Against the Gods

Chapter 1140 - An Oddball

“The area you are at right now, is the ‘main city’ of every battle zone, and also the absolute safe area. No profound beasts will appear or invade this place, and the profound strength of every person will also be confined to their bodies, rendering them unable to unleash any attacks on others.”

“Once you leave the main city area, it will be your battlefield.”

“The environment of the battlefield is extremely harsh. It will have extreme climatic conditions, there will be natural calamities everywhere, powerful profound beasts will show up, and there will also be even more fearsome opponents than profound beasts waiting for you. Every time you slay a profound beast, you will obtain a certain number of ‘soul orbs.’ The more powerful profound beast you slay, the more soul orbs you will obtain.”

“Slaying a Divine Soul Realm profound beast gives one to five soul orbs.”

“Slaying a Divine Tribulation Realm profound beast gives ten to thirty soul orbs.”

“Slaying a Divine Spirit Realm profound beast gives one to three hundred soul orbs.”

“If you cooperate with others to hunt a profound beast, then the soul orbs will be distributed among you in a ratio equal to the damage you dealt.”

“If you get killed, you won’t lose the qualification to continue participating in the battle, and will instead revive in the main city. At the same time, you will lose thirty percent of the soul orbs in your possession! If you were attacked and killed by another participant, then the soul orbs you lose will be obtained by them.”

The rules that the Voice of Eternal Heaven was announcing loudly could not only be very clearly heard by the participants of the battle, but also by the whole Eastern Divine Region. Simply hearing such special competition rules, which could only be realized by borrowing the help of the Eternal Heaven Pearl, was enough for everyone to smell a hint of the tragedy that was going to unfold on the battlefields.

It was quite evident that the result of the preliminary battle would be determined by the quantity of the soul orbs. These soul orbs could be obtained from profound beasts as well as from other profound practitioners. The higher level profound beast you killed, the more soul orbs you would obtain from it. But at the same time, the danger of doing so was even bigger. Once you died, although you wouldn’t lose the qualification to participation in the battle, and could even revive endlessly, you would have to face a harsh punishment…

Losing as much as thirty percent of the total soul orbs you had obtained!

If you were killed by another profound practitioner, then these thirty percent soul orbs would immediately be obtained by them.

In the initial stage of the competition, people would try hard to kill powerful profound beasts to gather soul orbs. But in the mid and late stages of the competition… they would undoubtedly consider killing other people to be a faster way to go about collecting soul orbs.

However, the rules of the competition were not really that simple.

“When you kill another profound practitioner, it is only the first time that you will be able to obtain their lost soul orbs. After that, you will only be able to make them lose their soul orbs by killing them, and it will be impossible for you to obtain any of them.”

“The main city is also not an absolutely safe place. Every time the total duration of your stay in the main city adds up to an hour, you will lose ten percent of your soul orbs. If you want to be ranked higher than others, you must constantly face the brutal challenge.”

In the battlefield, a person could only plunder soul orbs from any one profound practitioner the first time. Afterwards, no matter how many times the latter was killed, it would only cause them the loss of soul orbs, and the former would not be able to rob any of them. Such a rule was clearly set up for the sake of maintaining balance in the competition, as well as to prevent the ambitious ones from “cheating.” Moreover, making it so that stopping over in the safe area would lead to a loss of soul orbs over time, further increased the harshness of the battlefield. Now it became wishful thinking to return to the main city in order to take refuge after gathering enough soul orbs.

“In the battlefield of the preliminary round, all the things that you are carrying on you will be completely projected. Also, there is no restriction in the use of profound weapons, extraordinary treasures, or profound formations. Furthermore, there is no restriction to the methods you can employ to achieve your goals.”

“The first round of the preliminaries will continue for a month. After that period, your rank will be determined according to the soul orbs in your possession. The participating profound practitioners can, at any time, find out their own number of soul orbs and rank, in their minds, as well as that of others. Every great star realm can also look for the amount of soul orbs a profound practitioner has and their rank at any time through the Eternal Heaven Projection.”

BOOM BOOM BOOM——

At this instant, the firmament seemed to have begun vibrating. The Voice of Eternal Heaven became even heavier and dis. “The time has come! I hereby officially announce the start of the first preliminary round of the Profound God Convention!”

“Young experts of the Eastern Divine Region, rush to the battlefield that only belongs to you!”

BOOM——

In the mysterious internal world of the Eternal Heaven Pearl, muffled thunderous sounds issued simultaneously from a thousand different battlefields. The barriers enveloping all big “main cities” and separating them with the battlefields, also disintegrated at the same time.

Immediately, low and deep roars could be heard coming from the distance, and mysterious and dangerous auras surged from all directions, stimulating the blood and nerves of each and every participant. The brief calm also shattered completely at this moment…

It was because every person around them was about to become their opponent… It was kill or be killed, rob or be robbed!

There were over fifty thousand profound practitioners on each battlefield, and in the end, there would only be ten people left standing!

It wasn’t possible to fight inside the main city, and at this stage of the competition, it would also be the most unsuitable time to attack or rob other profound practitioners. Following the disintegration of the barrier, all the tense profound practitioners soared up into the sky. They transformed into streaks of lightning and hurriedly rushed to the unknown and dangerous world outside the main city.

Finally, at this moment, the curtain raised on this extraordinary session of the Profound God Convention, which had attracted the attention of all in the Eastern Divine Region.

The battlefields of the preliminaries had been set ablaze. From above the vast sky of the Eastern Divine Region, countless star lights sprinkled on various star realms. When they came into contact with the ground of the star realm, they assembled together to form a small and exquisite profound formation. As the profound formation rotated, tablets of light over three meters tall, shot out of it one after another, and emitted a starry illumination.

It was the star tablet that was distributed to every place in the Eastern Divine Region by the combined efforts of the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm and the Star God Realm. The tablet would continue to exist until the end of the Profound God Convention.

The star tablet was linked with the aura of the Eternal Heaven Pearl, and could also reflect the projections from the Eternal Heaven Pearl. Therefore, so long as a person had their thoughts enter it, they could learn the ranking list of the Profound God Convention whenever they wanted to. It was said that in the late stage of the competition, it would even be possible to directly see a live image of the competition site through the reflection of star tablet.

It hadn’t been long since the appearance of the star tablet, but a large number of profound practitioners had come over to them after getting the information related to them. There were even many realm kings and sect masters among them. It was the first day of the first round of the preliminaries, and they had already grown too impatient to wait any longer.

In the battlefield where Yun Che was located, there were human figures flying away in all directions. Given the harshness and fierceness of the competition, even a delay of a second could result in a drop in ranking. But, there were also a few people who didn’t show any hurry in heading to the battlefield. Instead, they remained quietly standing far away.

As almost all the profound practitioners rushed to the battlefield in succession, the few human figures that still stayed behind in the main city became particularly conspicuous at this time.

One of them was, none other than Yun Che

“Hah, I thought that I’d feel some nervousness and excitement participating in such a competition, but it turned out to be a gathering of just a bunch of worthless things. It seems like I was really expecting too much from this Profound God Convention.”

An incomparably arrogant and disdainful voice resounded from behind Yun Che all of a sudden.

Yun Che turned around to look at a man in golden clothes, who was standing less than hundred steps away. His shining golden clothes made others take notice of him, even if they didn’t want to.

There were extremely few people that Yun Che recognized in the God Realm. As such, it would be extremely difficult to meet someone he recognized in the battlefield. But quite surprisingly, Yun Che actually knew this person.

He was from the Divine Martial Realm—Wu Guike!!

Seriously, how could there be such a coincidence?—Yun Che thought in his heart. He met him three days ago, and now they were even assigned to the same battlefield.

They were simply fated to come across each other!

Though the other party had no idea of his identity.

Unlike the dignified and oppressive look Yun Che had seen on his face last time, he had a deep arrogant expression right now. All those who could enter the first round of the preliminaries were genius profound practitioners of the many star realms in the Eastern Divine Region, but it seemed as if he was completely unconcerned about them.

His each and every word just now was also full of scorn from someone looking down upon others.

Yun Che recalled what Huo Poyun had told to him. The profound strength of Wu Guike was even beyond that of Huo Poyun! Considering his great strength, perhaps there was truly no one in this battlefield who would have an even higher cultivation.

Therefore, he absolutely had the qualification to say such words.

With a light snort, Wu Guike finally lifted his leg and walked to the outside of the city at an unhurried pace. He looked so carefree, as if he was going for a stroll.

Given his strength, it was natural that he could easily perceive Yun Che’s existence. However, he didn’t even glance in his direction.

“Having to continuously fight for a month, being unable to even take a rest or idle around in between, and all the profound beasts and people are enemies… This is quite a harsh competition, huh.”

Yun Che talked to himself while looking around. Then, he found a quiet corner to sit down, and closed his eyes as he pondered.

Although the rules of the competition were different from his expectations, they were actually convenient for him. He could just stay inside the safe main city, and wouldn’t even have to fight with others.

When he was eliminated after the end of the first round of the preliminaries in a month, he could naturally stay in the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm. Afterwards, he would think of all sorts of ways to find an opportunity to meet Jasmine.

Even though one of the reasons for which Mu Xuanyin had him participate in the Profound God Convention and not simply made him follow Mu Bingyun into the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm as an invited audience member, was to temper himself borrowing such an incomparably rare opportunity.

But when he arrived at this place, there was only Jasmine on his mind. He wasn’t in the mood to “temper himself.”

Moreover, if he knew that the first round of the preliminaries was going to continue for so long, he might have chosen to go against the order of his master, and directly entered the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm along with Mu Bingyun.

It had been a long while since he had sat down, but there was still silence around him, and no one had been sent back to the main city due to dying on the battlefield. It was understandable as in the early stage of the competition, people would be mainly focusing on hunting beasts and accumulating soul orbs, which would be relatively much less risky. No one would waste their time during this period and deliberately take the huge risk of robbing from other profound practitioners—the loss would outweigh the gain, after all.

As the environment he was sitting in was quiet as well as absolutely safe, he should have been able to be complete relaxed and at ease in his mind. But for some reason, Yun Che felt an unclear agitation, and after some while, the corners of his brows even began to move up and down wildly.

After a month, I’ll be able to see Jasmine again… Then, I can go back to the Profound Sky Continent and Illusory Demon Realm… My fate has always looked out for me, and even Jasmine told me that I’m someone with a great destiny. This time too, things will definitely progress smoothly, without a hitch.

Definitely…

Yun Che opened his eyes and stood on his feet. He casually chose a direction and slowly moved ahead while observing his surroundings.

This abandoned ancient city was a part of the internal world of the Eternal Heaven Pearl, but it was not certain whether it truly existed inside the Eternal Heaven Pearl, or was an unreal existence like the projections of the profound practitioners in here.

The abandoned ancient city was not really that big, and it took Yun Che less than two hours to walk from the center of the ancient city to near its edge. It was at this time that he came to a standstill and wrinkled his brows as he looked ahead… Because he actually caught sight of someone!

The person had their back to him, and was standing at the edge of the ancient city. Both of their hands were at their back, as they calmly looked at the battlefield in the distance.

It had been more than two hours since the battlefield was opened. All the participating profound practitioners had already hurried over and entered deep inside the battlefield brimming with excitement. But, this person was actually standing calmly in place, and by the looks of it, for a very long time too. There was no restless movement of aura on their body, so they didn’t appear to be someone who was sent back to the main city after dying.

Could it be that this person… was also not planning to enter the battlefield, just like him?

Yun Che willed to know about them. Immediately, the information about the person appeared within his mind.

Xiao Mo, Age: 39, Origin: Earth, Soul Orb: 0, Rank in the Ninth Battle Zone: 51302.

In the battlefield, anyone could search the information of someone else at will, including the number of soul orbs in their possession as well as their rank. Of course, the full name and origin displayed might not be true, because it was engraved by the participants themselves before entering the battlefield, and could be faked.

It was very obvious that the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm didn’t care whether you provided falsified information at all.

After all, the battlefield of the Profound God Convention was the best place to make yourself known to all. If you were to fake your name and origin… wouldn’t that be foolish!?

But, the number of soul orbs and rank could absolutely not be faked. This man named Xiao Mo had 0 soul orbs, and was ranked last similar to himself. It was clear that just like him, this man hadn’t stepped outside the main city area so far.

Furthermore, he didn’t feel the slightest feeling of oppression from the aura of other party, which evidently meant that the profound strength of the latter was not high. Although the cultivation of many was beyond his own, he should only be at the early stages of the Divine Tribulation Realm.

Could it be that he was well aware of the fact that his cultivation was the bottom level among all the participants, and hence, simply gave up on entering the battlefield?

He had a special reason for not participating in the competition, but normally, a profound practitioner would arrive here after going through untold hardships. This convention was a grand gathering of the pinnacle of the profound way, which a person could only experience at most once in their life. So, he should not have any reason to force himself to make a trip to here in vain.

Moreover, this guy’s place of origin is… earth?

What a strange name. It was most likely made up by him.

Although Yun Che was slightly surprised by the other party, he would naturally not be interested in taking the initiative to go over and chat with him. He was about to turn around and leave when he suddenly saw this person slowly raise his head and heave a light sigh, before humming:

“The boundless horizon is my love; various flowers are blooming at the foot of green hills.”

Yun Che glanced sideways: Don’t tell me… this person is a poet too?

Xian: His humming is an actual Chinese folk song, which evidently means that this guy is really from “our” Earth.