167: Chapter 167 All Things Return to One! Chen Taixu's Last Sword

"Too much."

Qin Ye's voice fell.

In the center of the arena, the huge clock covering a range of several hundred meters suddenly stopped running.

The hour hand and minute hand stopped in mid-air at the same time.

The air in the entire arena seemed to freeze for a split second.

The next moment, Master Mage Chen Taixu moved.

He did not urge flames, nor did he summon thunder, nor did he use wind elements to accelerate.

He simply raised the wooden sword in his hand and took a step forward.

This step looked ordinary, yet it didn't make the slightest sound when it landed.

The [ Stand ] behind Qin Ye suddenly turned its head.

In its dark golden pupils, a clear sense of vigilance appeared for the first time.

"Here it comes!"

In the VIP seating area, Shen Ye stood up abruptly.

Dozens of data screens emerged before him, with dense parsing data scrolling rapidly.

"Master Mage Chen Taixu has severed the remaining seven elemental circuits!"

"All external elements are being reclaimed. Wind, fire, water, thunder, earth, light, and darkness are all being compressed into the wooden sword in his hand!"

"This is not ordinary elemental fusion. He has stripped away all attributes, leaving only the purest energy density!"

As Shen Ye's voice spread across the VIP seating area,

the wooden sword in Master Mage Chen Taixu's hand began to change.

The wooden sword was still that same wooden sword.

There were not even any ornate patterns on its surface.

However, the surrounding air continuously collapsed toward the sword's edge.

The wind element disappeared.

The flames disappeared.

The thunder disappeared as well.

Everyone could sense a terrifying power, yet they could not see where it was hidden.

This was precisely the most dangerous part.

The more obvious a power was, the easier it was to judge.

When all power was compressed to a degree that neither naked eyes nor Mental Power could capture, the attack would only have one result—

a direct hit.

"Myriad Phenomena Return to One."

Master Mage Chen Taixu spoke softly.

The wooden sword in his hand thrust forward.

There was no sword light.

There was no loud roar.

There was only a black line so thin it was almost invisible, extending from the tip of the sword.

Wherever the black line passed, space was silently sliced open.

A crack appeared in the black-and-white world on the arena, the surrounding time ripples continuously distorted, and even the huge clock beneath Qin Ye's feet began to show fine cracks.

"What kind of attack is this?"

Zhao Dahai stood up abruptly.

"It's invisible!"

Lin Xiao also widened her eyes.

"There's no trajectory at all. How is Qin Ye supposed to dodge?"

Lin Weiwei stared fixedly at the arena.

"Why isn't she moving yet?"

Not only them,

countless live broadcast viewers also held their breath.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's sword strike was simply too fast.

It was so fast that even the camera could not capture it, and so fast that most Tier 5 powerhouses could only see the result of space being sliced open.

Just at the moment when that black line was about to touch Qin Ye's chest,

Qin Ye extended a finger.

She did not retreat.

Nor did she cast Time Stop.

Her slender fingertips pointed forward, landing right in front of the black line.

Clang.

An extremely faint crisp sound spread out.

That black line, capable of slicing even space itself, stopped.

Just like an invincible sharp blade crashing against an invisible wall.

Qin Ye's finger suffered no harm at all.

[ The World ] stood behind her, extending its other hand to accurately grab the other end of the black line.

The entire audience was dead silent.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's expression finally changed.

"You can see it?"

Qin Ye did not answer.

She merely lowered her head and looked at her fingertips.

That black line was not true sword light.

In Qin Ye's eyes, it was a connection composed of countless tiny circuits.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's Mental Power was connected to the wooden sword.

The wooden sword was connected to the remnants of the seven elements.

The seven elements were further compressed into a common power core.

It looked like a single line.

In reality, thousands of layers of circuits were superimposed inside.

This was no longer an ordinary card connection.

It was more like Master Mage Chen Taixu had compressed his own swordsmanship, magic power, and soul all together.

Precisely because of this,

a connection still existed within it.

Qin Ye gently gripped that black line.

"Quite complex."

"However, complex doesn't mean it can't be dismantled."

Her fingertips began to exert force.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's pupils contracted.

"How dare you!"

He abruptly urged his sword intent.

The black line instantly expanded.

Terrifying energy erupted from the sword's edge, pressing numerous cracks out of the entire arena's ground.

The elemental reverberations behind Master Mage Chen Taixu awakened simultaneously.

The invisible wind began to roar.

Flames compressed to the extreme burned wildly inside the black line.

Thunder exploded within it.

Space felt as if it had been stuffed with a collapsing star.

"Break open for me!"

Master Mage Chen Taixu let out a furious shout.

He no longer attempted to pierce through Qin Ye.

Instead, he wanted this sword strike to completely explode right in front of her.

As long as Qin Ye was still holding onto this connection, the explosion would backlash along the connection into her soul.

This was Master Mage Chen Taixu's final trump card.

Since he could not avoid being dismantled by Qin Ye, he would turn this connection into a stick of dynamite fuse!

"Qin Ye is in danger!"

War Emperor Wei Potian's expression changed abruptly.

"That power has already exceeded the Tier 5 range!"

Wei Tianlong also stood up abruptly.

"She can't keep holding onto that line!"

Li Qingyue, however, did not speak.

Her gaze remained fixed on the soul gem on Qin Ye's chest.

That gear-shaped gem was spinning at high speed.

Lines of dark gold emerged on the surface of its black shell.

At the same time, [ The World ] behind Qin Ye also raised its other hand.

The main body grasped the connection in reality.

The Stand grasped the connection within the time interlayer.

Both exerted force simultaneously.

The Magical Girl's soul gem began to absorb the impending backlash.

It was not blocking.

Nor was it resisting head-on.

Instead, it dismantled the backlash into countless tiny mental impacts, then separately channeled them into the main body, the Stand, and the black-and-white clock world.

Power that was originally enough to destroy the soul of a Tier 5 powerhouse, after undergoing fourfold diversion, rapidly weakened.

Qin Ye's expression did not change.

Not even the hem of her skirt fluttered.

The horror on Master Mage Chen Taixu's face became increasingly obvious.

"You..."

He finally understood.

Qin Ye was not afraid of mental backlash at all.

The Magical Girl's soul gem provided her with a shell to stabilize her soul.

The Stand bore another portion of the impact.

After the combination of the two systems, a flaw that was originally enough to be fatal was actually turned into a divisible power by the opponent!

"Is this what you call a Tier 2 card?"

Qin Ye asked softly.

Master Mage Chen Taixu did not answer.

His sword intent had already been urged to the limit.

The next second, Qin Ye closed her five fingers.

Snap!

A subtle cracking sound spread across the arena.

Within the black line, the first layer of circuits broke.

The wind element dissipated from it.

Then came the second layer.

The flames extinguished.

The third layer.

The thunder disappeared.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's complexion grew increasingly pale.

With each layer of circuits that broke, the connection between him and the wooden sword grew weaker by a fraction.

He could clearly feel that the sword intent he had condensed over more than a decade was being peeled away layer by layer by Qin Ye.

This was not a defeat.

This was dismantling.

Dismantling his strongest attack into countless parts that could not operate independently!

"I can't let her continue!"

Master Mage Chen Taixu gripped the wooden sword tightly, and his figure suddenly disappeared.

He abandoned long-range sword light.

Since Qin Ye could see the connection between sword intent and magic power, he would attack in the simplest way!

Master Mage Chen Taixu compressed all his power into his physical body.

The space beneath his feet trembled slightly.

The next moment, he had already appeared beside Qin Ye.

The wooden sword slashed down close to Qin Ye's neck.

This sword strike had no magic.

No laws.

Only Master Mage Chen Taixu's own honed swordsmanship.

Fast.

Fierce.

Accurate.

"Close combat?"

The Empress raised her eyebrows slightly.

"He is quite smart."

Li Qingyue, however, shook her head.

"Useless."

Sure enough,

Qin Ye did not even turn around.

[ The World ] raised its arm, blocking in front of the wooden sword.

The wooden sword collided with the dark golden arm.

Boom!

A terrifying shockwave swept across the arena.

Master Mage Chen Taixu borrowed the force to retreat, stepping out seven deep pits in succession under his feet.

A shallow scratch appeared on [ The World ]'s arm.

But that was all.

Qin Ye turned around.

"Your sword is very fast."

Master Mage Chen Taixu stared at her.

"Thank you."

"However, you are still lacking a bit."

Qin Ye raised her right hand.

[ The World ] took a stride forward.

In the next instant, the dark golden Stand had already crossed a distance of dozens of meters, appearing in front of Master Mage Chen Taixu.

Master Mage Chen Taixu horizontally blocked with his sword.

[ The World ] threw a punch.

"Ora!"

The fist struck the wooden sword.

This wooden sword, which carried seven elements and had undergone special forging, exploded into countless fragments all over the sky on the spot.

Master Mage Chen Taixu's pupils constricted.

That was not an ordinary punch.

The moment the fist fell, [ The World ] simultaneously touched the connection between the wooden sword and Master Mage Chen Taixu.

With one punch, it shattered the weapon.

And it also broke the unity of man and sword.

Master Mage Chen Taixu staggered back several steps, blood qi churning in his chest, a trace of fresh blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

His right hand still maintained the posture of holding a sword.

Yet his hand was completely empty.

That black line also completely disappeared along with it.

[ Myriad Phenomena Return to One ] was forcibly dismantled.

Countless elements lost their compression restraint in mid-air, turning into wind, fire, thunder, and light, scattering explosively in all directions.

The tournament barrier activated instantly.

Layers of energy barriers blocked the erupting elemental tide.

Yet, violent winds still whipped up in the audience seats.

Hair fluttered.

Robes snapped in the wind.

Everyone stared blankly at the two people in the center of the arena.

Master Mage Chen Taixu had lost.

Not defeated by sheer power.

Not suppressed by realm.

But rather, his strongest sword was dismantled by Qin Ye with a single punch.

This Tier 5 S-grade [ Myriad Element Master ] main card didn't even have a chance to truly complete a single attack.

Qin Ye walked up to Master Mage Chen Taixu.

[ The World ] raised its finger and gently tapped it on his forehead.

"Will you continue?"

Master Mage Chen Taixu glanced at the wooden sword that had already turned into fragments.

Then he looked back at the dark golden Stand behind Qin Ye.

He was silent for two seconds, then suddenly chuckled.

"No."

"This Taoist concedes."

The referee was stunned for a moment.

Quickly confirming:

"Contestant Master Mage Chen Taixu, are you sure you want to voluntarily withdraw from Purgatory Mode?"

"Sure."

Master Mage Chen Taixu put away his shattered cards.

"Continuing to fight would only let my other cards be dismantled one by one."

"In that case, why give the audience a joke to keep watching?"

The referee took a deep breath and raised the token in his hand.

"Contestant Master Mage Chen Taixu voluntarily concedes!"

"Elimination judged!"

The white light representing elimination rose from beneath Master Mage Chen Taixu's feet.

Before being teleported away, he suddenly turned his head to look at the VIP private room.

"Who made this card?"

Qin Ye looked along his gaze.

"Su Bai."

Master Mage Chen Taixu was silent for a moment.

"That Tier 2 Card Creator mocked by all the grandmasters in the Imperial Capital?"

Qin Ye nodded.

"It's him."

Master Mage Chen Taixu glanced at the broken cards in his hand.

And looked again at the wooden sword shattered by a single punch.

"He is indeed very good at deceiving people."

"Deceiving everyone into thinking that he only knows how to make Magical Girls."

The white light completely enveloped Master Mage Chen Taixu.

His figure disappeared from the arena.

Yet because of this sentence, the entire audience boiled over once again.

"Master Mage Chen Taixu said Su Bai is deceiving people?"

"What does he mean?"

"Could the Stand not be Su Bai's true trump card after all?"

"The Magical Girl is only the first system, and the Stand is the second!"

"Just how many things is he hiding?"

Countless questions poured into the live broadcast room like a tidal wave.

Meanwhile, in the VIP seating area, Shen Ye's expression had already turned ugly to the extreme.

He originally thought that the [ Bidirectional Mana Anchoring Theory ] published by his teacher Qi Yuan was already enough to cause a huge revolution in the National Competition.

Qi Yuan even stated with absolute certainty that as long as they relied on this theory, Wei Xiaoyu would definitely win the championship.

But now—

Qin Ye had used only a few seconds to completely collapse the joint system of the nation's top prodigies.

What was even more terrifying was that

she hadn't truly displayed her full capabilities yet.

Qin Ye just now was merely dismantling cards.

If she had directly used Time Stop, coupled with the instantaneous burst of [ The World ], those people probably wouldn't even have known how they lost.

Shen Ye suddenly understood his teacher's fanaticism back then a little.

What his teacher researched was not the entirety of the Stand System at all.

That was merely a bit of incomplete theory obtained from Su Bai.

Even this incomplete theory was enough to make his teacher stay up all night to publish a paper and design the [ Titan Furnace ] overnight.

Then just how powerful should the complete system truly mastered by Su Bai be?

He looked toward Su Bai.

The young man was still sitting in the VIP private room.

Holding a lollipop in his hand, his expression was calm.

As if the battle on the arena had not exceeded his expectations at all.

Lin Xiao couldn't help asking:

"Su Bai, hasn't Qin Ye already won?"

Su Bai glanced at the arena.

"Not yet."

Lin Xiao was slightly startled.

"Master Mage Chen Taixu has already conceded, hasn't he? Isn't the only one left Wei Xiaoyu?"

"That's why I said not yet."

Su Bai raised his chin.

"There's still one over there."

Everyone looked along his gaze.

On the other side of the arena,

dark golden flames were continuously rising.

Wei Xiaoyu stood amidst the flames, the heavy Titan armor on her body emitting a heavy roar.

The rotation speed of the furnace inside her body had already broken through ninety-three thousand revolutions.

After Master Mage Chen Taixu conceded, all the pressure of the entire arena fell onto her.

There was no fear.

No retreat.

Instead, Wei Xiaoyu gripped the battle axe in her hand tightly.

"Very good."

She raised her head, locking her gaze on Qin Ye.

"It's finally my turn."