Chapter 1798 - 1389: The Heavenly Net is Vast Yet None Escape, the Earth Cage Clangs and Imprisons
"Three family experts, their momentum is oppressive and undisguised, suspected to be Heavenly Person Peak or possibly even stronger?"
Jiang Dali browsed the forum posts, deliberately glanced at the nickname of the person who posted it, sure enough, it was Hu Tianguang, whom he had specifically dispatched to Han Country’s Ten Thousand Great Mountains, and immediately had a clear judgment in his mind.
Back then, upon seeing in the forum that the Dragon Slayer Conference was ingeniously utilized for publicity by Li Si, a subordinate of Qin Shi Huang, and attracted millions of players to gather, Jiang Dali realized the situation had surpassed control. Hence, he dispatched top players from the mountain village like Hu Tianguang, and Yun Hu, who previously served as his stand-in at Leshan Branch, to go together to Han Country’s Ten Thousand Great Mountains for reconnaissance, observing the movements of the family organizing the conference and the side of Qin Shi Huang.
Since Hu Tianguang posted this, with his crafty and shrewd character and eye power, it certainly is not baseless.
Jiang Dali clicked into the video attached to the post, watching the dozen riders riding into the forest from the only mountain path. His eyes immediately fell on the three leading riders among them.
These three were all shrouded in gray cloaks, masked, unknown from which place, and after riding into the forest, merely with a clamp of their legs, they easily brought their fiery steeds to an abrupt halt.
At this point, all the top player experts present from the family left their seats and stepped out, simultaneously greeting the newcomers with a fist salute, their attitude courteous.
Even the well-known family guild representatives present like Ting Shui, Feng Ying, Feng Ruhuo all were courteous to the cloaked trio, clearly indicating the extraordinary status of these three in the family.
"The three who first entered the Mixed Martial Arts World, developing methods for players to break through Heavenly Human Realm and Returning to Truth Realm for the family... the Ancient Ones?"
Jiang Dali crossed his arms, eyes slightly rotating scrutinizing the three in the video.
One among them carried a single axe on his back, appearing formidable yet alert, giving off an impressively sturdy physique, just his look was awe-inspiring.
The other two, one was a short sturdy man with two short knives at his waist, the other a woman carrying a long spear, even though cloaked, each had an imposing appearance, exhibiting a poised demeanor, clearly not ordinary opponents.
After observing them, Jiang Dali nicknamed these three mysterious guests as ’the Ancient Ones’: "If they truly are the Ancient Ones, then evidently, the benefits the family can gain from Qin Shi Huang this time must be astounding, otherwise, such ’Privileged Players’ that disrupt the balance among players, despite the unprecedented height of the Supreme Alliance’s prestige now, should not appear at all..."
He realized that if Mixed Martial Arts World truly was just an ordinary game, a relatively realistic game at best, then even if many players like this game, when particularly unfair matters lay so openly, absolutely there would be a large number of players choosing to abandon the Mixed Martial Arts World, and simply quit.
But Mixed Martial Arts World itself is not just a game; rather, it is a real world that has been game-ified through special technical means by the family.
Moreover, the Supreme Alliance also releases martial arts they researched from Mixed Martial Arts World, providing them for all players to learn in reality, to strengthen health, and improve national quality...
Such substantial benefits completely shatter the definite notion that ’Mixed Martial Arts World is just a game,’ becoming a genuine second world.
For such a resource-rich, extraordinarily valuable second world, the families and the Supreme Alliance playing some privilege is indeed normal and can just be reluctantly accepted.
Otherwise, for such a valuable second world, if the families and Supreme Alliance managed to continuously control some privileges without utilizing them, that would be truly useless.
As for fairness, there’s inherently no absolute fairness in this world.
The Supreme Alliance can develop the second world, offering it for everyone to experience, and research martial arts within for all to learn, which is actually the reason why some top people in the Supreme Alliance can enjoy ’privileges.’
And these ’privileges’ are also achieved through effort and cost.
Yet Jiang Dali thought, without significant interest-driven motivation, the Supreme Alliance would never dare risk showcasing these ’privileges,’ inviting criticism.
Now that it’s showcased, the Ancient Ones’ decades-long or even centuries-long concealment hence loses its significance.
But compared to the time when external martial arts practice wasn’t released and in players’ definition, Mixed Martial Arts World was still a game, the timing now is nearly ripe; driven by great benefits, indeed it could dare to expose.
Thinking of this, Jiang Dali also slightly twitched a self-deprecating smile, "With this thought, should I actually be grateful to the Supreme Alliance for not killing me during my smooth advancement all this time?"
Or rather, grateful for the player’s gradual development speed which hasn’t yet hastened the Supreme Alliance’s process of exposing real martial arts; otherwise... I suspect once garnering enough prestige, the Supreme Alliance might really unhesitatingly expose these privileged ’Ancient Ones’ and directly besiege me..."
In this world, there are no permanent friends or enemies—only permanent interests, Jiang Dali always believed in this.
Thus, even now appearing to have built a close cooperation with the family, he knows very well that if necessary, with opportunity and assurance, the family absolutely wouldn’t mind to overthrow him as the Big Boss, let alone when past cooperation was not yet close.
After a while, he completely browsed through the whole video Hu Tianguang intentionally recorded, having gained some understanding of the three Ancient Ones’ strength.
Hu Tianguang was fairly clever; in the video’s last moments, he proactively engaged with the three Ancient Ones in a ’get-to-know-each-other’ sparring manner, but ultimately easily retreated.
Even though Hu Tianguang exerted full strength, one among them—the person wielding two blades—used only one knife to easily defeat Hu Tianguang, showing strength of Heavenly Human 2 Realm, with a span of two zhang Heaven and Earth Power.
However, not only Jiang Dali, but also many players present could see that the two bladed person didn’t fully wield their power, obviously not utilizing full strength.
"Looks like in future, there’s a need to implant a Power Seed belonging to me into some top players in the mountain village, letting them gain leverage during crucial moments, allowing players to borrow a fraction of my slight power; forcing this Dual Blade Man to fully engage shouldn’t be a problem..."
Jiang Dali watched for a moment and judged that the one using two blades might have a power level around Heavenly Human 7th Realm.
This level of strength, for all players at this current stage, even for One God, who is now the first to reach the Heavenly Human 4th Realm, is extremely powerful and terrifying.
If one person is like this, the power levels of the other two need not be mentioned.
He wasn’t quite sure how many of these ’Ancient’ players were within the family, but upon deep contemplation, it should not exceed twenty in number.
Moreover, the strongest among the Ancients should not exceed the Returning to Truth 5th Realm; otherwise, back when he exposed the "Hell Soul Swapping Scripture," a weapon that could threaten the family with its subversive power, the family could have risked exposing their privileges by publicly announcing the real martial arts externally, dispatching the Ancients to directly eliminate him, making a name for themselves, and turning risk into greater influence... Such a measure must have been considered by the family, but unfortunately, there wasn’t enough strength to deal with him, so they had to compromise.
Therefore, the current number and strength of the ’Ancient’ players within the family actually have little to no impact on the indigenous forces of the Mixed Martial Arts World at present.
What Jiang Dali couldn’t understand now is this: could this lineup of merely three Ancient players and the gathering of over ten million players really be the formation that the family and Qin Shi Huang plan to use after reaching some agreement to deal with the Divine Dragon?
If this is the lineup, it would suffice to sweep over one or two vassal states, but not even enough to fill the gaps in the Divine Dragon’s teeth. What are Li Si and the senior members of the Four Great Families thinking, and what plans do they have?
"So perplexing. This old monster Qin Shi Huang, or should I say, Li Si... what on earth are they preparing? It’s too calm."
Exiting the forum, Jiang Dali dismissed the idea of summoning Hu Tianguang and Yun Hu back, allowing them to continue observing and spying over there. Even if the dragon-slaying battle breaks out, and they unfortunately get killed, it would be a ’public expense death,’ and he would personally compensate for their loss of life.
Of course, to avoid Hu Tianguang making any rash and disgraceful moves, the opportunity for compensation is limited to only once.
...
After observing the forum’s movements, Jiang Dali displayed his movement technique, flinging his cloak outward.
The cloak spun like a rapidly rotating giant shield and flew out; he was already stepping on the cloak, rushing out of Unrivaled City like a whirlwind and lightning, letting out a long howl.
In the distance, the desolate roar of a dragon echoed, and the massive body of the Demon Dragon appeared in the cloud layers at the horizon, coming to greet him.
...
A little half-day later.
Above an abandoned temple somewhere a hundred miles outside Unrivaled City, there was a sudden explosive sound, a thunderous blast broke out in the pitch-black sky like a deep thunderclap!
In an instant, a violent wind emerged, sweeping up weeds like heavy waves rising, lifting sharp wails leaping chaotically in the wilderness and rolling over some bald treetops.
Flowing clouds surged, and soon, dark clouds densely covered the sky, and rain fell like a waterfall from the heavens, yet it happened to only cover the three hundred zhang perimeter around the temple, causing this entire area to be engulfed in a torrential downpour.
Jiang Dali stood boldly like a Demon God amidst the fierce storm, instantly drenched by the rain. His wet clothes clung tightly to his layer upon layer of iron-like body, captivating onlookers.
He raised his hand and lifted his rugged face toward the cold rain, his rain-soaked disheveled hair sticking to his forehead and face, his tiger eyes reflecting countless raindrops and the dark clouds above, carefully understanding the Heaven and Earth Qi Mechanism that he broke but failed to utilize.
This little half-day, he had been continuously exploring near the broken temple on how to successfully perform Shattering Void, yet he repeatedly failed.
Only just now did he barely succeed in gathering all his power to break the Heaven and Earth Qi Mechanism within several dozen zhang, but due to a slight time discrepancy in the broken Heaven and Earth Qi Mechanism, it was such a minor deviation that the Void remained unshattered.
But due to the violent oscillation of the Heaven and Earth Qi Mechanism within this three hundred zhang area, it began raining.
Even though Jiang Dali could already perform the Taoist Water Division, avoiding even a drop of rain, he stood in the rain, allowing the cold rain to randomly slap his rugged cheeks, calming his mood, discarding irritability, and slowly comprehending the method to shatter the Void.
He gazed at the rain falling like a bead curtain from the sky, forming a dense water net, falling like a shower of beans, pattering down, competing to bloom countless pure white water flowers on the ground, splattering the dry dust into the air, and the air was immediately filled with a muddy scent of soil as rainwater gurgled, forming small rivers flowing everywhere, seeping into the depths of the soil.
He couldn’t help but murmur, "The sky is like a net, the earth is like a cage, the Heaven’s Net is vast and sparse but does not miss, the Earth Cage draws lines to confine. This rain, however, leaks from the Heaven’s Net, entering the Earth Cage and escaping again, from heaven to earth and from earth to sky again, like a cycle of heaven and earth. Isn’t life like this too?
I think I understand, where the discrepancy lies..."
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(Written until three o’clock, finished. Asking for monthly tickets! If during the day, there are 40 more monthly tickets, I’ll add more Chapters tomorrow.)