The contestants who had managed to withstand the second attack from Lu Yin’s domain rushed through the checkpoint even as more clusters of participants continued to rush toward the mountain pass. Lu Yin used his domain to attack each and every group that approached. Thus, even if they were able to withstand two of his attacks, none were confident in being able to withstand three.
The mountain shook as Lu Yin’s domain kept crashing into the participants, sending numerous people flying off of the mountain.
Xi Yue managed to clear the checkpoint by using her battle technique. She eventually rushed through the checkpoint and then turned back to look at Lu Yin.
Lu Yin looked at her as well, as it had been a long time since they had last met.
Xi Yue still remembered their little conflict back in Astral-10’s Sand Ocean and how Lu Yin had comprehended battle force during that time.
Back then, the two of them had possessed comparable strength, but at this moment, Xi Yue was barely able to withstand a casual attack from Lu Yin’s domain. He had reached an unattainable position compared to her.
During the Sixth Mainland’s invasion, most of the Souldream Tribe had been captured, and she had heard from Elder Redmoon that they had been saved by Lu Yin. Thus, Xi Yue knew that she was indebted to Lu Yin.
“Thank you,” Xi Yue said.
Lu Yin smiled. “Good luck.”
Xi Yue nodded, but then she suddenly went pale. “Watch out!”
Tong Zhan abruptly rushed out from a hidden place near Lu Yin and summoned a sword from star energy. Elder Tong’s imprint appeared behind the youth, and a martial print appeared behind his hand. He had been waiting for precisely this moment.
He knew that he did not have much of a chance of success, as Lu Yin’s domain was very powerful. However, Tong Zhan nonetheless launched an attack.
At this same time, a girl raced for the checkpoint. She was the same girl who Lu Yin had stopped from killing Kayze. Since Lu Yin had moved against her, she had assumed that Lu Yin would target her. Thus, she had been lying in wait all this time, just like Tong Zhan. However, this girl’s goal was not to attack Lu Yin, but rather just to clear the checkpoint.
The two people rushed out at the same time, and they were far more powerful than all the other competitors present.
By the time that Xi Yue had shouted, Tong Zhan had already gotten close to Lu Yin. For someone of Tong Zhan’s strength, he should have been able to instantly reach Lu Yin, but the distance had completely destroyed his plans.
Tong Zhan was frozen in the air, and the sword that had just left his hand was also frozen in place. Lu Yin’s domain had completely restricted the youth.
The girl was also trapped.
Lu Yin turned to face Tong Zhan. “You’re still so unrepentant even after I spared your life in the Daosource Sect’s ruins.”
He then casually waved a hand, and Tong Zhan flew to the foot of the mountain. While he was still in the air, Tong Zhan’s organs were destroyed, rendering him undeniably dead.
Lu Yin ignored the corpse and then turned his focus towards the girl.
The girl bellowed, “I’m from the Jade Great World in the Neoverse! You-”
Before she could even finish speaking, she had been thrown to the bottom of the mountain.
Jade Great World? Lu Yin hated being threatened more than anything.
He had initially intended to let the girl through after a scolding, but she had tried to threaten him. After that, there was no way she would make it through the mountain pass.
ZENITH was divided into two sections, and the first four gatekeepers—Lu Yin, Bu Kong, Zhi Yi, and Yao Xuan—were the barrier sieving through the participants.
From an aerial point of view, there was a single group of people heading for the central checkpoint while another four were rushing to each of the other checkpoints, trying to use sheer numbers to make it through.
However, quantity was not enough to compensate for quality.
Lu Yin’s domain, Bu Kong’s sourcebox array, Zhi Yi’s Vitality Qi, and Yao Xuan’s spiritual force. These four powers were filtering away the competitors, and they had already forced a large number of the contestants to fall off of the mountain.
To the gatekeepers, the remaining competitors were not as important as those who were actually powerful, as all of those people were already making their way towards Shang Qing.
Lu Yin looked up as he released his domain. He no longer cared about any of the people still below him.
Yuhua Mavis was the first to rush past Shang Qing.
A short while after she passed by the central checkpoint, she disappeared, only to reappear atop a massive platform.
The platform was one of the three layers on the upper region of Zenith Mountain. Yuhua Mavis had just appeared on the third and largest layer while the second and first layers were still above her, as well as the mountain’s peak.
Yuhua Mavis looked around. This platform was huge, and she could not even see its edges. This was not a simple rock platform, as there were actually various biomes in here, including forests, seas, lava, hurricanes, and deserts. She had appeared in the middle of a pile of rocks that only made up one thousandth of the platform’s total area.
This stone formation looked like a forest of stone, and each rock had sharp edges with the biome being a region with a radius of ten thousand meters. There was a desert beyond the stone formation, but there was also a visible barrier of light separating the two regions.
These were the various arenas for the competitors to battle within.
This was the next stage of ZENITH. After passing through the five checkpoints, the competitors would appear in the various arenas, according to the order in which they passed. Only one person would be able to win within each arena, and the number of competitors transported to each arena would be determined by the number of competitors who cleared the fifth checkpoint. This was a battle royale.
Lu Yin and the other gatekeepers also needed to clear this next challenge, as there were no exceptions.
Yuhua Mavis was the first to arrive.
The next person to pass through Shang Qing’s checkpoint would appear in the next arena, until there was someone in each arena. Then, the next person would appear in the same arena as Yuhua Mavis, and the pattern would continue.
This kind of brawl not only depended on a person’s individual strength, but also their luck, as whoever was matched with Shang Qing would be quite unlucky.
After several more people crossed through Lu Yin’s checkpoint, they noticed the arenas that had appeared on the screens, and some of the smarter participants immediately started calculating their chances.
At most, there were about a hundred true elites participating in ZENITH. Thus, if a person cleared the final checkpoint after the hundredth person, then their chances of meeting a true powerhouse would significantly drop. The luckiest people would be those who obtained the 500th to the 10,000th positions, as they were essentially guaranteed to not meet up with a powerhouse in their arenas.
Some people sped up while others slowed down as they processed this new information.
Everyone carefully observed Shang Qing. His attitude would determine how many people would be able to clear his checkpoint. If he behaved the same as Lu Yin and the other gatekeepers, then half of the competitors would make it through. However, if he decided to be ruthless, then the numbers might fall drastically.
More and more people began approaching the final checkpoint.
Shang Qing quietly floated in the sky with three strands of qi swirling around him, giving him the appearance of a god.
The sky was still dark at this time, but this darkness suited people like Di Fa and Yōu Qi.
Di Fa was the Bloodburn Realm’s Realmling, and he had the Demonfox Bloodline, which allowed him to phase through everything.
Yōu Qi was rather similar to the Realmling, and the only real difference was that Yōu Qi’s power came from Burial Garden.
Di Fa had climbed up the southern face of Zenith Mountain. Nobody had seen him clear the checkpoint, but Bu Kong had not caused the Realmling any problems since they were both from the Sixth Mainland.
At this moment, Di Fa was the closest person to Shang Qing.
Di Fa did not hesitate and immediately rushed forward.
Shang Qing’s eyes glinted, and the qi surrounding him began to twist about. One strand of qi suddenly shot towards Di Fa.
The people who had participated in the competition for the Cosmic Five knew that Shang Qing had previously used these qi strands to overwhelm the other competitors back then. Only Corpse Beast had managed to force the first Honor Chosen to reveal the true power of the Tri-Yang Technique, as he had never used such tactics against Xia Jiuyou or the others.
Shang Qing did not see Di Fa as someone worthy of his Tri-Yang Technique’s full power.
Di Fa had expected Shang Qing to move to stop him since he was from the Sixth Mainland, but he still held some confidence that his Demonfox bloodline would allow him to phase through everything, even Shang Qing’s attacks. Thus, unless he attacked first or made some basic mistake, it would be difficult for anybody to land a strike on him.
However, as the strand of qi drew near, Di Fa suddenly felt a sense of danger and reflexively dodged aside. Unfortunately, it was already too late. The strand of qi struck his shoulder, and half of his body went numb. He crashed into the mountainside like a stone, barely able to assert any control over his body as he fell. He pulled himself upright and stared at Shang Qing in shock; how could this be?
Shang Qing was still floating in the sky, and he casually looked down at Di Fa. He waved a single hand, and the strand of qi disappeared. It had been a simple attack, but that had actually only made people more anxious, as they had no idea how they could overcome such an attack.
Half of Di Fa’s body remained numb, and he kept dodging around while trying to make it past the checkpoint. An imprint appeared behind the Realmling, that of Bluedome Elder, an Empyrean Imprinter.
The moment the imprint appeared, Di Fa’s power spiked, but he did not make any attempt to fight back against Shang Qing. Di Fa’s only goal was to make it past the checkpoint.
Shang Qing had wanted to fight against someone from the Sixth Mainland for a long time. Actually, he had wanted to participate in the war efforts back when the Sixth Mainland had invaded, but he had been stopped by the circumstances. Hence, he wanted to stop every single person from the Sixth Mainland from clearing his checkpoint.
Everybody had their own position. Bu Kong and Zhi Yi were both a part of the Sixth Mainland’s Daosource Three Skies, which meant that they had not blocked anybody from their Sixth Mainland. Yao Xuan was from the Astral Beast Domain, and since the Celestial Beast Empire was an enemy of the Human Domain, then it was understandable why he would not stop the Sixth Mainland’s competitors. However, Shang Qing could not understand why Lu Yin had not stopped them.
Regardless, it did not actually matter. Shang Qing was the Hall of Honor’s first Honor Chosen, and he had a duty to stop all of the Sixth Mainland’s participants. Not only was he merely fulfilling his responsibility as an Honor Chosen, but he was also demonstrating the Hall of Honor’s stance to the rest of the Fifth Mainland.
A strand of qi rushed at Di Fa and blocked his path as he tried to race out of the checkpoint.
The flaw of Shang Qing’s qi attacks was that they could not lock onto a target, and even Ku Lei had been able to escape from the strands of qi back in the Mountain and Seas Zone.
Nobody could defeat this technique through brute force, but it was possible to dodge it.
Di Fa tried to use his speed to dodge the attack.
Suddenly, everything in his sight shot away. Di Fa’s eyes narrowed as he realized that he was moving further away from the checkpoint—he had been thrown towards the foot of the mountain, where he landed with a bang.
Di Fa could not understand what had just happened to him, but the people watching had all seen that Shang Qing had just used a secret technique.
He had used Banishment, one of the Hall of Honor’s secret techniques. Only Xia Jiuyou had been able to withstand this secret technique, just as the Giant Emperor had not been Banished into the distance. Aside from Xia Jiuyou, not a single one of Shang Qing’s peers was capable of withstanding this particular secret technique.
Di Fa had been thrown off of the mountain by Banishment.
The competitors from the Sixth Mainland were furious. Shang Qing had used a secret technique just to deal with Di Fa. The Honor Chosen had clearly shown his stance of refusing to allow the Sixth Mainland’s participants to pass his checkpoint.
He wanted to single-handedly stop every single one of Sixth Mainland’s competitors here.
