Before long, the third watch had arrived. Heavy darkness shrouded Ascension City, yet the area around the grand Tournament Platform blazed with lights and roared with voices. A grand, ferocious feast of combat was in full swing, its clamor surging into the clouds and tearing the night's silence to shreds.
In the past, many lofty, self-important Heavenly Prodigies had liked to sit off to one side, watching others fight with mocking eyes and treating their struggles as entertainment. Tonight, that cold, disdainful spectacle had vanished completely.
In its place was a turbulent, blood-stirring scene-gifted youths from every corner of the world, from the northern and southern regions alike, leaped onto the platform one after another. They unleashed their exquisite martial skills to the fullest, spiritual power churning and attacks flashing fiercely, drawing wave after wave of astonished cries from below.
Not only that, the wastrel sons and pampered daughters of the great lineages and factions could no longer suppress their restlessness and resentment either, and eagerly jumped onto the platform.
Tonight's poetry wager had left almost every one of them utterly ruined, their fortunes wiped out. However unwilling they were, they had been driven into a corner and could only steel themselves to fight, hoping the Tournament Platform's reward of one million lower-grade spirit stones would recover some of their losses and plug the holes in their finances.
Notably, Huang Fu, Qin Fei, Peng Yixu, and even the renowned Commandant Xu-along with the other leading Heavenly Prodigies-had all taken the platform to show their abilities.
Their strength was already exceptional, and now they fought with the resolve of men who had smashed their cooking pots and sunk their boats, leaving themselves no retreat. Every move was vicious, their momentum splitting bamboo, and they racked up dazzling victories. Only after