The Three Families Vie for Supremacy

Centered on the Zou Family's seven members, soundwaves surged and plunged, raging wildly across the examination plaza.

Several local craftsmen from the lower reaches were hit hard. The mundane mechanisms before them exploded under the soundwave assault, and by the time White Moon Palace disciples entered wearing protective gear, two had been gravely injured and three had had their heads burst apart, dying on the spot.

As for the spectators around the edge of the arena, casualties had already been considerable before Zhong Wenbai raised a protective barrier. Cries, curses, and wails rose and fell without end.

Watching corpse after corpse being carried away, those clamp artificers who had originally planned to take part in this Heaven-grade examination but withdrawn in advance were now deeply shaken as well, thankful that they had not gone up to make fools of themselves.

The Fan Family and Yan Family were likewise from the middle reaches and had long witnessed the Zou Family's underhanded tricks beyond the rules. Their elders had warned them before they came and prepared protective automaton artifacts for them, so they suffered no harm.

As for Mo Shuhan, she was the Mo Family's cherished daughter. Only that morning had her father casually mentioned that she should beware of the off-the-board tricks employed by middle-reach families.

At the time, Mo Shuhan had not paid it much mind, and she already carried a second-turn defensive automaton artifact on her person.

This automaton artifact possessed astonishing defensive power. It required no spiritual energy to activate and could trigger passively, but it had not been specially prepared for this examination. Rather, it was a personal pendant her father had commissioned for her tenth birthday.

At this moment, that automaton artifact came in handy as well.

Perhaps it was precisely because he knew she had that second-turn automaton artifact, coupled with Mo Zheng personally observing from outside the arena, that Mo Zheng had merely mentioned it in passing rather than stressing it.

Mo Shuhan herself was fine, but she worried about Lu Li. Regret filled her heart; she hated herself for not taking her father's warning seriously and not telling Lu Li about it.

She paid no heed to anything else, tossed aside the tool in her hand, and turned to look at Lu Li beside her.

"Little Deer Pear!"

Yet the scene she had imagined did not occur. The little girl Deer Pear sat there as steady as a mountain, nonchalantly controlling the Profound Heavy Hammer.

There was clearly no protection around Deer Pear, so why was she completely unscathed?

Was that what one should expect of Senior Heartless's younger sister?

Though Mo Shuhan could not understand what kind of defensive method Lu Li had used, she breathed a sigh of relief and found it incredibly impressive.

At the same time, Zhong Wenbai and Mo Zheng outside the arena were also watching the developments within. The former narrowed his eyes slightly, seemingly trying to discern some clue from Deer Pear.

Yet all he saw was that little girl Lu Li was fair and tender; he failed to notice the Azure Underworld Painted Skin on Lu Li.

"Those automaton artifacts were all funded by you, weren't they?"

Mo Zheng did not think much of it, assuming the other man meant the five first-turn automaton artifacts, and silently nodded in agreement.

But Zhong Wenbai had actually meant the hidden defensive automaton artifact on Lu Li. He gave Mo Zheng a deep look, then leaned close and whispered:

"Tell me honestly—she isn't your illegitimate daughter, is she?"

"Get lost, get lost. You can't say things like that carelessly."

The two old men exchanged a round of meaningful looks, while the battle below continued.

The Zou Family's Nine Underworld Soundwave Formation was famous far and wide in the middle reaches. Every year it appeared in the examinations, every year it caused trouble, and every year it came with new twists. One young lady of the Fan Family turned livid and snorted at her clansmen beside her.

"Zou Bufan really has no shame. Let's stop hiding our cards and use the [Aurora Spear] directly. Let's show them what we're made of."

One Fan Family young lady timidly murmured:

"But that's our trump card for the welder examination."

Another young master of the Fan Family spat.

"Pah! There are only twenty slots anyway. Let's knock them out now, so there won't be room for trouble later."

Though there was no shortage of open and covert struggle among their own clan, at this critical juncture of the Heaven-grade examination, faced with the killing formation formed by the Zou Family's seven members, the eight Fan Family disciples knew what mattered. They quickly reached an agreement.

Each of the eight took out a short spear, roughly one foot three inches long. One end was a pointed tip fitted with a small sphere, while the other was connected to a spirit-conducting copper wire, which in turn connected to a massive box beside them.

They each put on goggles and fed a large number of spirit stones into the box, driving the Aurora Spears to their utmost limit.

On the surface, they behaved themselves, aiming the spherical spear tips at the welding surfaces between the black iron. In truth, their real target lay elsewhere. Treasure light abruptly flashed from the spearheads, and every beam of it shot toward the Zou Family's seven members.

When immortals fight, mortals suffer. Having learned from the previous lesson, those onlookers outside the arena who loved a spectacle thought they had retreated far enough, yet they were still accidentally injured by the light that pierced through the protective barrier.

"Ah! My eyes! My eyes are going blind!"

"It's so dazzling! What is that?"

"Ack, it's light welding arts! The Fan Family is a light-path clan—everyone, close your eyes!"

The leading Fan Family young lady curled her lips slightly and did not forget to call out in an exaggerated tone:

"Oh no, how careless of me. There's actually something wrong with the craftsmanship of this batch of spears. What are the family workshops even good for?"

The people outside the arena were far away, with a protective barrier between them, so the casualties were not severe. The Zou Family's seven members within the arena, however, suffered miserably.

That aurora was exceptionally strange and possessed immense penetrating power against protective barriers. When it shone on human skin, the skin instantly blistered and gave off a faint scent of cooked meat~

Zou Bufan had truly never seen this move before. In a flurry, he shielded his handsome face and unleashed a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse in the Fan Family's direction.

"Fan Lingyu, you bitch! This young master will fuck your ancestors for eighteen generations!"

"Nyah nyah nyah! So you think you can hum away with that Resonance Instrument—and hum that badly too? Go on, hum one more time if you dare?"

Fan Lingyu planted her hands on her hips like a fiery little chili pepper, controlling the aurora and spraying it straight at Zou Bufan's face.

The two sides fought fiercely, and the Yan Family beside them was inevitably caught in the crossfire. Even the eyebrows of the burly man leading them had been burned away by the aurora. Gnashing his teeth in fury, he shouted at the steel billet in his palm:

"Fine, you black iron! I'll melt every last one of you apart!"

Though these words seemed to be directed at the black iron, their edge was in fact aimed straight at the other two families.

The Yan Family did not use layered forging techniques. Playing to their strengths in the Flame Dao, they intended to melt the black iron directly into molten iron, then pour it into molds and shape it. The bracers in their hands were called [Earthfire Palm], and the Earthfire Cauldron Yan Diagram passed down among the people had originated from their family.

Yet the Earthfire Palm was not only lighter and more compact than the Earthfire Cauldron, but far more terrifying in power. The Yan Family members were often careless, causing dozens of blazing flames to burst from their palms and inadvertently injure the other two families.

Protected by the Azure Underworld Painted Skin, Lu Li was unharmed for the moment. Unable to see or hear, he focused wholeheartedly on forging iron, but the commotion around him was so immense that even the Profound Heavy Hammer before him was shaken into trembling twice.

Lu Li felt that it was especially bright beyond his eyelids, so he opened them to a narrow slit and timidly looked around.

One look was all it took. Before him was a hellish tableau of raging sound, wild flashes of aurora, and surging streams of fire.

How could a little green pear freshly plucked from the tree bear to look at such things? With only a furtive glance, he was like a startled fawn, so frightened that he squeezed his eyes shut.