All Heavenly Prodigies Enter the Game, Barbarians from the Eight Wastelands Breach the Pass

The next day, when that imperial edict was proclaimed to the world at the speed of an eight-hundred-mile express, aided by the communication broodmother, the entire Divine State, and even those hidden sects that considered themselves detached from the mortal world, as well as the uncivilized barbarians, fell into an unprecedented boil.

If the Empress Dowager's decree for the royal draft merely tempted the patriarchs of the noble and powerful families, attempting to get a piece of the pie in the inner court, then Wang Hao's imperial edict to "reorder the Great Zhou's official dual rankings" directly detonated a heavenly thunderbolt across the vast martial arts world!

At the headquarters of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, atop the Ethereal Peak.

The Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, who boasted of having flawless calculations and the ability to peer into the secrets of heaven, tightly crushed the rubbing of the imperial edict brought back by his spies. His originally immortal-like, sage-like face was now twisted like a vengeful ghost, his eyes filled with shock, fury, and disbelief.

"Brat! Tyrant! How dare he do this—!!!"

The Pavilion Master suddenly clutched his chest. The true qi throughout his body flowed backward uncontrollably, and with a gag, he spewed out a mouthful of dark red blood, staining the white jade desk in front of him.

In front of him, the anomalous artifact known as the "Heavenly Mystery Jade Wall"—which had been passed down for thousands of years and was engraved with the world's unparalleled beauties and peerless geniuses—actually cracked with a tiny fissure!

This fissure did not crack stone, but the very lifeblood of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion!

The Pavilion Master's heart was bleeding. The Great Zhou government categorizing the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion as an "illegal organization" and reducing their dual rankings to "unofficial lists"—what did this mean? It meant that from now on, the billions of citizens, countless scholars, and martial artists of Great Zhou would completely abandon the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion and turn to the Great Zhou's official rankings.

"He saw through it... Not only did he see through my layout of using the rankings to manipulate the world's karmic luck, but he also turned the tables on me!" The Pavilion Master felt a bone-chilling coldness. Wang Hao was not only trying to snatch the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion's livelihood, but he was also using the vanity and greed of the world's people to exclude the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion from the battle for karmic luck!

The avalanche of their credibility would happen overnight!

And this imperial edict was spreading in all directions at an extremely fast speed, igniting the ambitions in the hearts of countless geniuses.

In the extreme north of Great Zhou, across ten thousand miles of glaciers.

At the peak of the Ice and Snow Divine Palace, the piercing astral winds were enough to instantly tear the flesh of a fourth-realm martial artist into mush. However, a breathtakingly beautiful woman, dressed in white purer than snow with three thousand strands of black hair cascading like a waterfall, stood quietly and proudly at the very center of the blizzard.

She was the Holy Maiden of the Ice and Snow Divine Palace, Shen Xue, ranked second on the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion's "Beauty List."

Shen Xue lowered her eyes, which were like ten-thousand-year cold stars, looking at the Great Zhou imperial edict transmitted through the jade slip. Her exquisite face held not a trace of mortal emotion, only a layer of soul-freezing frost.

"The Heavenly Mystery Pavilion ranking this palace in second place is already a crime worthy of ten thousand deaths. Now, a secular emperor dares to set up a ranking and arrogantly determine the world's beauties?"

Deep in her heart, an offended murderous intent churned. What she cultivated was the Supreme Forgetfulness of Emotion, and what she practiced was the Freezing of Ten Thousand Miles. In her eyes, the men of the world were nothing but warm lumps of clay. But now, that child sitting on the dragon throne dared to use words full of the stench of money and political maneuvering like "official certification" to measure her pure and flawless chastity?

Shen Xue didn't even draw the sword at her waist. She merely raised her jade-like finger and lightly swiped at the empty space in front of her.

"Buzz—Boom!!!"

A giant boulder ten zhang tall in front of her was actually split in two instantly by an invisible wave of cold energy! The cut was as smooth as a mirror, and even the void formed fine ice crystals.

"Prepare the Frost Jade Carriage," Shen Xue said coldly. "This palace wants to see who in the Great Zhou capital dares to call themselves first in front of me. If there is no one, this palace will behead that little emperor and use his blood to fertilize the Divine Palace's snow lotuses."

In the Hundred Thousand Mountains, at the headquarters of the Nether Demon Cult.

In the center of the eerie, terrifying, and bone-strewn Ten Thousand Blood Pool, a glamorous Spider Lily suddenly bloomed. A peerless demoness with an extremely enchanting figure, draped only in a few strands of red gossamer that revealed glimpses of her skin, stepped barefoot on the skulls of several famous righteous path elders and slowly walked out of the blood pool.

With every step she took, a blood-colored lotus bloomed on the ground beneath her feet. The Demon Cult's Holy Maiden, Ye Hongling, ranked fourth on the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion's Beauty List.

"Giggle..." A coquettish laugh that would make one's bones go soft echoed in the dark cave, yet it frightened the tens of thousands of venomous insects and fierce beasts around into prostrating and trembling.

Ye Hongling stuck out her scarlet little tongue and licked the blood from the corner of her mouth, her eyes flashing with morbid excitement. "The Great Zhou Official Beauty List? How interesting. Those green tea bitches from the orthodox sects usually pretend to be pure and flawless. For the sake of the words 'going down in history' this time, I wonder how many shameless things they will do?"

A twisted desire for destruction surged in her heart. She didn't care about any rankings; what she cared about was destroying beautiful things.

"I heard that the little emperor recently not only swallowed a lightning tribulation but is also very tough. He even killed Ye Chen, who was in the limelight." Ye Hongling played with a strand of her long hair with her slender fingers, her eyes sultry. "This Holy Maiden should take a trip to the capital. If I can peel off the skins of those righteous path holy maidens on that highly anticipated arena, then suck the high and mighty little emperor dry of his primal yang, strip him naked, and hang him on the Meridian Gate tower... Ah, just thinking about that scene makes my whole body burn with heat."

At the same time, in the deep mountains, old forests, and perilous desperate lands across the Divine State, surges of soaring vitality erupted one after another, shooting straight into the clouds and disrupting the celestial phenomena!

Those inner disciples of major sects in death seclusion, the peerless geniuses secretly hidden by millennial noble families, and those "children of destiny" burdened with blood feuds and harboring heaven-defying fortuitous encounters, looked at the words on the imperial edict: "A reward of one million silver taels, going down in history, and rich prizes." One by one, their eyes turned crimson, and the true qi around their bodies became violently turbulent to the extreme.

In the northwestern desert, a raging fire swept across the plains.

A black-robed youth carrying a pitch-black heavy iron ruler on his back stood bare-chested, his body wrapped in three terrifying exotic flames of different colors. As the flames danced, they actually melted the rolling sand dunes around him directly into a boiling, scalding lake of magma!

The youth's name was Xiao Chen, a former piece of trash in his family. Because his fiancée wanted to enter the royal draft, he was publicly humiliated with a broken engagement. Now, after a series of fortuitous encounters, he was already at the half-step Astral Qi Realm!

Xiao Chen suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction of the capital.

"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river! Do not bully the young and poor!" Xiao Chen roared madly in his heart, past humiliations flooding his mind. "What the hell is the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion, they didn't even rank my name! This Great Zhou Official Genius List is exactly the time for me, Xiao Chen, to make a name for myself in the world! Those noble families who looked down on me and humiliated me back then, just open your dog eyes and watch how I, Xiao Chen, will trample your so-called peerless geniuses underfoot one by one on the arena in the capital! I am the sole protagonist of this Great Zhou era!"

On the shore of the East Sea, angry waves crashed against the coast.

A youth with bulging muscles covered in cyan dragon scale patterns stood completely still, allowing the thousand-jin waves to smash against his back. He suddenly opened his eyes, and a materialized phantom of a true dragon roared out from the depths of his gaze, forcibly tearing apart the hundred-zhang wave in front of him!

"I, Lu Chenzhou, have cultivated the Sea-Suppressing Divine Art bitterly at the bottom of the ocean for thirty years. Emerging from the abyss today, I will take the top spot on the Great Zhou's Heaven's Chosen Ranking to sacrifice to my peerless martial dao! The title of number one in the world belongs to none other than me!"

However, the destructive power of Wang Hao's imperial decree far exceeded ordinary imagination. The carnival of profit, glory, and the desire to conquer acted like a deadly poison. Not only did it drive the monsters within the Great Zhou mad, but it also attracted the gazes of the savage lands beyond the Divine Continent.

Beyond the northern borders, deep within the great snowy mountains and vast grasslands.

In front of a golden tent amidst howling gales, the Barbarian First Prince, Wanyan Gu, stood over ten feet tall like an iron tower, his body covered in bizarre totems. He sat astride a fifty-foot-long two-headed demonic wolf that burned with nether ghost fire.

"Roar—!"

Wanyan Gu swung a blood-dripping spiked mace weighing three thousand pounds, directly smashing a level-six evil entity into a rain of minced meat! He tilted his head back, letting the boiling bear blood drench his face, and stuck out his tongue to lick it greedily.

"The Great Zhou Dynasty wants to select the number one beauty in the world? They want to rank the Heaven's Chosen?" Wanyan Gu laughed wildly at the sky. His voice was like muffled thunder, shattering the pasture grass within a ten-mile radius and causing countless barbarian warriors to kneel on the ground, shivering.

His eyes revealed undisguised lust, and his heart was filled with contempt for the Central Plains people. "Those weak lambs in the south who only know how to recite poetry and couplets, are they worthy of being called Heaven's Chosen? The skin of their women, however, is much smoother and tenderer than that of our grassland women! Pass down my orders: gather three hundred grassland totem warriors and follow this prince to the capital!"

Wanyan Gu slammed his spiked mace heavily onto the ground. "This prince will not only use the skulls of the Central Plains' Heaven's Chosen as wine cups and seize the first place on their ranking! I will also snatch all their top ten beauties back to the grasslands to bear my wolf cubs! Whoever dares to stop me, this prince will slaughter their entire clan!"

South of the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the Southern Borders, in the miasma-shrouded Gu God Tribe.

A Southern Barbarian Princess, Anu, wearing a five-colored veil, barefoot, and surrounded by deadly poisonous miasma, was playing with a highly toxic golden silkworm that was entirely golden and exuded a strange fragrance.

She casually dropped a single drop of the golden silkworm's venom into the swamp below. A mutated giant python, tens of meters long, was dissolved skin and bone into a puddle of foul-smelling black water in just three breaths of time.

Anu looked at the northern sky. "How can the vulgar cosmetics of the Central Plains, without the nourishment of poison, be worthy of the word 'peerless beauty'? Let's go to the Great Zhou capital. I want to show the Emperor of the Central Plains what a true life-claiming beauty is. If that emperor is pleasing to the eye, this princess will reward him by making him my natal Gu vessel. If he is an eyesore, I will turn the Great Zhou Imperial Palace into a dead zone of ten thousand poisons."

The islands of the Eastern Sea, the various nations of the Western Regions... Countless foreign experts with terrifying strength and ulterior motives, along with peerless beauties, crossed the borders one after another. Carrying the wildness of barbarians, they surged toward the Great Zhou capital.

For a time, the winds and clouds of the world stirred like thunder! The energy between heaven and earth caused frequent anomalies due to the gathering of these countless Heaven's Chosen—be it a pouring rain of blood or three suns appearing in the sky at once... Perhaps due to the intervention of the Heavenly Dao, these children of destiny faintly harbored an inexplicable hostility toward Wang Hao.

The Great Zhou capital had impressively become the focal point of the world!

Everyone was waiting to see the Great Zhou Imperial Family make a fool of themselves, waiting to see how that little emperor who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth would clean up this mess.