“The match begins.”
The referee’s voice was completely drowned out by a peal of thunder that tore through the air.
Fang Ze vanished from the spot.
Millions of tiny, violent snakes of lightning burst from beneath every inch of the arena floor, instantly weaving themselves into an impenetrable net of thunder that completely enveloped Chen Guan.
He knew that if he let his opponent strike first, he might lose his only chance to show what he was capable of.
The temperature in the arena skyrocketed, and the air filled with the acrid smell of ozone.
“Thunder Prison.”
Fang Ze’s voice came from all directions, distorted by the electromagnetic interference. He had already merged with the field of lightning.
He gave Chen Guan no time to react. The instant the lightning net contracted, Fang Ze himself transformed into a spear formed from pure thunder, its tip aimed straight at Chen Guan’s heart as it thrust forward with unstoppable resolve.
Facing this thunderous inferno that sealed off every avenue of escape, Chen Guan hefted his pitch-black scythe.
Sizzle!
A thick bolt of lightning coiled around his arm, yet failed to singe even the edge of his clothes before being repelled by an invisible force.
Chen Guan raised his head. Looking at the spear wrapped in the power of ten thousand bolts of thunder, he lifted his hand and brought his scythe against its tip.
Clang!
A crisp, almost unbelievable collision rang out.
The thunderous spear, powerful enough to pierce through a warship’s armor, collapsed into scattered sparks the instant it touched the blade of the scythe. Fang Ze’s figure fell out of the air, his face filled with disbelief.
His strongest attack, formed from every ounce of his power, had been blocked just like that.
Fang Ze had considered the possibility that his attack might fail, but he had never imagined it would be stopped so effortlessly. His opponent had done nothing more than casually swing his weapon.
Before he could recover from his shock, an irresistible force surged from the point of impact. His entire body was sent flying backward, tracing an awkward arc through the air.
Yet just as he was about to crash to the ground, a black figure moved faster than he did.
Chen Guan’s figure appeared like a ghost at the point where Fang Ze was about to land. He reached out, caught Fang Ze by the collar, and firmly halted his descent before gently setting him on the ground.
Fang Ze lay there, his mind blank. He stared blankly at the figure that had knocked him away, then caught him before he could hit the floor. Finally, he let out a quiet sigh.
He had lost.
There had been no suspense whatsoever.
His opponent had not even made a proper move. He had merely swung his weapon casually.
The gap between them was even more despairing than he had imagined.
Fang Ze closed his eyes, preparing to hear the referee announce the result—and to face the deathly silence that would surely descend over the entire arena.
Seeing the anguish on his opponent’s face, Chen Guan felt a headache coming on.
They were both about the same age. He had never intended to crush him so completely.
After shattering everyone else’s confidence along the way, Chen Guan felt as though he had become some kind of major villain.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to encourage his opponent.
“Of everyone I’ve fought, I’d call you the strongest.”
As Chen Guan’s voice rang out, an immense sense of satisfaction washed over Fang Ze’s body and soul. Fang Ze suddenly smiled—a genuine smile from the bottom of his heart.
“I concede.”
Facing Chen Guan, he shouted those three words clearly with every ounce of strength he had left.
“The winner is Chen Guan of Huaqing Academy!”
The referee’s voice finally shattered the silence that had filled the arena.
Chen Guan walked step by step back to Huaqing Academy’s rest area.
With his departure, the round-of-sixteen qualifiers came to an end.
On the enormous holographic screen, eight of the sixteen portraits faded into darkness. Only the eight remaining quarterfinalists continued to shine brightly at the top.
They were Ross, Charles, An Changqing, Su Yuehe, Bai Huanran, Chen Guan, Jiro Honda, and Shizuko Kaga.
Over at Number Zero Academy, Ross stared at the list, his entire expression dazed.
Me? In the quarterfinals? Me?
If anyone had gotten the best draw in the tournament, Ross was certain it was him.
In terms of strength, he was unquestionably the weakest of the eight. Several of the contestants eliminated early on were stronger than him.
For instance, Fang Ze of North City Academy, who had just been eliminated by Chen Guan, or Shio Qingbai, whose confidence Chen Guan had shattered with a single slash at the very beginning.
Having made it this far, Ross decided that when he returned home, he would visit his family’s ancestral grave, burn a stick of incense, and thank his great-grandmother for protecting him.
…
After a day’s rest, the matches resumed.
On the chairman’s platform, An Changsong’s voice rang out through the broadcast system, breaking the heavy silence.
“The semifinals begin now.”
The light finally settled, and two entirely different portraits appeared side by side.
Number Zero Academy: Charles.
North City Academy: Bai Huanran.
“Oh! It’s the two captains!”
“Now this is finally a real match. I thought we were going to watch someone from Huaqing steamroll everyone again.”
The crowd erupted into discussion.
This match had nothing to do with one-sided domination or despair. It was a true clash between evenly matched powerhouses, a confrontation between the most outstanding prodigies.
In Number Zero Academy’s rest area, Charles gave a light whistle. At this moment, he felt that his luck was just as good.
It wasn’t a monster. It was an old rival. That put him at ease.
On the other side, Bai Huanran felt the same way. Each of them regarded the other as an easy target.
“I’m going.”
He nodded to the others and strode forward.
The two captains took their positions at the center of the arena.
“Begin!”
The instant the referee’s voice fell, Bai Huanran did not hesitate in the slightest. He lightly drew a line through the air in front of him with one finger.
The concentrated strand of water that had decided the outcome of his previous match appeared once more. Moving faster than sound, it sliced silently toward Charles’s throat.
Ding!
The water blade stopped an inch before reaching Charles’s neck. It could advance no farther, blocked by an invisible barrier. It vaporized into a cloud of white mist, accompanied by a sizzling sound as though something were being scorched.
“That’s it?”
Charles bared his teeth in a grin. His stark white teeth looked particularly ferocious beneath the electric light. He did not retreat even half a step, allowing the cutting force to grind relentlessly against his body.
“That’s not even enough to scratch an itch.”
Bai Huanran was not surprised in the least. His fingers continued moving without pause. With a deft hook of his fingertip, the water blade that had been stopped transformed into dozens of living water snakes, splitting instantly into dozens of thinner, faster miniature blades.
The water blades avoided the front and shot toward Charles’s joints and vital points from every direction.
“Not bad. Quite the little juggling act.”
Charles abandoned defense completely, allowing the water blades to slice through his clothes and leave wound after wound across his body.
“My turn!”
A fist wrapped in blue lightning, carrying a terrifying heat that ignited the air around it, shot straight toward Bai Huanran’s face.
Yet Bai Huanran’s body drifted backward like a fallen leaf swept up by a hurricane, slipping away at an impossible angle just before the fist arrived.
His toes tapped continuously against the ground. Every step pulled him just far enough away for Charles’s punches to miss, yet not far enough to leave the battlefield.
“Is brute force all you know, you drugged-up freak?”
A series of afterimages followed Bai Huanran as he moved at high speed, yet his voice carried clearly across the arena.
“You take drugs every day. Aren’t you afraid they’ll make you stupid?”
His words struck the most sensitive nerve in Charles’s mind.
“You’re asking to die!”
Charles roared. His fist missed its target and slammed viciously into the unyielding alloy floor.
Boom!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
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.
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."
