Jin He simply stood there, but the palm of the giant treant was not even able to disturb the dust on the ground.
This sight confused everyone watching.
Fan Shun’s expression changed, and he lost his voice. “Impossible.”
Bu Kong, Zhi Yi, and the others were similarly stunned.
Wang Yi frowned, and a hint of amazement could be seen in the depths of his eyes. This technique had been created by the amazing and brilliant Rune Progenitor, and even in Wang Yi’s eyes, this was a truly magical technique.
God Taiyi’s face was gloomy. As expected, Jin He had used the land that he stood upon as a reference to deny the giant treant the ability to affect the land. The strength of the giant was thus reduced to a Limiteer, and with that strength it had no ability to affect the area it stood on. The strength of a Limiteer practically meant nothing at all to Jin He as well.
God Taiyi himself had also reached the Knowing realm of Truesight, and he was also able to use certain things as references. But he wasn’t able to match Jin He’s ability to reduce the Treant to a wooden stick.
However, it seemed that Jin He’s mastery of Truesight had exceeded God Taiyi’s own.
At the bottom of another staircase, Lu Yin’s face was solemn. Jin He had clearly used the Rune Progenitor’s Truesight, but what sort of method was this particular technique? It was so, so amazing as well as so, so terrifying.
No one understood what they had just seen.
Bloody tears were still leaking out of the corners of Jin He’s eyes, as activating this ability had also hurt him badly, but that did not matter. A longsword slowly appeared in his hand, and then his figure flashed as the sword stabbed at Fan Shun.
Fan Shun struggled to avoid the sword, and he spat out a mouthful of blood as he fell to the ground. He had lost.
Jin He stood more than ten meters away from Fan Shun, where he wiped away the bloody tears from his face. He then smiled. “This was a very difficult fight to win.”
No one dared to underestimate Jin He anymore. Even if Bu Kong were in front of Jin He, at this moment, he would have fear in his eyes as he looked at Jin He. This person’s methods were very strange and unpredictable. People feared the unknown. Even if the others were confident that they could defeat Jin He, and even if they were much, much stronger than him, they still would not dare to underestimate him.
Just that last magical technique alone was enough to give Jin He a chance to turn any defeat into victory.
Jin He appeared at where the ten staircases all started, at the bottom of the last staircase. At this moment, the three-person battles had ended. The winners had moved up Zenith Mountain while the losers had stayed behind.
There were already people at each of the ten staircases, which meant that the second half of this round would have the winners appear at the bottom of the staircases as well, whereupon the pairings for the next round would be determined.
Out of everyone currently at the bottom of the stairs, everyone wanted to be matched with the thin man the most. This man had been amazingly lucky so far, but it would only get him this far, and he would not be able to proceed any further.
Seeing ten winners already standing at the stairs put a great deal of pressure on the contestants still waiting for their matches as nine of the ten winners were incredibly powerful.
Even the seemingly weak Yōu Ye’er possessed an unfathomable attack with her blood-colored lotus.
Still, regardless of how unprepared the people were, ZENITH continued on with the next match.
Lightson appeared on the battlefield along with Unseen Light.
From his vantage point beneath the stairs, Lu Yin was left speechless. Lightson and Unseen Light were opponents? What a terrible joke!
Lightson was not familiar with Unseen Light, as Lightson had always been in the Light World.
“Hey, Light Ball! That guy in front of you really looks down at you!” Ku Wei shouted, hoping to incite a bit more chaos.
Lightson was puzzled and confused. What was he trying to say?
“That guy up there with you is called Unseen Light” Xie Xiaoxian shouted.
Lightson stared blankly at Unseen Light; was that really his name? But having said that, this person’s eyes were truly provocative, and Lightson did find it revolting.
Lightson’s battle technique, Light Burst, was an attack that deprived his opponents of their sight, but this Unseen Light was not even looking at him. Thus, he was basically fighting with only one arm.
Lightson’s expression turned ugly, especially when he realized his opponent was an Enlighter. Lightson had actually heard of the Innerverse’s Ten Arbiters before, and he vaguely remembered that one had the name “Unseen Light.” Had he really ended up meeting that person?
The light around him gathered into a long spear that shot forward to stab at Unseen Light.
Lightson was quite strong, and he had been confident enough to challenge Lu Yin before ZENITH started. Although Lu Yin had won, Lightson was certainly strong enough to challenge the Ten Arbiters.
Unfortunately, a challenge was just that, and there was an insurmountable gap between Lightson and Unseen Light. Even if he went up against another Arbiter, such as Lan Si, Lightson still would have had no chance of winning.
Unseen Light had already anticipated Lightson’s attack.
Lightson felt aggravated beyond belief throughout the entire battle. His attacks seemed to be transparent to Unseen Light, and although Lightson wanted to deprive his opponent of his sight, there was nothing there to take! The entire match was as revolting to Lightson as swallowing a fly.
As for Unseen Light, he was perfectly calm throughout the entire fight, and soon, he appeared at the bottom of a staircase. He had been paired up against Jin He.
Many people were stunned to see that Unseen Light had been paired up against Jin He under the same staircase.
Their match had been determined.
There were two people but only one staircase. Whoever came out on top and made it up the stairs would be one of ZENITH’s ten finalists.
At the bottom of the staircase, Jin He saw Unseen Light, and he was also startled to the point of helplessness. “Seven of the Ten Arbiters made it to the top twenty, and we’re finally going to start infighting.”
His words suddenly reminded all those listening that, yes, all the eligible members of the Innerverse’s Ten Arbiters were participating in ZENITH. Serati Phoenix and War King were both too old, and Lan Si had lost to Yuhua Mavis, but all of the other Arbiters had made it to this stage.
Also, the Arbiters’ sole loss had not been to some random nobody. Although it was a pity that Lan Si had lost, his opponent had been Yuhua Mavis. There was almost no one who would dare to claim to be confident of victory against her. Thus, it could only be said that Lan Si had been unlucky.
The Innerverse was already exploding in celebration. Every time one of the Ten Arbiters continued moving up Zenith Mountain, everyone in the Innerverse grew excited because the Ten Arbiters represented the Innerverse and the Outerverse.
It was a pity that the round to determine the top ten finalists of ZENITH required infighting between some of the Arbiters.
For the next battle, Wen Sansi appeared on the field, and his opponent was some Explorer.
The moment the Explorer saw Wen Sansi, he simply collapsed. An Enlighter! His opponent was an Enlighter! At their age, anyone who had managed to become an Enlighter was an absolute monster.
The cultivator simply conceded.
Everyone looked up at the staircases, wanting to see who Wen Sansi would be matched up against.
Mira, Michelle, and everyone from the Wen family prayed that Wen Sansi would appear beneath the same staircase as the thin man. Even if Wen Sansi was not paired with the thin man, it would still be fine if he was matched against Yōu Ye’er. Both of them seemed to be somewhat easier to deal with.
However, things did not work out as they hoped, as Wen Sansi appeared next to Wang Yi. Wen Sansi’s opponent barring his way to the top ten of ZENITH was Wang Yi.
Many people went pale upon seeing that the Arbiter would fight against Wang Yi.
Up to this point in the competition, Wen Sansi had not faced any exceptionally strong opponents, but Wang Yi had toppled one master after another. What’s more, all of his opponents had lost in mere seconds. The indescribable shock of seeing Wang Yi defeat Yao Gu was still fresh in people’s memories.
ZENITH’s most iconic fights had already gone viral on the network, and they were the scenes of Wang Yi killing Yao Gu practically instantaneously, Lu Yin fighting against Yuhua Mavis, and Shang Qing’s battle with Star Devourer.
When people saw that Wen Sansi would be up against Wang Yi, despite their confidence in the Arbiter’s barrier, they were still nervous.
Wen Sansi relaxed. Not a single one of the people fighting to enter the finals would be an easy opponent, and he had already prepared himself for all eventualities, which included facing Wang Yi or Shang Qing.
Wang Yi remained the same as ever. Even if his opponent was a top powerhouse, Wang Yi’s expression had never changed. Not even when the person was someone expected to enter the top ten.
The two-person battles seemed less exciting than the three-person matches, and the next battle also ended quickly with Zhi Yi coming out victorious. Her opponent had been just a Cruiser from the Sixth Mainland, who had given up immediately. Many people cursed because they wanted to see a bloody fight, not the oppressive reputation of the Daosource Three Skies that crushed all the other Sixth Mainland cultivators’ competitiveness.
When the next match started, people just stared at the screens; where were the contestants?
At this moment, only one contestant had appeared on the battlefield. His name was Ze Cu, and he stood there quietly since there was no one in front of him.
Everyone was stunned. Was there a problem with this match?
Up where the stairs started, Lu Yin stared at the arena and saw two clusters of rune lines; one belonged to Ze Cu while the other belonged to an invisible bug that was standing across the battlefield from Ze Cu.
That bug was the carrion bug, Bai Mai.
According to legend, carrion bugs were extremely rare and were born from the bodies of ancient Progenitors. They were essentially parasites, and although their background sounded absolutely disgusting, there were very few species that could parasitize Progenitors.
There was a bit of common knowledge in the Astral Beast Domain that said that the carrion bugs were not parasites, but rather descendants of parasites.
They were born from the dead Progenitors, and in the eyes of many astral beasts in the Astral Beast Domain, carrion bugs were the same as a Progenitor’s offspring.
It was precisely because of this belief that, despite the very few numbers of carrion bugs, their species was still ranked second on the Celestial Beast List, second only to the Celestial Demons.
Ever since ZENITH had started, this particular carrion bug had remained quite lowkey, though it had managed to attract quite a bit of attention at times, such as when it had defeated Hua Xiao or Lilyrose. Lu Yin had also paid some attention to the bug, but he was not able to see how it attacked, as it was simply too fast.
***
In the Cosmic Sea, at Gaia’s Swamp, a pig quickly walked through the prison while making a loud rumbling noise. It accidentally bumped into something and wailed, “What kind of blind idiot dares to hit Lord Piggy? Do you want me to replace your chains?”
This was Lord Piggy, one of the deputy wardens of Gaia’s Swamp.
Lord Piggy had a red head, and he suddenly grinned and looked up, only to see a massive toe in front of him. He had bumped into the toe.
Upon seeing the toe, Lord Piggy’s expression instantly changed, and his tone turned flattering and shameless. “So it was one of Lord Warden’s precious toes! Little Pig was disrespectful and actually touched Lord Prison Lord’s precious toe! Damn it, Piglet! Damn!”
“Shut up! It’s time for our elite to fight!” the warden’s loud voice roared and shook all of Gaia’s Swamp.
Lord Piggy instantly shut up.
At the same time, the three thousand chains of Gaia’s Swamp shook, and all of the imprisoned criminals looked up at the screen.
“Show this warden how Gaia’s Swamp’s elites win, hahahaha!” the warden’s loud voice echoed.
Lord Piggy pulled his head back. “Master Warden, please keep your voice down. Some of the prisoners can’t endure it.”
“That’s none of my business.”
“Master Cha’s father is not in good health.”
“Cough, what? Damn it, you cheer for me then.”
Within Gaia’s Swamp, the only fun that the three thousand prisoners were allowed to have was to watch whatever the warden watched on his gadget, whether it was news, a TV series, or at the moment, ZENITH.
One set of eyes after another focused on the screen to watch the youths compete. Some were filled with cruelty or jokes, and others held a teasing light.
Among them, there was a man with long hair wrapped up in a shawl. The man’s body was dirty, but he focused on the screen between filthy locks of hair. His eyes were bright. “So that little guy’s there? He’s grown a lot to reach this point.”
The man was Shui Chuanxiao.
In the blink of an eye, he had already been imprisoned in Gaia’s Swamp for ten years.
His sentence was for 10,000 years, so he would certainly die in this prison.
***
On Zenith Mountain, Ze Cu stared at the little bug before him with cautious eyes.
