Breakthrough

In the seventh level of the Sixth Trial Tower's trial space.

Scalding sand churned beneath his feet. Ling Xuan narrowed his eyes, gazing at the giant Mother Nest in the distant central oasis, shrouded in a haze of poisonous blue mist.

The flesh-colored nest, sixty meters in diameter, was riddled with holes. Viscous poison trickled slowly through its grooves, sizzling as it corroded the sand.

"Bzz—" A shrill insect cry split the sky. Dozens of cracks suddenly appeared across the Mother Nest, and a thousand Green Mantises poured out like a black tide.

The half-human-sized Zerg Race creatures brandished serrated forelimbs, their compound eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Vegetation withered wherever they passed.

"Just in time!" Ling Xuan roared. Flames surged around him as the Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear traced a blazing arc. "Flame Blade First Bloom!"

"Dragon Battles in the Wild." The Trial Tower's trials had honed Ling Xuan, allowing him to fully absorb the demonstration of the Law of Space that the Ganwu Kingdom Lord had given him. A thousand Space Phantoms attacked at once, darting through the swarm like crimson dragons.

His blade stabbed precisely into gaps in the Green Mantises' shells, then twisted, spraying green ichor and chunks of flesh. He swept his weapon across, its edge slicing through their necks and severing their heads. White vapor rose from the cut surfaces.

As he focused on slaughtering the swarm, a transparent figure suddenly appeared atop the Mother Nest.

The six-meter-tall Zerg Mother Empress unfurled her translucent butterfly wings. Mist swirled over her face, revealing a pair of violet-glowing, vertical pupils.

She flicked her arm, sending a hundred Blood Mantises shooting toward Ling Xuan like arrows loosed from a bow. These Blood Mantises were much stronger than the Green Mantises and far larger, their shells gleaming like metal and far tougher than those of the Green Mantises.

His first blade strike landed on a mantis's shell, leaving only a white mark.

Ling Xuan's expression tightened. His blade technique abruptly shifted as he unleashed the second form, "Burning Wave Horizontal Slash."

The Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear spun rapidly. As he swept it sideways, flames surged like waves, forming a hundred-meter-wide curtain of fire.

One fiery strike followed another, and the flames swallowed the vast swarm like a rolling tide.

The Blood Mantises charged fearlessly, one after another, straight into the fiery strikes.

One strike, two strikes—the momentum of his blade flowed without pause, each strike heavier than the last.

At last, on the seventh strike, Ling Xuan's momentum reached its peak. He flipped through the air and unleashed all the force he had built up in a single instant, cutting the charging Blood Mantises in half. Fragments of their shells flew like shrapnel.

But as his attention wavered, a dazzling violet light suddenly burst from the Mother Empress's eyes. An invisible Soul Attack struck in an instant.

"Soul Suppressing Cauldron, appear!" Ling Xuan's soul trembled, and the phantom of a small, ancient-looking cauldron emerged.

He poured his soul power into it. The cauldron blazed with light, firmly blocking the Soul Attack.

The violent clash sent ripples through the air. The Mother Empress let out an unwilling shriek and beat her wings furiously as the Mother Nest began to swell wildly.

In just a few breaths, the Mother Nest had grown to a hundred and twenty meters in diameter. Countless more Zerg Race creatures poured out of its holes.

Ling Xuan took a deep breath as the power of the Law of Fire surged wildly around him. "You think you can crush me with numbers? Keep dreaming!"

He leaped high into the air and unleashed the third form, "Blade Domain Selection Kill." The Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear gathered three hundred-foot-long flaming blades, which he brought crashing down on the Mother Nest's core.

The Mother Empress launched another Soul Attack, but the Soul Suppressing Cauldron easily dispelled it.

At the same time, Ling Xuan's flaming blades slammed into the Mother Nest. The explosion sent sand billowing through the sky, while firelight dyed the entire desert red.

Ling Xuan's figure turned into a crimson dragon and closed in on the Mother Nest in an instant. Before the explosion, he had already locked onto the Zerg Mother Empress's position. Using the dust cloud for cover, he rushed in and beheaded her as she gazed at him with a pitiful expression.

"Look! Yanmo's points just shot up to 7,777,770,000!"

"Doesn't that mean Yanmo has cleared the Sixth Trial Tower? And judging by his condition and how quickly he cleared the seventh level, he should be able to clear the first level of the first tower too."

"It's not that simple. Each Trial Tower gets exponentially harder. Yanshen cleared the seventh level ages ago, but isn't he still stuck on the first level of the seventh tower?" Someone shook his head, unconvinced that Ling Xuan could do it.

Inside the seventh level's trial space, ten thousand Blood-Haired Mammoths charged forward with earth-shaking strides.

Each beast stood as tall as a ten-story building, its tusks wrapped in frost and lightning. Their icy breath froze the ground into a sheet of ice, and their strength rivaled that of the top hundred contestants in the Genius Tournament.

"Youlong."

Ling Xuan tapped the ground with his toes and swept along the cliff face like a dragon, dodging the mammoths' head-on charge.

Once a herd of mammoths began charging together, it was difficult to stop. If they stopped recklessly, the mammoths behind them would crash into them and trample them to death.

Ling Xuan moved with incredible agility, circling around the flank and dodging the beasts.

As he passed a giant beast, Ling Xuan twisted his wrist and unleashed the first form of the Fire God Absolute Domain Blade, "Flame Blade First Bloom."

The Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear sent out a blade arc dozens of meters long, cutting precisely into the soft flesh behind a mammoth's knee. Flames burst through the wound, and the beast collapsed onto its knees with a thunderous crash.

"Boom!" The mammoths behind it immediately filled the gap, forming an attack as solid as a wall of iron.

Ling Xuan sprang upward, twisting in midair as his blade followed his movements.

"Burning Wave Horizontal Slash."

Waves of flame advanced with the precision of meshing gears. Wherever they passed, the mammoths' tusks melted in the heat, and their flesh sizzled and smoked.

Swathes of the giant beasts crashed to the ground under the fiery waves. The mammoths behind them didn't care whether their companions lived or died. They kept charging fearlessly, trampling the fallen beasts that were still alive.

After landing, Ling Xuan tapped his toes against the ground, tracing a strange Z-shaped path to deftly avoid being trampled by the herd.

As the encircling herd was about to close in, he abruptly halted and swung the Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear from three different angles.

Three phantom blades wove a rapidly spinning cage of fire, like precision gears meshing as they burst with a thousand-foot crimson glow.

The moment the first mammoth's giant hoof entered the Blade Domain, the sharp edge wrapped around its ankle like a chain. Flesh and shattered bone crumbled into dust in the intense heat.

One Blood-Haired Mammoth after another charged into the Blade Domain and was cut down. Ling Xuan, however, remained on guard, moving along the perimeter to kill isolated Blood-Haired Mammoths.

"Look, Yanshen's already reached the second level!" The exclamation from the observation tower made the Ganwu Country geniuses' faces change.

On the points board, Cao Benqi's score shot up like a rocket. The glaring red number—17,777,770,000—stung everyone's eyes, while Ling Xuan's score of less than ten billion looked pitiful beside it.

"The winner's already decided. Ling Xuan can't keep up anymore," a Yanshen Kingdom genius sneered.

The Ganwu Universe Kingdom geniuses didn't answer. They all kept their eyes fixed on the points board. As long as Ling Xuan's score kept rising, the competition was far from over.

At that moment, in the first level's space, more than ten thousand giant beasts stomped forward at once. The resulting shock waves shattered the spatial barrier in the distance, and Ling Xuan's figure teetered on the brink of disaster between tusks and blades of ice.

But his eyes grew redder with every passing moment, and every swing of his blade carried unwavering resolve.

One hundred beasts, one hundred and fifty, two hundred.

Trapped in the mammoth herd, Ling Xuan had less and less room to dodge. Three giant beasts charged from three different directions at once, frost and lightning weaving a deadly cage in midair as their massive hooves rose high.

"Third Brother!" Ling Yue's heart clenched.

"Come on, Third Brother!" Ling Xue had already climbed out of her mother's arms. She pinched her father's arm as she cheered Ling Xuan on.

Fortunately, Father Ling was at the Star Level, while Ling Xue was only at the Planetary Level. No matter how hard she pinched, he wouldn't feel a thing.

At the critical moment, Ling Xuan's aura suddenly erupted, and thousands of phantoms appeared in the air around him.

Half a year of relentless fighting culminated in this moment. Countless insights had been absorbed and applied in battle, eventually becoming the nourishment for Ling Xuan's growth.