83: Chapter 83 The Game at the Summit

The miasma in the Corrosive Swamp slowly receded, and the earth-shattering roar of the poetic sword had long since dissipated.

The entire Corrosive Swamp returned to an oppressive silence, leaving behind only the broken corpses of monsters, deep pits in the mud Rended by sword light, and the sharp sword intent that had yet to fade from the air.

Lin Yan stood in the center of the battlefield, his tall, mountain-like figure still firmly rooted in the swamp mud.

The damage numbers above his head had long faded, his massive health bar fluctuated slowly, and the faint glow of the Bloodthirst Pendant's passive shimmered, silently replenishing the small amount of lost health.

That legendary poetic sword technique, which would have been enough to one-shot ninety percent of Contestants, had ultimately only left a dense pattern of sword marks on his tyrant armor.

He looked up in the direction Li Qingxiao had departed; only rolling grey-black miasma remained, and there was no trace of that white-clad prodigy to be seen.

A trace of speechlessness flashed in Lin Yan's eyes.

He finished showing off and just ran away.

He had seen fierce Awakened who fought for their lives, Contestants who endured and survived, and ruthless people who stopped at nothing, but this was the first time he had seen someone like this.

An opponent who finished a fight, showed off with flair, recited a poem, and made an exit—crisp, clean, and without the slightest hesitation.

They had fought earth-shatteringly, seemingly ready for a battle to the end, but the moment the outcome was decided, he maxed out his style, turned around, and slipped away, never dragging things out.

"Pretentious."

Two words drifted faintly through Lin Yan's mind.

If it had been any other prodigy, once the outcome was decided, they would inevitably feel unwilling to accept it, continue to entangle in a standoff, or pretend to comply while plotting revenge.

Only Li Qingxiao won with flair and lost with grace; winning or losing never affected his demeanor or arrogance.

He didn't lose his bearing when defeated, nor did he lose his style when he fell.

He had to admit that the opponent's poetic sword strength was indeed extremely strong; he was the first person since Lin Yan entered the Chaotic Battlefield to truly deal effective, high damage in a single strike.

Over eighty thousand in critical damage was a fatal blow that would have directly ended the battle for any other Contestant.

Yet, landing on his almost monstrous physical health bar, it was nothing more than scraping off a layer of skin and flesh.

It was precisely because of this that Li Qingxiao's final exclamation of praise and his stylish departure with a flick of his sleeve seemed all the more deliberate.

It was purely a case of showing off after the fight and leaving once satisfied.

Lin Yan couldn't be bothered to dwell on it further; he withdrew his gaze and looked toward the glowing, pale cyan spiritual light deep within the miasma ahead.

That was the Elite Resource Point Li Qingxiao had pointed out when the two were facing off.

After the turmoil of the peak duel, the surrounding monsters in the entire swamp had long been wiped out by the residual power of the two, and the surroundings were excessively quiet.

A mass of gentle spiritual light hovered in mid-air, swirling and shimmering, wrapping around several rare battlefield items and points.

Although all potions, scrolls, and buff items were unusable while the item prohibition rule covered the entire field, they could be used normally once the rule time expired.

Lin Yan raised his hand and steadily collected all the resources.

[Successfully opened the Elite Resource Point, obtained 5000 points.]

[Current total points: 35000, Bounty points: 4250]

[Obtained three bottles of Intermediate Mana Relief Potion (restores 1% mana per second for 15 seconds), one Advanced Luck Scroll!]

The points panel jumped again, rising steadily.

After finishing all this, Lin Yan adjusted his posture, preparing to continue deeper into the heart of the swamp to clear out remaining monsters and push for a higher points ranking.

...

And at this very moment.

At the very center of the entire Chaotic Battlefield.

The supreme peak that stood above thousands of battlefields and countless chess squares—the Myriad Chess Peak.

This was the exact center of the entire Chaotic Battlefield chessboard, the origin point where all terrain plates and spatial barriers converged.

Unlike the damp and oppressive Corrosive Swamp, unlike the scorching fury of volcanic magma, unlike the sky-filling yellow sand of the desert and Gobi, and unlike the twisted and treacherous hidden valleys.

The Myriad Chess Peak stood alone, piercing the clouds, towering between heaven and earth, overlooking everything!

The countless divided and Chaotic Battlefields were like scattered, pieced-together chessboard squares spread across the land, and this solitary peak was the Tianyuan center point of the entire chess game.

Strong winds howled, clouds surged, and mist swirled around the entire mountain, isolating it from the clamor and slaughter of all the battlefields below.

The summit was flat and wide, with a natural bluestone platform standing quietly in the clouds.

A young man in ink-colored martial attire stood in the center of the stone platform with his hands behind his back.

His figure was lean and tall, his brows narrow and calm, and his temperament was introverted and profound. He possessed no flashy sharpness, yet he carried an air of transcendence that looked down upon the common people and controlled the chess game.

His fingertips habitually caressed a warm and translucent white jade chess piece in his palm, his eyes devoid of joy or sorrow, as calm as an ancient, deep pool.

Before him, the sea of clouds automatically flowed and formed, condensing into a giant cloud chessboard covering the entire Chaotic Battlefield.

Surrounded by clouds, the black and white were distinct, with the chessboard's meridian and latitude lines crisscrossing; every line and every square precisely corresponded to the real battlefield plates below.

Swamps, volcanoes, deserts, frozen plains, valleys, Gobi... thousands of battlefields corresponded one by one, and countless Contestants, monsters, spatial fluctuations, and rule shifts were all transformed into subtle moves and movements on the chessboard.

The entire Chaotic Battlefield, chaotic, violent, and filled with endless slaughter, was, in his eyes, merely a living chess game.

All living beings are pieces, and heaven and earth are the board.

No one knew that the young man on this peak, relying solely on his own talent in chess, was overlooking the life-and-death struggle of everyone in the entire field.

At this moment, Ye Guanqi's gaze fell calmly on a corner of the cloud chessboard.

It corresponded to the depths of the Corrosive Swamp, where a dense cluster of black dots was piling up and surging—a large group of high-level monsters entrenched there, lying in wait, ready to ambush passing Contestants.

Such a trivial local skirmish was not worth mentioning amidst the countless conflicts across the field.

Ye Guanqi lifted his fingertips slightly and casually picked up an illusory cloud piece.

Make a move!

Silent and soundless.

There were no earth-shattering phenomena, no deafening sounds.

But the next instant, in that area of the swamp dense with monsters, an invisible force of chess dao suddenly locked down the space on all sides.

The chaotic terrain was forcibly straightened, all hidden paths were sealed off, and countless monsters were trapped as if in an invisible cage.

Boom—!

A silent shockwave exploded from underground.

A large swath of the clustered monsters were instantly killed or injured, their broken bodies shattering, black mist surging; the beast tide that had been ready to strike collapsed in an instant.

With a casual move, a fierce tide was annihilated.

With a wave of his hand, he swayed the local battle situation.

Ye Guanqi's gaze did not shift as he whispered to himself, his tone flat, yet concealing a profound perspective that saw through heaven and earth:

"The world fights for every inch of land, seizing temporary wins and losses."

"Little do they know, the general trend of the chess game is already set; local struggles are but futile churning."

"A move determines the square inch; raising my eyes, I survey the mountains and rivers. The clamor of the chaotic situation cannot compare to the leisure of my single game."

His tone was unhurried, steady and profound; every word and sentence reflected the transcendent state of mind of a chess player.

On the battlefield below, millions of people were bathing in blood, fighting for their lives, struggling to survive, and fighting tooth and nail for points and resources, crushed by rules, hunted by monsters, and backstabbed by peers—every step was a desperate situation.

Yet he stood on the Tianyuan Peak, with the sea of clouds as chess pieces and heaven and earth as the board, strolling leisurely, playing against himself.

The entire cruel and Chaotic Battlefield of life and death seemed to have nothing to do with him.

He was neither impatient nor anxious, placing pieces, collecting pieces, and reviewing the game with his fingertips, all alone, on the peak of the ten-thousand-foot sea of clouds, playing leisurely.

Every cloud piece that fell corresponded to a change in the situation of a battlefield below.

Someone breaking through by luck was the chess path opening up;

Someone huddling together and being punished, or falling due to infighting, was a dead piece being discarded;

Someone rising against the trend, advancing steadily step by step, was a good piece taking root.

Ye Guanqi stared quietly at the cloud chessboard before him, taking in every subtle change in the entire field.

He saw prodigies clashing in the volcanic battlefield, both sides suffering;

He saw Contestants in the desert and Gobi fleeing in panic to avoid monster tides;

He saw countless people in the frozen plains enduring the low-temperature erosion, struggling to survive;

He saw countless Contestants attempting to cooperate, triggering the triple punishment of attributes, health, and points, instantly collapsing in combat power and trapping themselves in a dead end.

The various states of the world, life and death, honor and disgrace, were all within the flow of the chessboard.

For a long time, his gaze slowly swept over a corner to the left of the center of the cloud chessboard.

That chess square was the Corrosive Swamp battlefield that had just experienced a peak duel.

On the chessboard, pieces in other areas rose and fell frequently, and life and death changed in an instant, but that one black piece remained as steady as a rock from beginning to end.

Unmoved, unperturbed, unswerving, and unpanicked.

Thousands of monsters could not wash him away, violent rules could not suppress him, and the full-force ultimate kill of a top prodigy could only shake him slightly.

Ye Guanqi's long, narrow eyes moved slightly, and for the first time, a trace of a ripple appeared in his originally calm eyes.

He stared intently at the figure corresponding to that piece, watching his posture as he remained standing like a mountain after taking the peak strike of the poetic sword, watching his almost unreasonable and terrifying physical foundation, and watching the trajectory of the chess game that remained unshaken despite countless dangers.

After a while.

On the Myriad Chess Peak, a clear breeze brushed his clothes, and the clouds rolled.

The corners of Ye Guanqi's mouth lifted slightly into an extremely faint, highly intriguing arc.

He whispered softly, with a hint of rare interest and surprise for a chess player:

"Oh?"

"Such a powerful physical body... it exceeds my expectations."

"Interesting."

The entire Chaotic Battlefield was filled with countless prodigies and geniuses.

From Lin Yan began the first person to truly catch the attention of and spark the genuine interest of the chess player on the Myriad Chess Peak who overlooked the entire situation with a heart as still as water.

The cloud chessboard continued to flow, and the thousands of slaughters continued.

But at this moment, this great chess game of heaven and earth had quietly changed its course because of that unsolvable physical body.