Chapter 2701 Breakthrough!
However, all 12 of them had the same thought: it was impossible for a leopard to change its spots. As long as they remained rulers of the Freedom Federation, their ruthless natures could resurface at any time.
It was unlikely that the rest of the Freedom Federation"s royalty would listen to the Mirror G.o.d and G.o.d of Fools now that their power did not threaten them.
The Freedom Federation had planted the seed of its downfall long ago. It was hard to change its trajectory once the seed had been planted.
The heads of the Azure Federation"s 12 aristocratic families had another reason for gathering in the Radiance Federation aside from showing their respect to the Moon Empress.
Now that the Freedom Federation was under the Radiance Federation"s control, there was no question that the Radiance Federation would supply more resources to the Freedom Federation.
This was understandable. If they were the ones calling the shots, they would also divert more resources to the factions under their control.
The Azure Federation had no means of resisting the dead spirits crisis.
Given that they needed to be fully reliant on the Radiance Federation, the best course of action would be to submit.
The heads of the Azure Federation"s 12 aristocratic families were prepared to offer their loyalty to the Radiance Federation.
After the second Major Federation Union meeting ended, the 12 of them sought a private audience with the Moon Empress.
The Moon Empress was not at all surprised by this.
Frankly, she had been waiting a month for them to do this. They were offering their loyalty later than she had expected.
It was not just the Azure Federation. Many federation leaders who were part of the Major Federation Union decided to ally with the Radiance Federation by becoming its subsidiaries.
The Radiance Federation had become the heart of the human territories and strategies.
The Moon Empress did not have a lot of time to facilitate the Radiance Federation"s adjustment of these federations" mindsets.
However, now that they were in the midst of the disaster that was the dead spirits crisis, the Radiance Federation maintained this model of interaction with the other federations. This would ensure that after receiving resources, these federations would do their best to work with the Radiance Federation to tackle the dead spirits crisis.
…
The Radiance Hundred Sequence selection was still ongoing.
None of the teams had reached the main area and joined a leader.
However, almost a day had pa.s.sed. According to the schedule of the test, the dead spirits crisis had officially begun.
One after another, Dead Spirits Wells popped up in the test ground. An ocean of dead spirits burst out from the Dead Spirits Wells and began spreading out in all directions. Among their ranks were dead dimensional lifeforms that injected death aura into the ground and contaminated the earth.
The concentration of death aura in the air was so high that it almost seemed as though the air had solidified.
The vast ocean of dead spirits stunned the Star Web audience.
Both low-rank spirit qi professionals and regular people did not have the chance to witness such a sight in their daily lives. During the dead spirits crisis, they could only stock up on resources and seek protection from stronger experts.
The setting of this Radiance Hundred Sequence selection allowed those who did not have the opportunity to interact with the dead spirits directly to understand the true horrors of the dead spirits crisis.
Aside from shock, the spectators also felt incredibly glad and powerful. They were lucky to have the members of royalty protecting the Radiance Federation.
The Spirit and City Guards were also dedicated to protecting the citizens and tirelessly fought the dead spirits. All of the spectators" level of respect and admiration for the Radiance Federation"s troops reached a new high.
The audience was watching from the outside and was in a state of frenzy.
However, those in the midst of the dead spirits crisis had been negatively affected by the explosion of dead spirits, regardless of whether they had directly encountered the dead spirits. The explosive wave of dead spirits caused the partic.i.p.ants to be submerged in death aura.
Due to the difference in each person"s physiques, the members of Yang Nuanxin"s team all had different resistance to death aura.
Previously, those with weaker resistances were still able to barely hold on. But now, all of them were showing clear signs of deterioration. Their faces were pale, and blood seeped out of their eyes, noses, and ears.
Yang Nuanxin was extremely resistant to the death aura because of the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane. Although the concentration of death aura was higher than before, she could endure because the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane cleansed the air around her.
The other two spirit qi professionals who were slightly capable of cleaning death aura from the environment were unquestionably outdone by Yang Nuanxin. The area covered by the rain summoned by the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane was completely clean.
This resulted in compet.i.tion arising in the team of more than 1,000 people. Every single one of them hoped to be nearer to Yang Nuanxin. The area covered by the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane became a resource that the people on the team needed to fight over.
Previously, Yang Wenpeng saw Yang Nuanxin as nothing more than a brat from a collateral branch of his family that he could dictate as he pleased.
Yang Wenpeng gathered all of his close comrades in the team before instructing Yang Nuanxin and the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane to stick with him.
Yang Nuanxin was extremely unwilling to do that. There was no doubt that she preferred her friends over Yang Wenpeng and his close subordinates.
They took care of her when she was still in school, and she received significant help from them.
Now that she was capable, she definitely preferred to help them.
At first, Yang Wenpeng only wanted her to join his team.
The two teams only united because Du Xing made a concession.
The people from Du Xing"s team were already extremely upset with Yang Wenpeng"s actions.
In the half a day that he had been leading them, he had forced all of the work of doing combat and clearing the dead spirits out of their path to the people who were originally from the other team.
He would only continue doing the same during the latter portion of the dead spirits crisis.
All of them were members of the younger generation who were partic.i.p.ating in the Radiance Hundred Sequence selection. The level of their power did not differ greatly.
Yang Wenpeng"s actions incited the rage of many members of the team.
The strapping young man next to Du Xing roared, "Yang Wenpeng, just how shameless are you? Is this how you"re going to lead the team!?
"The Cleansing Rain Sky Crane can lower the concentration of death aura in the environment by bringing forth a shower of rain. But you are only keeping the rain over yourself. The death aura is harming the other members of the team!
"There are many members from your team who are going to collapse at any time. Can"t you see them?"
Yu Rui abhorred wickedness. There was nothing he detested more than injustice.
Yu Rui was Yang Nuanxin"s teammate, and he felt uncomfortable seeing her being forced into a corner.
He knew that saying something now would lead to conflict blooming within the team. There was also a high possibility that the spectators would think of him as short-sighted and narrow-minded.
However, he could not hold on anymore!
Immediately after Yu Rui spoke, ten more members echoed their own displeasure.
Once unhappiness was triggered, it would grow and spread swiftly.
Du Xing was also displeased with Yang Wenpeng"s actions. He resented Yang Wenpeng with his entire being.
Still, it could be said that compared to Yu Rui, Du Xing had a better sight of the big picture.
Du Xing knew that this test involved all of them doing their best to battle the dead spirits.
Any infighting in a team would lead to horrible effects. There was a high chance that this would result in the complete destruction of the team.
Du Xing was about to say something to stop the storm from brewing when he heard a voice with an instigating tone say, "It"s true that the Cleansing Rain Sky Crane is not spreading road over the entire team but only the few hundred people at the center. I agree that the Yang team is being selfish. But we have to understand where they are coming from.
"They have also made significant contributions in order to lead us. Otherwise, we wouldn"t have been able to kill all the dead spirits from the second group we encountered!"
Wei Haodong was the one who had spoken.
He sounded as though he was trying to play the role of the peacemaker, but he was essentially speaking nonsense.
It was easy to ask them to understand where Yang Wenpeng was coming from. But how were they actually supposed to do that? All of them were compet.i.tors. They were rus.h.i.+ng to the key areas together so they could look out for each other. It was not truly because they wanted to be led by someone.
The first few statements were not sufficient to cause widespread discontent. But what Wei Haodong said made Yang Wenpeng into enemy number one.
The second wave of dead spirits had been ferocious, and there were far more dead spirits than in the previous wave.
Frankly, battling the waves of dead spirits did not necessarily have to lead to such a result.
There were a few spirit qi professionals in the team who were skilled at scouting. All of them had already used their feys to clearly investigate the environment.
They had discovered the presence of dead spirits and reported this to Yang Wenpeng. He could have instructed the team to avoid the dead spirits.
However, Yang Wenpeng wanted to exhibit his heroism and insisted on leading his team into the fray of dead spirits.
This had caused more than 400 members to lose their lives and be eliminated from the selection.
Yang Wenpeng"s authority was thereby shaken.
This was fine when there was no internal conflict. However, once conflict arose, it would cause Yang Wenpeng to run up against resistance.
"Yang Wenpeng, you only managed to become the leader because you are one of the older people on the team. When the team was formed, you were part of it and fought for the leaders.h.i.+p position.
"This is not because of your strength but because of the trust that others put in you. However, you have let us down! Since you don"t care whether we live or die, we should just get rid of you."
As more and more voices of disgruntlement rose, Wei Haodong"s lips curled, and he remained silent.
Since he had already stirred up the winds of discontent, saying something else now would make him as stupid as Yang Wenpeng.
Du Xing frowned at Wei Haodong. This was the second time that Du Xing was seeing Wei Haodong drive a wedge between members of the team.
Although Wei Haodong"s action seemed smart, it could not be any dumber. He was even a larger cancerous tumor to the team than Yang Wenpeng was.
Moreover, Wei Haodong could only play tricks and was not actually intelligent.
Since Du Xing was able to see through Wei Haodong"s actions, the Star Web audience had an even better view.
Even if there was only a small group of people watching his team and who had noticed Wei Haodong, news of what he did would spread quickly.
Du Xing really wanted to know how Wei Haodong felt when he found out that his careful scheming had entrapped himself and caused his rating on Star Web to be tanked.
Wei Haodong had accurately grasped Yang Wenpeng"s bad-tempered personality. After being publicly challenged by so many people, he would definitely blow his top!
It was just as Wei Haodong expected.
Yang Wenpeng immediately summoned his two main feys.
Two black and muscular leopards with sleek bodies appeared in front of him before releasing two ear-splitting roars.
The two leopard-species feys released the aura of Platinum/Fantasy feys.
Yang Wenpeng"s power could be considered top-notch amongst the partic.i.p.ants of the Radiance Hundred Sequence. He was also naturally gifted.
Otherwise, he would not have been able to comprehend two Willpower Runes despite only being a little over 20 years old.
However, this did not give any advantage to him during this test.
Night Leaning Moon just happened to be watching Yang Wenpeng"s team.
When she saw that he, as the team"s leader, had summoned his feys to threaten his team members, Night Leaning Moon said seriously, "Go and check how this person managed to gain eligibility to partic.i.p.ate in the selection. How could he fill a spot in the Radiance Hundred Sequence with such a character?
"Go and check on the one who started the commotion as well. It looks like we need to tighten our restrictions on the Radiance Hundred Sequence"s eligibility criteria!"
The people in this team were weak and exhausted. Many of them were covered with injuries.
All of them were in a "lone wolf" state.
In such a state, their mental conditions were very sensitive, and they lost a lot of confidence in the test.
Many of them were not threatened by Yang Wenpeng. Instead, they summoned their own main feys in order to protect themselves.
The members of the teams who benefited from sticking with Yang Wenpeng had no choice but to help him and ensure that he remained the leader after this conflict ended.
Wei Haodong, the instigator, blended into the crowd.
Du Xing let out a sigh.
The waves of dead spirits had already popped up all over the test ground. The best evidence of this was the rising concentration of death aura in the air.
This was the worst time for such conflict to break out.
Du Xing said reproachfully, "The waves of dead spirits have already appeared. We are joining forces to look out for each other during the journey and give each other the best chances of surviving until we make it as the final candidates.
"Don"t lose sight of our initial goal! This conflict is getting in the way of our journey. The wave of dead spirits could drown us at any time!"