Nine Provinces

On the forums, posts rolled by like snowflakes.

"Too damn satisfying!"

"I watched that sword strike from yesterday over and over dozens of times. Damn, that was cathartic."

"Sacred Blood Realm, so what? Didn't Lu Zhen from our Nine Provinces still take their head with a single sword strike?"

Every word on the screen brimmed with excitement.

Eighty years.

The Nine Provinces Small World had been suppressed for far too long. This overwhelming victory in the first round was like sweet rain after a long drought, setting countless low-level martial artists ablaze with fervor.

Yet—

Amid the excitement, there was even more contentment.

"Making it into the second round is already enough."

"Yeah. Having come this far, our Nine Provinces hasn't lost out."

"The second round is a massive free-for-all. The elites of dozens of worlds will be thrown into one arena, and the elimination rate is a full ninety percent!"

"Too brutal."

"As long as Lu Zhen and the others can hold out a little longer and get eliminated a little later, that counts as a win!"

"Right!"

"As long as they can lie low, maybe our Nine Provinces' final ranking can even surpass those bastards from the Iron Bone Realm and Crimson Flame Realm."

"As long as we do better than them, we've made a profit!"

The sentiment in the posts was astonishingly unanimous.

No one expected Lu Zhen to fight his way into the third round.

After all, it was a meat grinder with a ninety-percent elimination rate. The Nine Provinces had a weak foundation; lasting even one moment longer was victory.

At the same time—

Within the official Nine Provinces broadcast illusion in the Void Realm.

Countless points of light gathered into a sea.

Among that vast crowd of spectators, a cool and aloof consciousness projection