Lingxiao Sect Observation Area.
After Li Moran and Zhou Yue's stellar performances in the second stage of the competition, the reputation of Lingxiao Sect had been somewhat salvaged from its earlier humiliation.
As long as Lu Ze didn't take direct action, things wouldn't go too far off course.
The number of disciples in the Lingxiao Sect observation area gradually increased.
Zhong Yi still stood at the very center of the observation area, explaining the match to the Lingxiao Sect disciples.
"The match has begun!"
As a phantom image flickered to life in the central arena, Zhong Yi's eyes lit up, and his voice raised in pitch.
"Junior Brother Lu and his team are spawning in Blue Mountain City. Neither the bathhouse nor the camp have any other teams nearby—this is a prime location!"
Zhong Yi glanced at the positioning of the six teams, and a wave of relief washed over him.
Typically, the Bakushi map would spawn seven to eight teams.
Since the competition only had six teams, the spawn points were slightly different from the norm.
At that moment, the two spawn points around Lu Ze were empty, making it a perfect spot for ambush tactics, giving them far more strategic options than other teams.
Zhong Yi quickly shifted his view to the other teams.
"【Sacred Heavenly Guardian Path】spawned at Cherry Town,【Tianxuan Dream】at the Market,【Strongest Loose Cultivator】at the Ruins..."
"【Green Mountain Soul】landed on the left side of the Babel Tower, while【Last Dusk】is on the right..."
"Wait?"
When his view landed on【Last Dusk】, Zhong Yi's eyes widened in disbelief.
"【Last Dusk】didn't buy a card to enter the tower... they're turning back instead?"
The Babel Tower was the most crucial location on the entire map, and both sides always had enemy spawns.
Whether for scavenging supplies or clearing out foes, it was always a fiercely contested battleground.
Yet【Last Dusk】was moving outward right from the start, leaving Zhong Yi thoroughly confused.
In this tournament mode, all room cards cost only one spirit stone to purchase...
Surely they couldn't have made the rookie mistake of forgetting to buy a card, right?
"Maybe they want to ambush a team tailing them? Then they're in for a disappointment—there are no teams spawning in front of the tower..."
Zhong Yi muttered to himself, when his gaze was suddenly caught by a kill notification in the top-left corner.
"A kill right at the start... what the hell? Did Junior Brother Lu kill himself?!? "
Zhong Yi immediately pulled his view over to the【Cultivate Your Jade Feet】team, watching in bewilderment as he saw Lu Ze's helmet and armor discarded on the ground while Lu Ze himself had already perished.
He had heard that this strange method was a popular assessment tactic in the Guardian Path exams lately.
"We're in the middle of the finals here—how are you already testing yourself?!?"
Zhong Yi shook his head, caught between laughter and exasperation.
"And honestly, with Junior Sister Li and Brother Zhou's skills, there really shouldn't be any surprises..."
No sooner had he spoken than he sensed something was off.
Zhong Yi quickly raised his head and stared at the mini-map in the top-right corner with confusion.
From the audience's perspective, the map could be zoomed arbitrarily; Zhong Yi had set it to full map view to better monitor the information.
At that moment, he acutely sensed something wrong—
"What's going on!?"
"【Last Dusk】is moving straight toward Blue Mountain City!"
"They're about to run right into Junior Brother Lu's team!"
...
Blue Mountain City.
"Junior Brother Lu, is there any reward for passing the assessment?"
Zhou Yue asked curiously.
"Let me make you the Grand Elder of the First Sage Sect and design a custom【Rat·18】skin for you, how's that?"
Lu Ze replied cheerfully.
"Stop! I was just joking!"
Zhou Yue waved his hands frantically.
That was something that would forever be a mark of shame—he couldn't agree to that.
Pulling his focus back, Zhou Yue began to concentrate.
He placed a listening needle and started intently picking up sounds from the surroundings.
Their plan was to head to the Treasure Pavilion to join an ongoing fight.
First take the outer area, then move into the tower—aiming to clear the entire map.
As they neared the camp, intense gunfire erupted from inside the Treasure Pavilion.
"They're fighting—we need to hurry!"
Zhou Yue's eyes lit up, and he grew a little impatient.
The moment he leaned his head out from behind the wall—
"Bang!"
A golden spirit bullet, carrying a dull sound, buried itself into his forehead.
【Last Dusk - Dusk Knocked Down Cultivate Your Jade Feet - Unbreakable!】
"Damn! There's a camper... lying prone far away all along!"
Zhou Yue was wearing a tier-4 hearing helmet, instantly knocked down by the tier-5 spirit bullet.
Lu Ze closed his eyes in thought, replaying the scene from a moment ago.
That shot was too fast.
"Brother Zhou, crawl further inside."
Li Moran took a deep breath, swapped Lu Ze's tier-5 helmet onto herself, and leaned out in a quick peek.
In just an instant, her armor was shredded.
A barrage of spirit bullets crackled endlessly against the cover.
...
Two minutes later.
The three of them were eliminated first, reappearing together on the team interface.
"Damn it! I was careless... I should have realized someone might be lying in ambush at the camp!"
Zhou Yue punched the wall in frustration, consumed by self-blame.
Li Moran remained silent, her eyes closed as she analyzed every detail of the fight.
After a long moment, she opened her eyes, frowning.
"Something's off."
Li Moran offered three words, then turned to Lu Ze.
"What do you think?"
"It's definitely abnormal..."
Lu Ze smiled, forming some conclusions in his mind.
His spiritual sense was still watching the match on the field, and from the positions of the teams, it was obvious—
【Last Dusk】had spawned right in front of the Tower.
For them to lie in wait like that, it was as if they had been targeting someone far away all along!
If that shot at Zhou Yue was a lucky snap, then the bullets that hit the wall when Li Moran peeked were anything but.
Combined with the sudden surge in bets at the Las Vegas Casino...
Lu Ze was certain that【Last Dusk】had some kind of hidden force backing them, supplying them with unknown advantages.
Simply put, they were cheating.
What Lu Ze wanted to know now was just how high their parameters went.
"Junior Brother Lu, next round I'm going full gear... I was too careless just now!"
Zhou Yue said seriously.
"Fine... both of you equip yourselves well."
Lu Ze nodded.
He needed to see the limits of【Last Dusk】.
At the same time, he needed to find a way to trace them—to uncover these unscrupulous people.
"What about you?"
Li Moran asked curiously.
"Since both of you blew your gear, give me a backup set."
Lu Ze chuckled, strapping on a Devour Heaven backpack.
"As usual, I'll kill myself at the start and then spectate."
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.
g Yu was preparing for retirement when her organization decided to eliminate her. She transmigrated to a zombie apocalypse world. However, a tiny unexpected situation occurred: She somehow transformed into an adorable little girl?!
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.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
