150: Chapter 150 The Legend of Purgatory Mode

The golden sun circled frantically above the arena.

It had struck at Qin Ye no fewer than dozens of times, each time precisely passing through that motionless figure, then exploding into a new lava crater on the desert behind her. The arena's temperature was ridiculously high; the sand had been scorched into dark red glass, and the air warped into a blurry mirage within the heat waves.

Wei Xiaoyu stood a few dozen meters away, holding her battle axe with one hand.

She planted the axe handle in the sand, using it as a cane to support her weight, her dark golden pupils fixed unblinkingly on Qin Ye's repeatedly flickering figure.

When she had tossed the sun away from herself earlier, she hadn't thought much of it, but now, watching it bombard Qin Ye for ages without even grazing the hem of her clothes, a string in her heart began to tighten faintly.

"How on earth was that done?"

If it were teleportation, there would be magical residue; if it were an afterimage, high-speed cameras would have long since captured the flaw. Yet, there was nothing on Qin Ye; she was like a frame-skipping game character, and the attacks always passed through a projection of the previous frame.

"Could it be… actually stronger than the Furnace?"

Wei Xiaoyu bit her lip. What was she thinking? That was a Tier 2 card, a mere Tier 2.

The Furnace was Qi Yuan's stellar-level collapse framework, with dozens of coupling parameters calibrated by Shen Ye himself; the shell material of the driver alone was worth an entire year's budget for an average Card Creator.

No matter how much of a genius Su Bai was, something cobbled together from Tier 2 materials couldn't possibly go head-to-head with orthodox heavy industrial weaponry of that magnitude.

That possibility didn't exist.

But her fingers gripping the axe handle had clenched at some point, and she felt a bit unbalanced inside.

But Wei Xiaoyu quickly realized what she was doing. Was she thinking that Qin Ye's current ability should also belong to her? She already had a better card now; there was no need to envy Qin Ye.

Thinking of this, Wei Xiaoyu let out a sigh of relief.

"——That young lady, Qin Ye."

A slow, unhurried voice drifted from the side.

Master Mage Chen Taixu sat cross-legged on a nearby sand dune, his wooden sword resting across his knees. The right sleeve of his robe, half-burned away by the sun earlier, was still emitting a wisp of thin blue smoke, but he looked completely unconcerned, his half-closed eyes gazing toward Qin Ye through the steaming heat waves.

"I've lived for twenty years, and this is the first time I've seen someone dodge Sun and Moon in Palm as if they were strolling through their own backyard."

He turned his head to look at Wei Xiaoyu.

"The movements are also strange. They look like teleportation, and also like afterimages, but looking closely, they aren't either. Miss Wei, do you know where she comes from?"

Wei Xiaoyu switched the battle axe to her other hand.

"I don't know."

"Strange." Master Mage Chen Taixu flipped the wooden sword over. "I heard that this Stand Card of hers was originally prepared for you. How could you not know?"

The sun exploded into another crater on the sand behind Qin Ye, the golden shockwave sweeping hot sand particles in all directions. Wei Xiaoyu raised a hand to block the oncoming hot wind; the Furnace engine inside her let out a low hum, automatically deflecting all sand particles that approached her body.

"That's a Tier 2 card. It's not mine."

She regretted it as soon as she said it.

It sounded like she was looking down on Su Bai's work. Of course, she did mean that; comparing a Tier 2 card with the Furnace was a joke from the start—that was an objective fact.

But she only looked down on the tier; she acknowledged Su Bai's own abilities.

From Magical Girl to the Stand System, he had produced two independent frameworks in over a month; this speed would terrify people even at the Sanctuary's core research institute.

It was just that the Stand he made this time was too outrageous. Damage feedback synchronization, the heart would explode, and one had to pose in public in a way that could make a person die of embarrassment on the spot. Who could use that? She hadn't refused it because she looked down on him, but purely because no one would choose a card that could kill them at any moment.

Right, that was the logic.

She smoothed out this logic in her mind twice and quietly let out a sigh of relief. Anyway, Su Bai was in the VIP box, across most of the arena; it was impossible for him to hear that thoughtless remark she had just made.

It was fine.

Master Mage Chen Taixu raised his eyebrows by half an inch.

"So it is a Tier 2 card."

He placed the wooden sword back on his knees and closed his eyes again. Before those pupils, reflecting the starry sky, were hidden by his eyelids, Wei Xiaoyu vaguely saw a glint of relief flash within them.

"Then I can rest easy."

Master Mage Chen Taixu had never imagined that a card capable of achieving such magical functions would only be a mere Tier 2.

However…

"Tsk tsk, a Tier 2 card actually reaching such a state is truly impressive. Pity that it succeeds because of being Tier 2 and fails because of being Tier 2. Regardless, the National Competition is always attended by at least Tier 5 cards; a Tier 2 card's level is simply too low, and the threat level is not high."

Master Mage Chen Taixu marveled inwardly. He was quite surprised by the card's effects, even suspecting it was some kind of power of rules.

But being Tier 2…

How could a Tier 2 card be any kind of rule? Perhaps it was some kind of special trick.

Regardless, Master Mage Chen Taixu was too lazy to guess; after all, a Tier 2 card wasn't worth him racking his brain over.

Above the arena, the golden sun suddenly stopped chasing Qin Ye.

It stopped in mid-air and buzzed and trembled twice. The golden law patterns flowing on its surface burst open, and the entire sun split into dozens of blinding golden streams of fire in an instant. Each stream of fire was like an independent flame snake, and after twisting frantically in mid-air a few times, they simultaneously dove toward the surviving contestants on the arena.

The Empress probably felt that single-target attacks were too inefficient and decided to weed out everyone in one go.

Boom—!

The first stream of fire grazed the defensive barrier of a Tier 4 contestant. The barrier melted instantly like plastic wrap exposed to heat; with a flash of white light, the person disappeared.

Then the second. The third. The seventh. The fifteenth.

White light exploded one after another across the arena, each flash representing someone being forcibly teleported out. Chief Commentator Lu Ming's voice, gripping the microphone to announce the count, became increasingly urgent, cutting all the way from three digits down to two.

"Eighty-three… fifty-one… thirty-six…"

Three figures remained completely unaffected.

Qin Ye stood in the center of the desert, the golden fire streams passing through her repeatedly, each time only touching the afterimage of her previous frame. Not even the sand particles on her skirt were blown away.

Master Mage Chen Taixu sat cross-legged on the sand dune, with over a dozen layers of thin elemental barriers stacked around his body. When the fire stream passed through the first layer of wind, its power was reduced by 30%, and passing through the second layer of water reduced it by another 30%; by the time it reached him, only a wisp of warm breeze remained, not even blowing the charred sleeve of his Taoist robe.

Wei Xiaoyu stood at the very edge of the desert. She hadn't even activated any defensive skills; the Furnace engine's speed remained steady at 40,000 RPM, and the dark golden magic steaming around her body directly deflected all approaching fire streams. Sparks splashing onto her shoulder armor couldn't even leave a mark.

There were many strong individuals among the remaining contestants; some might not have been as relaxed as the three of them, but this level of the sun was unlikely to threaten them anymore; only those in the middle were being continuously eliminated.

"Thirty-five."

The Empress's voice fell from in front of the VIP area railing.

She lightly retracted her right hand. The golden sun, which had split into dozens of fire streams, gathered back into her palm like a receding tide, shrinking into a ball of light the size of a fist. The heat waves on the arena slowly dissipated, leaving behind only a ground full of smoking lava craters and sand scorched into glass.

"The remaining ones are at least SS-rank cards." The Empress tucked Sun and Moon in Palm back into her sleeve and glanced at the thirty-five people on the arena. "No need to continue the test. All pass."