Marquis Immortality

"What a beast!" Qin Ming couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

Nine point two billion people, scattered across ninety-two cities—that meant each city would hold over a hundred million contestants on average.

For context, the entire land area of Earth in his past life was only 149 million square kilometers.

This Eighth World Sector before him had a total area of just over 17 million square kilometers.

Even if evenly distributed to each city, every city's area would be less than 200,000 square kilometers—smaller than a single large province in his past life's Huaxia.

Then his gaze swept over the scoring rules.

[Killing a contestant grants 1 point and seizes half of their current score. The higher the rank of the one you kill, the greater the reward.]

[The deceased still participate in the rankings; if their score is sufficient, even if they die midway, their score is halved, and they may still enter the top 1001. Strive to earn as many points as possible.]

[Reminder: Each person has only one life. Death ends the preliminaries, and your score is halved.]

With population density this terrifying and rules this brutal, it was clearly encouraging contestants to slaughter each other!

Sure enough, before Qin Ming could even observe his surroundings, rumbles echoed from outside—contestants had already started fighting.

At the same time!

"Bang!"

The door to his room was kicked open.

A contestant as thin as a bamboo pole leaned in, grinning with a vicious smile. "You're the first."

"Idiot."

Qin Ming moved with a thought.

A flash of sword light streaked past.

The other didn't even have time to react before his head hit the floor.

"Points..."

Qin Ming looked down at the screen on his arm guard. The information had already refreshed:

Contestant: Qin Ming (Windfall Empire)

Points: 1

Rank: 10,000,086

In just a few breaths, his rank had already fallen outside the top ten million.

This meant that, barely after the competition began, over ten million Star-level geniuses had already fallen.

"The entire prelim lasts a month. With the population dense at the start, the carnage will be the most brutal.

On the flip side, the fewer survivors there are in the later stages, the more points each one will have accumulated. Killing one then will be far more efficient than killing a thousand now."

Qin Ming's gaze was calm, his mind already set.

"I'm not some bloodthirsty madman, nor am I like that certain cosmic tyrant who could blame it on the Golden Horned Behemoth's influence... There's no need to rush into the slaughter."

"The further in, the greater my advantage. In the last ten days, I'll start hunting down the real experts!"

Within the Eighth World Sector, all contestants could fly up to a maximum altitude of about nine kilometers above the ground. Beyond that, an invisible barrier blocked them.

Above that barrier, spaceships drifted slowly by.

Inside one of those ships, in a private cabin, the Qin family's ancestor, Qin Ming's parents, and several of his siblings had gathered.

"The Genius Battle's prelims aren't even broadcast live." Qin Ming's eldest sister, Qin Lan, sighed with some emotion.

"To watch the fights, you have to come to the World Sector in person and take a ship for an overhead view—and it's not cheap."

"Sis, that's not hard to understand." Second brother Qin Shou chimed in with a smile.

"With over ninety-two billion people in a chaotic free-for-all, how could they broadcast it live? This overhead view is the only way."

Through the ship's external simulation, the Qin family looked down and could see the bloody carnage erupting in the cities across the continent below.

They could zoom in at will, clearly making out every contestant's face.

Of course, if someone was hiding inside a building, they couldn't be observed.

"Big sis, Third Brother's rank keeps dropping."

The speaker was Qin Ming's little sister, Qin Xue, only six years old. She held a screen in her hands, displaying the real-time ranking list for the Eighth World Sector.

Qin Ming, Points: 108, Rank: 10,010,10,000.

"Little Xue, your third brother is hiding his strength." Qin Lan explained gently.

"The prelim lasts a full month. If he reveals his power too early, he'll easily become a target for a group attack. No matter how strong he is, he can't withstand a siege of hundreds or thousands."

According to the data they had gathered in advance, in past competitions, any Star-level genius who had mastered the Ninth-Level Domain could basically pass the prelims.

Those with good luck might even have a chance to break into the top thousand of the Ganwu Universe Kingdom and advance to the final round.

Thus, unless Qin Ming was unlucky enough to run into a peerless genius who had comprehended a law right from the start, passing the preliminaries was almost a sure thing.

Above the First World District, inside a luxurious spaceship, a group of well-dressed young men and women held wine glasses, enjoying fine food as they overlooked the bloody slaughter below through an external virtual projection.

"Haha, look! Ranked first, as expected, is a genius from our kingdom's direct-controlled starfield!" A handsome man nearly two meters tall, clad in an opulent robe, raised his glass with a laugh.

"Tsk, Yu Guiwan, your Starfall Empire has really shown off this time. Among the top ten, only people from your empire appear." Someone nearby chimed in.

The man called Yu Guiwan smiled faintly: "The young prince flatters me too much."

"The Starfall Empire has always been the subordinate kingdom under our Ganwu Universe Kingdom that produces the most strong experts." The handsome man addressed as the young prince shifted the topic.

"By the way, Yu Guiwan, there's a rumor going around—has that ancestor of your empire already stepped into the 'Marquis' level?"

"I've heard that too!"

"Yu Guiwan, care to share a bit?"

Within the Ganwu Universe Kingdom, the territory was vast, and the highest authority was naturally the Ganwu Kingdom Lord.

Below the Kingdom Lord were the many Marquis-level and King-level powerhouses.

Those who received a Marquis title in the Ganwu Universe Kingdom did not necessarily possess the true strength of a Marquis-level immortal; it could be a reward from the Kingdom Lord for outstanding merit.

But the Starfall Ancestor had truly stepped into the Marquis level through his own strength, and this weight was far beyond the former.

In the universe, the sense of honor for regions and empires was often extremely strong.

If an empire produced a super powerhouse, the entire empire would feel immensely honored, and other star regions and kingdoms would look upon it with newfound respect.

This was also one reason the young prince treated Yu Guiwan with extra courtesy.

Yu Guiwan's smile remained unchanged as he lightly brushed the topic aside: "I dare not speak recklessly of the ancestor's affairs. But young prince, I heard you have been formally confirmed as the heir by Marquis Jinshui?"

Upon hearing this, the handsome man at the head couldn't help but show a trace of pride on his face.

The reason he could sit here discussing another kingdom's ancestor was precisely because his father was also a genuine Marquis-level immortal, and he himself had already been established as the heir.

"Fenglin Yizhen." The young prince suddenly turned his gaze to a silent young man not far away.

"How come I don't see anyone from your Windfall Empire on the rankings?"

"That's right, Yizhen."

"In the last Genius War, it seems the Windfall Empire didn't even have a single person enter the top ten thousand, did they?"

"Heh, forget last time—the Windfall Empire hasn't had a single person make it into the top ten thousand in the last few sessions." This time, it was the heir of the Black Dragon Mountain Empire who spoke up.