144: Chapter 144 The Sun and Moon in the Palm of Her Hand! The Empress's Power

Shen Ye stood at the edge of the waiting area, his fingers still tracing through the air.

He was recalculating.

He re-magnified Qin Ye's Mental Power waveform, breaking down that abnormally smooth output curve frame by frame. He was looking for a decay inflection point. There was none.

He switched to a different algorithm. He calculated again. Still nothing.

In Qin Ye's punch just now, there hadn't even been a preparatory charge. The transition from static to motion had shown almost no fluctuation in the Mental Power output curve. This led to a very simple conclusion—her normal state was, in itself, everyone else's limit.

Shen Ye's hand froze in mid-air.

He looked toward the VIP box.

Su Bai sat very casually. His right hand was propping up his chin, and Kyubey was flicking its tail on his lap.

Then, Su Bai tilted his head toward the arena.

Kyubey jumped down from his lap, walked to the edge of the box railing with that nonchalant gait typical of a cat, placed its two front paws on the railing, and tilted its head to look at Wei Xiaoyu, who was exiting the arena.

It blinked its round red eyes.

Then, it turned its head and sent a telepathic message to Su Bai. "That girl is also not bad."

Su Bai said nothing. He bit off a small corner of his lollipop.

The sound of the hard candy shattering exploded in his mouth—it was very faint, probably only audible to himself.

The first round of the elimination tournament proceeded rapidly over the next twenty-some minutes.

Some finished their opponents in one move, some were finished in one move, and some were just small fry pecking at each other for ages before being disqualified simultaneously by the referee.

Su Bai lost interest after watching a few matches with his chin propped up, though Zhao Dahai was leaning against the railing, howling with excitement at every match.

"Su Bai, your heart rate is eight beats lower than before."

"Normal. It's boring."

Kyubey's tail brushed across the back of his hand. "Qin Ye is doing push-ups in the waiting area; she's already at three hundred."

Su Bai glanced toward the waiting area. Qin Ye was indeed doing push-ups, this time using one hand. The other contestants waiting nearby had tacitly kept a distance of more than three meters from her.

Soon, the first round was completely over.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming stood on the hosting podium and took a deep breath, and a number popped up on the holographic projection screen: 1527.

His voice, amplified by the speaker array, exploded across the entire arena: "The first round of the first stage is completely over! The number of people advancing is—one thousand five hundred and twenty-seven!"

Scattered applause rang out from the audience.

"For the next second round—"

"Wait."

A voice interrupted Chief Commentator Lu Ming.

The voice was not loud, and the tone was not heavy, but the tens of thousands of people in the entire arena fell silent simultaneously. This was because the voice came from behind the beaded curtain in the very center of the VIP area.

The Empress stepped out from behind the curtain.

She was not wearing her court robes today; instead, she had changed into a simple white modified dragon robe, with pale gold dragon patterns embroidered on the cuffs. Her ink-black hair was casually tied back with a jade hairpin. She stood before the VIP area railing, looking down at the arena below, her dark gold eyes filled with a composure that commanded awe without needing to be angry.

"One thousand five hundred people." She chewed on those three words. "Too many."

Chief Commentator Lu Ming stood frozen, gripping the microphone. He had been a gold-medal host for over a decade and had never had his flow interrupted. But since it was the Empress speaking, he had no choice but to shut up.

The Empress raised her right hand, her cuff sliding down to reveal a string of extremely fine golden dragon patterns on her wrist. The corners of her mouth curved slightly. "I will handle the second round. This round—"

She paused.

"Will leave thirty people."

The entire arena was silent for about half a second.

Then, the audience erupted as if someone had stuffed a row of explosives at the bottom.

"The Empress is taking action herself?!"

"Thirty people?! Eliminating down to only thirty people from one thousand five hundred?!"

"I've lived for forty years and never heard of such a thing—when has the Empress ever served as a referee herself—"

"It's not a referee, it's execution! She's going to do it herself! Do you understand?! Do it herself!"

"F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck!"

The comments section completely lost its mind in that instant. The livestream server crashed the moment the Empress said the word "thirty," and after refreshing, the comment section was filled with a random arrangement of exclamation marks and question marks.

In the row of VIP boxes at the very top of the audience, Qi Yuan's teacup froze in mid-air. Phantom Sovereign put down her crossed legs. Armored Mage Emperor Lu Chen set his titanium water cup on the table, and a tiny ripple appeared on the surface of the water—his fingers were shaking.

"The Empress's Sun and Moon in Palm." Qi Yuan's voice was extremely low. "One of the three great national artifacts of the Dragon Kingdom. I have only seen records of it in literature. The last time it was activated—"

"The last time was thirty years ago." Phantom Sovereign took over the conversation. "The final battle of the eighth full-scale Abyss invasion. The Empress used Sun and Moon in Palm to burn the entire main Abyssal rift into glass, and the Dragon Kingdom's border line was pushed four hundred kilometers south because of it."

Armored Mage Emperor Lu Chen picked up his water cup and took a sip, and another ripple appeared on the water surface. "So today she is going to use a national artifact to eliminate a group of students? Even if it's a weakened power, I'm afraid it's not something these people can withstand..."

No one answered him.

Because a ball of light had already lit up in the Empress's palm.

Su Bai had originally been leaning against the back of his chair.

The moment that ball of light appeared, he unconsciously sat up straight. His hand that had been propping up his chin dropped, and the lollipop slid out of his mouth and fell to the floor; he didn't notice it at all.

It was fear.

Not fear on a psychological level. It was a more primal, instinctual reaction—the kind encoded in genes—that living beings only experience when facing an existence at the top of the food chain that is far superior to themselves.

That ball of light was only the size of a fist, entirely golden, with dense law patterns flowing across its surface. But what Su Bai saw through the system interface was not a ball of light—it was a star rotating at a terrifying speed. The hairs on his back stood on end.

Damn it.

If this thing really came crashing down, the very concept of escaping wouldn't even exist.

"Su Bai. Your heart rate—" Kyubey's voice paused for a rare moment. "You'd better prepare something."

Li Qingyue, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the box, suddenly stood up. Her bare feet stepped on the box floor, and her long silver-white hair fluttered slightly behind her. She walked to the railing and gazed across the entire arena at the Empress.

"Sun and Moon in Palm." Li Qingyue's voice was very soft. "Your Majesty, are you planning to place that sun on the arena?"

The Empress turned her head to look at her, the curve of her mouth unchanged. "Rest assured, Minister Li Qingyue. I am only using the first layer of the seal, keeping the temperature below one million degrees. It won't burn anyone to death."

Below one million degrees.

Li Qingyue's eyelid twitched, but she said nothing and sat back down in the chair in the corner. Her crimson eyes turned toward Su Bai's direction, and her lips moved silently—she was probably cursing him for why he always managed to appear at the center of all sorts of absurd events in all sorts of absurd situations.

Su Bai received that look.

My fault, then?

He picked up the lollipop that had fallen on the ground and saw a layer of dust on the surface. Forget it, he wasn't in the mood to eat it anyway.

On the arena, the Empress flicked her fingertip.

The golden ball of light left her hand, tracing a straight trajectory through the air, and then stopped directly above the center of the arena.

It hovered.

It was quiet for about half a second.

Then, the whole world changed.

The ball of light actually bloomed!