No matter what, everybody had to admit that Shang Qing was nearly invincible the moment the illusory Progenitor Chen appeared.
“If you really want to pass through this checkpoint, then you can just go. The higher you climb, the further you will fall,” Shang Qing calmly stated as he gazed at Bu Kong, Zhi Yi, and Yao Xuan. He had changed his mind.
Bu Kong grew annoyed; Shang Qing had the exact same idea as the Daosource Three Skies. The only reason why Bu Kong had allowed so many people to go past his checkpoint was because he wanted to defeat them on a more impressive stage. Shang Qing had the exact same idea. Fine then—they would find out who was more powerful at that time.
Although Progenitor Chen was invincible, it was still a strand of qi that had no intelligence.
Intelligence was the most important thing for a cultivator, and since the illusory Progenitor was just a humanoid with no intelligence, Bu Kong did not feel threatened by it.
If Shang Qing was able to summon a Progenitor Chen that possessed intelligence, then there would simply be no point in fighting him. People could still have hope when fighting against Shang Qing since he was only capable of summoning Progenitor Chen’s power, not the Progenitor’s intelligence.
Since the figure that was summoned was just a shell without any intelligence, its strength could not reach the same level that the true Progenitor Chen had wielded.
Regardless, it would still be incredibly difficult to fight against a Progenitor Chen that possessed no intelligence. On top of that, Shang Qing was able to summon more than one Progenitor Chen.
As Shang Qing had said, he would simply allow certain people to pass since the final result would not change no matter what.
However, not all of the competitors from the Sixth Mainland would be able to successfully pass through Shang Qing’s checkpoint. Only those who had a certain level of strength, at least comparable to a Realmling’s, would be let through. But even this was enough to provide a bit of relief to the people from the Sixth Mainland.
Shang Qing was confident that he would become the champion, and since that was the case, there was no difference between defeating the others sooner or defeating them later. As long as he defeated all of the Sixth Mainland’s competitors, he would be fulfilling his duty to the Fifth Mainland.
…
The excitement that had suddenly spread throughout the entire Fifth Mainland was soon extinguished, and many people grew disappointed when Shang Qing stopped targeting the participants from the Sixth Mainland. The illusory Progenitor Chen transformed back into a qi strand that eliminated the weaker competitors.
Many people switched their focus back to the mountain’s eastern face, as Di Fa was about to reach Lu Yin’s checkpoint.
Shang Qing had thrown Di Fa to the bottom of the mountain on the eastern side, and everybody was curious about whether or not Lu Yin would allow the Realmling through the mountain pass.
At first, people had simply assumed that Lu Yin would allow Di Fa through the checkpoint, but then someone dug up some information about the old grudges between Di Fa and Lu Yin. This information even revealed the matters that had happened in the Daosource Sect’s ruins.
Most people had never even heard about the Daosource Sect’s ruins, and they only knew that Lu Yin and Di Fa were enemies. Little Arrow Saint had also been enemies with Lu Yin, and he had suffered a terrible fate; was it now Di Fa’s turn?
Di Fa was also a bit wary of Lu Yin, but he was also confident that his Demonxfox bloodline would guarantee his safety as long as he did not pick a fight with Lu Yin. Di Fa’s ultimate goal was to simply push past the checkpoint.
Lu Yin stood at the eastern checkpoint where he eliminated batches of competitors with his domain. Tens of thousands of competitors had already been eliminated, but there were still tens of thousands more trying to get past the checkpoint.
Di Fa passed by countless competitors as he climbed up the mountain.
He shot a cold look at Lu Yin, but then he turned his focus onto Shang Qing. Di Fa was determined to not be hit by Shang Qing’s Banishment a second time.
However, he still felt very threatened by that illusory Progenitor Chen, which was the greatest obstacle to him passing this first stage. If Shang Qing attacked Di Fa with the illusory Progenitor Chen, it would be very difficult for the Realmling to make it past the final checkpoint. The worst outcome was ending up like Sword Scholar or Nan Yanfei.
Di Fa brushed past the majority of the participants and drew closer to the mountain pass. Countless people grew both anxious and excited when they saw that this Realmling was about to enter a fight.
Di Fa overtook the other youths and rushed into the pass. He did not even look at Lu Yin as he had no intention of fighting against Lu Yin, and he was also fully confident that Lu Yin would not be able to stop him.
Lu Yin arched a brow; how arrogant. His pupils transformed into runes as he looked at Di Fa and raised a hand.
Out of the corner of his eye, Di Fa saw Lu Yin lifting his hand. He sneered and simply increased his speed. Lu Yin would need to be able to actually hit him if he wanted to stop him.
Di Fa’s Demonfox bloodline allowed him to phase through anything, and if Lu Yin had enough time, he might be able to overcome the bloodline. For example, during the battle in the Cosmic Sea, Di Fa had been targeted by Qiu Shi. However, it was impossible for anyone to overcome his bloodline in a short amount of time.
Di Fa suddenly stumbled and then stared down in shock; he had stumbled? How was that possible? He should be able to phase through rocks, so how could he have stumbled?
Lu Yin was staring at Di Fa and erasing a portion of the Realmling’s runes through Truesight.
Di Fa’s Demonfox bloodline allowed him to phase through everything, and this ability increased the number of rune lines that Lu Yin could see on the Realmling. Therefore, when Lu Yin erased some of Di Fa’s runes, the efficiency of the Demonxfox bloodline also decreased.
This was why Di Fa’s phasing ability had weakened.
By the time that Di Fa had realized what was happening and reacted, activating his imprint of the Bluedome Elder, it was already too late—Lu Yin’s palm had struck him. A Vacuum Palm sent Di Fa flying off of the mountain, and he even broke off a piece of the mountain when he crashed into the bottom. The places he passed by left a trail of blood.
Everyone who saw this scene was stunned, as everything had happened too quickly.
That was Di Fa, one of the Sixth Mainland’s Realmling! But despite his status, he had just been defeated in the same manner as Little Arrow Saint: just one attack.
Many of the competitors on Zenith Mountain felt chills run down their spines.
Bu Kong and Zhi Yi both turned to look at Lu Yin. Once again, he had succeeded in just one attack. Just how powerful was that attack?
All of the competitors currently rushing towards the central checkpoint were stunned. Who had claimed that Lu Yin had only been appointed as a gatekeeper because of his background? Even Shang Qing had had to use a secret technique to deal with Di Fa, but Lu Yin had defeated him in a single attack.
The cultivators from the Sixth Mainland were all infuriated.
On the eastern side of the mountain, Lu Yin calmly stood still. Di Fa had been too careless, thinking that his Demonfox bloodline would allow him to simply ignore all of Lu Yin’s attacks.
Runes were the nemesis of everything, as anything that could influence the universe could be represented by runes. Thus, Truesight affected the most fundamental level of the universe.
However, it would have been useless even if Di Fa had prepared himself. Fewer than fifteen people participating in ZENITH were capable of withstanding the attack that Lu Yin had just unleashed, and Di Fa was not on that list, even if he was a Realmling at the Enlighter realm.
The gap between him and Lu Yin was simply too large.
ZENITH had gone on for more than a day now, and quite a few powerhouses had already been eliminated. Four of the Sixth Mainland’s Realmlings had been eliminated: two by Lu Yin and two by Shang Qing.
Realmlings were comparable to the Fifth Mainland’s Ten Arbiters, and the people of the Sixth Mainland had expected their Realmlings to dominate their peers from the Fifth Mainland. However, four of them had already been eliminated before the competition’s official start, which was a huge insult to the Sixth Mainland.
In addition to the eliminated Realmlings, a huge number of the Sixth Mainland’s youths had died. The Sixth Mainland had committed too many crimes against the Fifth Mainland during the war, and their people would be targeted no matter where they went.
Despite the targeting, some of their powerhouses had still cleared all the checkpoints and appeared on the third layer.
ZENITH would officially begin once all of the active competitors appeared on the third layer. The five checkpoints were really nothing more than a qualifying round for the actual competition.
Another day passed, and the universe was at peace with everyone watching ZENITH.
Some competitors managed to make it past the central checkpoint, while others failed.
Lu Yin calmly watched the show while leaning against a wall. The gatekeepers’ mission had already ended, as all those who should have passed had moved up the mountain while the remaining competitors would never be able to get past the checkpoints.
At this time, Lu Yin just had to wait for the competition to officially begin.
Millions of people crowded around at the foot of Zenith Mountain and stared up with envious eyes. They were the competitors who had been eliminated.
Names had started to disappear from Zenith Mountain.
Coco was busily trying to treat people’s injuries and offering injections, but nobody paid her any attention. She had been unlucky enough to get caught up in a battle between some powerhouses before being eliminated. There were many people who had suffered the same fate as her.
More and more people appeared on the third layer.
There were already a hundred people in the arena where Yuhua Mavis had appeared. There were both men and women, and they all looked anxious.
Only one person could pass through each arena, and Yuhua Mavis would definitely emerge victorious in her arena. In other words, the people close to her were already aware that their time in ZENITH was about to come to an end.
There were only a few dozens of true elites in ZENITH, but there were tens of thousands of arenas on the third layer. Only some unlucky few would be grouped together with an elite.
Kayze was one of the unlucky ones. His arena was a forest that held a hundred people who would soon be fighting for the single slot to continue onto the next stage of ZENITH. Kayze knew that his journey was over as soon as he saw White Silkworm in this arena.
Kayze had seen White Silkworm before. When the Sightless Clan had invaded the Outerverse, White Silkworm had fought against Lan Si, and Kayze knew that the youth was a true elite. Within the Blackblood Realm, White Silkworm was second only to the Realmling, Shang Rong, and he had always wanted to challenge Shang Rong.
After the monsters had invaded the Sixth Mainland, White Silkworm’s temperament had changed drastically. He had let go of his obsession over fighting against Shang Rong, though his strength had certainly not fallen.
Kayze was resigned to his fate. This was the end of his journey in ZENITH.
There was another person in the same arena: An Shaohua. He also felt helpless, and he sighed as he met Kayze’s eyes.
They were not the only unlucky participants. The Sword Sect’s Long Yun, the Royal Frost Continent’s Che Han, and Northline Flowzone’s Ah Fan were even more unfortunate, as they were in the same arena as Unseen Light.
Each arena only held a hundred people, but the three of them had all ended up in the same one. Furthermore, their greatest obstacle at the moment was an Arbiter, which meant that it was basically impossible for them to pass through this round of the competition.
Of the tens of thousands of arenas, not many were able to attract the attention of the viewers.
The Cosmic Sect was also quite unlucky, as their third strongest disciple, Yan Kun, had ended up in the same arena as the Technocracy’s Wang Yi.
In truth, Yan Kun had felt extremely anxious as soon as he saw Wang Yi because he had climbed up the northern face of Zenith Mountain, the same as Wang Yi. Yan Kun had personally witnessed Yao Gu falling down the mountain, and he still was not able to understand just how Wang Yi had attacked.
Yan Kun surveyed the surroundings. There were tens of thousands of arenas, so why did he have to end up in the same one as Wang Yi?
The Cosmic Sect’s second strongest disciple, Mu Ziying, was also feeling depressed, as he had ended up in the group with Star Devourer.
The beast had returned to his full, enormous size after clearing Shang Qing’s checkpoint. His large size meant that he took up half of the arena’s space by himself, forcing the rest of the competitors to squeeze into the remaining area.
Mu Ziying was rendered speechless. This beast had been completely unaffected by the barrage of attacks that the powerhouses climbing up the southern side of the mountain had launched at him. The competitors in this particular arena would definitely work together to attack Star Devourer, but would that even accomplish anything? Mu Ziying knew that such tactics were clearly useless and that this arena would be the end of ZENITH for him.
As the last competitor fell off the mountain, there was nobody left to attempt to clear any of the checkpoints. ZENITH had truly begun.
