Chapter 498 - 481: Domineering
A deep rumbling sound echoed, as if from the Netherworld.
Suddenly, the air above the Dueling Platform warped violently. With a CRACK, something fell out, immediately followed by a pile of other things.
The pieces struck the Dueling Platform with heavy thuds.
...They looked a bit like the materials from the Demonic Puppet earlier.
In fact, that’s exactly what they were!
The last thing to fall out was the Demonic Puppet’s head.
It rolled across the Dueling Platform, coming to a stop in front of Yan Song, leaving the two heads side-by-side.
For a moment, dead silence descended around the Dueling Platform. No one had a clue what had just happened.
Only one person smiled. Mingren... was finally at ease.
’His wait hadn’t been in vain!’
Wang Meng saw Mingren’s smile, and a slight smile touched his own lips.
Mingren left. He had really only been waiting for this moment.
After a moment of silence, the Cultivators erupted into discussion. They didn’t know whether to cheer or what to do. It seemed the Demonic Puppet had just keeled over on its own.
’Is Wang Meng’s luck just that absurd? Some Forbidden Demonic Puppet? Who knows how many years it’s been since anyone used that old antique. How could it possibly still work?’
’Yan Song was just incredibly unlucky to have trusted such a foolish thing.’
It was a classic case of all thunder and no rain. Soon, the Cultivators were sighing in unison. They had been anticipating a huge battle, but it had ended like this. It felt like waking from a dream right at the moment of climax.
The laymen watched for the spectacle; the experts looked for the method.
Celestial Dragon frowned slightly. "It seems he can interfere with space."
Purple Dragon nodded slightly. "For a Human Cultivator to be able to imitate it is quite commendable."
Linglong offered no comment. She simply glanced at Wang Meng and then departed as well.
The members of the Demon Race, however, revealed intrigued smiles. ’This Wang Meng really is something else.’
It was a move requiring considerable skill. The Demonic Puppet had been hiding in a spatial rift to complete its ritual, but Wang Meng had cleverly disrupted the order of space, causing the puppet to be torn apart by the Law of Space itself. It never even had a chance to show its power.
Though his timing was impeccable, it was a bit of a cheap trick. The Demon Race would have preferred to let the Demonic Puppet finish its transformation and then have a proper battle.
It was a victory shrouded in a bizarre atmosphere.
As someone with the bloodline of the Dragon Emperor, Linglong had a very clear understanding of space. The body and Array of that kind of Demonic Puppet allowed it to exist within a spatial rift as if it were a fish in water. She believed Wang Meng had waited for the puppet to complete its ritual before unleashing a spatial storm that tore it to pieces.
If the Demonic Puppet had emerged to fight, it might have caused considerable trouble, but the power of a spatial storm was something no material object could possibly withstand.
Even a stronger Demonic Puppet could only try to evade it; it lacked the ability to adapt or control the situation.
A dead thing is a dead thing. But Wang Meng’s power had already stepped into the domain of the Dragon Race.
Lin Jinghao’s view was essentially the same as Linglong’s. He also possessed a Dragon Holy Statue, and the No Illusion Demon Sect was extremely knowledgeable about such things. Clearly, Wang Meng was already wielding his Holy Statue’s abilities with practiced ease.
But Mingren saw it differently. The Holy Light Demon Collapse Body was half reality, half nothingness.
That poor Demonic Puppet hadn’t been torn apart by the Law of Space. Instead, it had been directly obliterated by a shockwave that invaded the spatial rift.
One phenomenon, a multitude of conclusions. Everyone believed what they saw was the truth, but there is only one reality.
After the first round of the main competition, every single Holy Hall Disciple had advanced.
The main competition consisted of three rounds. After these three rounds, each academy would be left with only ten Cultivators. If any had more, they would hold tiebreaker matches determined by drawing lots—all a matter of luck. Ultimately, only fifty Cultivators from the five major cities would be able to go to the Pure Land, the highest honor in the Small Thousand Realm under the rule of the Star Alliance.
No Cultivator and no Sect would ever pass up such an honor.
And here, all the Cultivators were forced to take notice of one particular Sect. Its name was the Holy Hall.
Thousands of Sects had entered the competition. After various qualifying and elimination rounds, some powerful Sects might have started with over a dozen members, but by the time the first round of the main competition was over, it was considered impressive if a Sect had even three people left.
After all, the Small Thousand Realm was also home to powerful Loose Cultivators, not to mention the disruptive presence of the Dragon and Demon Races. As the number of contestants dwindled, the dream of an entire group advancing together was nothing more than a fantasy.
But the Holy Hall had done it.
Luck was useless when it came to fighting one’s way into the main competition. In fact, the Holy Hall’s path had not been smooth at all, yet no one had been able to stand in their way.
Just look at the list of Holy Hall Disciples. Let’s put Wang Meng aside for now. He advanced all the way to the main competition... by only moving his feet.
Hu Jing and Yang Ying formed the Holy Hall’s most stunning duo, wielding the Dawn Goddess Holy Statue and the Thundering Phoenix Holy Statue. Before the Battle of the Other Shore began, people knew they possessed Holy Statues, but their actual power and personal Magic Cultivation were complete mysteries. Now, everyone knew.
Hu Jing’s power and Yang Ying’s beauty had become major points of interest in the Battle of the Other Shore.
More than ten Great Perfection Cultivators had appeared so far, and three had already been defeated. One was eliminated by Celestial Dragon. Another was unlucky enough to run into Mingren, and the result... was tragic. Because his opponent had fought ruthlessly, Mingren had crippled him in return.
The third defeated Great Perfection Cultivator was the one who faced Suo Ming and was brutally hammered into submission—arguably the most tragic defeat of all. Suo Ming’s ability to use his Forbidden Technique on even a Great Perfection Cultivator had thoroughly captured the Star Alliance’s attention.
Then there was Li Tianyi’s Fire Heart Sword. He had already made a name for himself on the Star Alliance’s latest list of promising Sword Cultivators. His unique Life Artifact Type Holy Statue was also exceedingly rare, but the crucial point was that he had defeated the top prodigy of the Heart Sword Sect, Mu En, showcasing a superior realm of Sword Technique.
Zhang Xiaojiang, with his Eye of Truth and his Blast Bow Life Artifact, was the bane of Bow Cultivators. He started as just some chubby guy along for the ride, but now he was being targeted by the Sword Cultivators from every Sect. One’s cultivation realm could be caught up to, but an ability like the Eye of Truth, similar to a Forbidden Technique, was the kind of threat that had to be eliminated at all costs.
If you had to name the weakest of the advancing disciples, it would be Zhou Qian. Observers noted that he had stumbled his way through every single match, sometimes to a degree that was hard to watch. Although he managed to outlast his opponents, he always ended up looking pretty wretched himself. It seemed his journey would end in the second round.
But no matter how he did it, he held his ground, allowing the Holy Hall to maintain its perfect record. The No Illusion Demon Sect, by contrast, had failed to do so, as one of their disciples had been defeated.
The power displayed by the Holy Hall was one thing; what truly interested everyone was how a single match featuring Wang Meng had attracted the attention of so many masters.
But this Wang Meng... he truly had no reputation to speak of.
During the three years of the Star Alliance’s most aggressive expansion and promotion, Master Wang and his Holy Hall Beings had remained in complete seclusion. To avoid trouble, the Taiyin Sect and Snow Moon City did their best not to cause any incidents. In fact, over those three years, the Puppet Sect and a few other interested parties had stirred up quite a bit of trouble for the Holy Hall, but it had all been suppressed in the end.
It had to be said that the Taiyin Sect had put in a great deal of effort. Beyond that, Lv Yuantian from the Star Alliance had provided some crucial assistance; otherwise, the Taiyin Sect alone would not have been enough to shield them.