73: Chapter 73: Starry Sky Chess Battle Rankings - The Tyrant Arrives and Instantly Smashes the Entire Field!

Lin Yuan hovered in the sky above the Wasteland Divine Domain, his Mental Energy sweeping across the entire domain.

He was now ranked in the top 100 of the starry sky war chess, and the opponents he encountered were becoming higher and higher in quality.

His aerial and aquatic creatures were currently at most at the Peak Silver rank; using them to climb the rankings would purely be giving away points.

"Insect King, Fire Spirits, step forward."

Lin Yuan handed down his divine oracle.

The Insect King stood upright, a bloodthirsty light flashing in its compound eyes.

Behind it, a hundred thousand elite Imperial Guard Insects vibrated their jointed limbs, emitting a low rumble.

In the Far North Volcano Group, over eight thousand Calamity Fire Spirit soared into the sky, bringing with them a sky full of toxic fire.

With a thought, Lin Yuan connected to the starry sky war chess.

"Match successful! Scenario generated: Ancient Forest."

"Battle countdown: Three, two, one, start!"

As light and shadow reconstructed, Lin Yuan stood atop a towering ancient tree.

A thousand meters ahead, hundreds of human Cultivators stepping on Flying Swords lined up in mid-air.

They wore azure Daoist robes, with Sword Qi crisscrossing around them.

The cultivation path, the Sword Cultivator System.

The aura of the leading Sword Cultivators was deep and profound, already reaching the mid-tier Gold rank.

"Go." Lin Yuan made no extra movements.

Below, the Insect King raised its dark-gold arm blade and let out a high-frequency hiss.

A hundred thousand elite Zerg clad in pitch-black Nether Uranium shells formed a metallic torrent, sweeping across the forest floor.

"Mere demonic insects, seeking death! Form the Ten Thousand Swords Formation!" the leading Gold-rank Sword Cultivator opposite coldly shouted.

Hundreds of Flying Swords transformed into a rain of swords, crashing into the insect swarm with sharp, air-tearing shrieks.

Sparks flew in all directions, and the deafening clashing of metal on metal was ear-splitting.

With their numerical advantage, the Zerg huddled closely together.

The Flying Swords slashed against the Nether Uranium shells, mostly bouncing off and only leaving white marks.

Even if an insect was pierced by high-tier Sword Qi, highly concentrated toxic miasma would spew from the wound.

As the toxic miasma spread, the spiritual glow on the surface of the Flying Swords rapidly dimmed and corroded.

The Insect King buzzed its wings and hissed.

A hundred thousand Zerg contracted their abdomens simultaneously, and an infrasonic wave wall erupted with a bang.

Caught off guard, the Sword Cultivators in mid-air felt their Sea of Consciousness shudder, and their Flying Swords lost control and fell one after another.

Losing air superiority, the Sword Cultivators fell into the sea of insects.

Strong acid was spat, and toxic miasma blanketed the area.

In less than thirty seconds, not even a trace of bone remained of the thousands of Sword Cultivators.

"Victory! Ranking +1."

"Continue matching." Lin Yuan's eyes were cold.

The scenarios changed constantly, and the Zerg army demonstrated astonishing coordinated combat capabilities.

Matched against heavy armored knights, the swarm melted the heavy armor with corrosive strong acid.

Matched against elemental mages, the swarm forced their way into close quarters despite the magical bombardment.

The Insect King's extremely high combat intelligence allowed this army to find the optimal solution in any terrain.

They swept through everything like crushing dry weeds.

Until the twentieth match, the scenario generated: Dark Crypt.

The opposing faction facing Lin Yuan was a group of illusory, incorporeal Dream Illusion Demons.

All members were at the low-tier Gold rank, with their leader reaching the Peak Gold rank.

The leader of the Illusion Demons let out a silent shriek, and invisible mental ripples spread out.

The thousands of insects rushing at the very front suddenly stopped in their tracks, frantically attacking the companions beside them.

The Zerg's physical defense and toxin resistance were maxed out, but their mental resistance was always a shortcoming.

Lin Yuan raised his hand and recalled the Zerg back to his Divine Domain.

"Switch."

The eight thousand Calamity Fire Spirit from the Far North Volcano Group descended into the crypt.

The Illusion Demon leader unleashed dream interference once again.

The Fire Spirits had no reaction whatsoever.

They were elemental lifeforms, bred from fragmented negative traits and extremely cold toxic fire.

They didn't even have complete Souls, let alone dream.

A Calamity Fire Spirit lashed out with a toxic fire whip, striking the illusory body of an Illusion Demon.

The toxic fire, carrying the erosion of vengeful spirits, directly ignited the Illusion Demon's Origin.

Screams echoed throughout the crypt.

The Illusion Demon leader was furious, gathering the power of the entire race.

It transformed into a psionic giant dozens of meters tall, dispersing over a hundred Fire Spirits with a single slap.

"Body Integration," Lin Yuan ordered.

The dispersed Fire Spirits turned into fire seeds, rapidly merging with the other Fire Spirits.

Hundreds of Fire Spirits collided, their bodies expanding violently to transform into a ten-meter-tall [Calamity Elemental Spirit Lord].

Its aura forcefully crossed the barrier from low-tier Gold, skyrocketing to one-star Platinum.

The Spirit Lord held a thick, venomous fire whip and lashed downward, slicing the psionic giant in half.

The extremely cold toxic fire spread along the wound, burning it into nothingness.

Dozens of Fire Spirits shared the backlash of the Body Integration; after the battle, their auras were merely withered, but they did not dissipate.

Victory.

Lin Yuan alternately used the Zerg and the Fire Spirits, fighting his way into the top 50 of the provincial rising star rankings.

The twentieth match, the scenario generated: Gravity Abyss.

The opponents were a group of deep-sea behemoths over a hundred meters long, all at the low-tier Platinum rank.

Lin Yuan looked down at the Calamity Elemental Spirit Lord, which had been shattered by a single tail swipe from a behemoth, and frowned slightly.

He couldn't break through their defenses anymore.

With the mid-term Streaming Exam approaching, the children of the influential families across the province were frantically dumping resources.

The threshold for the top 50 had already been raised to the Platinum rank for all members.

The Zerg's toxic miasma could not break through the Law shields of Platinum creatures.

Even if the Fire Spirits underwent Body Integration to reach the Platinum rank, they would find it extremely difficult against this kind of pure physical suppression.

If he continued fighting, the Fire Spirits' Origin would suffer irreversible damage.

Lin Yuan recalled the remaining Fire Spirits.

These dozens of battles had allowed him to basically grasp the strategic positioning of these two unit types.

The Zerg were perfect expendables and sweepers.

They were suitable for positional warfare and skirmishes in large-scale campaigns, using numbers and toxic miasma to wear down the enemy.

The Fire Spirits, on the other hand, were a tactical unit specialized against physical and mental types.

With physical immunity plus true damage, they could work wonders in specific situations.

However, neither of them was suitable for this kind of high-pressure, single-target suppression match.

"The warm-up is over."

A dark-gold divine light lit up in Lin Yuan's eyes.

Within his Divine Domain, the Blood Abyss Sea surged violently.

"Tyrant, bring them out."

Boom!

The spatial channel manifested in an illusory shimmer.

Standing fifteen meters tall and covered in matte-black liquid armor, Tyrant stepped into the starry sky war chess.

Behind it, over a thousand elite Tyrant Demons who had broken through to the Platinum rank and cultivated dual sequences.

Stood silently, like demon gods walking out of Hell.

There were no hisses, no roars.

There was only a suffocating gravity field, warping the surrounding space under its pressure.

The group of low-tier Platinum deep-sea behemoths opposite instinctively felt fear and shrank back uneasily.

"Kill," Lin Yuan spat out a single word.

Tyrant stomped one foot on the ground.

The Extreme Titan Law erupted!

Within a radius of ten miles, gravity skyrocketed a hundredfold.

The massive bodies of the deep-sea behemoths plummeted heavily, their bones emitting overloaded cracking sounds.

With a flash of its figure, Tyrant crossed a thousand meters, appearing right above the head of one behemoth.

Enveloped in dark-gold liquid from the Fusion of dual sequences, its fist smashed down.

"Bang!"

The behemoth's indestructible skull burst like a watermelon, brain matter and blood splattering everywhere.

Over a thousand elite Tyrant Demons simultaneously activated Shadow Lurker phase, merging into the shadows cast by the behemoths.

In the next second, sharp blades slit throats, and metallic spears pierced hearts.

A slaughter.

In just fifteen seconds, more than a dozen low-tier Platinum deep-sea behemoths were completely wiped out.

Lin Yuan did not linger and continued matching.

The real domination of the leaderboard was only beginning now.

Scenario: Shattered Asteroid Belt.

Opponent: Beast Taming System, sky overlord Reze Divine Eagle, all members at the Platinum rank.

The thunder eagles shuttled through the meteorites, unleashing thousands of lightning bolts.

The Tyrant Demons endured the lightning strikes head-on, their dark-gold liquid armor completely absorbing and reflecting the electrical kinetic energy.

Tyrant stepped into the air, its gravity field forcibly stripping the thunder eagles of their air superiority.

Losing their speed, the thunder eagles had their wings torn off by the Tyrant Demons with bare hands, falling from high altitude.

Scenario: Mechanical Ruins.

Opponent: Cultivation Formation Master.

The opponent laid down the Nine Nether Ultimate Killing Formation, its killing intent piercing the heavens.

The Tyrant Demons ignored the physical strikes of the Formation, forcing their way forward against the strangling force.

As Tyrant released its high-tier class pressure, the Formation Masters' spiritual energy stagnated, and they spat blood on the spot.

The Tyrant Demons swarmed forward, tearing the Formation Plates with their hands and smashing their physical bodies.

Scenario: Boundless Sea of Fire.

Opponent: Flame Demon Clan.

The Tyrant Demons dived into the magma, directly devouring the Earth Core True Fire on the Flame Demons.

The flame temperature that the Flame Demons were so proud of appeared completely useless in front of the highly tempered living liquid metal.

The points for the top 100 were extremely close.

Lin Yuan fought a full thirty-odd matches, encountering elites of different Systems in every single one.

Cultivation, magic, technology, beast taming...

No matter what trump cards the opponents pulled out,

before Tyrant and this group of dual-sequence Platinum Tyrant Demons, they were all crushed to dust.

Compared to his previous predicament of being instantly killed by ten Platinum cheaters, the current Tyrant Demon clan had undergone a qualitative leap.

Tyrant's dark-gold liquid defense was almost immune to all physical damage of the same tier.

With the Titan gravity field controlling the entire field, coupled with the bizarre advancement of Shadow Lurker,

it could single-handedly take on a hundred-man army of the same tier.

"Ding! Your ranking on the provincial rising star rankings has risen to 21st."

The System prompt sounded.

Lin Yuan looked at the armor patterns on the Tyrant Demons, which were beginning to glow red.

With successive high-intensity battles, even if their bodies could withstand it, their mental Origin was beginning to show fatigue.

The opponents in the top twenty were definitely not pushovers that could be easily insta-killed.

"That's enough."

Lin Yuan decisively exited the starry sky war chess, cutting off the neural connection.

Rankings were just empty titles; harming the spirit of his core race for a bit of ranking was not worth the cost.

The real battlefield lay in the mid-term Streaming Exam.

...

At the same time.

Tianhai Provincial City, Xiao Family Manor.

The door to the underground Advanced training room opened.

Xiao Ting strode out, beaming with pride, an irrepressible arrogance showing between his brows.

Over the past few days, he had poured in massive resources to forcibly accelerate the deduction of his Divine Domain.

He had thought this act of pulling up seedlings to help them grow would overdraw the foundation of his Divine Domain, but to his surprise, his luck was excellent.

His race, the Lion Dragons, broke through their limits in an extreme environment; not only did they not damage their Origin, but they also successfully and proficiently practiced the [Wind-Thunder Ultimate Killing Battle Formation].

"Young Master, congratulations on completing your seclusion," the butler stepped forward and handed over a towel.

"On the eve of the major exam, there are plenty of people cramming at the last minute, but how many can perfectly digest resources like me?" Xiao Ting wiped his hands and sneered.

He was currently extremely inflated with confidence.

With the Wind-Thunder Ultimate Killing Battle Formation formed, the combat power of his Lion Dragon army had increased by more than tenfold.

High-altitude bombardment combined with the battle Formation's offense.

Even if it were defensive units of the same tier, they would be torn to shreds alive.

Xiao Ting casually tossed the towel to the butler.

He walked over to sit on the sofa in the lounge area and turned on his personal terminal.

"Let me see what progress those guys have made over the past few days."

He tapped open the provincial intelligence network.

Several bolded battle reports caught his eye.

"[Murong Bai's Divine Domain receives heavenly blessing, his Heavy-Armored Behemoths all advance, combat power skyrocketing...]"

"[Chu Yunxuan's mechanical legion completes iteration, equipped with super-energy particle cannons...]"

"[Su Yueying...]"

Xiao Ting's smile gradually faded.

These favored children of heaven were indeed none of them easy to deal with.

With the major exam imminent, everyone was throwing in their bottom-drawer resources, and the top ten rankings were being reshuffled every day.

"No matter, once the major exam begins, my battle Formation will give them a surprise."

Xiao Ting snorted coldly, his finger sliding down the light screen.

He tapped open a group list he paid special attention to.

There was only one person in it.

He wanted to see...

which gutter this commoner, who had brought him immense pressure, was currently struggling in.