Atop a hundred-meter-tall building, a handsome man over two meters tall sat cross-legged on the rooftop with his eyes closed. His hair and eyebrows were red, and he wore fiery-red battle armor.
Scorching heat radiated from him, subtly warping the space within a hundred meters. The entire rooftop belonged to his domain.
He opened his eyes, and flames seemed to burn within them.
He looked ahead, where a streak of black light was rapidly approaching.
The streak stopped at the edge of the rooftop, revealing a young man with short black hair, dressed in black casual clothes and holding a longsword, his feet planted on the railing.
"A fighter like you couldn't possibly be unknown. Yet I've never seen or heard of you in this city. Did you come from another city?" Flames flickered in the red-haired man's eyes as he slowly stood and asked.
Yun He gave off no powerful aura whatsoever. He looked utterly ordinary, but that was precisely what put the red-haired man on high alert.
The red-haired man, Huo Yan, ranked among this city's ten strongest fighters. The number of people in the city who dared to challenge him could be counted on one hand.
Huo Yan sensed a faint hint of danger from the seemingly unremarkable young man with short black hair before him.
Yun He smiled and slowly drew his longsword. "No, I came from the wilderness."
Huo Yan frowned, a little angry. "Are you messing with me?"
"No. Whatever. Believe me or don't." Yun He tilted his head and shrugged. A second later, his gaze suddenly sharpened, and his longsword moved.
Hiss!
A transparent streak of sword light was reflected in Huo Yan's eyes.
Roar!
"Bring it on!"
Huo Yan roared and thrust out both fists, his fiery-red gloves blazing with crimson flames as they met the sword light. Even the surrounding air seemed to catch fire. The temperature soared, and cracks spread across the floor beneath his feet from the scorching heat.
Pfft!
Yet his fists never touched that transparent streak of sword light.
By the time his eyes registered the sword light and he tried to react, it was already too late.
Huo Yan remained frozen with both fists extended. A slender sword wound appeared on his forehead, and the light gradually faded from his eyes.
"What a fast sword!"
In the instant before the Virtual Universe transported his consciousness out, Huo Yan only had time to utter that exclamation.
With his fifth-level Flame Domain, he had hoped to shine in the Genius Battle. He had never expected to fail even the preliminary elimination tournament.
Clang!
Yun He sheathed his longsword.
He lowered his head to glance at the screen on his arm.
Participant: Yun He. (Black Dragon Mountain Empire) Points: 494244. Rank: 5127. World Zone: World Zone 66.
Huo Yan alone had given him over three hundred thousand points, instantly pushing his ranking into the five thousands.
Not bad.
Keep going!
Yun He looked in another direction, toward a target he had already picked out.
With a flicker of movement, he turned into a streak of black light and vanished.
"A fight seemed to break out over there just now! The whole rooftop was burning with crimson flames. Looks like someone challenged Huo Yan. They must be pretty strong? Huo Yan got serious!"
"Yeah, it only lasted an instant before everything went quiet. Looks like the fight's over. I wonder who won?" a green-haired man said, though his expression was teasing.
"What a stupid question. Huo Yan won, of course. He's one of the top ten fighters in our city, maybe even the top three!" another man said irritably.
"Haha, I was just hoping for a miracle." The green-haired man leaned against the railing, looking toward Huo Yan's building.
"Where would all those miracles come from? You think you can defeat a powerful fighter with a miracle? Then what's the point of cultivating?"
"Uh, someone seems to be coming this way..." The green-haired man noticed a streak of black light racing toward them from the rooftop of Huo Yan's building.
"No way..." Something seemed to occur to him, and his eyes filled with horror.
"Someone's coming? Did Huo Yan get angry at being disturbed again and come out to vent on someone? Wonder who's going to suffer this time. We'd better get out of the way..." The other man turned to look, only to see a streak of sword light hurtling toward him. Then he knew nothing more as his consciousness sank into darkness.
Hiss!
Yun He flashed through the air, casually sending out two streaks of sword light without even bothering to look.
Two corpses slowly toppled where they stood.
Two idiots, standing out in the open and chatting?
Asking to die!
Did they think my sword wasn't sharp enough?
As the soul was nourished by the laws, it grew increasingly powerful, and one's will and consciousness naturally improved along with it.
With Yun He's keen perception, he could vaguely sense the presence of anyone within a certain range, provided they had not completely suppressed their aura.
The contestants in these preliminaries all had different personalities.
Some kept a low profile, some flaunted themselves, some were bloodthirsty, and some were arrogant...
But those with some confidence in their strength generally would not suppress their aura completely.
It was an expression of their confidence in their own strength, as well as their pride as powerful fighters.
And those were exactly the people Yun He sought.
Only by killing them and taking half their points could he reap substantial rewards.
As his hunt continued, Yun He's ranking rose rapidly.
In a very short time, he soared from somewhere in the ninety thousands to the top thousand in his World Zone.
Once he had sent every expert he could sense in the entire city out of the competition...
His ranking had already climbed into the top two hundred of World Zone 66.
Participant: Yun He. (Black Dragon Mountain Empire) Points: 2852749. Rank: 185. World Zone: World Zone 66.
Standing atop a building, Yun He looked toward another city.
Almost three million points. Hunting through a few more cities should be enough, Yun He thought.
The higher the ranking, the greater the proportional gap in points.
The current first-place contestant in World Zone 66 had several million more points than the contestant in second place.
Unless someone was truly powerful, it would be difficult to catch up after falling so far behind.
After all, while you were searching for prey to kill, everyone else was doing the same. They would not simply stand still.
Outside.
The Black Dragon Mountain Empire.
The entire empire was in an uproar.
At first, Nabini had been the Black Dragon Mountain Empire's only contestant to enter the top 1,001 in his World Zone, ranking somewhere in the eight hundreds.
As Yun He and Luo Feng began making their push later on, both rose into the one hundreds in their respective World Zones.
Luo Feng had only begun his push ten days after the preliminaries started. By the twentieth day, he had reached 128th place in the First World Zone.
Yun He, meanwhile, had only begun his push on the twentieth day of the preliminaries. In a very short time, he had climbed from somewhere in the ninety thousands to the one eighties.
Hong was still hovering outside the top thousand.
Thunder God was even further behind, ranking somewhere in the two thousands.
Yun He's and Luo Feng's rise in this peak genius tournament sent countless people in the Black Dragon Mountain Empire wild with excitement.
In the universe, this sense of regional pride and imperial pride was extremely strong.
If a powerful fighter from their own empire achieved good results in such a grand event-held twice every ten thousand years, with numerous Universe Countries across the entire Human Territory participating-the whole empire would feel greatly honored. People from other star regions and countries would also see it in a new light.
"Yun He!"
"Luo Feng!"
"Nabini!"
On Black Dragon Mountain Island in the Virtual Universe, countless people shouted the three men's names.
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