The Top Five

A pitch-black thread appeared on the distant horizon, moving so fast that the naked eye could not track it. Tian Yu, who was still hesitating over whether to turn and flee as well, saw only a streak of light flash past before sonic booms thundered across the sky.

At that moment, even the air was cleaved in two. Only terrifying sword aura lingered, preventing the sky from closing back up for a long time.

When Heavenly Insect unleashed that slash, Tian Que and the others, who were already fleeing, felt a bone-piercing chill approaching from behind. For a moment, Tian Que nearly suspected that Heavenly Insect had aimed his sword at them, intending to wipe them out!

Fortunately, his fears did not come true. Heavenly Insect's target was not them, but the Spirit King that had already been robbed of its mobility...

"Not good!"

In an instant, Tian Que understood the true purpose of that slash.

"That bastard was after the Spirit King Core from the very beginning!"

Having figured it out, Tian Que ground his teeth until they creaked. Especially when he recalled how Heavenly Insect had deliberately revealed the Six-Eyed Blade Mantis's strength to lull him into complacency, he wanted nothing more than to tear that bastard apart and feed him to his Tian Chuo Demon Spider.

But no amount of rage could change anything now. There was still an enraged Dragon Centipede Spirit King behind them. With their battered group having barely any spiritual energy left, they had no choice but to flee.

Tian Que raised his head toward the sword aura, already praying that the Spirit King could withstand the attack.

Unfortunately, the black streak formed from sword aura condensed to its absolute limit had already struck the Spirit King's hard body-and passed straight through.

Under everyone's shocked gazes, the distant mountain peaks behind the Spirit King split apart, their severed surfaces as smooth as mirrors...

Rumble!

Like those mountains, the Spirit King's massive body suddenly split cleanly in two. The halves crashed down to either side, gouging two enormous twin lakes into the ground.

Unlike the Spirit Soldiers and Spirit Generals, the Spirit King's bisected body did not immediately dissipate. Instead, a dazzling point of light gathered at its center.

Under the influence of a mysterious force, its vast body, formed entirely from spiritual energy, rapidly converged on that point of light. Eventually, even Heavenly Insect could no longer look directly at its radiance.

Soon, the light vanished, leaving an enormous seven-colored spirit core in its place...

The sight reddened Tian Que's eyes with envy. His throat bobbed, and he fiercely gritted his teeth... then suddenly shot away, disappearing into the horizon.

"Pretty decisive!" Heavenly Insect narrowed his eyes at the sight, sighing inwardly.

But when he turned and saw Tian Yu standing there in a daze, his eyes widened, and he roared, "Run! Are you waiting there to die?"

Before his words had even faded, Heavenly Insect had already reached the Spirit King Core and placed it inside his Spirit Token without hesitation.

After that earlier exchange, Heavenly Insect knew perfectly well how powerful the rampaging Dragon Centipede Spirit King behind him was. That slash had consumed seventy percent of his spiritual energy. Even with his rapid recovery and Golden Cicada's help, he could not unleash such attacks consecutively.

Heavenly Insect's shout snapped Tian Yu back to her senses, and she joined the fleeing group.

The Dragon Centipede Spirit King did not pursue them relentlessly. It soon stopped, then swiftly burrowed underground and vanished... because three more powerful auras were rapidly approaching from the direction Heavenly Insect and the others were fleeing toward...

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the sight. But once the danger had passed, their attention immediately shifted to that Spirit King Core.

Unfortunately, Heavenly Insect had already slipped away with Tian Yu at some point. Otherwise, once all those teams converged, the spirit core in his possession would have been in danger!

"That slippery brat,

"He certainly runs fast!" Tian Que said bitterly. "Brother Que, what should we do next?" a deathly pale youth could not help asking.

Their team had expended an enormous amount this time. Many of their reserve Heaven-grade Spirit Insects had also been exhausted in the successive battles. Their losses were severe.

"Go. We have to avoid those three teams too, or I really will be in trouble this time..."

In their current condition, if anyone else seized the opportunity, they certainly would not pass up spirit cores placed so easily within reach.

Though none of them could accept it, circumstances were stronger than they were. They could only choose to retreat.

Naturally, they charged this debt to Heavenly Insect's account.

Only Tian Que could still maintain his composure. Although he wanted nothing more than to kill Heavenly Insect, what he felt even more strongly was a deep wariness of him.

After all, someone who had kept his abilities completely hidden before the contest, someone they had never even heard of, had turned out to possess such formidable strength and cunning. He might well be the biggest dark horse of this elimination round!

After escaping everyone's notice, Heavenly Insect and Tian Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Tian Yu sidled up to him excitedly and said with a grin, "Hehe, who would've thought? Tian Que fought for so long and nearly exhausted all his trump cards, only for you to walk away with the Spirit King Core!"

"Aren't you afraid he'll come after you with his life on the line afterward?"

Heavenly Insect glanced at her and said coolly, "He was the one who chose to abandon it first. What's wrong with me taking it now?"

"Tch! Tell that to Tian Que and see whether he'll listen!"

"I don't need him to listen..." Heavenly Insect turned slightly, looking ahead. "All right, this is over. It's time we went our separate ways."

"Huh? You're abandoning me?"

Tian Yu immediately put on the pitiful expression of a little beast about to be abandoned.

"Aren't we good partners? Look, we worked together this time, and you even got a Spirit King Core out of it. You're tearing down the bridge after crossing the river!"

"I didn't see any partner. All I saw was a burden..." Heavenly Insect told her bluntly, his expression serious.

Still, Tian Yu was not entirely useless. Without her, he would never have found that gathering point, much less obtained the Spirit King Core...

"Give me your Spirit Token..."

After thinking it over, Heavenly Insect finally spoke.

"What for?" Tian Yu was still fuming at being called a burden, but after hearing his words, she took out her Spirit Token with a puzzled look.

The spirit cores in her token did not even amount to a fraction of his, anyway, so she was not worried in the slightest that Heavenly Insect might be after them.

Heavenly Insect took the girl's Spirit Token and brushed it against his own. Instantly, the number on his token decreased by one thousand, while Tian Yu's number, which had only just reached four digits, doubled outright.

"Those thousand spirit cores are your payment. From now on, neither of us owes the other anything!"

With that, Heavenly Insect transformed into a streak of sword light and vanished.

Tian Yu looked at the Spirit Token in her hand, then in the direction Heavenly Insect had disappeared. She blinked, and a smile curved her delicate lips. Whatever she muttered inwardly at his departing back remained unknown. Then she, too, vanished in an instant.

After fully recovering, Heavenly Insect resumed his hunt.

Unfortunately, he never encountered another enormous gathering point of spiritual entities like the previous one, which greatly reduced his hunting efficiency.

Even so, thanks to the Spirit King Core, the number on Heavenly Insect's Spirit Token had now reached a terrifying eighteen thousand and more.

He did not know how the others had fared, but judging by how difficult it had been for him to obtain spirit cores, there should not be more than ten people ahead of him!

"I just don't know whether this score will get me into the top five..." Heavenly Insect still felt somewhat uneasy.

But even if he wanted to hunt more Spirit Soldiers, he could no longer do so. The elimination round had ended...

An enormous plaza stood at the center of the Flowing Moon Realm. The first thing contestants saw upon entering it was a gigantic stone stele a hundred zhang tall.

The stele had four faces and radiated exceptionally powerful spiritual energy fluctuations. Names were displayed upon it, beginning at the very top.

This was the Spirit Ranking Stele recording the elimination round's rankings. Its aura was linked to the contestants' Spirit Tokens, and the values on every contestant's token were displayed here, arranged from highest to lowest.

Since the Flowing Moon Realm was inherently unsuitable for living beings to remain in for long periods, the plaza was empty at that moment. Naturally, there was no one to see the rankings.

As the end of the contest drew near, however, people gradually began appearing in the plaza. They immediately started searching the Spirit Ranking Stele for their names...

Of the hundred and seventy-two contestants, only sixteen could pass the elimination round. Such an extraordinarily high elimination rate doomed more than ninety percent of them to return in disappointment.

Everyone understood that, but without seeing it with their own eyes, few would willingly accept it.

Once they discovered they could no longer qualify, their gazes began turning toward those at the top of the rankings.

Everyone knew that the top five in the elimination round would directly receive places in the Insect World, so they all wanted to know who those five lucky people were.

"Hmph, do we even need to look? It'll obviously be those five Sovereigns... Why are there five places available in advance? Clearly, the clan already reserved them for those five!"

Quite a few young people deeply resented this.

"Heh, if a dark horse showed up in this elimination round and knocked one of them out of the top five, do you think the clan's big shots would feel like they'd been slapped in the face?"

After speaking, the young man suddenly noticed his companion staring upward, utterly dumbfounded. For a moment, he could not understand what was happening.

"Hey, you brat, what are you looking..."

Following his companion's gaze, the young man finally discovered what he was looking at. But the instant he saw it, his voice stopped as though someone had clamped a hand around his throat.

"Eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty! Where did this Heavenly Insect guy spring from? He actually got such a high score! Just how many Spirit Soldiers did he kill?"

At last, the young man shouted what was on his mind.

His shout drew even more people's attention to the sight.

Even more unbelievable was that this nobody named Heavenly Insect had taken fourth place outright with that terrifying score!

The words "Body Tribulation" beneath his name, indicating his cultivation level, seemed painfully glaring to everyone...

Of the hundred and seventy-two contestants, he was probably the only one at the Body Tribulation stage, wasn't he?

"Am I seeing things? Someone who's only at the Body Tribulation stage made it into the top five? Is this Spirit Ranking Stele broken?"

Everyone nodded. That seemed to be the only explanation for what they were seeing.

Just then, a timid voice suddenly spoke up. "What if it's real...?"

In an instant, the boy who had been standing in a corner became the focus of everyone's attention. Their burning gazes nearly frightened him into wetting himself.

His companion was startled too. He hurriedly clapped a hand over the boy's mouth and repeatedly apologized to everyone.

Only after everyone finally looked away did his companion curse in exasperation, "Are you stupid?"

"If this is real, it proves that all of us at the Spiritual Energy Tribulation or even Divine Soul Tribulation stage are trash! Idiots! Understand?"

Everyone: "..."

They decided not to argue with those two fools. By now, they were completely absorbed in the rankings on the stele, especially after noticing that fourth-place Heavenly Insect did not have more points than the person in fifth. In fact, he had slightly fewer...

The score listed beside fifth place had actually reached nineteen thousand... This puzzled everyone and made them even more certain that the stele was broken.

Of course, this was merely a minor interlude.

These people had all studied the elimination round's rules. The only possible explanation for this situation was that the fellow named Heavenly Insect had stumbled into some absurd stroke of luck and obtained a Spirit King Core!

At that moment, first place on the Spirit Ranking Stele belonged, unsurprisingly, to Tian Wu, hailed as the Twelve Branches' greatest genius. His score was terrifying as well, exceeding thirty thousand!

That was over ten thousand points more than fourth-place Heavenly Insect, yet it caused no stir in anyone's heart. At most, they marveled at Tian Wu's strength.

Second and third place belonged to Tian Cong, who possessed the Giant-Vein Dragonfly, and Tian Qin, who possessed the Windfeather Heavenly Cicada...

Those two were evenly matched in strength and age. Among the Twelve Branches' younger generation, they acknowledged no one except Tian Wu, the undisputed strongest.

Originally, there had been another such person: Tian Huo, whose father was an elder. Everyone had assumed that, aside from first place, Tian Huo and those other two would firmly occupy the remaining three positions in the top four. Their exact order would depend on their own performance.

No one had expected Tian Huo to be pushed all the way down to fifth in the end!

With that, the elimination round's rankings were settled. The top five who would directly receive places were Tian Wu, Tian Cong, Tian Qin, Heavenly Insect, and Tian Huo.

As for the unnamed contestant originally expected to take fifth place, he could only compete with the others for the final five places.

Although his Sovereign-level strength would make passing the round-robin stage effortless, he had lost every shred of face...