Semifinal: Shen Xue of the Ice Snow Divine Palace vs. Anu of the Gu God Tribe

Although this little interlude was incredibly absurd, it completely ignited the crowd's fanatical atmosphere. Even though the audience was grossed out, watching nine peerless beauties gang up on a cross-dressing freak provided an absolutely explosive visual impact! Outside the arena, the cash flow at the Royal Casino experienced another bizarre surge.

Wang Hao leaned comfortably in his grand armchair. Watching Hua Nongying being dragged away, he clapped his hands in satisfaction. "The interlude is over. Next up is the main event."

He leaned forward slightly, his gaze locked onto the four faintly panting figures who had returned to the preparation area.

After round after round of brutal eliminations, the most thrilling and prestigious semifinals had finally arrived.

On the giant screen, the light of arrays flickered, displaying the upcoming match list:

Match One: Shen Xue of the Ice and Snow Divine Palace VS Anu of the Gu God Tribe.

Match Two: Yun Meng of the Phantom Sea Immortal Sect VS Ye Hongling of the Netherworld Demonic Cult.

Wang Hao knew that these four women were the true Daughters of Destiny of the Divine State Continent. The real peak showdown, the mutual crushing of luck and destiny, was only just beginning.

"Fight, fight to the death. The more peerless and magnificent you are, the more delicious it will be when I harvest you after your trump cards are exhausted and your oil lamps are burned dry." Wang Hao's mouth curled into a hunter's smile.

Clang!

A deafening strike of a bronze bell completely pulled the hundred-thousand-capacity gladiatorial arena back to reality from the absurd farce of the freak's withdrawal.

In the center of the arena, the ten-meter-deep crater blasted open by the combined efforts of the nine great heaven's chosen was restored to its original state in a mere three breaths of time, thanks to the frantic hand seals of several royal array masters.

Wei Zhongxian made a dazzling appearance once again. Holding an amplifying magical artifact, his old face was filled with a heart-racing fanaticism: "Ladies and gentlemen! The only official and legal betting pool designated by the Great Zhou Imperial Court has updated its semifinal odds! Shen Xue of the Ice and Snow Divine Palace against Anu of the Gu God Tribe, the odds are one to one point five! Yun Meng of the Phantom Sea Immortal Sect against Ye Hongling of the Netherworld Demonic Cult, the odds are one to one point eight! Place your bets, royal credibility, fair trade for all!"

Wang Hao leaned comfortably back in his grand armchair, which was draped with a thousand-year-old fire fox pelt.

"Your Majesty, aren't these odds a bit too high?" Yu Huatian asked cautiously from the side, kneading Wang Hao's shoulders while watching the astronomical figures wildly jumping on the light screen, harboring a faint worry. "These four holy maidens are veritable monsters. The funds under the control of those peripheral sects and powerful factions are incredibly massive. In case of an upset, wouldn't our Royal Casino lose a fortune?"

"Lose? The word 'lose' does not exist in my dictionary." Wang Hao chuckled lightly, his eyes as profound as a black hole that swallowed everything. "You only see the odds, but you fail to see the greed of human nature. Which of those big shots from the hidden sects isn't arrogant and considers themselves above everyone else? They will absolutely place heavy bets on their own sect's holy maiden. What I want is exactly this gambler's mentality of theirs, willing to risk it all."

Wang Hao turned the jade thumb ring on his finger, his tone dark and profound. "Cao Zhengchun, send a sound transmission to the array control room. Later, when Shen Xue and Anu reach the most critical moment of their fight, slightly lower the energy of the defensive array on the eastern side of the arena by five percent. Not much, just a five percent flaw will be enough for those two smart women to notice and utilize."

Hearing this, Cao Zhengchun was taken aback for a moment before breaking into a smile. "Your Majesty is wise! This old servant will go do it immediately! As soon as a minor fluctuation appears in the array, given that girl Anu's temperament of favoring unorthodox methods, she will definitely take the opportunity to launch a massive counterattack with poisonous Gu. Once the situation spirals out of control, those retail gambling dogs who placed heavy bets on Shen Xue's quick victory will definitely suffer a mental breakdown!"

"Go. Remember, I want them to reveal all their trump cards, and I want the sects behind them to lose so badly they don't even have their underwear left." Wang Hao took a sip of tea, his gaze locked onto the two beautiful figures who had already stepped onto the arena.

The first semifinal: Shen Xue of the Ice and Snow Divine Palace versus Anu of the Gu God Tribe.

The two stood their ground, one cold and one hot, their temperaments polar opposites.

Shen Xue wore a plain white dress, surrounded by a visible ice-blue chill. Even separated by the defensive array, the audience in the front rows could feel a bone-piercing freezing cold. Her eyes showed no ripples, like a beautifully crafted ice sculpture devoid of emotion. However, the true qi dormant within her body was as viscous as mercury, faintly exuding a coercion of laws that only Sky Realm experts possessed.

On the opposite side, Anu wore a set of jingling Miao-style silver ornaments and was barefooted with a pair of tender white little feet. A sweet, innocent smile hung on her face. If they hadn't seen with their own eyes during the auditions how she smilingly turned a muscular woman at the peak of the True Intent Realm into a puddle of pus, anyone would have thought she was just a little girl next door.

"Sister Shen Xue, you are so pretty, just a bit too cold. Why don't you surrender? Anu's Gu bugs are very mischievous. If they happen to bite and ruin sister's beautiful face, Anu's heart will ache." Anu smiled sweetly, but her hands hidden behind her back had already silently crushed a pitch-black bug egg.

Shen Xue didn't waste words; she didn't even bat an eyelid.

Clang!

A crisp sword chime!

There was no complicated starting stance, no flashy sword moves. Shen Xue formed her fingers into a sword and pointed them in Anu's direction through the air.

In an instant, the air in the arena was entirely sucked dry. A frost sword qi, as thin as a gossamer thread yet condensed to the extreme, directly ignored the distance of space and abruptly appeared right in front of Anu's glabella!

"A fragment of the Extreme Cold Law?! She is only at the second layer of the Astral Qi Realm, how could she possibly master such a thing!" In a VIP box, an elder of a first-rate sect cried out in shock. Astral Qi Realm martial artists could only externalize true qi; only upon reaching the eighth realm, the Sky Realm, could one touch the laws of heaven and earth! This Shen Xue was simply a monster who defied the common sense of the martial dao!

However, facing this sure-kill strike, the smile on Anu's face did not change in the slightest.

Pfft!

The frost sword qi pierced through Anu's glabella without any resistance! But bizarrely, not a single drop of blood flowed out. The pierced "Anu" actually transformed into tens of thousands of tiny white flying insects in an instant, collapsing with a boom in the cold air!

"A Substitute Gu? No, it's the Phantom Sound Mind-Beguiling Gu." Shen Xue's voice was as cold as frost.

"Giggle... Sister is so smart, but unfortunately, you're too late!"

Anu's true body had appeared at the very top of the arena's airspace at some unknown time. Her hands rapidly formed seals, and she pressed down fiercely: "Inescapable Net, Ten Thousand Gu Devouring the Heart!"

Buzz, buzz, buzz!

The surroundings of the arena, which had originally been empty, were somehow unknowingly covered with transparent threads that were almost imperceptible to the naked eye. These threads were entirely formed by a type of miniature Gu bug called the Void Concealment Gu linking head to tail. Driven by Anu at this moment, the net instantly tightened, acting like a giant transparent cage that trapped Shen Xue securely in the center. At the same time, the threads secreted a colorless, odorless, and highly toxic neurotoxin that frantically burrowed toward the major acupoints all over Shen Xue's body.

This was a battle between high-IQ prodigies! There were no mindless, brute-force clashes. From the initial verbal probing to using a substitute to draw attention, and then silently laying down a lethal formation, Anu took less than three breaths of time!

The audience in the stands was dumbfounded. With this level of calculation and combat power, let alone their peers, even those long-established older generation experts would be instantly floored if they went up!

"This Gu girl has a vicious mind. Unfortunately, she missed one point." Wang Hao watched this scene from his VIP box, his gaze as sharp as a blade. "In the face of absolute power and elemental suppression, flashy tactics are utterly meaningless."

The moment Wang Hao's voice fell.

On the arena, Shen Xue, who was trapped in the Myriad Gu Great Formation, suddenly closed her eyes.

"Absolute Zero, Frozen Thousand Miles."

Shen Xue parted her red lips and softly uttered these words.

"Boom—!!!"

An indescribably terrifying current of cold air erupted madly in all directions with Shen Xue at its epicenter! This chill was not ordinary true qi at all, but the purest Law of Extreme Cold!

Even the sound of the air freezing could be clearly heard. The Void Concealment Gu laid down by Anu, which were claimed to devour everything and could hide in the void, were instantly frozen into powder the moment they touched this cold energy, without even the chance to struggle!

Not just the Gu bugs, even the indestructible Magic-Banning Profound Iron on the arena's surface was frozen until terrifying cracks appeared. The entire arena instantly turned into a massive iceberg, and Anu was right in the core area of the spreading ice!

"Not good!" Anu's expression changed drastically. Her proud Gu formation was instantly obliterated, and that terrifying cold energy had already locked onto her aura, leaving her nowhere to hide.

"You forced me! Natal Love Gu, Limit Break!" Anu bit the tip of her tongue and spat out a large mouthful of lifeblood. A bizarre, entirely crimson Gu bug with two golden wings flew out from between her eyebrows. It expanded rapidly in the wind, transforming into a terrifying venomous flood dragon dozens of feet long. Opening its bloodthirsty maw, it forcefully bit out a path of survival through the freezing iceberg and lunged madly at Shen Xue.

This was Anu's ultimate life-saving trump card. This Natal Love Gu contained a severe mental toxin. Once tainted, even if one didn't die, they would turn into a mindless puppet taking orders only from her.

The venomous flood dragon was just about to crash into Shen Xue's protective astral qi.

In this lightning-fast moment!

Just as Wang Hao had arranged previously, an extremely subtle energy fluctuation abruptly appeared in the defensive formation on the eastern side of the arena!

This fluctuation was so tiny that ordinary spectators couldn't detect it at all. But to the two monsters on the arena, whose minds were highly focused in a life-and-death struggle, it was practically like a searchlight in the dark of night!

Anu's combat intuition was terrifyingly sharp. The moment she sensed the formation's fluctuation, a hint of ruthlessness flashed in her eyes. She actually forcibly twisted the attack direction of her Natal Love Gu, giving up on attacking Shen Xue and instead controlling the venomous flood dragon to viciously crash into that weak point of the formation!

She wanted to use her opponent's strength against them! As long as she broke a corner of the formation, the turbulent energy backlash from the formation, combined with the poisonous mist of her Natal Love Gu, would definitely sweep Shen Xue into it and heavily injure her!

"Crazy woman!" The elders of the hidden sects in the VIP boxes broke out in cold sweat when they saw this. If the formation was broken and the poisonous mist leaked out, a massive swath of the front-row audience would die!

"Good courage. What a pity she outsmarted herself." Wang Hao sneered, quietly watching Shen Xue's performance.

Facing Anu's extreme change in tactics, Shen Xue's cold eyes showed no panic at all; instead, a hint of mockery flashed through them.

She didn't even try to defend. Instead, she slowly raised her right hand and gently flicked her slender finger in the void.

"Ice Soul Divine Light, Mind Freeze."

An extremely restrained faint blue beam of light, moving at a speed beyond the limits of the naked eye, completely ignored the massive body of the venomous flood dragon and shot accurately into the center of Anu's brows.

This strike didn't hit the physical body, but the spiritual sea of consciousness!

"Ah—!"

In mid-air, Anu, who was just about to detonate the formation, suddenly let out a shrill scream. She felt as if her soul had been dragged into a purgatory of ten-thousand-year profound ice. Her thoughts, consciousness, and even the mental link controlling the Gu bugs were completely frozen in this instant!

The out-of-control natal venomous flood dragon whimpered in mid-air, rapidly shrank, and fell powerlessly to the ground. Anu herself also plummeted from the sky like a kite with a broken string, crashing onto the ice surface with a heavy thud. Covered entirely in frost, she completely lost her combat ability.

The entire venue was dead silent.

From the start of the fight to the end, it took less than ten breaths of time. There was no drawn-out tug-of-war, only fatal calculations with every move, the frantic collision of trump cards, and the ultimate grasp of battle opportunities in that hair-raising moment!

"Sister Shen Xue... you are so ruthless..." Anu lay on the ground, her teeth chattering as she spat out these last few words before fainting dead away.

"Thank you for the match," Shen Xue said indifferently. She turned and walked off the arena, not even sparing a glance at the unconscious Anu, as if she had merely swatted a mosquito to death.