"Hahaha! Seize the initiative and fight for first place." Watching Ling Xuan's ranking instantly climb to first, Zhulong King smiled with satisfaction.
"Zhulong, is this the outstanding descendant you were talking about?"
On Tianzhou Island, at Zhulong King's invitation, nearly every available Immortal Expert from the Giant Axe Martial Arena had come to watch this year's Genius Tournament.
In the long lives of these eternal Immortals, few geniuses were worth their attention. They only followed a handful of matches in each year's Genius Tournament.
This year's tournament was clearly one of those rare occasions.
Not only did it feature a super genius said to appear only once every hundred million eras, but it also featured the outstanding descendant the old Zhulong was so proud of.
Zhulong King was incredibly ancient. Over the long years, he had become familiar with most of the truly old figures in the Giant Axe Martial Arena, and they were happy to do him a favor by turning up to lend their support to this living fossil.
It was also a little amusement in their long lives.
"Hahaha, that's right. This is the boy." Zhulong King praised him without the slightest restraint.
"Then we'll have to see what makes this boy so special. If he really is as talented as you say, I wouldn't mind taking on another disciple." A man wearing a purple-scaled battle robe teased him.
"Get out of here. If my descendant needed an Immortal for a master, would you have a chance, you young whippersnapper? He and I both have fire and space affinities. Wouldn't I be a better fit?" Zhulong King glared, bristling with indignation.
"Hahaha, you old miser. Just tell us how outstanding this boy really is. Good enough to get Universe Venerables to personally take him as a disciple?"
"Just keep watching. This time, my Zhulong clan is sure to make a name for itself across the universe." Zhulong King was brimming with confidence.
"That old man must have gone crazy. Can one era really produce two peerless geniuses?" one of his friends teased.
Virtual Universe, Zhulong Continent, at Ling Xuan's home.
Ling Yue was searching for Ling Xuan's image on the virtual screen when she suddenly saw her father—who should have been competing in the Genius Tournament—appear in front of her and lean in to watch the matches with her.
"Dad, aren't you competing in the Genius Tournament?" Ling Xue asked with genuine curiosity, twisting the knife.
"Don't remind me. I'd just entered the World Zone and hadn't even come to my senses when some brat ambushed me." Ling Tianhe sighed.
"Dad, you got eliminated that quickly? And you said you wanted to compete alongside Little Xuan." Ling Xue twisted the knife again.
"Don't talk nonsense. I was ambushed. That brat had no honor. Everyone was still dizzy after being teleported, but somehow he was already able to attack. What else could that be but cheating?" Ling Tianhe's voice grew quieter and quieter.
That was because the side profile of the brat on Ling Yue's screen looked a lot like the fellow who had ambushed him.
And the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed.
On the streets of the 77th World District, Ling Xuan had become the embodiment of death.
The Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear moved like an extension of his arm, each swing leaving a streak of crimson-gold light.
"Even a tiny mosquito is still meat!" His gaze flashed as he locked onto a contestant fleeing in panic a thousand meters away. He vanished in a blur and appeared right in front of him.
"Yanmo, let me go! I'm royalty from the Ganwu Universe Kingdom!"
"What a coincidence. So am I." Ling Xuan sneered and beheaded him with a single stroke.
The Ganwu Kingdom Lord didn't care about royalty or the eight great clans. A super genius like Ling Xuan was the perfect tool to help him earn more cash.
From the south of the city to the north, his hunt never let up.
One slash, one kill. No one could survive long enough to make him strike twice.
Every time he attacked, flames swept across the sky. He showed no mercy and killed everyone he saw, earning himself the name Yanmo.
The score on the leaderboard kept climbing. In just three days, it had soared to eight million.
"Only a little over eight million points?" Ling Xuan shook his spear, though there wasn't a speck of blood on it, and sighed. "This is way too slow. Couldn't they make the World Zone smaller?"
His score still had a long way to go before he could secure first place.
Although the second-place contestant had yet to reach a million points, it was only the third day of the preliminary round. The truly fierce fighting had yet to begin.
"On to the next city!" Flames burst around Ling Xuan, and he sped north like a meteor.
The contestants in this city had either been killed by him or fled to other cities long ago.
There might still be a few hiding somewhere, but he had already scared them into keeping their heads down.
As he neared the city walls, five distinct Domains suddenly descended.
A yellow-brown gravity Domain dragged him down as if he were carrying a mountain. A deep-blue ice Domain instantly froze the flames around him. A dark-green Wood Domain ate away at his meridians, and each breath stung like a knife.
"An ambush?" Ling Xuan's pupils contracted, but he showed no trace of panic.
Origin Energy surged wildly through him, forcibly breaking the gravity's hold. The Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear traced a strange arc in his hand as its runes flared brightly.
In an instant, over a thousand blazing spear strikes poured down like a rainstorm.
Amid the roar of shattering Domains, five figures appeared.
The man in the lead was just about to use a secret technique when Ling Xuan's spear strikes reached him.
His spear flashed like lightning, weaving through the enemy ranks. Each strike drew a scream.
When the last opponent vanished into a point of light, Ling Xuan's score stopped at 9,226,542.
"Killing strong opponents really does raise your score faster. No wonder so many transmigrators from earlier generations preferred to lie low at first, then slowly hunt the strong contestants on the leaderboard later."
But Ling Xuan had no intention of lying low. The fighting spirit of humanity's ancient past ran in his blood. Slowly picking off his prey wasn't his style.
The strong contestants in this city hadn't seen what he could do yet. Unlike those in the previous city, they didn't run the moment they saw him, making it possible to catch them if they were close enough.
Ling Xuan resumed his slaughter, and the name Yanmo rang out across the city once more.
"This kid's quite impressive!" An Immortal elder clad in a star-cloud robe shot to his feet. "His score is climbing faster than anyone else across all the Universe Countries. He's taken at least the first step into the Law of Space. With that kind of strength, he'd be all but guaranteed to contend for first place in an ordinary Genius Tournament. And he's still young. His future is bright!"
His exclamation carried undisguised envy.
They couldn't get their hands on the super genius who appeared once every hundred million eras, but they could try to recruit the old Zhulong's genius!
"Hahaha, what do you think? Isn't my boy outstanding?" Zhulong King's laughter rang across the entire viewing plaza. "It's been tens of thousands of billions of eras. Aside from breaking through that threshold to become a Universe Venerable, nothing has made my heart pound like this!"
This ancient figure, who had lived through tens of thousands of billions of eras and had been stuck at the peak of King Rank for more than ten thousand billion years, had unconsciously clenched his fists.
Another King Rank expert nodded slightly, a strange glint in his eyes. "Old Zhulong's kept him well hidden. He never let on that his clan had such a monster. Was he planning to play the underdog and surprise everyone?"
Before he could say more, a wave of discussion drowned him out.
"This boy's spear technique is perfectly matched with the Law of Fire. He's worth taking in and training as my disciple..."
"You can keep dreaming. This boy and I are destined to meet."
Listening to the praise all around him, Zhulong King's rough face flushed.
You can all keep dreaming!
This boy of mine was destined to become the disciple of a supreme being. Even if he had to throw away every last shred of dignity, he would never let such a gem go to waste.
Did they really think he'd spent all these years knowing only a bunch of youngsters who weren't even a fraction as old as he was?
Compared with these youngsters, who were only a few tens of billions of years old, old Zhulong's connections were beyond imagining.
Time flew by. Ling Xuan was invincible in his World Zone. During the first ten days, he wiped out a city every three days or so, and his efficiency was astonishing. By the tenth day, he had amassed over twenty million points and held firmly to first place in the World Zone.
By then, nearly everyone in the World Zone knew that their number-one contestant was a bloodthirsty killer.
It wasn't that no strong contestants had considered banding together to hunt down Yanmo.
But it was still too early. No one had many points yet, and if they failed, they could be eliminated.
"Run! Yanmo's reached this city!" Ling Xuan had only just arrived in a new city and hadn't even started his killing spree when the contestants there began to panic.
"Hand over your points." He swung his spear once, and the entire city fell silent again.
The lucky survivors could only flee to cities far away from Ling Xuan to escape the slaughter.
Before you continue