Chapter 1232 – Brutal Competition
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“Lin Ming!”
“Lin Ming!”
“Lin Ming!”
These loud and clarion cries echoed through the clouds!
The disciples of the Ancient Phoenix Clan cried out with all of their strength. How could they not be excited!
In the Divine Realm, strength was everything.
With strength, one would be respected, whether it was an individual or a sect.
The weak could only bow their heads to others. Tens of thousands of years ago, the Ancient Phoenix Clan had to marry their little princess off to the Crimson Light Holy Lands. This was because the Crimson Light Holy Lands was a Great World King level influence and their Ancient Phoenix Clan was only a peak Holy Land.
And now, the geniuses of the Crimson Light Holy Lands had all been overshadowed by Lin Ming!
The disciples of the Ancient Phoenix Clan were all proud and ecstatic with joy!
This moment was the glory of their Ancient Phoenix Clan!
“Good! Shout louder! Shout harder! Shout until your shouts cover everyone else! You damned brat, it’s time for you to show off!”
Huo Violentstone didn’t seem like a respected elder at all. His face was flushed red as he shouted from the audience, his hands slapping his thighs. With the several billion people in the audience, there were more than just those calling out Lin Ming’s name. With all of the participants competing, their friends and relatives were also competing to see who could shout louder.
All of the audience members that were able to arrive at the semifinals were extraordinary geniuses of their generation. With each one flooding their voices with true essence, this was a truly terrifying scene! Even the mountains and rivers for hundreds of miles were shaking, massive boulders tumbling to the ground!
“This is really crazy, even I want to shout out.”
Fairy Feng laughed from beside Huo Violentstone.
By being present in the arena, it was easy to catch the excitement in the air. It was a completely different feeling from watching a battle array disc.
Even in the mortal worlds, when there were kickball competitions, even a small country could arouse crazy shouting, much less this First Martial Meeting that included the entire Divine Realm!
“Haha, if I knew this earlier I would have brought some louder disciples. They could fuse true essence into their voices until their shouts blasted through the entire audience!” Huo Violentstone laughed out loud, his face tomato red.
And not too far away, Mu Qianyu and Qin Xingxuan were tightly grasping their hands together.
At this time, the two women had extremely complex thoughts.
On one hand, they were proud and overjoyed for Lin Ming. On the Divine Seal Altar, that young man whose name was being shouted out loud by so many people was their husband.
But at the same time, because of Lin Ming’s rapid growth, they felt a restlessness in their hearts. They were too far away from him, nearly losing sight of his back.
“Our husband… he’s really fierce…”
Qin Xingxuan whispered in a low voice.
Mu Qianyu knew what Qin Xingxuan was thinking. She gently shook Qin Xingxuan’s hand, reassuring her. These two young women had spent all these years together and had also overcome many hardships together. Their thoughts and sentiments were interlinked, just like sisters.
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At this time, Lin Ming was already beginning to climb to the second step of the Divine Seal Altar.
Lin Ming discovered that although an Empyrean pressure covered the entirety of the Divine Seal Altar, the pressure was lowest at the base and increased as one climbed up.
This pressure fell onto them from above like an endless waterfall.
If one’s foundation was deep, they could sit down on the altar, taking a short break and restoring some origin energy before continuing to climb. Those that climbed up much faster would be able to slow down and restore some of their strength.
“The second level of the Divine Seal Altar… the stone walls here have faintly different Law traces than those of the first level… I wonder just what sort of different truths are contained within them…”
As the Empyrean pressure fell down from the Divine Seal Altar, Lin Ming wasn’t too affected. He was much more interested in observing the differences between the stone walls of every level.
The Divine Realm’s 33 Heavens had always been a myth. Not even Mo Eversnow knew if the 33 Heavens truly existed or not. But in ancient times, there was indeed some unrivalled powerhouse that had created the Divine Seal Altar, forging it into 33 levels that corresponded with the 33 Heavens. As Lin Ming thought of this, he also recalled that when he crossed Ninefall, he had experienced a nine by nine Life Destruction and crossed 33 Layered Heavens. From this, he could confirm that the 33 Heavens contained some sort of truth of the Great Dao. However, Lin Ming didn’t know just what that was right now.
“Maybe, on the Divine Seal Altar’s 33 levels of stone walls, the different traces of Laws on each level correspond to different rules of the 33 Heavens?” A thought suddenly flashed through Lin Ming’s mind. But, this sort of matter would likely only be known by an Empyrean or the artifact spirit of the Divine Seal Altar.
The Divine Seal Altar naturally had an artifact spirit. Any spirit artifact treasure had its own artifact spirit. Lin Ming’s Phoenix Blood Spear had an artifact spirit that hadn’t yet grown up, but as for an Empyrean spirit treasure, its artifact spirit was likely similar to some old and grizzled veteran.
For instance, the artifact spirit of the Ancient Elysium Seal had lived for 3.6 billion years. Its power, knowledge, and experience were hard to estimate.
“This artifact spirit should be watching the semifinals too. But, only someone that displays a heaven-defying talent will be able to grab its attention, otherwise it wouldn’t care at all.”
In climbing the Divine Seal Altar, Lin Ming didn’t feel any joy from his own extraordinary progress. Rather, he felt that there were more and more things that he didn’t understand.
Empyrean Divine Dream’s soul cultivation system, her exploration of Soul World, and even Empyrean Vast Universe’s 33 Heavens Divine Seal Altar were all important questions and objectives to Lin Ming.
“Anyone that can become an Empyrean is truly a marvelous and unique character. I still have a long road ahead of me!”
Lin Ming suddenly thought. The Empyreans of the Divine Realm had been accumulated over a period of 100 million years. Each of them had their own mystical and singular methods!
At this time, more and more participants began reaching the first step of the Divine Seal Altar. These crowds of geniuses were all characters that had managed to pass the preliminaries; they were simply packs of monstrous freaks. Even so, when facing the terrifying pressure of the Divine Seal Altar, none of them were able to withstand it and all of them were forced to slowly climb their way up.
“What a group of monstrous geniuses… compared to them… I am far too lacking!”
Yu Youming sighed from within the audience. As he looked at these people battle the spirit bodies, he could feel that if he compared their attainments in cultivation and comprehension of Laws to his own, the difference would be like the heavens and earth.
And facing their opponents on the first step, none of the participants lost. After a vigorous battle they would eventually defeat their opponent. The only difference between them was how fast they did so.
All of the participants began climbing up to the second level.
The second step of the Divine Seal Altar had an Empyrean pressure much stronger than that of the level before. Many people were finding it hard to withstand!
And at this time, the first group had already mounted the second level of the Divine Seal Altar and were beginning to battle the spirit bodies.
“Nether Limitless! Nether Limitless is again the first one to reach the second level of the Divine Seal Altar! He has begun to fight with the spirit body!”
The two twin girls shouted out.
And these words, in addition to the wild cheers from the audience, were also another form of pressure on the participants!
This was especially true to the participants of the last group. They had spent a great deal of effort and only just defeated the simulation spirit bodies on the first step when they heard that the leading participants had reached the second floor.
“That Nether Limitless and all those other people are soon about to reach the third level… how could they possibly be so fast!?” Some participants thought to themselves. After reaching the second level and feeling the pressure here, they realized that it was nearly an impossible task for them to withstand this pressure and still climb up the 100,000 feet.
But now some people had already completed it.
This was pressure!
All of them felt a great pressure. Of these participants, they all had extremely strong wills and steady mentalities. Even so, they found it difficult to remain composed under the gazes of the billions of audience members, the gazes of their friends and relatives and also the Elders of their sect that had been invited to watch. All of them invited all these people so that they could show off their own abilities, but if the result was that they were in last place out of all these hundreds of thousands of participants, how could they not feel pressure?
To be able to attend the semifinals was supposed to be a great honor to them all. But now, all they felt was shame and disgrace!
These martial artists grit their teeth and continued forth. But after climbing only a few thousand more feet, they had reached their limit.
“I can’t climb anymore… the pressure is becoming too great, my legs and hands feel like they are filled with lead… can that Nether Limitless really climb to the top of the Divine Seal Altar?”
“How could this be? From several hundred thousands of people, I am actually the worst out of all of them?”
A red-clothed martial artist thought to himself, finding it nearly impossible to continue resisting the pressure. His vision was blurred, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, and his fingers were already chafed red with blood, blood that stained the stone walls of the Divine Seal Altar red. But soon enough, the blood was washed away by the endless torrents of liquid heaven and earth origin energy.
“From my childhood to adulthood, I have always been the most outstanding existence of my sect. Even Master has said that I am the number one talent to appear in the last 10,000 years of the sect. In my sect, tens of thousands of junior-apprentice brothers take me as their shining role model and countless junior-apprentice sisters idolize me, all of them hoping to marry me, even willing to wait on me as a concubine. It is also because of me that they are able to obtain enough admission tickets to watch these semifinals. They all came in the hopes that they could see me create a miracle, but the result is that I will actually be the first one eliminated!
“Are these 300,000 people all stronger than me!? Is my so-called title as the greatest 10,000 year genius to appear in the sect nothing but a joke?
“How could this be possible!?
“I won’t accept this! I won’t believe this!”
The red-clothed martial artist cried out from within his heart. But at this time, the twin girls at the base of the Divine Seal Altar spoke out once more, their voices passing through an amplifying array formation and spreading out over the entire audience.
“Nether Limitless has defeated the simulation spirit body of the second step and has started to climb to the third level! Heavens, this is indeed a terrifying speed! Let us all cheer for him, and hope that he can continue fighting his way up to the very top!”
As the twin girls spoke out once more, their words caused the audience to surge in a frothing frenzy.
Even many people that weren’t from the Skydark Holy Lands began shouting out Nether Limitless’s name!
“Nether Limitless!”
“Nether Limitless!”
“Nether Limitless!”
Every syllable was like a steel weight smashing into the innermost feelings of the red-clothed martial artist. In comparison to Nether Limitless’s endless momentum and attention, he was finding it hard to continue any further.
In that moment, he wished with all of his heart that he would be the strongest powerhouse that would reach the summit. Even if he had to trade half his life for this glory, he was still willing to do so.
“Ahhh!”
The red-clothed martial artist cried out once more. His right hand was finally unable to withstand the tremendous pressure and he began to slide down from the stone walls. His hand left behind five long traces of blood and torn meat, and his miserable screams echoed throughout the 100,000 foot high cliff.
Just as the red-clothed martial artist was about to crash into the first step of the Divine Seal Altar, an invisible force caught him and shot him out.
In some dark space within the Divine Seal Altar, a gray-clothed old man surrounded in a dim haze shook his head. He was the one who had just rescued that red-clothed martial artist.
In this great competition that covered 100 great worlds, those that had once been called geniuses were no longer geniuses here. This was the brutality of everyone that walked down the road of martial arts.
And in the audience, in a certain area, a group of young girls had long been shivering with worry. There were even a few younger girls that felt their eyes turn wet as they heard the fading unwilling cries of that red-clothed martial artist.
The Elder Senior-apprentice Brother they respected from the depths of their hearts had been defeated like this.
Out of the 300,000 participants, he was the first one to be eliminated!