The Black Knight swung its massive sword once more.
A concentrated beam of light extended forward, carving out a new path through the chaos.
The crowd surged toward the forcibly opened passage.
In desperate times like these, when hope flickered to life, no one hesitated to flee.
Some even wished their parents had blessed them with an extra pair of legs.
But this time, Yun Huang couldn’t shake the feeling that the beam seemed shorter than before.
It was a clear sign—the Black Knight’s soul force was depleting rapidly, making it impossible to maintain its peak form.
If the Black Knight could no longer clear the way, they would all be trapped in the ashes!
Twelve kilometers—just over ten thousand meters.
Based on the first phase of the martial exam, a full-speed sprint would take barely over ten minutes.
Even accounting for the delays caused by waiting for the Black Knight to open the path, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour.
But.
Would the journey really be that smooth?
The group had barely been running for two minutes when—
A soul-shaking roar erupted from the ashes!
Then, an overwhelming pressure, like a collapsing mountain, crushed down upon them!
The air froze.
Everyone gasped for breath, suffocating under the weight.
Even through the swirling ash, they could make out a colossal, indistinct figure slowly approaching.
Though "slow" was relative—given its sheer size.
Another thirty seconds passed.
At the two-and-a-half-minute mark.
The Source Realm creature finally came into full view.
Mountainous in stature, its body was encased in thick, jagged rock, its eyes pools of molten lava pulsing with an eerie, intelligent glow.
Its mere presence made the Black Knight falter for an instant.
After a brief hesitation, the Black Knight unleashed another beam of light at the molten behemoth.
But this time, the once-unstoppable attack barely made a dent.
A small crater formed on the creature’s body, dislodging a few boulders half a meter in diameter.
Yet…
Compared to its twenty-story-tall frame…
It was nothing more than a scratch.
"T-Tenth tier…"
Yun Huang trembled as she uttered the words, her eyes filled with despair.
This was one of the "Tenth-tier Source Realm creatures" marked as a black spot in official surveys!
With just a few strides, it covered hundreds of meters.
Its target? The Black Knight.
No—more precisely, Liu Yuan behind the Black Knight!
The oppressive aura of a Tenth-tier creature forced everyone to their knees, paralyzed with fear.
This was true desperation!
A fifth-tier Card Wielder, even armed with an absurdly powerful card, stood no chance against a Tenth-tier beast.
This wasn’t a battle—it was a massacre.
"Run!"
"Split up! Run as far as you can!!"
Yun Huang knew the Black Knight, no matter how strong, couldn’t win.
The most it could do was buy time—time for the others to escape.
The Tenth-tier creature let out a guttural growl, its massive stone hands grinding together with a screech.
Then, they began to glow red-hot.
With a devastating swing, it brought one down toward the Black Knight—
To crush it, and Liu Yuan behind it, into dust!
The Black Knight’s sword blazed with unprecedented brilliance.
It raised the weapon high, fearlessly meeting the molten fist head-on!
This was a hopeless clash.
This was defiance against the inevitable.
But it was also—
Hope.
Yun Huang watched, breath caught in her throat.
She didn’t know if the Black Knight could withstand the blow.
She only knew that if it fell in an instant…
They would all be buried in these ashes forever.
BOOM—!!!
A cataclysmic collision shook the entire Source Realm!
The molten fist, radiating pure destruction, filled Liu Yuan’s vision, threatening to consume her whole world.
The Black Knight roared, pouring every ounce of its power into the sword. The blade shone brighter than ever before.
"BOOM—!!!"
An unimaginable force collided.
There was no struggle, no resistance.
The moment the Black Knight’s sword met the molten fist—
The radiant light snuffed out.
Then, hairline cracks spiderwebbed from the tip, spreading across the entire blade in an instant.
"CRACK—!"
A crisp, heartrending snap echoed.
The sword shattered into pieces!
Shards of black metal and searing magma exploded outward!
The Black Knight’s massive frame convulsed violently, its chest plate caving in, fissures tearing through its armor.
An unstoppable force blasted through it.
Blood sprayed from its mouth, vision drowning in ash and crimson.
Consciousness—fading.
Yet, even with its blade gone, the Black Knight didn’t retreat a single step.
Its broken hilt, still clutched in its iron grip, and its unyielding arm, held firm against the crushing weight of the molten fist.
"SCREEE—!"
Metal shrieked as the Black Knight’s pauldrons and gauntlets warped, sparks flying from the strain.
Dark green fluid and charred debris gushed from the fractures.
Its knees sank into the earth, the ground beneath it fracturing into a massive crater.
Meanwhile, the mountainous molten beast seemed almost surprised.
Its lava-filled eyes flickered with something like… contemplation.
Then, it casually scooped up a chunk of earth, compressing it into a three-meter-wide boulder.
Aiming at Liu Yuan—
It hurled it.
The Black Knight tried to rise, to block again.
But then—
A hand rested on its shoulder.
"You’ve done enough. Let me handle this."
Truthfully, the Black Knight’s performance had been flawless.
This attack? It couldn’t survive it.
For the first time, the Black Knight spoke—its voice unexpectedly clear and feminine.
"As you wish…"
Almost… relieved.
As the boulder hurtled toward her, Liu Yuan didn’t dodge.
The only way out now lay within herself.
[Special Passive: ‘Abyss’ remains in deep slumber under normal circumstances and cannot be awakened by conventional means. Activation requires meeting any one of the following conditions.]
[Condition 1: It wakes up.]
[Condition 2: The holder faces a lethal threat. If awakened this way, it will only deliver a single, devastating counterattack.]
[Condition 3: Su Qi actively awakens it.]
The flaw in this self-defense mechanism was that it was purely defensive…
It offered almost no offensive capabilities.
She just hoped…
The rock wouldn’t hurt too much when it hit…
And what if it wasn’t lethal enough?
She hated pain.
But there was no other choice.
She never wanted to be a hero…
Yet she couldn’t just do nothing.
Su Qi wasn’t always right.
She refused to let their sacrifices be in vain.
At least do what you can within your power.
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
