171: Chapter 171 National Champion! Su Bai's single Tier 2 card shatters an era!

"Is there really no one left?"

Qin Ye's voice echoed across the entire arena through the amplification magic array.

The massive Purgatory arena had long since turned into ruins.

Crisscrossing gullies covered the ground, and shattered armor and card fragments were scattered all around. The scorching aura left after the explosion of the Titan Furnace still lingered in the air.

In the center of the ruins, Qin Ye stood alone atop a dark golden clock.

The black and gold Magical Girl dress armor was spotless.

The huge Stand [The World] floated behind her with its arms crossed over its chest, its dark golden eyes looking down disdainfully upon the entire arena, as if everything that had just happened was nothing more than a boring warmup.

No one responded to Qin Ye.

It was not that they didn't want to.

Rather, there was no longer anyone able to respond.

Thirty-four of the nation's top prodigies, equipped with high-quality Tier 4 and Tier 5 cards from various major holy lands, the military, hidden sects, and the Truth Sanctuary,

were all eliminated at this moment!

The referee lowered his head to glance at the tournament system.

On the screen, all thirty-four names had turned gray.

Only the two characters for Qin Ye still flickered with a dazzling golden light.

[Current surviving contestant: 1.]

[Purgatory Mode challenger: Qin Ye.]

[Eliminated contestants: 34.]

[Fusion form duration: 18 seconds.]

The referee's lips trembled slightly.

He had hosted the National Competition for a full twenty-seven years.

He had seen prodigies stage counterattacks, seen desperate comebacks, and seen monstrous contestants instantly kill opponents of the same tier with a single move.

Yet he had never seen a battle like the one before him.

One person facing thirty-four people.

Eighteen seconds.

All eliminated!

This could not even be called a battle.

It was more like a unilateral clearing of the field executed by Qin Ye!

Taking a deep breath, the referee finally raised his right hand.

"After final confirmation by the tournament system—"

"All challengers have been completely eliminated!"

"Contestant Qin Ye has successfully completed Purgatory Mode!"

"The overall champion of this National Card Creator Prodigy Tournament—"

"Qin Ye!"

As the last two words fell,

the entire audience did not immediately burst into cheers.

The entire arena fell into an eerie, dead silence.

The spectators stared blankly at the ring.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming gripped the microphone, his mouth still maintained in an open posture.

The Card Creators in the VIP seats froze in place, data screens reflecting their dull faces.

Even the bullet comments on major live-streaming platforms experienced a remarkably rare blank space.

The brains of the tens of billions of viewers seemed to crash all at once.

"Won?"

"Really won?"

Taking eighteen seconds, one against thirty-four, and piercing straight through the National Competition?

The next moment—

Boom!

The entire arena completely exploded!

"Champion!"

"Qin Ye is the champion!"

"Purgatory Mode! A Purgatory Mode that no one has passed for decades!"

"Eighteen seconds! From the moment she fused with the Magical Girl and the Stand, it only took a total of eighteen seconds!"

"Su Bai is awesome!"

"The Stand is invincible!"

Cheers like roaring mountains and tsunamis shot straight up into the sky.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators stood up at the same time, their voices converging into visible sound waves that caused the entire arena to tremble slightly.

In the live-streaming room, countless bullet comments instantly covered the screen.

The servers issued overload warnings one after another.

In the squares, shopping malls, schools, and guild stations of major cities across the Dragon Kingdom, frantic shouts sounded simultaneously.

Countless people were so excited that their faces turned red, hugging complete strangers next to them and jumping up and down.

This match did not just produce a champion.

It produced an entirely new era!

"Applying for emergency card detection!"

In the VIP seats, a royal Card Creator suddenly stood up.

"The strength of the cards used by Qin Ye far exceeds the Tier 2 category. I request the tournament organizers to conduct the highest-level inspection!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the cheers of the audience diminished slightly.

Countless people looked back toward the ring.

This was also the doubt in everyone's hearts.

"Tier 2 cards?"

"Whose Tier 2 cards can stop time?"

"Whose Tier 2 cards can give the user 500,000 Mental Power and directly pierce through a Tier 5 SS-grade Titan Furnace?"

"Whose Tier 2 cards can sweep across thirty-four national prodigies within eighteen seconds?"

The Empress did not stop them.

Behind the beaded curtain, she gently raised her hand.

"Granted."

A golden detection array descended from the sky, instantly enveloping Qin Ye.

At the same time, twelve top-level detection masters from the tournament organizers entered the arena simultaneously, sending the two cards used by Qin Ye into the detection instrument.

Everyone held their breath.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming stared intently at the constantly rolling data.

A moment later, the first detection result appeared on the main screen.

[Card Name: magical girl card.]

[Grade: Tier 2.]

[Creator: Su Bai.]

The second result appeared shortly after.

[Card Name: Stand Card - The World.]

[Grade: Tier 2.]

[Creator: Su Bai.]

The entire audience fell into a dead silence once again.

It was not over yet.

The twelve detection masters injected Mental Power into the array simultaneously, and more detailed data appeared one after another.

[High-tier material residue: None.]

[Ninth-tier external blessing: None.]

[Illegal law infusion: None.]

[Temporary attribute amplification: None.]

[External powerhouse mental habitation: None.]

[Card structure legitimate.]

[Match process legitimate.]

[Final detection result: Both cards are standard Tier 2 conceptual cards with no illegal items.]

Boom!

The second round of cheers was even more frenzied than before!

"They really are Tier 2!"

"Two Tier 2 cards pierced through a group of national prodigies equipped with Tier 4 and Tier 5 SS-grade cards!"

"It's not Qin Ye carrying two cards to win the championship; it's Su Bai using two Tier 2 cards to pierce through the entire National Competition!"

"Everyone used to say that tier was an absolute gap, but now Su Bai has overturned the table of the tier system!"

"Starting today, who still dares to say that low-tier Card Creators cannot create high-tier power?"

Card Creators trembled all over with excitement.

Some people stared fixedly at the data of the Stand Card, trying to understand the operational logic within it.

Others directly slowed down the match recording by over a thousand times, beginning to analyze every manifestation of [The World] frame by frame.

Qi Yuan stood motionless in the VIP seats.

His gaze was completely locked onto the detection structure of the Stand Card.

[Mental manifestation.]

[Two-way mass-energy conversion.]

[Reality anchor fixation.]

[Soul information recycling.]

The more he looked, the paler his face became.

Deep within those seemingly unfamiliar circuits hid certain structures that he was exceptionally familiar with.

They were precisely from the paper he had published not long ago—

《Two-Way Mana Anchoring Hypothesis Based on Stellar-Scale Energy Collapse》!

No.

That's not right!

Qi Yuan's pupils contracted violently.

The paper he published could only solve the most basic two-way energy conversion.

Yet after completing mental manifestation, Su Bai's Stand Card also achieved reality anchoring, soul synchronization, power feedback, rule touching, and lossless energy recovery!

His paper had merely explained a tiny section of the outermost layer of the Stand System.

It was like someone casually knocking a brick off a vast and boundless divine temple.

Qi Yuan had picked up that brick, studied it for several days, and thought he had discovered an unprecedented civilization ruin. He joyfully published a paper, causing a sensation throughout the Truth Sanctuary.

Yet it was only today that he discovered—

That brick came from Su Bai.

And Su Bai had already built the entire temple!

"So that's how it is…"

Qi Yuan's throat felt dry.

"So that set of theories was a part of the Stand System from the very beginning."

"My proud achievements…"

"Were just scraps he casually leaked?"