The number of Universal Class powerhouses within a radius of tens of thousands of light-years exceeded trillions.
In the vastness of space, a volu spanning tens of thousands of light-years was trillions of tis larger than a single cubic light-year. Given that a typical light-year of territory usually held dozens of experts, the total population in this sector was staggering—easily reaching the hundreds of trillions.
At that mont, the entire region descended into a frenzy. Countless streaks of light tore through Dark Space, hurtling toward Lance’s coordinates at their maximum possible velocity.
"Well, looks like I’ve kicked a hornet’s nest," Lance murmured with a faint smile. "Too bad for them. By the ti they arrive, I’ll have stripped this place bare."
With a casual wave of his right hand, a surge of Destruction Power erupted, instantly shredding the pillar of light blocking his path.
The purpose of the pillar was obvious: it was a gate for a Secret Realm that required a collective effort to open. Once a sufficient number of people gathered, the barrier would naturally dissipate. Alternatively, one could force their way in—provided their strength exceeded the Domain Lord Class Tenth Stratum.
In this trial, almost no one possessed that level of power. Even among the top hundred geniuses on the Universal Leaderboard, only a handful could claim such strength.
Lance was one of them—and an anomalous one at that. Without even tapping into The Power of Genesis, he tore a rift in the barrier and stepped into the Secret Realm.
Buzz!
As he crossed the spatial rift, a vast, imperial expanse unfolded before his eyes.
Lance paused, slightly surprised. Stretching out from beneath his feet was The Celestial Stairway. It was tens of thousands of kiloters wide, a massive structure of white stone that pierced the heavens. At the very summit, a long saber and several jade slips containing cultivation techniques floated in the air.
The path was littered with hidden manuals and martial arts techniques. It seed the trial was designed as a scavenger hunt; one simply had to find these items to claim the inheritance. Of course, the realm offered more than just knowledge. Hidden throughout the area were Tier 11 weapons, their latent power terrifying enough to obliterate anyone below the Seventh Stratum of the Domain Lord Class.
One wrong step ant instant death.
Buzz!
Suddenly, a massive gravitational force erupted from The Celestial Stairway, attempting to drag Lance down to the steps.
"Hmph."
Lance let out a cold snort. Destruction Power flared around him, instantly eroding the gravitational field into nothingness. His mastery over the Power of Laws had reached a level of refinent far beyond his previous state, and his current strength reflected that growth.
"Interesting. So The Celestial Stairway is the trial’s centerpiece. It’s loaded with gravity to test the challenger's willpower. It’s exactly like The Umbra Sovereign’s trial," Lance remarked, a look of boredom crossing his face. "Just a few different bells and whistles. No creativity at all."
He didn't hesitate. Instead of walking the stairs, he took flight, darting toward every hidden cache he sensed.
In a matter of seconds, he had systematically picked the realm clean. Every hidden technique and martial art was swept into his inventory. Finally, he reached the summit, where only the final weapon and the core manual remained.
"A Tier 12 technique? Not bad at all."
Lance felt a flicker of genuine surprise at the rank. A Tier 12 technique was worth a staggering 100 million points. Combined with the other loot, which totaled over ten million, this single haul would catapult him to the absolute top of The Leaderboard.
"Reaching first place this quickly feels a bit strange. And this manual..." Lance frowned as he sensed the energy within the slip. "Sothing’s off. Is this going to be one of those cliché tropes? A soul-snatching possession or a self-destruct trap?"
He could sense the distinct aura of a Soul lingering inside the jade. Under normal circumstances, he might have been cautious, but the spirit was rely at the peak of the Domain Lord Realm.
A few days ago, Lance might have struggled. Now? His power had soared to a level where he could contend with World Lord Class entities. A peak Domain Lord soul was nothing to fear.
"Let’s see what kind of tricks a Virtual Universe construct can actually pull."
Lance smiled and reached out, grabbing the manual.
"Hahaha! Three hundred million years! I have finally waited for a boy with decent talent! Kid, do you want a master?"
In that instant, a terrifying soul pressure exploded from the jade slip. A ghostly figure—a Tenth Stratum Domain Lord—lunged at Lance like a starving wolf pouncing on a lamb.
Lance didn't give him an inch of respect. He reached out with lightning speed.
Gak!
The old soul, caught mid-charge, was suddenly hoisted into the air, Lance’s hand clamped firmly around his throat.
"Holy sht! A master! rcy! Spare !"
The Domain Lord soul’s arrogance evaporated instantly, replaced by sheer, unadulterated terror. He was horrified. Even though he was a re fragnt of a soul with less than ten percent of his original power, it should have taken soone at the Seventh Stratum of the Domain Lord Class or higher to catch him so effortlessly.
He rembered placing his inheritance in a god-forsaken, remote corner of the universe. How the hell did he run into a high-level Domain Lord powerhouse here? It was his worst nightmare co true.
"Please! I’m just a tiny, insignificant piece of trash! Have rcy and let go!"
The soul began to plead desperately, his previous bravado completely shattered.
"I’m curious—are you for real?" Lance looked at the cowering spirit with a look of utter disbelief. "This is The Virtual Universe. We’re in the middle of The Genius Trials. You’re already dead; you’re just data. There’s no point in begging."
The soul froze, his expression turning blank. The realization hit him like a physical blow: his consciousness had been harvested and dragged into The Virtual Universe to serve as a training dummy for examinees.
"Ahem... I see. My apologies. I lost my composure," the old soul said, coughing awkwardly as he tried to regain so dignity.
"It doesn't matter. Only the two of us can see this anyway," Lance said. He could tell the soul had no real malice; he was just an old man excited to find a disciple. Unfortunately for him, he had run into Lance. "I'll be taking these items. I’ll leave the rest of the challengers to you so you can have so fun."
Lance let go, releasing the spirit.
"The others?" the soul asked, confused.
He reached out, tapping into the Secret Realm’s sensors to look outside the barrier. He turned pale instantly. Outside his realm, trillions of Universal Class experts were swarming the area, their numbers growing by the second.
"Holy sht! This is a Universal Class trial ground?!" the Domain Lord shrieked in horror.
Though he had never participated in The Universal Genius Competition, he had heard of the grand event and had even watched recordings of previous sessions in his spare ti. Seeing the sheer scale of the mob outside, even a forr powerhouse like him felt a chill run down his spine.
It was like the Olympics; even if you had never competed, you knew the rules by heart.
Realizing he was in a Universal Class trial ground left him utterly stunned. This was a Universal Class trial ground, yet he had been snatched up like a common fly.
But that wasn’t the most shocking part. He could sense the intensity of the light pillars outside—they possessed a raw power that only a Domain Lord Class, Tenth Stratum expert could hope to tear through.
"Good god... are you so kind of super-genius ranked in the top ten thousand of the universe?" Even the densest person would have realized by now that Lance was anything but ordinary.
"I suppose I’m barely rank one," Lance replied casually, finishing his sweep of the area. He had just pocketed a staggering 110 million points.
It was a fair assessnt. Barely rank one. After all, one had to maintain a modicum of humility.
Gulp.
Hearing Lance’s version of "humility," the peak Domain Lord powerhouse couldn’t help but swallow hard—even though his current form lacked actual saliva.
"Alright, I’ll leave the rest to you. Farewell."
With everything packed, Lance tapped the ground with his toe and shot toward the exit.
"Wait, you’re just going out like that? In front of everyone?" The peak Domain Lord was flabbergasted. "Aren't you afraid of being mobbed to death by the trillions of people out there? Even if you’re strong, isn't this a bit too high-profile?"
He didn't have to wait long to see just how "high-profile" Lance could be.
Lance reached out and physically tore a rift through one of the light pillars. In the next heartbeat, he stepped into the void and vanished.
"Shit! There's a breach! Charge!"
"Get lost! That’s mine!"
"I was here first! Back off, all of you!"
The mont the crowd outside saw the gap, the entire area exploded into chaos. A dense, swarming mass of people began charging toward the opening with suicidal desperation.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, the surrounding space beca a horrific slaughterhouse.
Legacy items dropped one after another as their previous owners were cut down, only to be snatched up by soone else a second later. Then, that person would be slaughtered, and the cycle would repeat.
Lance, who had been about to depart, ca to a sudden halt.
"There are so many people, and so many legacy items... If I kill every last one of them, my points will be untouchable, won't they?"
A thought occurred to Lance—a thought so insane that most people would have branded him a madman the mont he uttered it.
"It makes sense. My hundred million points were overtaken in just a few minutes. It looks like other super-geniuses are already conducting large-scale massacres of low-level Universal Class experts. If I’m going to be high-profile anyway, I might as well go big."
A faint, predatory smirk played across Lance’s lips.
Hum—!
At that mont, the massive pillars of light that had been radiating in all directions suddenly dissolved. This ant that anyone who hadn't reached the Secret Realm by now would never find it.
"I'll wait for the rest to arrive before settling this all at once."
Lance watched the growing crowd with cold patience. Even though people were being slaughtered in droves, no one was actually capable of making off with the legacy items.
"There are too many of them. Even if I push my energy output to the limit, I can't surround them all. I’ll need an Eleventh-Grade array to speed up the harvesting process."
Lance suddenly rembered sothing. He had just acquired an Eleventh-Grade, High-Grade Void Core and an Eleventh-Grade, Low-Grade Void Core from within the Secret Realm.
With his array mastery already at the Eleventh-Grade, the solution was obvious.
"The Twin Immortal-Slaying Array it is."
Without a mont's hesitation, Lance retrieved the two Void Cores from his Subspace Ring.
With a single thought, his Soul power surged, manifesting as countless shimring runes that etched themselves onto the two cores. Within seconds, layer upon layer of intricate runic structures began to glow deep within the Void Cores.
anwhile, more and more experts were flooding the area. For a Universal Class expert, a distance of tens of thousands of light-years was a re few minutes' flight through Dark Space.
The population around the Secret Realm swelled from trillions to hundreds of trillions.
Seeing the battle raging, the newcors didn't hesitate for a second before throwing themselves into the fray. Most had the sa mindset: snatch sothing and run. Even if they failed and died, it didn't matter. They were self-aware enough to know they wouldn't survive the second round of the trials anyway. If they could score one big haul now and escape, they might actually have a chance.
Driven by that desperation, the mutual slaughter intensified, and the body count began to skyrocket.
Lance ignored the carnage, focusing entirely on constructing his trap.
Because it was an Eleventh-Grade array, it required ti. It took a full hour of intense concentration before the array was finally complete.
Ding... Congratulations, Host. You have constructed an Eleventh-Grade, High-Grade Array: [The Twin Immortal-Slaying Array]. Quality: Legendary Grade!
As Lance hamred the final rune into the formation, the system notification chid in his mind.
"Finally finished. Ti to pull in the net."
Lance looked at the experts fighting tooth and nail at the entrance of the Secret Realm and smiled. He tossed the two Void Cores—now fused into a single unit—directly into the heart of the Secret Realm.
Hum—!
With a burst of Teleportation Force, the cores materialized in the center of the zone.
"Heaven's End, Earth's Extinction! The Immortal-Slaying Array, rise!"
From a distance, Lance snapped his fingers into a hand seal and thrust his palm forward.
Vroom—!
The hand seal rged into the fused Void Cores.
BOOM!
An unimaginably oppressive pressure erupted from the cores. The sheer weight of the power caused every Universal Class expert locked in combat to pale in terror. This wasn't a level of power that belonged in their realm.
Finally, soone noticed the source. When they saw the Eleventh-Grade array taking shape, their face turned white as a sheet.
"Holy shit! It's an Eleventh-Grade, High-Grade, Perfect Grade array! Run! Get out of here!"
The panicked scream tore through the air.
Terror gripped the crowd. An Eleventh-Grade, High-Grade, Perfect Grade array? Was this so kind of sick joke? An array of that caliber shouldn't even be possible unless it was built by a Thirteenth-Grade Array Master!
The quick-witted ones turned tail imdiately, burning through every secret technique and escape art in their repertoire.
Hum—!
But it was too late. The Twin Immortal-Slaying Array was active.
A strange, rippling wave of energy instantly swept across everything within a hundred-light-year radius.
In that heartbeat, every expert present was frozen in place. They had no way of knowing that this wasn't a "Perfect" grade array—it was Legendary. It activated faster, covered a wider area, and possessed a lethality that defied logic.
"Slay."
A cold, detached voice echoed through the Infinite Void.
Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!
In an instant, every one of the hundreds of trillions of Universal Class experts caught in the field had their chests pierced by Energy Phantom-Blades that appeared out of thin air.
Hum—!
A power of pure Destruction radiated from the blades. In a single, silent mont, the Divine Souls of hundreds of trillions of experts were erased from existence.
System Notification: A massive stockpile has been detected!
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