpoint all together! If hundreds and thousands of us go, I refuse to believe that he can block all of us. At least some of us will be able to make it through,” someone quietly suggested, and many others quickly agreed.
Similar situations occurred on all three other faces of the mountain.
Only those who were powerful or knew the gatekeepers well had dared to boldly approach the checkpoints alone. The gatekeepers had full autonomy when it came to deciding whether or not a participant was allowed through the checkpoints, though most of the competitors refused to accept that.
However, they also knew that the five gatekeepers needed to eliminate half of the competitors.
The only viable method was to overwhelm the gatekeepers with numbers. If everybody rushed through the checkpoint at the same time, then at least some of them would be successful.
The competitors who had gotten close to the checkpoints stopped and decided to wait for people further back.
Zenith Mountain continued to change, and it was soon shrouded in darkness. When the competitors looked up, a sky full of stars greeted them. Each star shone brightly, and some even occasionally launched attacks at them.
Many competitors immediately began grumbling when they saw these incoming attacks, as they had already nearly given up after experiencing the unending energy waves coming off of the peak of the mountain and the strength of the gatekeepers. Despite the already absurd level of difficulty, the competition would only become more challenging as time went on.
The attacks from the stars grew increasingly powerful, and some competitors were forced to work together to endure.
Lu Yin looked up at the sky and suddenly remembered the entrance examination that he had taken to join Astral-10. At that time, he had been astounded to see countless stars sparkling high in the sky, but that had only been because he had not understood what he had been looking at back then.
At the moment, Lu Yin knew that the stars that he was looking at were not actually real. Rather, each one had been condensed from a powerhouse’s star energy.
This was nothing difficult, as star energy could be forcibly condensed, though not in the same manner as Lu Yin’s Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation. That technique was much more powerful, though it also required one to gather a massive amount of star energy.
Lu Yin suddenly realized that it had been quite some time since he had last visited the Daosource Sect’s ruins. As soon as he had that thought, he decided to return to the Daosource Sect’s ruins after ZENITH and absorb more of the cauldron energy.
He had many means of attacking, and he even had more than one secret technique along with several sourcebox arrays. Despite all of that, Lu Yin still wanted to learn the complete Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation, as he felt that it was one of his techniques with the greatest potential. Lu Yin would never forget the scene that he had seen when he had first comprehended the Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation. It had been as if he had traveled back in time to a primeval era.
The Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation would be invincible after Lu Yin completed all nine suns, and he would never give up on such a battle technique.
Two people rushed towards Lu Yin: Lulu and Grandini Mavis.
These two girls had been competing ever since they had been students at the Astral Combat Academy, and they were still competing with each other during ZENITH. They were always fighting, but they had also supported each other when the Sixth Mainland had invaded.
The two girls rushed past Lu Yin without even glancing at him.
Lu Yin laughed. “Be careful. Don’t fall.”
Another person rushed towards Lu Yin at an extremely high speed. They were actually even faster than Lulu and Grandini, which surprised Lu Yin.
With this speed, this person should have arrived at the checkpoint a long time ago.
It was the stutterer. He nervously looked at Lu Yin. “I- I- I-”
Lu Yin was taken aback; did this person want to fight him?
“I’m going to fall!” the stutterer screamed and collapsed.
Lu Yin stared as the stutterer fell down and stopped moving. Just what did this fellow want from him?
The stutterer rubbed his head and blinked excitedly the moment he saw Lu Yin. “Meat! Meat! Meat!”
“You want to eat meat? Then go home,” Lu Yin said coldly.
The stutterer grew anxious. “Long- long- long-”
Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed as he realized the man had a stutter.
“Longevity Bri- Brigade. Me.” The stutterer pointed at himself.
Lu Yin suddenly remembered that he had seen this before, in the Mountain and Seas Zone’s tablet world. Even back then, the young man had been talking about meat.
“You’re from the Longevity Brigade?” Lu Yin asked.
The stutterer nodded, and his face flushed red. “Mas- Master said that I’ll get to eat meat if I follow you.”
Lu Yin was confused. “I don’t have meat with me.”
The stutterer gulped and did not know what else to say.
“You can pass,” Lu Yin said. This guy was from the Longevity Brigade, which was one of the four most powerful crews in the Cosmic Sea.
There were four powerful crews in the Cosmic Sea, which were Leon’s Armada, the Longevity Brigade, the Ignition Crew, and the Soldier Crew.
The four crews each controlled a part of the Cosmic Sea, and they were all extremely powerful. Any one of the crews had the strength to go up against the Innerverse’s eight great flowzones.
Leon’s Armada ruled over all of the pirates in the universe as Highsage Leon was the King of Pirates, and he naturally headed the strongest crew.
The Ignition Crew consisted of former powerhouses from Gods’ Origin, and Lu Yin had heard that Gods’ Origin was actually trying to kill everyone from the Ignition Crew.
Finally, both the Longevity Brigade and the Soldier Crew were very mysterious, and Lu Yin had not heard much about them even from Big Sis.
Lu Yin was quite curious toward the Longevity Brigade, but he clearly would not be able to learn anything about them from the stutterer.
Xi Qi finally arrived at the checkpoint after avoiding all the energy waves cascading down upon Zenith Mountain, the falling attacks from the stars, and the various shockwaves from all of the battles between the elites.
She felt reborn the moment she arrived at the checkpoint.
“I’m so tired.” Xi Qi sighed.
“Hey, you’re a familiar two-legged beast! Do you want to be my ride? I’ll teach you how to become a Progenitor.” The fish atop Xi Qi’s head grew excited as soon as it saw Lu Yin.
Lu Yin pouted. This darn fish was still present.
“I’m sorry, Brother Lu! I’m sorry!” Xi Qi nervously apologized. She even turned pale since Lu Yin was a gatekeeper.
The stutterer stared at the fish in shock; how could a fish talk? This was insane.
The fish saw the stutterer and complained, “Hey, two-legged beast, why are you looking at me like that? Have you never seen a fish as handsome as me?”
The stutterer gulped and turned towards Lu Yin. “Meat- meat-”
He was still thinking of meat.
The truth of the matter was that the stutterer wanted to ask Lu Yin to help, as his master had said that he would be able to eat meat if he followed Lu Yin.
However, the fish grew outraged as soon as it heard the word “meat.”
“Hey, you two-legged beast! How dare you mock me? Girl, attack! Attack!” it yelled while slapping Xi Qi with its fins.
Xi Qi whined, “Stop hitting me! You’ll make me dumb.”
“You’re already dumb! Attack!” the fish screamed anxiously.
Lu Yin rolled his eyes. He then grabbed the stutterer and flung him past the checkpoint. “Take care.”
The stutterer yelped as he fell to the ground. He had cleared the checkpoint, but he was unhappy since he felt like he would end up in trouble if he did not get Lu Yin’s help. The stutterer suddenly missed the Little Leaf King, as that person had helped the stutterer avoid a number of disasters.
“Two-legged beast, who allowed you to let him go? If you bring him back here, I’ll teach you about sourceboxes and even turn you into a Progenitor!” The fish was outraged and flapped his fins even more violently, causing Xi Qi to grimace.
Lu Yin pitied her at this moment.
“Alright, keep going. Shang Qing’s still up there, but since you’re from the Lockbreaker Society, he probably won’t stop you,” Lu Yin made a point to speak to Xi Qi.
Xi Qi was grateful. “Thank you, Brother Lu. Thanks.”
“Two-legged beast, don’t you want to become a Progenitor? I can teach you! You already have some potential, and with my teaching, you’ll definitely become a Progenitor, even if you’re a bit stupid.” The fish’s words grew quieter and quieter as Xi Qi quickly ran away before the fish completely offended Lu Yin.
“Girl, why are you running so fast? I wasn’t done talking!” The fish flapped its fins.
Xi Qi’s head was aching. “Stop hitting me. It hurts!”
“What hurts? I’m training you to be more resilient. Turn back—I still want to talk with that two-legged beast a bit more.”
“Brother Lu has already let us go, so what do you want to talk about?”
“Let go? You must be joking. If I so desired it, you would be the champion.”
“Yes, champion. I’m the champion,” Xi Qi muttered under her breath as she climbed the mountain. This was exhausting.
Above her, the fish muttered, “The God of Death’s power. It’s really strange that there’s someone in this era with the God of Death’s power. That’s really strange. Wait, who’s the God of Death? Why did I mention the God of Death? Where did that come from? The God of Death? That sounds familiar. Death… Wait, what Death? What was I just talking about?”
Xi Qi felt helpless. The fish would randomly spout such nonsense from time to time, and she was never able to understand what it actually meant. The worst part was that it never remembered what it had said before. She often wondered how long she would have to live like this for.
Lu Yin did not hear the last bit that the fish had said, and he instead focused on the competitors gathering below him. They had finally stopped fighting each other and were preparing to work together to push through the checkpoint.
More than ten thousand youths had gathered before him, and there were still more people joining every minute.
Lu Yin had eliminated less than thirty thousand people so far, and about ten thousand more had voluntarily forfeited. Thus, the leftovers had begun to gather.
It would probably take them more than half a day to finish organizing themselves.
There were still a few familiar faces to be seen among the remaining participants, such as Yue Xianzi and Xi Yue. It was not that they did not want to approach the checkpoint, but rather that they were being blocked from doing so by the gathering crowd of cultivators.
The two were not weak, just a bit unlucky. However, compared to them, Coco, Zora, and a few others had it even worse; they had been eliminated by the earlier battles’ shockwaves.
Lu Yin quietly leaned against the side of the mountain as one man finally reached the checkpoint.
It was Nong Zaitian. He looked somewhat pathetic, but Lu Yin treated this person like a lucky star.
A sense of guilt welled up within Lu Yin when he saw Nong Zaitian, so he moved towards him.
Nong Zaitian felt dazed when he saw Lu Yin reaching for him, and he screamed, “What are you doing? Give me back my hoe!”
Before he could even finish speaking, he was thrown upwards by Lu Yin. “I’ll help you pass, so we don’t owe each other anything more.”
Nong Zaitian howled.
Nong Laohan sighed in relief as he looked at the screen. He had been extremely anxious since he had expected Lu Yin to attack Nong Zaitian.
The screens only transmitted images and not sound. So, Nong Laohan had seen Lu Yin and Nong Zaitian exchanging words, but he did not know what they had said.
Since they had spoken to each other, was it possible that they were acquaintances?
