Early morning.
In the Library Pavilion, Su Chen sat up from the bamboo chair and rubbed his still-distended stomach.
As soon as he opened his eyes, the Light Screen of the Eye of Omniscience automatically unfolded in his Sea of Divine Consciousness.
Three data curves at the top of the Light Screen had shot straight into the red, glaring painfully bright.
That gap of less than 0.01 last night had thoroughly stirred up a hornet's nest, setting off the competitive instincts of the three bigwigs.
Su Chen leaned against the window and watched the red dots representing the three women split up and charge toward different resource sites, moving so fast they left afterimages.
He drew a deep breath.
Today's "feeding hell" was probably about to level up.
Deep inside the Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong sat behind a purple-gold desk, her long hair hanging loose. Her phoenix eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and her face was so gloomy it looked ready to drip water.
She mercilessly swept aside the mountain of official documents piled on the desk. In their place lay more than a dozen yellowed ancient books.
They were all secret cooking recipes from years ago, which she had despised and used to prop up the old table legs in the Library Pavilion.
Half an hour ago, Angela had received a death order and dug them out despite being drenched in cold sweat.
Bibi Dong pored over the ancient books, scrutinizing every word.
"Principal and supplementary ingredients, heat management, high and low flames... A hair's breadth off, a thousand miles astray."
She murmured, then extended a pale fingertip. A wisp of terrifying Rakshasa Death Qi was forcibly compressed into a thread-thin purple flame.
The purple flame danced in the air, simulating the movements and temperature changes involved in stewing soup.
On the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen, the "Unwillingness Value" above Bibi Dong's head became a straight red line and broke through the ninety mark.
At the same time, in a secret chamber in Heaven Dou Imperial City.
A Dark Web operative knelt on one knee and tossed a middle-aged man, bound hand and foot and dressed in a royal chef's uniform, onto the flagstones like a sack. This poor fellow was the chief chef of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family.
Qian Renxue had changed into a practical outfit and held a spatula in her hand, her gaze cold as ice.
The chef trembled on the ground like a sieve as he stammered out the secrets to frying top-grade Dragon Fish.
Qian Renxue followed his instructions. But as she flipped it, the sacred Angel Soul Power inside her slipped out of control and leaked just a little, brushing across the bottom of the pan.
"Sizzle!"
With a loud pop, the Dragon Fish meat, previously translucent and glistening, instantly charred and curled into a lump of blackened, foul-smelling coal.
Qian Renxue's face darkened on the spot. She raised her long right leg and kicked the chef beside her to the ground.
She clenched her teeth, and dazzling golden divine light erupted around her. On the Light Screen, the "Must Win Value" on Qian Renxue's panel smashed straight through the safety threshold.
At noon.
The quiet of the Library Pavilion was forcibly torn to shreds.
Qian Renxue was the first to enter. She held a white jade tray in both hands, with a "Holy Light Dragon Fish" that was at least somewhat intact on top.
The fish's tail was a little charred, but she had covered it with the highest-grade royal ice-and-snow spices, giving off a refined, rich fragrance.
She lifted her delicate chin, her eyes full of arrogance.
She walked to the tea table and slammed the white jade tray down onto it with a thud.
"Eat." Qian Renxue's voice was cool. "A flavor unique to Heaven Dou. Those other jumbled-up dishes aren't worthy of your status."
Before she had even finished speaking, a cold, domineering aura of purple-black surged in through the doorway.
Bibi Dong entered with a fragrant-wood food box in hand, her face cold. She ignored Qian Renxue's provocation entirely.
She turned her wrist and opened the food box. A steaming bowl of Yin Yang Harmony Soup emerged. Not a trace of its fragrance escaped; all its essence was locked tightly inside by the most exacting proportions in the ancient book.
"The heat is precise to the tiniest fraction. Not a hair out of place." Bibi Dong pushed the bowl in front of Su Chen, her tone cold and commanding, leaving no room for refusal. "Drink."
The auras of two divine successors clashed furiously in the tiny Library Pavilion. Soul Power crackled and boomed without end, and the tea table shook as if it were about to fall apart.
Sitting between them, Su Chen looked at the two works of art before him, one extremely haughty, the other obsessively meticulous.
His scalp prickled and his back tensed, but his face was wreathed in a humble smile. Both hands hung stiffly in midair, unsure which dish to reach for first.
The atmosphere had frozen solid.
"Rumble!"
The Library Pavilion's already battered wooden door was kicked apart! Splinters flew everywhere.
Liu Erlong strode in, carrying an enormous black iron platter in both hands.
There was no presentation on the platter, no seasoning, not even the color a dish ought to have. That thing wasn't food at all—it was a lump of meat compressed to the extreme, flashing with a blinding crimson light!
Liu Erlong hadn't bothered with heat or proportions. She had used the crudest method to force the violent Fire Dragon Soul Power into the muscles of a Ten Thousand Year Soul Beast.
The whole platter was a red ball of light, ready to explode at any moment.
"I don't care about all those fussy details!" Liu Erlong slammed the iron platter onto the tea table. "Just dig in!"
The blinding red light illuminated the entire room.
Bibi Dong furrowed her brows, her eyes full of disdain. "How could anyone eat such a crude, explosive thing?"
Qian Renxue even stepped back, sneering. "That's how savages eat. Aren't you afraid you'll burst your own stomach?"
Su Chen didn't hesitate for a second.
Facing the two powerful women's mockery, he reached out with both hands, grabbed the glowing piece of roasted meat, tore off a huge chunk, and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Boom!"
The scorching Fire Dragon Soul Power exploded inside his mouth.
Su Chen's face flushed instantly, and the corners of his eyes twitched wildly.
It felt like a Soul Power Grenade had gone off in his mouth. A low-level Soul Master would have had their esophagus blown apart.
But Su Chen gritted his teeth and endured it! The vitality of his World Tree Martial Soul surged through his body, rapidly repairing his burned mouth.
He chewed hard, swallowed a huge mouthful, and gave Liu Erlong a thumbs-up.
"Now that's invigorating! This is the kind of food a real man should eat!" Su Chen roared at the top of his lungs.
Bibi Dong and Qian Renxue were stunned.
They stared at Su Chen's flushed face, the same thought crossing both their minds:
He actually ate something that could kill him?
Over the next five days, the Library Pavilion became a hell on earth—a cooking battlefield of cutthroat competition.
Su Chen took the title "Master of Balancing" to the absolute limit.
Every day at noon, he held Bibi Dong's meticulously precise medicinal cuisine in his left hand, clutched Qian Renxue's barely formed luxury pastries in his right, and chewed on Liu Erlong's dazzling, explosive roasted meat.
He kept a straight face, refusing nothing and accepting everything.
His thoughts moved so fast they left afterimages as he tampered with the system's scores at the same time every day.
He kept the three women's total scores tightly balanced. No matter what heaven-defying treasures they brought out, the final score gap always hopped back and forth within 0.01.
Today Bibi Dong gained an extra 0.01; tomorrow Qian Renxue pulled ahead by 0.02; the day after, Liu Erlong would charge back into the lead.
The unbearable tension of none of them being able to crush the others became the cruelest torture of all.
With Su Chen's invisible hand, the three women's nerves were repeatedly tossed into a frying pan. Their desire for victory and their pride, which refused to let them lose, were driven to the limit.
The area outside the Library Pavilion became the most terrifying forbidden zone in Spirit City.
Every day at noon, the air there mingled the fragrance of top-grade ingredients with a violent murderous aura. The Judgment Knights assigned to guard the place felt like they were undergoing a heavenly tribulation every day.
Angela gripped her greatsword, cold sweat never drying on her forehead.
Every day, she smelled dishes fragrant enough to prolong life, yet the extreme killing intent radiating from the Pope and the Young Master shook her until her blood and qi churned.
The entire knight order's worldview swung wildly every day, on the verge of breaking apart and rebuilding itself.
Late at night on the sixth day.
Bibi Dong, Qian Renxue, and Liu Erlong returned to their respective quarters, drained by exhaustion but left with spirits that were wildly overstimulated.
Almost simultaneously, the three of them sat down at their desks, opened new cookbooks, and prepared to research their ultimate moves for the next day.
Just then.
A cold, grand system voice rang out without warning in all three women's minds at once:
[ Ding! Special final-day rules triggered! ]
[ The satisfaction rating on the seventh day will count for 50% of the seven-day total! ]
[ The winner will be decided in a single meal! ]
The moment the notification sounded.
Inside the Pope Palace, Bibi Dong's fingers froze as she turned a page, and the purple flame at her fingertip flared wildly out of control.
Inside the Young Master Palace, Qian Renxue crushed the teacup in her hand, her golden pupils instantly shrinking to pinpricks!
At a manor outside the city, Liu Erlong punched through the tabletop and slowly straightened up.
Three surges of Soul Power, each brimming with absolute resolve, shot skyward at the same time from three directions across Spirit City.
For the decisive strike in this final meal, the three women saw nothing else. They turned abruptly and charged toward their own kitchens!
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