Arc 8Chapters 176–200
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
Ye Lin discovered that his psychokinesis could lift him into the sky by carrying him on metal, revealing flight as its true use. His newfound speed led him to reconsider how he had been using Blood Shadow Impact.
Ye Lin tested ways to split Blood Shadow Impact into separate attacks, discovering that he could launch blood at a distance but struggled to control how much of his body the ability consumed. He then used psychokinesis to divide the blood mist into three streams, whose colliding shock waves produced a massive explosion across the city.
Ye Lin tested ways to use Blood Shadow Impact in the simulation space, repeatedly dying while refining three combat techniques. After his companions stopped him from pushing himself further, the group waited nervously for the fourth examination prompt, which began to appear in red light.
The group learned their fourth examination would be a team battle set during a celestial crisis, and debated what the scenario and their first-place ranking meant. Just as He Zheng invited Li Tianyang to join them, a new system notification stunned everyone.
He Zheng, An Ke, Huang Liang, and Ye Lin tried to explain why the system reported Li Tianyang had entered an Examination early. Ye Lin proposed that Li Tianyang might never have returned from the previous Examination, leaving the group unsure what had happened to him.
With Li Tianyang’s whereabouts still uncertain, Ye Lin weighed his Grade A Tyrant Gene options ahead of the team battle. After his teammates offered to cover his weaknesses, he chose to exchange for abilities instead and planned to upgrade his bloodline after the next round.
Ye Lin chose Deathmatch and Bladebreaker as enhancements, then discussed An Ke’s request to retrieve a letter from a dangerous examination instance. He planned to wait until he reached Grade A before entering, but He Zheng interrupted them and pulled Ye Lin to a meal and a surprise.
After surviving another round, Ye Lin and his teammates gathered for a meal and discussed their new abilities and equipment. An Ke revealed a two-use Position-Swap Command that could exchange her location with a teammate, leaving Ye Lin surprised and He Zheng curious about how she had afforded it.
The team strengthened its abilities and celebrated Ye Lin's birthday, but he realized the celebration might be an illusion created by the missing Three-Soul Ghost. The chapter left Ye Lin facing the ghost's apparent return.
Ye Lin doubted whether he and the others had escaped an illusion, so he used a mathematical calculation to verify that the system was real. After confirming it, he confronted He Zheng about the Candle, and the others reacted with horror at Ye Lin.
Ye Lin realized the white candle was visible only to him because he had brought the Sacrificial Ritual dagger out of the Examination. After Zhang Tie disconnected and a special scenario unlocked, the candle and the dagger’s warning vanished, leaving the group in the Death Exam Hall with the danger unresolved.
Ye Lin and his teammates discussed the Dagger’s unexplained effects, then set aside their questions to prepare for the next team battle. He Zheng, An Ke, and Huang Liang gave Ye Lin armor for his birthday, leaving him to reconsider the value of having teammates.
Ye Lin and his teammates waited for the Fourth Examination after strengthening themselves, but the Leaderboard and system warnings revealed that powerful teams were hunting highly rated examinees. As the difficulty surged to S-Rank, the four were transported into the examination, facing an unknown threat.
Ye Lin and his team woke inside an abandoned underground shelter after entering a Team Battle Examination and reasoned that rival teams were targeting highly rated groups. They concluded their pursuers were likely weaker and that the Examination had given them a favorable starting point, but a premature system notification interrupted An Ke before she could finish assessing their chances.
Ye Lin and his squad began an S-Rank team-battle examination, learning that enemy squads would arrive later and that they could return by killing an enemy examinee. After fleeing a system marker, they emerged into a frozen wasteland beneath a sun almost entirely obscured by a black mass.
Ye Lin and his team headed for the city, planning to solve the question and gather points while evading the three teams tracking them. They encountered a nonhuman squad in the ruins, which turned toward them and shrieked.
Ye Lin and his team fought a group of Red Star Goblins, discovering that the enemies were much weaker than they appeared and earned them kill points. After the surviving goblins fled, Ye Lin caught the Purple Goblin while his teammates pursued the others.
Ye Lin interrogated Aroro, a purple goblin who understood human speech, about the goblins and a powerful team. Aroro revealed that Hera knew Ye Lin was searching for her and had warned him to run for his life.
Ye Lin questioned Aroro about Hera after deducing how the goblin had identified the Soul Peace Team. Aroro described Hera’s efforts to unite the factions and revealed that she and her teammates had suddenly died, leaving Hera’s final warning for Ye Lin.
Ye Lin explained why Hera entrusted her last words to Aroro and inferred that she had given him a valuable spatial item in exchange for delivering them. The group remained uncertain whether Aroro had conveyed Hera’s words accurately or why she had left no clues to solving the question.
Ye Lin explained how Hera had left a warning about the roamer, and An Ke reasoned that Hera had died because her kindness kept her from eliminating potential threats. With the team facing the roamer, the Echo Demon, and powerful enemy factions, Ye Lin turned to an unexpected plan for questioning Aroro.
Ye Lin reasoned that Hera may have run out of time rather than failed to find clues, and that the exam’s real difficulty lay in the teams competing to escape. He suspected Aroro’s hidden possessions were connected to a goblin solution for leaving, and the chapter ended with his companions realizing the goblins might know how to solve the question.
Ye Lin persuaded Aroro to work for him in exchange for a promise of points, and Aroro revealed that Goblins could transfer points to people in the real world. Huang Liang and the others learned that the transfer did not let anyone escape the Death Exam, but Aroro’s talent gave them a possible way to send information and technology outside.
Aroro explained that his people entered the Death Exam because their planet had been devastated and its survivors faced starvation. He told Ye Lin he needed points to feed his family and other goblins, then proudly revealed how much he had earned.
Ye Lin gave Aroro and the other Red Star Goblins a chance to survive by making them potential participants in the Examination’s reward, while preparing explosives as a fallback. As the group set out for the city, Aroro warned them that something was wrong there.