203: Chapter 204 Now no one will object to my championship, right?

As Elabess retracted her soul-shuddering [Shadow Erosion], the terrifying suction of the [Black Hole Vortex] also gradually dissipated. The battlefield above the Thunder Pool, which had been filled with clamor and overflowing brilliance, suddenly fell into an eerie silence.

The sky seemed as if it had been wiped by an invisible giant hand, becoming exceptionally empty. The twenty summons whose souls had been extracted remained suspended, frozen like statues, forming a numbing zone of stillness.

Meanwhile, the fifty-plus aggressive summons that had attempted to besiege them earlier had vanished without a trace. Only the magical embers and floating soul motes, which had not yet fully dispersed in the air, silently told the tale of the brief but extremely tragic slaughter. Only a few summons—those furthest away or possessing special life-saving talents—had luckily avoided being directly locked onto by [Shadow Erosion]. Even they were now riddled with wounds, their Auras weakened to the extreme, as they hovered in the distance in sheer terror, not daring to approach even an inch closer.

In less than ten seconds, the battle had gone from its start to near total annihilation.

This scene was like the coldest ice water drenching the hearts of every onlooker present, making them feel waves of chill and unspeakable shock from the depths of their souls.

"This... this..."

"It's over? It ended just like that?"

"Ninety-three against three... and they were all killed in the blink of an eye?"

"You've got to be kidding me! What were those skills? Shadow Erosion? Black Hole? Invincibility? And that immobilization..."

Atop the peaks, whether it was the remaining Summoner contestants, the top experts of the Xia Kingdom who had come to watch, or even the two well-traveled mythic grade Thunder God Tigers, all had fallen into a brief state of speechlessness. Their eyes were wide, their mouths slightly agape, and the expressions on their faces were frozen in extreme shock and disbelief. Many people's brains even experienced a brief blankness, unable to process the scene before them that completely defied common sense and overturned their understanding.

Outnumbering the opponent ninety-three to three was an absolute, crushing numerical advantage paired with a luxurious, top-tier lineup. Yet, they were easily defeated by the opponent in just a few breaths in a manner that almost seemed like play. This could no longer be described as a "gap in strength"; it was as if a grown man had broken into a nursery. The two sides were simply not in the same dimension!

However, this one-sided performance had not yet reached its conclusion.

While everyone was still immersed in the suffocating scene of the instant kills, their minds trembling and unable to recover—

The Elf Princess Lilia, who had been quietly floating inside the golden invincibility barrier as if she were merely a bystander, finally made a new move. She seemed to feel that the conclusion of the battle was not yet clean and decisive enough.

She slightly raised her exquisitely beautiful face, which carried an Aura of compassion and holiness, and looked toward the remaining enemies in the sky.

She held her left hand out, palm upward. A mote of light, pure to the extreme as if it condensed all the light and hope in the world, quietly emerged. It then silently exploded, turning into a soft yet pervasive warm halo that instantly enveloped herself, Elabess, and Gui Wanwan.

Origin Skill—[Light Source]! Level, Lv25!

This halo was neither an attack nor a defense, but an extremely special origin buff. The moment the halo spread, the Aura around Lilia suddenly became incredibly holy and vast, as if she were no longer just an Elf Priest but had transformed into an incarnation of the Law of Light. Within the range of the halo, all light-attribute power became exceptionally active and affine.

Immediately after, the moment the [Light Source] effect took hold, Lilia's right hand lightly tapped the void with her legendary-grade nature staff, "Hymn of Life."

There was no chanting, no complex casting movements; it was as if she had simply and casually triggered a certain rhythm that already existed between heaven and earth.

The sky suddenly brightened.

It wasn't sunlight piercing through the clouds, but countless brilliant meteors condensed purely from holy light, trailing long tails of flame. They tore through the slightly dim sky above the Thunder Pool without warning, like a rain of judgment sent down by the gods in myths. With a magnificent power that purified everything, they crashed down in a covering bombardment toward every remaining enemy unit on the battlefield—including those lucky, terror-stricken survivors!

Basic Elf Priest attack skill—[Holy Light Meteor]! A low-grade light-attribute area-of-effect attack skill usually used only during the novice period or against low-level monsters.

If an ordinary Elf Priest, even one at level 200, used this [Holy Light Meteor] against these top-tier summons—whose minimum levels exceeded 160 and who were well-equipped with powerful attributes—it would likely not even count as an itch, causing at most a negligible amount of forced damage.

But right now, the one releasing this skill was Lilia.

It was Lilia, whose Spirit attribute was high to an unimaginable degree under the buff of Lin Muyang's many heaven-defying Auras.

And more importantly, it was the Lilia who had just released the Level 25 Origin Skill [Light Source]!

The effect of [Light Source]: Increases the light-attribute damage of all one's skills, and the amplification effect is directly proportional to the number of surrounding friendly units!

Thus, the [Holy Light Meteor] that should have been as superficial as fireworks underwent a qualitative leap in the holy light power contained in each meteor under the bug-level terrifying buff of [Light Source]! They were no longer soft healing lights but had transformed into the purest, most blazing flames of purification! The brilliance was so intense that it even briefly suppressed the lightning that never dissipated above the Thunder Pool!

"Boom boom boom boom—!!!"

The Holy Light Meteors fell as densely as raindrops, accurately "kissing" every target. There were no earth-shattering explosions, only the intense "hissing" sound of holy light contacting the targets, like cold water dripping into hot oil, and that unwatchable, brilliant white light that seemed capable of scorching the soul!

Those surviving summons, already heavily wounded and hanging on by a thread, couldn't even let out a scream before they melted like snow under the sun during the baptism of holy light, dissipating into the purest light elements.

As for those twenty soul-extracted, defenseless puppets, their sturdy rock bodies, heavy armor, and strong magic resistance were useless against such terrifying light-attribute true damage! The Holy Light Meteors seemed to ignore all their physical and magical defenses, acting directly upon their life origins and the energy cores that composed their bodies!

The Titan Giant's mountain-like rock body quickly became covered in cracks under the wash of Holy Light Meteors, then disintegrated into countless stones, which were further purified into powder. The Mountain Behemoths let out silent wails as their massive bodies collapsed like sand sculptures. The brilliant crystal surfaces of the Diamond Golems quickly dimmed and cracked, finally turning into a pile of shimmering debris...

After just one wave of the [Holy Light Meteor] baptism—

The sky above the battlefield, which had been quite "lively," instantly became incredibly clean.

The twenty soul-extracted summons, along with the few lucky survivors, had all vanished without a trace, leaving not even a scrap behind. Only the extremely dense Aura of light elements permeating the air and the not-yet-fully-subsided ripples of holy light proved that the magnificent and lethal "meteor shower" just now was not an illusion.

The entire venue fell into a deathly silence once again, even deeper than before.

This time, even the sound of the wind seemed to have stopped.

Everyone's gaze stared blankly at that excessively empty sky, then slowly moved toward the three girls who were still enveloped in the golden invincibility barrier, looking as if they had just done something insignificant.

At the edge of the battlefield, on the muddy ground of the lakeshore, a few survivors still stood tenaciously.

Those were the two most massive Titan Giants with the most abnormal defense. The rock armor on their bodies had almost completely peeled off, revealing rock trunks filled with cracks. Their massive bodies were pitted and surrounded by lingering holy light. Their health was already at the bottom, like candles in the wind, barely maintaining a standing posture, but the soul flames in their eyes had dimmed to the extreme, clearly having lost all combat capability.

Nearby, Gu Shuanglin's World Tree was in slightly better condition, but it was by no means optimistic. Its originally lush canopy was now completely bare, all its leaves having turned to ash under the impact of the Holy Light Meteors. The thick trunk was covered in charred marks and deep gashes. Emerald-green life energy was constantly draining like a flood through a broken dam, and its thick roots were unearthed from the soil, looking extremely wretched. Although it was still standing, it was severely damaged and had lost the ability to continue fighting.

In addition, there were three or four other special summons belonging to other Summoners known for their high defense and health, such as a metallic construct and an ancient shell creature. They had managed to endure the baptism of the Holy Light Meteors thanks to their racial talents or special skills, but they were now missing limbs, their Auras weak, lying on the ground at their last gasp, having trouble even moving.

However, before the masters of these few survivors could breathe a sigh of relief or consider whether to voluntarily surrender to preserve these last summons, another change occurred.

Gui Wanwan, who had been standing as still as a shadow beside Lilia, suddenly had a very faint but chilling curve appear on her exquisite yet indifferent face.

Her figure vanished without warning.

It wasn't an afterimage left by high-speed movement, but a true, traceless disappearance, as if she had merged into space itself.

The next moment, behind the two remaining sliver-of-health Titan Giants, a slender black figure emerged like a ghost. In Gui Wanwan's hand, a hideous pitch-black scythe wrapped in a dense Aura of death—[Kiss of the Abyssal Underworld]—had appeared at some point.

She didn't pause for a moment, didn't even look at the targets; she simply flipped her wrist lightly, and the pitch-black scythe drew a graceful and lethal arc. Like a reaper's sigh, it gently swept across the back of the necks of the two Titan Giants.

Origin Skill—[Death Harvest]! Level, Lv20!

The direct damage of this skill itself might not be outstanding, but it possessed an extremely overbearing and defense-ignoring trait—it dealt massive true damage based on the target's lost health to targets whose health was below a certain percentage, accompanied by an extremely high "instant death" execution check! Simply put, the lower the enemy's health, the easier it was for them to die from this one strike, and the damage was ridiculously high!

For these two Titan Giants whose health was already at the bottom and who were on the verge of collapse, Gui Wanwan's current attributes and the level of [Death Harvest] were enough to make that "execution line" reach an appalling height. Coupled with the fact that the Titan Giants were already in a state of being heavily wounded and dying...

"Slash—"

[part:gemini-3.1-flash-lite]

A soft sound, like a hot knife slicing through butter.

The two mountain-sized Titan Giants froze in unison. The last faint sparks of soul fire in their eyes were extinguished suddenly, like candles blown out by a gust of wind. Immediately after, their massive rock bodies began to sprout countless spiderweb-like cracks from the necks where the scythe had passed. These cracks instantly covered their entire bodies, and then, under the stunned gaze of everyone present, they collapsed with a roar, turning into two huge piles of lifeless rubble.

Gui Wanwan's figure vanished once again.

In the next instant, she appeared before the scarred main trunk of the World Tree. The World Tree seemed to sense a fatal crisis; its remaining branches twisted frantically, attempting to lash out, while the ground churned as remaining roots tried to entangle her. But it was all in vain. Gui Wanwan's speed was pushed to the extreme. Her figure flickered as if through time and space, easily avoiding all the feeble counterattacks. The pitch-black scythe swung out again, carrying the cold will of reaping life, and struck the main trunk of the World Tree.

There was no earth-shattering roar. The World Tree's massive body trembled violently. Starting from the point where the scythe had struck, a gray, dead color spread like a plague, devouring the entire giant tree in the blink of an eye. The emerald life energy that had originally flowed through it dried up instantly, the canopy turned completely into ash, and the thick trunk and root system withered and shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye. Finally, with a "crack," it broke in the middle, collapsed with a crash, and slammed onto the lake shore, kicking up clouds of dust.

Following this, Gui Wanwan's figure, like a soul-reaping ghost, flickered continuously among the last few low-health units on the battlefield. Each flash was accompanied by the phantom of a pitch-black scythe sweeping past, and the total silence of a summon. Metal constructs disintegrated into piles of parts, the hard shells of ancient tortoise-like creatures were torn open like paper, and the flesh inside withered instantly...

Her speed was so fast that it was impossible for the naked eye to capture. In the eyes of many spectators, it seemed as if dozens of Gui Wanwan were swinging their scythes at different positions on the battlefield simultaneously. While this was partly due to her own extremely high agility stat and the massive cooldown reduction provided by her equipment, the key factor was Lin Muyang's heaven-defying God-Tier Aura—【Infinite Firepower】! Under the terrifying effect of 【Infinite Firepower】, Gui Wanwan's skill cooldowns were compressed to almost nothing. As long as her body and mana could withstand it, she could easily unleash 【Death Harvest】 ten or even more times in a single second!

Consequently, in the eyes of everyone, those last few low-health summons were struck almost simultaneously by countless pitch-black scythe blades slashed from every angle of the void, and then dissipated into points of light without any suspense.

"Swish—"

The last afterimage returned to its place.

Gui Wanwan's figure reappeared beside Lilia and Elabess, the pitch-black scythe in her hand having vanished at some point. She remained in her indifferent and calm state, as if the instantaneous, artistic, and precise reaping she had just performed was merely brushing off a few specks of dust.

The wind stopped.

Above the Thunder Pool, apart from the lightning that was still slowly rotating, there was nothing else.

The twenty soul-severed puppets and the ninety-three aggressive attackers had all been wiped out.

The battlefield was as clean as if it had been washed with water.

Dead silence.

A suffocating dead silence, lasting over a dozen seconds, enveloped every mountain peak.

"Gulp."

It was unknown who it was, but someone swallowed hard, a sound that was exceptionally clear in the pin-drop quiet environment.

Then, like a lit powder keg, the suppressed shock, horror, disbelief, and even a trace of fear erupted!

"That Elf... what skill did she use? Holy Light Meteor? Isn't that the most basic Priest skill? How could it have this kind of power?!"

"It was that Aura-type skill used earlier! That is definitely an Origin Skill! And its level is terrifyingly high! It boosted the damage of Holy Light Meteor to an unimaginable level!"

"And that black-haired girl... her speed... I couldn't track it at all! That reaping efficiency is too terrifying!"

"Invincibility, Dispel, large-scale crowd control, ultra-high burst AOE, extreme single-target execution... the three of them cover almost every top-tier capability for all combat types! How is anyone supposed to fight this?"

"I believe it now... those two girls Lin Muyang sent out earlier probably really do have the ability to instantly kill a Nation-Guarding Level Expert... it wasn't just a rumor!"

"It's not that every one of his summons is ridiculously strong, but rather that Lin Muyang himself... is strong beyond the scope of our understanding! It is he who, by force, elevated what might have originally been just powerful summons to this inhuman level!"

"This lad must never be made an enemy!"

"Today's events must be kept strictly confidential! Once leaked, I fear every assassination organization globally will list him as their number one target!"

The top experts from the Xia Kingdom who were watching had expressions of unprecedented gravity. They exchanged glances, seeing the shock and determination in each other's eyes. They saw further and thought deeper than those young Summoners. What Lin Muyang displayed today was not merely a few powerful summons, but a subversive "cultivation" ability capable of changing the existing power structure!

This ability was a blessing for the Xia Kingdom, but for other nations and forces, it was the deadliest threat! Lin Muyang's detailed information, especially the core secret of his ability to "turn decay into magic," must never be leaked! Fortunately, everyone watching this time, including the thirty-one contestants, had signed a top-tier soul confidentiality agreement presided over by a Nation-Guarding Level Expert proficient in contract laws before entering the Thunder God Tiger territory. Once violated, no one could withstand the contract backlash and subsequent accountability.

"Even if it were me..." Xu Ruohan took a deep breath, the shock remaining on her beautiful face. She spoke slowly, her voice carrying a trace of dryness and a bitter smile she hadn't even noticed herself, "I fear I wouldn't be able to do it any cleaner than this..."

She paused and looked at Lin Muyang beside her, who appeared calm as if he had just done something insignificant. Her eyes were incredibly complex: "It seems I underestimated you before. You are far more than just 'not weaker than me'... Lin Muyang, your true combat power probably already far exceeds that of an ordinary Nation-Guarding Level Expert."

Xu Ruohan knew her own strength very well. She possessed over twenty angelic legions with tacit coordination and powerful combat strength, her own level had broken through two hundred, and her equipment and skills were all top-tier. Her frontal combat power was enough to rival or even suppress most veteran Nation-Guarding Level Experts. But if she were to replicate the results from just now?

Without using certain trump cards that came at a huge cost, she asked herself, it was absolutely impossible. The Elf Priest's group damage, which was ridiculously exaggerated; the black-haired girl's ghostly movement and near-guaranteed execution ability; and that ten-minute-long, undispellable invincibility state... any one of these would be enough to make her feel extremely troubled. The combination of all three was simply unsolvable.

She did not know that the root of all this monstrous performance did not lie entirely with Lilia, Elabess, and Gui Wanwan themselves, but rather with Lin Muyang's God-Tier Auras, which were heaven-defying enough to rewrite the rules of the world! 【Infinite Firepower】 made skills have almost no cooldown; 【Super Splitting】 turned single-target into group-target; 【Long Lasting】 made buff effects last for at least ten minutes; 【Unity is Strength】, 【Range Expansion】, 【Damage Amplification】... it was the stacking of all these Auras that created this terrifying combat power that crushed everything. Otherwise, relying on Lilia alone, how could 【Holy Light Meteor】 cover the entire massive lake battlefield? Relying on Gui Wanwan alone, how could 【Death Harvest】 be fired infinitely?

Of course, these were Lin Muyang's deepest secrets, and naturally, he would not speak of them to outsiders.

At the edge of the battlefield, the few Summoners who had luckily survived to the end, including Hao Qingshan, Zhao Man, Wang Meng, Gu Shuanglin, and others, were all pale-faced and stood frozen on the spot.

"I... am convinced." Hao Qingshan spoke with difficulty, his voice hoarse, forcing a smile onto his face that was uglier than crying. He might have had a trace of arrogance and unwillingness in his heart before as a senior and a genius, but at this moment, in the face of absolute strength disparity, that bit of arrogance was shattered into pieces.

He didn't even dare to imagine what a desperate scene the battle would have been if Lin Muyang had sent out the Nine-tailed Fox Maiden who could charm the entire field, or the Vampire maiden who could render attacks ineffective. Those bizarre abilities derived from talents could not be dispelled by conventional skills and could only be resisted by one's own stats, but their stats... in front of Lin Muyang's summons, were simply like child's play.

"So... so amazing..." Gu Shuanglin muttered to herself, her large eyes gazing at the calm side profile of Lin Muyang in the distance. The eagerness and competitive spirit she had before were gone, replaced only by overflowing shock and a trace of indescribable worship. She had already done her best just now, using the World Tree's wind walls, barriers, and control skills, but in the face of the opponent's field-covering, terrain-ignoring AOE skills, her efforts appeared so pale and weak. That level of combat had already exceeded the scope of what she could currently understand and handle.

"Come back."

Lin Muyang's voice rang out flatly, breaking the silence of the scene. He waved at the three maidens above the lake.

Lilia, Elabess, and Gui Wanwan nodded obediently upon hearing this. The golden invincibility shield enveloping them quietly dissipated. Elabess cast a charming look at Lin Muyang, Gui Wanwan remained in her cold state, and Lilia smiled gently at Lin Muyang. The three graceful figures turned into streams of light, returning to Lin Muyang's side in an instant, and stood quietly behind him, as if the earth-shattering crushing battle just now had nothing to do with them.

Lin Muyang then turned his head to look at Xu Ruohan, who still appeared somewhat dazed beside him. He revealed a peaceful and natural smile, as if he had just completed an insignificant little task: "Senior Xu, now, there shouldn't be anyone who has any objections to me winning the championship, right? Since I am the champion, can the mythic grade skill book reward be given to me now?"