Lance surveyed the desolate expanse he had just purged, a sharp glint flickering in his eyes.
Hum— hum— hum—!
The atmosphere shifted violently. Within the boundaries of the forr formation, trillions of blood-red wisps erupted from the ground. These strands coalesced into towering plus of spectral fla, surging toward Lance like a crimson deluge.
Before Lance could even process the sight, the torrential energy slamd into him, perating every pore. Instantaneously, he felt his musculature and Divine Soul undergo a violent, rapid strengthening.
[System: Host has triggered 'Undying God-Body' and 'The Power of Genesis.' Comncing absorption of Power of Death!]
[System: CON 100,000,000! Divine Soul 100,000,000!]
[System: CON 100,000,000! Divine Soul 100,000,000!]
[System: CON 100,000,000! Divine Soul 100,000,000!]
......
......
A relentless barrage of notifications hamred into his mind.
"What is this? The combined effect of the Undying God-Body and the Power of Genesis?"
Lance stood there, montarily dazed. He hadn't expected these two forces to synergize and boost his strength like this. In a matter of seconds, his Constitution (CON) skyrocketed by hundreds of trillions. The number showed no signs of slowing down; the deathly aura perating the air remained terrifyingly thick, seemingly undiminished despite the massive drain.
[System: The Power of Genesis allows the host to absorb any energy system to enhance oneself. This includes Power of Death, Destruction Power, and the Three Thousand Elents—such as Fire, Light, etc. The higher the energy’s quality, the faster the absorption rate. It is highly recomnded that the host prioritize the Power of Death generated by slaying high-level powerhouses as a primary source.]
[System: Once Life Power is comprehended, it too can be absorbed. Additionally, the host can destroy high-tier objects to obtain Destruction Power to further bolster personal strength!]
As Lance’s confusion cleared, his pupils contracted sharply. He hadn’t realized the Power of Genesis was this versatile. Better yet, this growth rate far surpassed the efficiency of gaining strength through his own death and resurrection.
After a single minute, his CON had surged by a staggering 10 quintillion. The process that should have taken over ten hours was condensed into less than thirty minutes. Lance felt the barriers of his cultivation shatter as he ascended to the Tenth Stratum of the Galactic Realm.
[System: Congratulations. Your CON and Divine Soul have reached 51.2 Quintillion. You have leveled up to Galactic Realm Tenth Stratum!]
Lance grinned, satisfied with the readout.
"And here I was, worrying about how to speed up my progress. This is much more efficient—killing for power feels a lot better than being killed."
He mused on the system's logic: higher-tier energy ant faster growth. This didn't just apply to elents, but to the cultivation level of his victims. If he started reaping more powerful experts, the Power of Death would be even more potent.
"I was planning to wait for the Domain Lord Leaderboard, but it looks like I can head there once I hit the Star Sea Realm."
Lance decided to stay put until the current pool of CON was fully integrated. At the sa ti, he pivoted his focus toward his array proficiency. To maximize efficiency, he mobilized all 200 of his dormant sub-conscious threads, assigning them to ditate on the Ten Major Classes simultaneously.
With twenty threads per class, the comprehension speed wasn't a literal twenty-fold increase, but it pushed his progress five or six tis faster than usual. His objective was simple: before heading to the Star Sector Leaderboard, he needed his arrays to be powerful enough to annihilate Domain Lord powerhouses at will. He knew the strongest among them could potentially kill World Lords of the seventh or eighth rank. He wouldn't step into that arena unprepared.
"By the way," Lance suddenly addressed the void, "the Virtual Universe knows I can resurrect, right? Does dying count as being eliminated for ?"
For others, a shattered soul was the end. For him, even if his soul was ground into dust, he could return so long as soone rembered him. Such a defiant ability surely wouldn't be treated the sa as everyone else.
"Negative," the Virtual Universe's voice echoed. "In this trial, you will not be eliminated rely by dying. However, if no remaining participant in the assessnt rembers you, your resurrection will occur outside the trial grounds. In such a scenario, you will be considered eliminated."
Lance’s expression soured. Resurrecting outside the trial counted as a forfeit? It made sense, but it was still annoying.
"Fine. I guess I’ll have to try and stay alive," he thought. He didn't want to lose this perfect hunting ground. "But am I just supposed to stand here and wait for all this Battle Aura to be absorbed?"
He was growing impatient. Even with the current breakneck speed, it would take ages to fully process the energy of trillions of Universal Class experts.
[System: The host may utilize the system's power to condense this into death energy, storing it within the body as a concentrated orb, similar to CON energy.]
"Good. Do it!"
A terrifying suction force erupted from Lance’s core. Within his Consciousness Hub, a crimson sphere began to take shape, expanding at a violent pace. Within seconds, a massive, blood-red orb hovered over the center of his consciousness, radiating waves of death energy that continuously funneled into his body and Divine Soul.
The surrounding deathly aura vanished instantly, sucked dry.
"At this rate, I’ll hit the Star Sea Realm in less than two hours," Lance calculated. "Ti to find a Universal Class Secret Realm. I need high-grade Void Cores to construct Tier 12 arrays if I want to slaughter Tenth Stratum Domain Lords en masse."
He moved toward the center of his previous formation, retrieving the two Void Cores that served as the foundation for his Twin Immortal-Slaying Array. One tenth of their energy had been spent.
"Nine more volleys of that magnitude... that should be plenty."
He checked his energy reserves. Even after absorbing over a hundred quintillion CON and Soul points, the total hadn't even dropped by a ten-thousandth. He wasn't going to run out of energy anyti soon. What he lacked was higher-quality energy—the kind found in the Domain Lord Class.
Lance gave a sweeping wave of his hand.
Whir—!
Legacy Tokens dropped by the millions of slain Universal Class experts surged toward him like a tallic tide, spanning light-years across the battlefield. As they reached him, they dissolved into beams of light, integrating into his profile.
"Congratulations. You have obtained a massive quantity of Legacy Tokens. Total Points: 241 Trillion. Your ranking has risen to First Place!"
"Two points per person on average?" Lance noted. "It seems my previous two hundred million points wouldn't have even kept in the top tier for long."
Lance’s eyes flickered with a sharp glint as the thought crossed his mind.
There was no doubt about it—his 200 trillion points were more than enough to secure the top spot on The Leaderboard. That is, unless soone else was just as ruthless and had managed to slaughter 200 trillion opponents.
What he didn't realize, however, was that the mont his score appeared, the entire Universal Class assessnt grounds practically exploded!
"Holy sht, is he cheating? 200 trillion points? Who the hell is this Lance!?"
"Wait... I rember now! He’s that guy who’s been making waves recently—the one who took the #1 spot on the Supre God-Realm of Destruction’s leaderboard! They say he insta-killed the previous rank one. But what the fck? Why is he on my Universal Class leaderboard? And in first place, no less!"
"Use your brain, it’s obviously just soone with the sa na. But having two people with the sa na take the top spot on two different leaderboards at the sa ti is a bit much, don't you think!?"
"It’s a cheat! It has to be! There’s no way anyone could rack up 200 trillion points in such a short amount of ti!"
At that mont, every single Universal Class powerhouse, without exception, began howling in protest.
With such a terrifying score, could he have possibly obtained a World Lord Class inheritance at the Peak-Grade or higher?
But where would soone even find a World Lord Class inheritance that easily?
One had to understand that once a score reached the World Lord Class level, even a Realm Lord Mid-Grade inheritance was worth ten billion points. A High-Grade inheritance reached a staggering one trillion, and a Peak-Grade was worth 100 trillion.
However, the risks involved in these inheritances were horrifying.
Countless Universal Class participants had entered such trials only to perish inside.
Only two hours had passed since the start of the assessnt. It was borderline impossible to have secured a Universal Realm Peak-Grade inheritance in that ti—and it looked like he had more than one!
Unfortunately, while these people were frantically reporting Lance for cheating, The Virtual Universe’s response was characteristically dominant.
[The Virtual Universe is incapable of being cheated. All individuals filing malicious reports are hereby expelled from this assessnt!]
The decree was absolute. Those who had just submitted their complaints felt their faces drain of color. Before they could even attempt to retract their reports, they were kicked out of the simulation.
Their assessnt ended right then and there.
As soon as the announcent went live, the rowdy crowd of Universal Class powerhouses went dead silent.
None of them were stupid. If they kept shouting, they’d be the next ones kicked out.
Besides, if one really thought about it, The Virtual Universe had never experienced a so-called 'bug' in all its countless years of operation. It hadn't happened before, and it wouldn't happen now.
The only explanation was that Lance’s strength was genuinely that monstrous—strong enough to rake in millions of points with ease. As unbelievable as it seed, it was the cold, hard truth!
Lance, of course, was blissfully unaware of the chaos. He glanced at his total points, then pushed off the ground.
Vroom!!!
His Teleportation Force flared, and his figure vanished instantly. As his cultivation realm had increased, the distance Lance could cover in a single Instantaneous Teleportation had jumped to two light-years.
It wasn't a massive leap—only double his previous range—but it was more than enough.
He began a rapid-fire exploration of the surrounding space.
According to his calculations, he could now scout a volu of two hundred cubic light-years every second.
That sounded like a lot, but it was a asurent of volu. In terms of diater, he could only map out the space within a five-light-year radius.
Still, even that was a terrifying speed.
It was ten thousand tis faster than any other Universal Class powerhouse’s exploration speed.
After an hour, Lance’s explored range had reached 700,000 square light-years—effectively every planet within a diater of 100 light-years.
Unfortunately, aside from that initial Domain Lord Class Secret Realm, the best thing he had found was a Domain Lord Class Mid-Grade Secret Realm. Lance didn't feel like wasting his ti on it.
Hummmm!!!
Suddenly, sothing changed. In the far distance, brilliant pillars of light erupted, scattering across the cosmos in every direction.
The beams of light shot upwards for hundreds of light-years.
This spectacle was clearly visible to Lance, even from hundreds of thousands of light-years away.
"What the...? That’s a Universal Class Secret Realm! Am I seriously this lucky?"
Lance was instantly electrified. Even if he hadn't 'found' it himself, what was the difference?
There was no difference at all!
Without hesitation, Lance kicked off, using his Teleportation Force to hurtle toward the light. Because it was a straight line, Lance could cover two hundred light-years a second. Even so, it would still take him an hour to get there at that pace.
So, Lance pushed his speed beyond the limit, instantly tearing open Dark Space!
In a flash, the surrounding celestial bodies vanished into an endless void of darkness. Only a brilliant speck of light remained directly ahead. Because he was moving so fast, the light from a second ago and the light from ten thousand years ago hit his eyes simultaneously, creating a blinding glare. The resulting heat and intensity would have instantly incinerated anyone without sufficient power.
The faster one moved, the higher the temperature.
The space around Lance had already reached hundreds of millions of degrees. Fortunately, it didn't bother him in the slightest. Had this temperature appeared on a Howorld for even a second, the entire planet would have lted into slag.
Within The Virtual Universe, because his speed had ramped up a hundred million tis, Lance covered the distance of hundreds of thousands of light-years in just over a minute!
He wasn't the only one. Countless other Universal Class powerhouses were swarming toward the location from every direction at terrifying speeds.
Before them stood the entrance to a Secret Realm, radiating hundreds of light pillars that lanced out into the universe.
Seeing that the entrance alone spanned hundreds of billions of kiloters, every powerhouse present sucked in a sharp breath!
Their hearts burned with greed. This was a Universal Class Secret Realm.
Unlike Domain Lord limits, even a Universal Class Low-Grade Legacy Artifact was worth 100 million points. Mid-Grades hit the 10 billion mark.
If there was a Peak-Grade item inside—and likely more than one—the resulting points would reach the 100-trillion-level!
Whoever claid this might actually be able to surpass Lance, the current #1 on the leaderboard!
Of course, it was mostly a fantasy. A World Lord Class Secret Realm reaching the Peak-Grade was a one-in-ten-thousand occurrence.
"Hm? It’s a Realm Lord High-Grade Secret Realm. Not quite Peak-Grade, but close enough!"
Upon arrival, Lance used his Power of Genesis to instantly see through the Secret Realm’s grade!
He even spotted a Tier 12 Peak-Grade super A.I. inside, monitoring everything outside. Clearly, that was the High Guardian protecting this place!
The Power of Genesis was far from simple; discerning the depth of a Secret Realm was a trivial task for him.
"It’s getting crowded. With the level of this Secret Realm, even if I go all out, it won’t be easy to just take the inheritance."
Lance’s eyes narrowed slightly. A Tier 12 super A.I., though it couldn't attack directly because it wasn't a Sentient Lifeform, would certainly have control over Tier 12 technological weapons.
A single shot from a weapon of that caliber could erase tens of thousands of Milky Ways.
Given his current strength, he’d likely be forced to undergo a rebirth after taking just one hit.
"Forget it. Brute force isn't an option. I'll just head in like everyone else. As long as I can get my hands on those Tier 12 Void Cores inside, it’ll be worth it!"
The thought caused a glint to flash in Lance's eyes.
RIIIIIIP!!!
Right then, a violent tearing sound echoed through the starry void. Every cultivator felt their pupils contract as they turned in unison toward the source of the noise.
System Notification: A massive stockpile has been detected!
You can instantly unlock 28 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon.
/yivan
Reviews
All reviews (0)