42: Chapter 42 Final

The regulation slate of the main battle stage shimmered with a grayish-white light under the dome lights. The buffer patterns were fully activated, with circles of pale golden light patterns slowly circulating on the surface of the slate.

This was the first time since the start of the City-level Competition that the full reinforcement of the main battle stage had been utilized—neither S-rank contestant had been forced to use their full strength in the group or knockout stages, and no one knew what kind of damage their kin bombardment would cause.

The association did not dare to gamble.

Shen Ye stood on the east side of the battle stage.

Before him, the Land of Cultivation, unfolded from his Kingdom Projection, lay out—peaks piled upon peaks, clouds and mist roiling, spiritual springs and waterfalls cascading between the immortal mountains, and immortal cranes weaving through the sea of clouds.

More than four thousand kin were arrayed in front. The flying swords of the hundred-man Gold Spirit Root Sword Cultivator squad were all unsheathed, their tips pointing obliquely at the ground, with sword light extending several inches.

Vines extended from the cuffs of the hundred-man Wood Spirit Root Array Master squad, piercing into the soil layer beneath the regulation slate, and the five small white flowers at the tips of the vines were all in full bloom.

Water flowed from the fingertips of the hundred-man Water Spirit Root Mage squad, weaving into a net in the air.

The Fire Spirit Root Artificers and Earth Spirit Root Miners were in position at the rear, the temperature of the Earth Fire Furnace radiating from the fire marrow, and the soil layer was slowly rising.

Lu Chuan stood on the west side of the battle stage.

The Iron-Blooded Battlefield spread out beneath his feet, with rust-colored dark red patterns spreading from the center in all directions, covering most of the battle stage.

The undead surged from underground—the bone knives of the Skeleton Warriors shimmered with cold white light under the lights, the skeletal warhorses of the Undead Knights snorted, and ghostly green flames burned in the horses' eye sockets; the Stitched Giants crawled out from the ground, their bodies covered in dark red stitches, each step causing the regulation slate to tremble slightly.

The scale of the Undead Sea had expanded even further than in the group stages, densely packing almost half of the battle stage on Lu Chuan's side.

The stands were packed.

The light gray formation of Nanjiang No. 7 High School and the deep blue formation of City No. 1 High School each occupied half of the arena. Gold-stamped banners were held high on the side of Nanjiang No. 7 High School, while the City No. 1 High School side was a sea of deep blue flags.

Su Wanqing sat in the front row, holding a data pad; she was not recording anything, just clutching it.

Han Xu sat beside her, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed tightly together.

Liu Yang stood at the very front of the Nanjiang No. 7 High School team, hands gripping the railing of the stands, his knuckles white.

Qin Shu sat in the corner of the last row, the data pad resting on his knees; the screen was lit, but he was not looking at it.

Principal Zhou Wenyin made a rare appearance in the stands, sitting at the very top of the Nanjiang No. 7 High School teachers and students' formation, her hands crossed on her knees, her expression calm.

The referee raised a hand.

Shen Ye deployed the Land of Cultivation.

Over four thousand kin stepped out from the Kingdom Projection simultaneously.

The Gold Spirit Root Sword Cultivator squad was in the front, the Wood Spirit Root Array Master squad was on the flanks, the Water Spirit Root Mage squad was in the center, and the Fire Spirit Root Artificers and Earth Spirit Root Miners were at the rear.

Jin Lin stood at the very front of the Sword Cultivator squad, hand pressing on the hilt of his sword, a small golden dragon slowly moving on his shoulder; Mu Sheng stood at the very front of the Array Master squad, twenty-one vines extending from his cuffs, the five small white flowers at the tips of the vines glowing slightly under the lights; Elder Quan stood at the very front of the Mage squad, hands tucked into his sleeves, water mist gathering around him without dispersing, and the phantom images of three spiraling spiritual springs slowly rotating within the mist.

The referee's hand fell.

"Start."

The first wave of the Skeleton Sea surged over the moment the referee's hand fell. It was not a disorganized rush of stragglers, but divided into three echelons—the first wave consisted of light-armed skeletons with bone knives, moving the fastest with a very loose formation; the second wave followed closely behind, heavy-armed skeletons with bone shields, moving slower but in an extremely dense formation; the third wave was mixed skeletons, half with knives and half with shields, flanking from both sides.

Between the three waves of skeletons, Undead Knights wove through the gaps—the sound of the skeletal warhorses' hooves on the slate was as dense as a drumbeat, and the knights held their long halberds horizontally, the tips gleaming with cold light.

The Stitched Giants brought up the rear, their massive bodies making the regulation slate tremble slightly with every step.

It was a standard Undead Sea frontal crushing tactic—the same tactic Lu Chuan had used to sweep through all his opponents in the group and knockout stages, with no one able to withstand the first wave of the charge.

Shen Ye did not retreat.

He let Elder Quan make the first move.

The hundred-man Mage squad formed seals simultaneously, a hundred streams of water extending from their fingertips, not spreading onto the ground, but rising into the air.

The hundred streams of water wove into a three-dimensional water net in the air, the mesh extremely dense, covering the entire space above the battle stage.

The moment the first wave of light-armed skeletons rushed into the water net, the water streams wrapped around the skeletons' bones. It was not a head-on interception, but rather, following the momentum of their charge, deflecting them bit by bit at a very small angle.

The Skeleton Warriors charging at the very front were deflected by a few degrees by the water streams, colliding with their companions beside them and scattering into piles of bones.

But skeletons were different from Wind Elementals—when Wind Elementals were scattered, their cores would shatter, but skeletons only needed a few breaths to reassemble after falling apart, crawling up from the ground to continue the charge.

Shen Ye had anticipated this.

He had Mu Sheng's hundred-man Array Master squad make their move simultaneously.

Vines burst from the gaps in the regulation slate. They were not woven into a net, but rather pierced into the few breaths of gap time while the skeletons were reassembling after scattering.

The vines drilled into the gaps between the bones, becoming embedded in the joints as the skeletons reassembled.

The reassembled skeletons had barely taken a step when the vines in their joints tightened violently—not to trap them, but to disrupt them.

The skeletons' steps were disrupted by the vines in their joints, their bodies tilted, their bone knives swinging at empty air, colliding into a heap with the heavy-armed skeletons behind them.

The shield wall formation of the heavy-armed skeletons was thrown into chaos by the retreating light-armed skeletons, several shields colliding with each other, and the formation showed a momentary slackening.

Just at this moment, Shen Ye had Jin Lin's hundred-man Sword Cultivator squad cut in from the front.

A cone formation, a sharp arrow assault, with the strongest Sword Cultivator at the tip of the cone.

The target was the Stitched Giants—those few behemoths suppressing the rear of the Undead Sea; their stitches were the manifestation nodes of the Iron-Blooded Battlefield's rules. Once broken, the reorganization efficiency of the undead group would drop significantly.

Lu Chuan reacted immediately—he had been waiting for Shen Ye to move against his back row.

Those in the stands could see Lu Chuan's right hand slightly clenched, the Blood War Aura instantly switching from conventional suppression mode to extreme expansion mode, the dark red aura with a radius of several hundred meters suddenly expanding to cover the entire field.

All the undead were instantly draped in a layer of dark red blood light, the speed of the Skeleton Warriors suddenly increased, the long halberds of the Undead Knights were entwined with blood-red electricity, and the stitches of the Stitched Giants accelerated and tightened under the enhancement of the blood light.

The skeletons and Undead Knights left in place took advantage of the gap while Shen Ye's front-line troops were surging forward, tearing open Mu Sheng's vine defense line from the flanks.

The Six-Winged Angel and the Succubus Queen opened their eyes simultaneously in the Land of Gods and Demons, but Shen Ye did not summon them; he only sank his consciousness into the Land of Gods and Demons, swept over the neat ranks of the Angel Legion and Succubus Legion, and then withdrew his consciousness.

It was not yet the time.

"Change formation."

Shen Ye's command was transmitted to the ears of all his kin through the mental link.

Jin Lin's hundred-man Sword Cultivator squad gave up pursuing the Stitched Giants, retracted from the front line, drew an arc in the air, and bypassed to the rear of the skeletons that had broken through the flank.

Mu Sheng's vines changed from piercing into the gaps in the slate to retracting to his sides, abandoning the defensive vine net of fixed positions and turning into more flexible guiding vines.

Elder Quan's water streams changed from a three-dimensional water net to wrapping along the ground, changing the target from Skeleton Warriors to the skeletal warhorses of the Undead Knights—the water streams wrapped around the horses' legs, not pulling hard, but guiding the direction along the momentum of the warhorses' charge, causing the warhorses to deviate from their charging route unknowingly.

The skeleton group on the flank was blocked from the rear by Jin Lin.

The hundred-man Sword Cultivator squad no longer pursued single-target kills, but instead organized their flying swords into a ring-shaped sword formation in the air—a hundred swords circled, golden sword light gushing out from the ring. This was not the Ring Sword Intent explosion that Jin Lin had used before, but a simplified version performed collectively by the hundred-man Sword Cultivator squad.

A hundred strands of sword light converged into a thick golden ring, spreading outward from the center of the skeleton group.

The skeletons swept by the golden ring did not scatter, but directly disintegrated into bone powder.

Bone powder could not be reorganized.

Lu Chuan's expression changed for the first time.

In the group and knockout stages, his skeletons could always reorganize after being scattered, even if their cores were shattered by Jin Lin's Ring Sword Intent, the skeletons could reassemble within a few breaths.

But bone powder could not be reorganized—the Iron-Blooded Battlefield's undead reorganization rules lost their effectiveness in front of bone powder.

The momentum of the Skeleton Sea's charge was interrupted.

The first, second, and third waves of skeletons disintegrated layer by layer in the expansion of the golden sword ring, and the bone powder spread out on the regulation slate like gray snow.

The skeletal warhorses of the Undead Knights were guided by Elder Quan's water streams to deviate from their direction, drawing one arc after another on the battlefield.

The stitches of the Stitched Giants tightened desperately under the enhancement of the Blood War Aura, but Jin Lin had already retracted from the front line, and the hundred-man Sword Cultivator squad's ring-shaped sword formation turned towards these behemoths.

Lu Chuan raised his right hand.

The range of the Blood War Aura began to shrink—not suppressed, but actively shrinking.

In the stands, Su Wanqing's hand gripping the data pad tightened. She remembered what Han Xu had said in the contestant tunnel: "When he expands, his right hand is clenched very tight. Like he's trying hard to hold something so it doesn't shatter."

At this moment, Lu Chuan's right hand was slowly loosening.

The aura retracted bit by bit from its extreme expansion state, shrinking from covering the entire field to a radius of several hundred meters, then to tens of meters, and finally condensing within a one-fist range around Lu Chuan.

All the undead stopped their movements simultaneously; the Skeleton Warriors froze in place, maintaining the posture of swinging their knives, the Undead Knights' skeletal warhorses lifted their front hooves and hung them in mid-air, and the Stitched Giants tightened all the stitches on their bodies and remained motionless.

Then, the bone powder scattered by Shen Ye's kin, the broken vines, the water-stained slate—all were enveloped by a layer of extremely faint blood light.

The bone powder re-condensed into shape in the blood light, the vine fragments were pulled back into the formation by an invisible force, and the Undead Knights returned to their ranks.

Lu Chuan withdrew all the undead rules he had released; his divine sense and rules merged into one, turning into a layer of extremely thin but highly dense Blood War domain.

He was draped in a layer of dark red halo, his right hand holding nothing, and a blood-colored halberd condensed from undead rules appeared in his palm.

He held the halberd with both hands, the tip pointing obliquely at the ground.

He was not standing behind his kin in the capacity of a deity—he was standing at the very front of all the undead in the capacity of a warrior.

The whole arena was deathly silent.

Qin Shu had seen several Awakened who used themselves as their own kin during his long service on the border, and each one of them was the most troublesome opponent on the battlefield.

This type of person did not need to command kin, because he himself was the strongest kin.

But this move had a fatal price—the deity personally enters the field, and the Divine Kingdom's defense drops to zero.

Win, and the whole field is won; lose, and the Divine Kingdom is severely damaged.

Su Wanqing gripped the data pad tightly.

Principal Zhou Wenyin's hands tightened slightly.

Qin Shu put down the data pad.

Han Xu sat in the stands, her hands already clenched into fists.

And Shen Ye's kin did not retreat.

Jin Lin pressed his sword, Mu Sheng retracted his vines, and Elder Quan tucked his hands into his sleeves.

The three of them looked at Shen Ye simultaneously.

Not waiting for an order, but waiting for permission.

A permission they had repeatedly simulated in the Divine Kingdom countless times, but had never used in actual combat.

Shen Ye looked at the blood-colored halberd in Lu Chuan's hand.

Rules condensing into weapons, the deity personally going to war.

In this battle, Lu Chuan had bet his Divine Kingdom.

He was silent for a moment, then nodded.

Jin Lin, Mu Sheng, and Elder Quan closed their eyes simultaneously.

In the Cultivation Divine Kingdom, at the peak of the mountain of the Five Elements Array Eye: Metal, Jin Lin's sword intent climbed from the middle stage of Foundation Establishment—Foundation Establishment late stage, Foundation Establishment perfection, False Core.

This was not his power alone.

The spiritual energy of over four thousand kin converged into Jin Lin's body through the Five Elements Array Eye.

At the same time, Mu Sheng and Elder Quan injected their own spiritual energy into Jin Lin's flying sword simultaneously—the soft force of the guiding vines wrapped around the sword body, and the soft force of the spiraling water currents wrapped around the sword blade.

The two soft forces rotated at the exact same frequency, merging into one like braiding a pigtail.

Jin Lin's dragon-pattern sword intent expanded violently under the enhancement of the two soft forces.

Three-in-one.

Jin Lin's sword intent, Mu Sheng's guiding vines, and Elder Quan's spiraling water currents merged into the flying sword simultaneously, and the golden dragon patterns on the sword body went from one to three—Three Dragons Coiling the Sword.

The three dragons raised their heads simultaneously, the dragon roar clear and resonant, piercing through the entire dome of the stadium.

The three golden dragons on Jin Lin's flying sword flew off the sword, merging into one in the air, transforming into a golden sword light that spanned the entire field.

Lu Chuan's blood-colored halberd swung out simultaneously, and the blood-colored halberd light and the golden sword light collided in mid-air.

There was no sound.

At that moment, the audience in the stands could not hear anything.

The buffer patterns of the regulation slate all lit up, and the defense rules of the entire stadium were activated simultaneously.

Bright light exploded from the center of the collision in all directions, and all the audience subconsciously raised their arms to cover their eyes.

The light gradually dissipated.

On the battle stage, the grayish-white regulation slate was covered in fine cracks.

Shen Ye stood in place, and the more than four thousand kin behind him still maintained their formation.

Jin Lin's flying sword had already returned to its sheath, Mu Sheng's vines were retracted into his sleeves, and Elder Quan's hands were tucked back into his sleeves.

Lu Chuan was kneeling on one knee on the opposite side.

The blood-colored halberd was shattered, the fragments scattered on the regulation slate, slowly dissipating into blood-colored mist.

His Kingdom Projection had not collapsed, but the Blood War Aura had completely extinguished.

The Undead Warriors stood quietly behind him, as if waking up from a long dream, the ghostly green light flames in their eyes burning quietly.

He looked up at Shen Ye, his lips moving, his voice hoarse.

"How much did you hide?"

"A lot," Shen Ye said.

Lu Chuan was silent for a while.

Then he laughed, not a bitter laugh, not the laugh of admitting defeat, but a laugh of "as expected."

"My dad leaves a glass of wine for Fang Zhen every year."

He stood up, his legs still a bit weak, but he stood very straight. "I did not quite understand it before. Now I do. It is not for the person who died, it is for the person who carried it for him for an hour."

Shen Ye did not speak.

He withdrew his kin.

Over four thousand kin walked back into the Kingdom Projection in turn.

The referee raised Shen Ye's hand.

"Winner—Shen Ye. Champion of the Nanjiang City-level Selection Competition."

There was a moment of silence in the stands, and then it exploded.

The light gray formation of Nanjiang No. 7 High School erupted with deafening cheers.

Liu Yang stepped onto his seat, took off his school uniform jacket and waved it like a flag.

Su Wanqing lowered her head, pressing the corners of her eyes with her fingertips.

Han Xu clapped vigorously beside her.

Principal Zhou Wenyin stood up; she did not cheer, but simply raised her hand, placed her palm on her chest, and bowed slightly to Shen Ye on the battle stage—that was the highest etiquette among pioneers, not to celebrate victory, but to pay tribute to someone who had fulfilled their promise.

Qin Shu closed the data pad.

The timer on the screen was fixed at a long number.

The City-level Competition final had lasted for many minutes.

He picked up a pen and wrote a line on the back of the data pad: "Gu Yan, there is a successor."

That night, Shen Ye went alone to the wall engraved with names on the side of the stadium plaza.

Fang Zhen's name was in the middle of countless names, the engraving very shallow, the handwriting worn round by wind and rain looking even more blurred in the night than during the day.

He took a small bottle out of his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and slowly poured the spiritual fruit wine inside onto the stone base below Fang Zhen's name.

"I promised Principal Zhou that I would enter the top fifty in the National Competition," Shen Ye said. "The City-level Competition is the first step. I did it."

The wine seeped into the cracks of the stone base, leaving a faint fragrance.

He straightened his body.

The City-level Competition was over.

But the destination was not here—the Provincial Tournament, the National Competition, the core training plans of the four top universities, the Void Race battlefield in the gray zone.

Fang Zhen took the first step, Gu Yan took the second step, He Man walked to the third step.

He was the fourth, and he had to finish it.

In the distance, the dome of the stadium was still lit.

Tomorrow, the preparation for the Provincial Tournament would begin.