"As expected of the True Intent of the Martial Dao, it took a full ten thousand Slaughter Points to barely achieve minor success."
Su Yu stepped over the bronze threshold.
The trajectory of that pure black longsword cleaving through his sea of consciousness replayed wildly in his mind.
"The power wielded by the Mystic Realm martial artist has an absurdly high threshold. Without this brute-force method to overcome it, one might sit here until old age and still not comprehend even a fraction of it."
The tenth level has no demons, half-demons, or remnants of the Demon Suppression Envoy's soul. Like the ninth level, this level also tests one's comprehension.
Su Yu's gaze swept across the room, finally settling on a table where a yellowed animal hide scroll lay flat.
Su Yu approached to examine it; there were no words on the scroll, only a few messy, blood-red lines.
Each intersecting line carries an extreme sense of tearing apart the world.
This is an incomplete sword technique; the later stages have been forcibly erased, leaving only the first few moves.
[Ding! Incomplete Heaven Realm Martial Art Detected: Demon Suppression World-Annihilating Slash ]
[Should I consume Slaughter Points to perform data collection and deduction?]
The system notification sounded precisely on time.
Without any hesitation, Su Yu nodded.
"Yes!"
The 20,000 Slaughter Points were instantly wiped out.
Su Yu's sea of consciousness was subjected to an unprecedentedly violent crushing force, with countless afterimages of sword swings overlapping and slashing in his mind.
The countless deduced trajectories of death due to disordered meridians and body explosion were forcibly crushed and eliminated by the system's immense power.
The only feasible and most powerful route for the circulation of Spiritual Qi was deeply imprinted in his mind.
The tattered animal hide on the bronze table, with its blood-red lines, automatically extended and reassembled in Su Yu's vision.
[Deduction complete!]
[Due to severe deficiencies in the original version, the host's current cultivation level is limited. The version has been completed and refined up to the first form: Demon-Suppressing Slash.]
[Martial Arts Grade Determination: Earth Realm Top Grade.]
[Current level of understanding: Not yet a beginner.]
Su Yu's body suddenly tensed up.
He merely traced the power path of this Demon-Suppressing Slash within his sea of consciousness.
A series of tearing, swollen, and stinging pains came from the main meridians throughout the body.
With a physical body approaching the pinnacle of the Spirit Realm, coupled with Qi Refinement cultivation at the Spirit Realm Third Level, he didn't even qualify for the entry-level standard of this martial art.
The minimum requirements for top-tier killing moves in the Earth Realm are ridiculously high.
Two thousand Slaughter Points were exchanged for a trump card that cannot yet be fully realized.
On the right side of the bronze low table was a square inkstone, its interior filled with dried, blackened bloodstains.
To clear the tenth floor, you need to leave traces of breaking the deadlock; this is the underlying logic of the Demon Suppression Tower's core formation.
Su Yu raised his right hand and pulled hard on the broken fragments of the black-gold longsword with the pad of his index finger.
Crimson blood gushed out.
There is no pen.
Using his fingers as a pen, he violently poured spiritual power and Sha Qi into his fingertips.
In the blank space behind the animal hide scroll, he forcibly carved out the trajectory of Spiritual Qi circulation and the key to exerting force for the first move of the Demon-Suppressing Slash.
The words written in blood were deeply etched into the wood.
Dark, demonic energy weaved between the strokes of the brush, until the final stroke was completed.
The finger bones, unable to withstand the backlash from the ultimate martial arts technique, emitted a slight cracking sound.
At the same time, an extremely dense white array of light descended from the top of the ceiling.
Su Yu's figure was swallowed by the white light and disappeared completely from the tenth floor.
Thousands of miles away.
In the capital of the Great Qin Dynasty, on the ninth underground level of the Demon Suppression Tower, a massive bronze array plate covered a space spanning hundreds of feet.
A man dressed in a dark black robe with gold trim sat cross-legged in the very center of the formation.
He Zhanfeng, Commander-in-Chief of the Capital Region.
Suddenly, one of the outermost nodes of the bronze array plate burst forth with a blinding red light.
Three small characters float above the node: Tiannan Commandery.
He Zhanfeng pointed two fingers together at the node, and a phantom projection image unfolded in mid-air.
In the scene, a young warrior clad in dark, tattered armor is using his finger as a brush to write bloody words on a scroll made of animal hide.
He Zhanfeng stared at the blood-red words, his pupils suddenly shrinking.
The bronze array plate beneath him creaked and exploded under the strain.
[ Demon Suppression World-Annihilating Slash ]
This Heaven Realm martial art, left behind by the founder of the Demon Suppression Bureau Division, has been incomplete for three hundred years.
Even the most brilliant minds throughout history, who have devoted their entire lives to the capital's command, could only scrape together a few scraps from the remaining fragments.
This Demon Suppression Guard from the remote Tiannan Commandery actually managed to complete the entire trajectory of the first move.
The path of cultivation is domineering and flawless.
He Zhanfeng stretched out his finger and traced the blood-red characters twice.
The fingertip had just traced half an arc.
The Sha Qi in the central control room suddenly surged, converging entirely towards his fingertips, and Saber Force heavy enough to crush black iron appeared out of thin air.
He clenched his fist and forcefully crushed the nascent Saber Force.
A look of shock flashed across his face.
He Zhanfeng quickly swept his hand across the array plate, retrieving a complete record of his clearing the first nine levels of the Demon Suppression Tower in Tiannan Commandery.
The fourth level is the ultimate movement technique to dismantle battle formations.
On the fifth level, one cultivates essence, energy, and spirit simultaneously, transcending five levels to slay the remnant soul of a sword cultivator.
On the eighth level, he practiced sword techniques in battle and cleaved the half-demon Jiao Wang in two with a single strike.
He Zhanfeng gripped the edge of the bronze array plate tightly with both hands. The Great Qin had not seen such a prodigy with extraordinary talent for hundreds of years.
He Zhanfeng fell into deep thought. The powerful clans and aristocratic families had connections that extended to the highest levels, and they were secretly raising demons to nibble away at the prefectures and counties.
If an absolute prodigy who isn't even at the Mystic Realm were to be exposed, it would inevitably attract the relentless assassination attempts of powerful families, regardless of the cost.
He Zhanfeng interlaced his fingers, and several mysterious spiritual energy runes shot out from his fingertips, directly entering the nodes of the bronze array plate representing Tiannan Commandery.
"Override highest privilege commands."
"Tampering with the imaging matrix of the external stone tablet of the Demon Suppression Tower Tiannan Commandery County."
"Erase Su Yu's path through the tenth level."
Final rating locked in: Prodigy.
The moment the command was given, the projected image in mid-air shattered.
The blood-written trace of the " Demon Suppression " technique was extracted separately and sealed into a top-secret jade slip.
Tiannan Commandery Demon Suppression Bureau Square.
The light on the surface of the black iron stone tablet, which was tens of feet tall, distorted violently. The scarlet light spot that had already broken through the boundary of the ninth layer flickered twice and then suddenly fell downwards.
Finally, it came to a steady stop at the very top of the ninth floor, and stopped moving.
This signifies passing the ninth level but stopping at the threshold of the tenth level.
The long table that Commandant Hu had kicked over was still lying on the ground, and he let out a heavy sigh.
"I've reached the tenth floor."
"If he really manages to break through the tenth floor, the commander-in-chief might send down some special envoy to snatch him away."
Commandant Lin tried to suppress his excitement, but his voice still trembled slightly.
"Clearing the ninth level is already the only monstrous achievement rating Tiannan Commandery has achieved in hundreds of years, that's enough!"
Only Lu Cang's face showed a thoughtful expression.
He stared at the steadily burning spot of light on the stone tablet, remaining absolutely silent.
The explosion of energy inside the Demon Suppression Tower, the Saber Intent that shattered the array patterns, was definitely not something that someone who only reached the ninth floor could create.
Just then, a loud tremor came from the center of the square.
A white light appeared.
Su Yu's body crashed onto the bluestone slab.
The Demonic Baleful Intent Vajra Armor had been removed, leaving only a tattered black undergarment.
The body was covered with over eighty scabbed blood grooves, a shocking sight. The black and gold longsword was reduced to a bare hilt hanging at his waist.
He stood ramrod straight.
The blood and qi flowed through the body like heavy mercury, making a gurgling sound.
Although his spiritual power was exhausted at the Fourth-Tier Spirit Refining Realm, he still kept a firm grip on all approaching auras.
The eliminated warriors all had their eyes gleaming, and not one dared to look directly at the monster that had emerged from the tower.
Lu Cang took a step forward.
The violent pressure of the Mystic Realm Ninth Level formed an invisible wall, blocking all sight in the surrounding area.
Lu Cang casually tossed out a black token engraved with intricate array patterns.
Su Yu raised his hand and caught it. The front of the token was engraved with the words "Demon" in a flamboyant style, while the back was a mask pattern without any facial features.
" Shadow Guard, Prodigy Rating."
Then a voice transmission sounded in Su Yu's mind.
"Go back first, come see me tonight!"
Su Yu flipped his wrist and put the token into his pocket.
After nodding, he immediately left the square.
Conquering ten levels in a row took a heavy toll on him.
Just as Su Yu turned around, a disheveled figure was teleported out of the Demon Suppression Tower.
Wearing a tattered purple martial arts robe, with a tall and slender figure, and clutching a cyan longsword tightly in her hand, it was none other than Cao Yue.
As he looked up, his gaze fell upon that tall, straight back.
"I wonder how many levels he passed?"
" Cao Yue, peerless rating!"
The next moment, Lu Cang's powerful voice rang out in the arena.
Now the selection trials for the Shadow Guard have come to a complete end.
Ten people were rated as prodigies, three as geniuses, one as unparalleled, and one as monsters.