The audience had grown numb.
This battle had completely shattered their understanding of combat.
A clash of speed and strength should have been a tactical duel, a dance of wits and reflexes.
Yet now, it looked more like an adult toying with a child.
Every strike from the Battlefield Wanderer seemed futile.
No matter how fast it moved, it could never outpace the opponent’s deceptively slow yet flawlessly precise blocks.
No matter how sharp its blade, it could never pierce that ancient, impenetrable black armor.
The Wanderer’s murderous aura withered before the Black Knight’s cold, deathly mist, its momentum fading with every passing second.
Liu Yuan tapped away at her phone screen, utterly indifferent to the life-and-death struggle unfolding before her.
Meanwhile, beads of sweat formed on Lin Han’s forehead.
His eyes remained locked onto the Black Knight, desperately searching for a weakness.
But there was none.
Strength, defense, combat instinct—all flawless.
The only apparent flaw was its speed.
Yet the Battlefield Wanderer’s pride—its blinding speed—was rendered useless against the Black Knight’s impenetrable defense.
What now?
The Wanderer’s stamina wasn’t infinite.
This high-speed assault was draining its energy far faster than the Black Knight’s effortless defense.
Was this… defeat?
Lin Han refused to accept it.
The Battlefield Wanderer, sensing its master’s frustration and desperation, attacked with even greater frenzy.
It began disregarding its own safety, trading injuries for fleeting opportunities.
Yet the Black Knight remained unshaken, an immovable mountain.
For the first time, the twin crimson lights in its visor flickered—was that… impatience?
Slowly, it lifted the massive sword that had been resting on the ground.
A cold voice echoed once more, carrying the weight of finality.
"This ends here, Outsider."
Before the words faded, the greatsword rose.
The black mist surrounding the knight surged into the blade, deepening its already pitch-black hue.
A terrifying pressure descended—heavy as a mountain, silent as the abyss.
The very air in the arena grew thick, oppressive.
The Battlefield Wanderer froze mid-motion.
Its vaunted speed now felt like wading through tar, every movement an agonizing struggle.
Its once-raging aura flickered like a candle in the wind before the Black Knight’s overwhelming darkness.
Fear.
An emotion no undead should ever feel surged through the Wanderer’s core, flooding Lin Han’s senses through their soul-link.
Lin Han shuddered, his face turning deathly pale.
No fancy techniques. No evasive maneuvers.
The Black Knight simply raised its sword—a weapon embodying "weight" and "finality."
Then, it swung.
Simple. Direct.
Yet carrying an unstoppable, crushing dominance.
The air screamed as it was torn apart.
Space itself seemed to warp along the blade’s path, leaving behind a trail of absolute darkness.
Instinct overrode fear in the Wanderer’s final moments.
Breaking free from its paralysis, it let out one last desperate howl.
Dodging was impossible—the strike sealed all escape.
So it chose the only option left.
Gathering every shred of remaining power into its blade, it met the falling greatsword head-on.
Attack against attack.
A brutal, suicidal counter.
Lin Han’s heart stopped. He already saw the outcome.
Not the clang of steel, but the dull crunch of a hammer smashing rotten wood.
The Wanderer’s radiant blade met the black edge—only to scatter into pathetic sparks, dissolving like snow against fire.
The sword shattered. The arm followed.
And still, the greatsword descended.
A sickening crack—bone and armor crumpled as one.
The Wanderer’s massive frame hurtled backward like a battering ram had struck it.
Its aura vanished.
It hit the ground, twitched twice, then lay still.
The fire in its hollow eyes had gone out.
One strike.
That was all it took.
The crowd stared, wide-eyed and speechless, at the lone figure standing victorious.
The Battlefield Wanderer—a monster that had unleashed a storm of attacks mere moments ago—was just… gone?
The commentator gaped, mouth working soundlessly.
Years of experience, countless battles narrated—none had prepared him for this.
What was there to say?
It began. It ended.
Meanwhile, Liu Yuan kept texting Su Qi, utterly unbothered.
Though it felt somewhat condescending, it was clearly Lin Han who had inexplicably started the taunting.
[Iris: Are we going home after this match?]
[IWantToSleep: Sure. The tournament lasts three days in a row, one match per day. We can definitely go home after today’s round.]
The 'Black Knight' planted his massive sword back on the ground with a dull thud.
The arena lights seemed to grow brighter.
Yet Lin Han’s heart sank even deeper into despair.
The connection between the 'Battlefield Wanderer' and his card slot had been severed.
Defeat.
Utter and complete.
From the moment the 'Black Knight' drew his sword to the collapse of the 'Battlefield Wanderer,' the entire sequence happened too fast to process.
A total overpowering!
Sheer, brute-force domination!
His pride, his trump card—they had been as fragile as tissue paper in the face of his opponent.
The loss of cards worth millions? He could brush that off.
To his family’s resources, it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.
But this feeling of being utterly crushed, without even a sliver of room to fight back…
Why?
Why did this nobody, this guy who came out of nowhere—
He couldn’t accept it!
The results of the martial exam directly affected his standing within the family, dictating the allocation of future resources.
He was the sixth son of the Lin family—colloquially known as "Old Six."
Don’t ask how his father managed to have so many children.
His old man was rich and powerful—what was wrong with supporting a few college students to help with employment issues?
His eldest brother had already secured his position as the heir. If Lin Han couldn’t deliver outstanding results now, he’d likely be pushed completely to the sidelines.
By then, forget about acquiring stronger cards—even maintaining his current training resources might become a pipe dream.
No. Absolutely not!
Lin Han’s chest heaved violently, his face flushing with an almost feverish intensity.
His gaze locked onto the girl at the other end of the arena—Liu Yuan—who was casually scrolling through her phone, as if this victory meant nothing to her.
Wait—
Summon duels were battles between summoned entities.
But she had chosen a free duel format—where the cardholder themselves could fight!
If he took out the cardholder directly, what use would her overpowered summon be?
The thought coiled around his rationality like a rapidly spreading vine.
Dirty?
Not really.
It was within the rules.
All he wanted was to win—what was wrong with that?
It wasn’t like he was trying to kill her. If things went too far, the referees would step in.
He just needed victory. Because losing? That meant losing everything.
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
