640: Chapter 643 The Progenitors of Humanity

His gaze narrowed.

"You need to become stronger."

Lu Chen chuckled softly.

It was a low sound.

Devoid of any mirth.

"That seems to be the answer to every problem."

He took one last look at the corpse.

Then, he straightened his back.

"I accept."

The cave vibrated violently.

For the first time, Xi's Soul showed a genuine smile.

For the first time, he revealed a true smile.

"Good."

He whispered, "Then, take it."

From the center of the corpse's chest...

...a single drop of blood slowly floated up.

It was thick as gold, radiating a terrifying authority.

The surrounding space distorted.

It was as if reality itself could hardly bear its existence.

The blood drifted toward Lu Chen.

The moment it touched his skin...

...it directly penetrated inside.

Lu Chen let out a cry of pain.

The energy within the blood was vast and boundless.

It felt as if it were taking root in the depths of his Soul.

The golden blood...

...merged into his heart.

The corpse beneath Xi's Soul suddenly cracked open.

Then, it turned into flying ash.

The phantom of the Soul gradually dissipated.

His final words echoed in Lu Chen's mind.

"May you accomplish what I failed to achieve."

The cave fell into a dead silence.

Lu Chen stood alone.

He pressed firmly against his chest.

Until the last echoes faded away.

"This is crazy."

He whispered.

But in his eyes, a sense of resolution burned.

"I will finish it."

He knew what he had to do next.

The trial of the throne of destiny.

Breakthrough to the ancestor realm.

Gaining the qualification to stand above all races.

But before all that...

His expression softened.

"I must find my family first."

Ten days passed.

Ten days of preparation.

Ten days of silence before the storm.

When Lu Chen finally received permission to enter the Reality Plane again...

...everything was different.

The moment he crossed the boundary...

...his pupils shrank.

The world greeted him with hostility.

No.

It was anticipation.

The instant Lu Chen's feet touched the ground...

...the Law of this Reality Plane distorted slightly.

As if the world itself had realized his arrival.

An invisible pressure radiated outward from his position.

It swept across mountains, oceans, and the sky.

He instantly perceived it.

Thousands of gazes were locked tightly onto him.

It wasn't just eyes.

There was also will, killing intent, and greed.

From the high altitudes where figures hid behind distorted clouds.

From distant mountain ranges where ancient beings opened long-sealed eyes.

From hidden dimensions in the crevices of reality.

Candidates lay in wait like predators in the grass.

From the Void Realm itself.

Invisible existences paused, turned, and focused their attention on a single point.

Focused on him.

Lu Chen frowned.

This feeling was suffocating.

"What's going on?"

He whispered.

Then, memories flooded back.

He remembered that will saying...

...that if one intruded into another's Reality Plane, their location would be made public.

Normally, Lu Chen wouldn't care.

A single Candidate was nothing to him.

But now...

"There are too many."

Lu Chen said softly.

Despite the storm gathering around him, his voice remained steady.

Before he had time to think further...

...a voice descended upon the world.

It came neither from the heavens nor the earth.

It was everywhere.

A cold, absolute decree.

It resounded directly in the consciousness of every Candidate present.

[Kill Lu Chen and immediately obtain 80% authority.]

"So, they want me dead? But are you sure?"

A cold smile...

...surfaced on his face.

One, a thousand, a hundred thousand...

To him, there was no difference.

With his overwhelming power...

...he could easily crush them.

But Lu Chen vaguely sensed...

...that the will of the Eternal Divine Domain likely had an even more ruthless hidden agenda.

The atmosphere of this Reality Plane shattered like glass.

The announcement from the Eternal Divine Domain...

...had turned Lu Chen into a divine beacon visible across the stars.

To the thousands of Candidates gathering...

Lu Chen was no longer just a person...

He was a walking Treasure Trove, a shortcut to the throne.

The first wave of attacks dove down like meteors.

They were by no means ordinary warriors.

These people were the protagonists of their respective world dimensions.

They were Children of Destiny who had cheated death, possessed Systems, and inherited enough to become supreme deities.

A man with hair as white as flames dove from the clouds.

He held a spear humming with the stellar power of a collapsing sun.

To his left...

...a woman draped in shadows drifted through the air.

Her eyes flashed with the light of a Forbidden Ocular Technique, capable of melting a living being's Soul with a single glance.

Behind them...

...hundreds followed in quick succession, forming a ring of killing intent spanning hundreds of miles.

"Lu Chen!"

The man with the flame spear roared.

"Your journey ends here! You are but one person, facing the chosen ones of the entire world!"

Lu Chen remained motionless.

He stood in the center of the desolate wasteland.

His hands hung naturally at his sides; he hadn't even drawn the boundless sword of the void sea.

A smile, so faint it was almost bored, played on his lips.

"Is that so?"

Lu Chen said softly.

"Then come. Let me see what you 'Children of Destiny' are made of."

The sky exploded.

The spear-wielding man was the first to charge.

The spear pierced through space.

It whipped up a vacuum torrent capable of dragging mountains toward its tip.

Carrying power enough to shatter an entire world...

...it slammed hard against Lu Chen's chest.

Boom...!

The shockwave leveled the earth for fifty miles around.

Dust and flames obscured everything.

But the woman with the shadow eyes didn't stop.

She blasted out a rain of pitch-black needles, each one a concentrated curse of the void.

"Soul-Piercing Rain!"

She shrieked.

Thousands of black needles plunged into the dust and mist.

Another Candidate...

...a ten-meter-tall giant with skin like indestructible diamond...

...leapt into the air and crashed down heavily toward where Lu Chen stood.

He used fists with the weight of stars to frantically hammer the earth.

The ground groaned and liquefied under the intense pressure.

In the distance...

...mages and various experts exerted their full strength, unleashing every Law they commanded:

The Law of Disintegration.

The Law of Absolute Zero.

The Law of Heavenly Punishment.

The bombardment lasted for a full ten minutes.

The place where Lu Chen had stood...

...had long since turned into a scorching pit churning with lava and chaotic energy.

The Candidates stopped to catch their breath.

Their eyes searched eagerly for any trace of a corpse.

"He's dead."

The spearman gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead. "No one could survive that. Even an ancestor realm expert would..."

"Is the warm-up over?"

The voice was cold, clear, and hair-raisingly close.

The dust was instantly forced down by an invisible weight.

Lu Chen stood in the center of the deep pit, his clothes intact and his hair unruffled.

He still wore that calm smile.

The spearman's jaw nearly hit the ground.

"Impossible... I used a full-power strike..."

Lu Chen glanced at the spot on his chest where the spear had struck.

Then he looked toward the thousands of Candidates.

"That's it? You've used your strongest Moves, shown your talents, your System trump cards, and that pathetic little pride of yours."

Lu Chen took a step forward.

The earth beneath his feet did not crack.

Instead, it bowed, as if worshiping its master.

"Is the warm-up finished?"

Lu Chen's eyes suddenly changed, a dark and boundless light igniting in the depths of his pupils.