Rong Jun brimmed with fighting spirit. Compared to hunting down Lei, whose strength was nothing special, Chen Ao was undoubtedly a far more welcome opponent.
"How many points do you have?" Chen Ao asked.
"Seventeen million!"
Chen Ao heard Rong Jun's answer, then thrust his sword straight at him.
Rong Jun's eyes widened. He wanted to block, but the sword plunged straight into his chest.
However, it had not pierced his heart. At most, it was a minor flesh wound.
"The fight's already over. You can go!" With that, Chen Ao left.
He could not kill this guy, at least not yet. If Rong Jun dropped out of the top thousand, that would be a terrible joke.
Rong Jun watched Chen Ao leave, his body seemingly frozen in place.
Looking at his still-bleeding chest, Rong Jun could not believe his eyes.
"How? How could this be? The gap shouldn't be this big!" Rong Jun had always believed he had the strength to contend for Number One in the Universe, but now, first place seemed incredibly far away.
Chen Ao clearly had not wanted to kill him. Otherwise, that thrust would have been enough to kill him several times over!
Rong Jun glanced at his points and gritted his teeth.
"I, Rong Jun, have never been afraid. Even if I'm weaker than you, I will never back down!"
Still, Rong Jun was no fool. He knew he had lost, and pushing his luck now could easily send him tumbling out of the top thousand.
Gritting his teeth, Rong Jun began hunting other competitors.
"I'll find you again. Even if I die by your hand, I'll still swing my blade!"
He was Rong Jun. He would never cower.
Chen Ao knew Rong Jun would not admit defeat and would probably come looking for him again. But what did that matter?
It would only take one more swing of his sword.
"Ah, I might not be a Child of Fortune like Luo Feng, but at least I've got cheats!"
Chen Ao continued killing, keeping his point total from standing out too much. He stayed roughly ten million points ahead of second place.
He kept himself at about the same level as the first-place competitors in the other World Zones.
That way, he would not seem too conspicuous.
In the First World Zone, Luo Feng had finished cultivating and was now slaughtering the other competitors with abandon.
He had long since mastered the Yan Shen Armament's first stage, Phantom Sword Style. Even its second move, Sky Piercing Style, already possessed considerable power.
As a result, Luo Feng had started chasing people around and stabbing them with his big rod quite early on.
Unsurprisingly, no one in the entire First World Zone was a match for Luo Feng. Someone like Feng Lun, who had traded blows evenly with Luo Feng in the original story, died instantly against the fully mastered Phantom Sword Style.
By now, Luo Feng's ranking was also very high.
Even without deliberately hunting anyone down, he had still entered the top ten.
Luo Feng's explosive performance sent Black Dragon Mountain into a frenzy, with everyone wildly chanting his name.
"I wonder how Senior is doing?" Luo Feng had always treated Chen Ao as his goal, so he did not know much about the other geniuses.
But after killing opponent after opponent, he finally understood just how enormous the gap was.
"Even after mastering the second move, I still can't last a single strike against Senior. I really wonder how strong he actually is!"
He had no intention of taking first place, so he did not travel to the other cities. He simply waited quietly for the competition to end.
Before long, the thirtieth day arrived.
Chen Ao's points still held him firmly in first place.
He had a full 180 million points, twenty million more than second place.
Compared to the first-place competitors in the other ninety-nine zones, he was also in the top ten.
Neither outstanding nor poor.
"Sword God! Sword God!" Rong Jun's voice echoed through the city.
He, Rong Jun, had already secured a place in the top thousand. Now, he wanted a proper fight with Chen Ao.
Even if he died, it no longer mattered.
Chen Ao's figure flickered, and he appeared before Rong Jun.
"Sword God, you're finally here! Fight!" Rong Jun roared, immediately drawing his second blade.
Against Chen Ao, he had no right to hold anything back.
In fact, he knew the gap between them was enormous.
He stood here only to uphold his refusal to retreat or cower.
He feared that if he retreated once, he would lose everything.
Even if he died, he had to swing his blade.
"Go ahead. Let me see your strength!"
"All right!" Rong Jun wasted no more words.
A Space Phantom appeared, also holding a blade. Dense power from the Law of Earth flowed continuously along its edge.
This strike was his greatest asset, a Secret Technique he had created himself-a strike powerful enough to earn him first place in the universe.
The blades slashed at Chen Ao from left and right.
Sensing the power of the blades, Chen Ao shook his head.
The gap was too great. Rong Jun's comprehension of Space Law was far too shallow.
If it had been several thousand Phantom Bodies attacking him together instead of just one, he would have had to... take things a little more seriously!
Chen Ao did not even move, yet Rong Jun's blades were firmly blocked before they could reach him.
So what if he knew no defensive Secret Techniques? He could simply use his Phantom Bodies to block.
He had over ten thousand Phantom Bodies. Even if Rong Jun killed them until he dropped dead from exhaustion, he would never finish them all.
Thus, Rong Jun could not break through the blockade of his Phantom Bodies at all.
"Sword God, draw your sword! Let me see just how strong you are!"
Rong Jun roared. He could accept dying, but he did not want to exhaust himself to death.
So he hoped Chen Ao would draw his sword and kill him. The stronger the move he used, the better.
Without wasting any effort, Chen Ao casually sliced Rong Jun in two.
Rong Jun's body shuddered, then collapsed limply.
"Rong Jun really is pretty strong. One of his Phantom Bodies can kill two of mine. By that logic, if he were five thousand times stronger, wouldn't I have to go all out?"
Of course, this was only the Virtual Universe. With his system bonuses and genes factored in, he was still hundreds of thousands of times stronger than Rong Jun in reality.
He wondered how strong Bolan, the strongest competitor, was.
The battle between first and third place in the World Zone had ended in such a farcical manner.
Those who had been waiting to watch the spectacle could not accept it.
"The gap's too big. That Sword God probably isn't human, is he?"
"Bullshit! If he weren't human, he couldn't have passed the Virtual Universe's verification!"
Names were like game IDs-you could enter whatever you wanted. But what the Virtual Universe verified was one's Life Aura.
"It's over. Thirty days of fighting!"
He had still quietly taken first place in Zone 88. He would not need to participate in the Arena Competition and could proceed straight to the Universe Finals.
"This should keep anyone from noticing me. Even if they do, they won't be able to find me!"
The higher-ups of the Virtual Universe could certainly find him, but why would such important figures care about him?
The strength he had displayed amounted to a hundred or so Phantom Bodies at most, far below Bolan.
Even Bolan had not attracted the higher-ups' attention beforehand. At most, news of him had circulated among a few Ordinary Immortals, let alone news of Chen Ao.
He waited quietly for the competition to end.
Everyone returned to the Virtual Universe.
Luo Feng and the other two soon found Chen Ao.
"Brother, how did you rank?" Lei was the first to speak.
Chen Ao fell silent for a moment before saying, "I barely qualified!"
Huh?
They were all a little surprised. Given Chen Ao's strength, that should not have been the case.
Still, Chen Ao had probably hidden his strength!
Yes, their guess was more or less right.
"Haha, then you did about as well as me! Big Brother and I both qualified with rankings in the nine hundreds!" Lei continued.
"Brother, let me tell you-I ran into Savage, the third-ranked guy in our zone. He was ridiculously strong. I couldn't block even one strike, but I got lucky. Hehe, Sword God, the guy in first place, saved me!"
Chen Ao, Luo Feng, and Hong listened quietly as Lei recounted his legendary experience.
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