Chapter 2091: The Gap
It had to be acknowledged that, in the current era, Envoys and Semi-Progenitors stood at the peak of human strength. And out of the living Semi-Progenitors, the ancient gatemasters of the Twelve Heavenly Gates stood above all others, and they were all watching the current selection.
This was precisely why so many people had eagerly stepped forward to partic.i.p.ate in the Dao Chosen selection.
It was important for people to understand themselves. Most of the people in the Heavens Sect’s plaza were fully aware that they were not even close to possessing the level of power necessary to become a Dao Chosen. All they wanted was to demonstrate a sufficient level of strength or talent to attract the attention of the powerhouses who were watching the plaza.
Out of everyone in this first group of people charging for the statue of the Origin Progenitor, Ce Jiu held the lead. He arrived in front of the statue quicker than anyone else, and many who were watching were stunned.
There were more than just the Dao Chosen from the Heavens Sect era and the candidates from the current era partic.i.p.ating in the selection. There were also other people from the Heavens Sect era who had been frozen in the sourcebox, and while there were not many, they still numbered seven or eight. After twenty years, many youths had also risen up and made names for themselves in the years following the time of the Ten Arbiters. Very few of the people in the plaza had ever seen the Ce family fight before.
The appearance of the Ce Secret Art instantly blew everyone away. Fortunately, this secret technique was not an attack, and the stellular energy that was used to power the technique was not instantly devoured after being used.
Ce Jiu stared at the statue of the Origin Progenitor. Excitement flickered in his eyes, and he reached out to grab the statue. However, right as he was about to take hold of it, he realized that white catkins had appeared around them. They had not only appeared between Ce Jiu and the statue, but also across the entire plaza.
There was a scream. One of the drifting catkins had hit someone’s forehead. Instantly, their entire body shattered.
It was a shocking sight, and people looked around at the drifting flowers in horror.
Some of the drifting catkins moved towards Ce Jiu from the front. He was able to get a clear look, and could see that they were not white catkins, but rather tiny blades gathered together. They were sharp enough to slice through the void, and there was a white energy wrapped around them. These things were actually a terrifying attack, not some soft white fluff.
As Ce Jiu watched, the catkins in front of him suddenly broke apart and shot towards him.
He shot backwards, but the flower-like blades had left almost no path of retreat, and Ce Jiu was clearly being forced to block the attacks. However, he avoided all the blocked paths of escape, which surprised even Wei An. "I thought that he would be forced to use his secret technique to escape, but he’s not too shabby huh?”
Hen Mo quietly watched from nearby as a group of people shot towards the statue. He looked around at the blades that looked like white catkins scattered across the entire plaza. There were many people who were in no rush at all. These people genuinely wanted to fight for the position of Dao Chosen, and they had no intention of acting like a group of clowns fighting over a bit of food. "It’s not right to look down on this entire era. Outstanding people can still appear even now."
"Were you schooled on that?" Wei An was surprised.
Hen Mo did not reply, but he started steadily making his way towards the statue one step at a time. The blades that looked like catkins were completely unable to harm him, as he was isolated by an invisible layer of battle force.
The white catkins were scattered everywhere in the plaza, and screams kept ringing out. Almost instantly, the floor of the plaza was stained with blood.
Jue Yi voiced his admiration from the audience. "This is how things should be. The Heavens Sect should not be founded based on sheer quant.i.ty, but rather on toughness and blood! At humanity’s greatest heights, thousands of races were not conquered because of the number of humans, but rather through ruthless slaughter. Blood is the best foundation for the Heavens Sect. In this way, the current era will be able to see the truth."
Wei An"s catkins had drifted across the plaza and eliminated almost half of the partic.i.p.ants so far. The people who had still stood had either been lucky or possessed the strength to survive. Avery was on his knees, and he finally completely collapsed. He had been eliminated before the entire Heavens Sect. The arrogant youth who had once stood at the peak of his generation, a genius who had been ranked fourth on the Top 100 Rankings, was absolutely helpless on this battlefield.
Suddenly, a cold energy shot across the plaza. Wei An turned his head and saw the white light of a falling sword. His eye twitched, and he waved a hand to bring his catkins in front of him. The sword slash fell down, sliced through the floating catkins, and eventually disappeared before it reached Wei An.
This sword was far from weak, but star energy no longer existed, which had removed the most popular form of cultivation from the Fifth Mainland. Star energy battle techniques no longer had a place in the universe. While people could still cultivate to the Envoy realm by relying on star crystals, the strength that they could display was not at all the same as in the past.
This attack was the Fifth Sword from the Sword Sect’s Thirteen Swords. This was the blade that united man, sword, and domain, and Liu Shaoqiu had been the one to launch this attack.
Liu Shaoqiu had already become an Enlighter, but he was unable to utilize the full power of his sword techniques.
Wei An looked over at Liu Shaoqiu. "You actually dare to attack me with a sword?"
Liu Shaoqiu looked extremely calm, and he simply raised his sword and attacked again, this time with the Eleventh Sword: Origin’s Crack. This sword slash had originally been able to slice through s.p.a.ce to enter the true universe and attack Envoys, but in the absence of stellular energy, the Eleventh Sword had been defanged, and it was now a much more basic attack.
The sword slash hurtled towards Wei An through what had once been the true universe.
Wei An shook his head. "Too weak."
He turned his left hand, and the catkins drifting through the air gathered together. The countless blades worked together to release a terrifying slash back at Liu Shaoqiu.
The gap in the two men’s strength was enormous. Wei An was a two-tribulation Envoy, and Liu Shaoqiu could not deal with such an expert’s attacks.
Liu Shaoqiu swept out with his sword when he heard Wei An’s remark. He would not allow the people of the current era to be looked down upon, even if doing so led to his death.
The Eleventh Sword was instantly shattered, and Wei An’s slash continued forward. However, Liu Shaoqiu did not move or dodge as the blade fell towards him. His body was swept away by the slash, and blood rained down upon the plaza as a body was sent tumbling through the air. Not a single part of Liu Shaoqiu’s body looked like it had been left intact, and it was impossible to know if he was dead or alive.
However, as he was struck, his sword had also released an attack: the Thirteenth Sword. He had actually mastered the Thirteenth Sword.
The expression on Wei An"s face froze, and he slowly looked down to stare at his body. He did not even realize that blood was dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. How was this possible? It was because the Thirteenth Sword could not be dodged or blocked.
Wei An was not the only one startled by this development, as the nearby Hen Mo, and the more distant Lu Jiao from the Lu family had also seen this exchange of blades, and they both turned to stare at Liu Shaoqiu in shock. How had he managed to wound Wei An? It was very clear just how large the gap between them was.
The two men stared at Liu Shaoqiu where he lay on the plaza. Despite not knowing if he still lived, no one would dare to underestimate him again. For him to have injured Wei An despite the vast difference in cultivation between them, the fallen man was an unbelievable genius.
Wei An wiped at the corner of his mouth, and he gave Liu Shaoqiu a look of respect. "You are very impressive, but unfortunately, the gap between us is too much. Still, I will remember you."
He then turned around and started walking towards the statue of the Origin Progenitor. As he did so, another sword slashed at him. Again, it was the Fifth Sword. It was the exact same attack that Liu Shaoqiu had used against Wei An.
However, this attack was one that left Wei An wary. For the first time, he pulled out his own blade, and he swept it across in front of him, the slice stopping the Fifth Sword. He then looked off into the distance, where he saw a woman with long black hair and gla.s.ses holding a long white sword in her hand. She was Liu Tianmu.
Liu Tianmu said nothing, instead lifting her sword to release the Eleventh Sword, Origin Crack. She was still copying Liu Shaoqiu"s attacks, but the power that this woman wielded made Wei An nervous. The truth was that there was still a significant difference in strength between him and Liu Tianmu, as she was still just an Enlighter. Despite the pa.s.sage of twenty years, with the true universe empty, there was an entire generation trapped in the Enlighter realm with no way to break past the final step.
Still, Liu Tianmu was much stronger than Liu Shaoqiu, and the gap between her strength and Wei An’s was not as exaggerated.
The Thirteen Swords was an unparalleled and terrifying sword art, and Liu Tianmu"s use of the various techniques was even more overbearing than what Liu Shaoqiu had revealed. No matter how confident Wei An might be, he recognized that he had to take this woman seriously. There were still true geniuses in this current era.
Ce Jiu had been forced to retreat by the white catkins, and the second person to reach the statue of the Origin Progenitor was actually Ku Lei. He also did not immediately lay his hands upon the statue, as a young man from the Heavens Sect era had appeared and blocked his path when Ku Lei arrived just a short distance away from the statue.
"Your era has no understanding of the greatness of the Origin Progenitor! None of you are qualified to touch his likeness," the young man arrogantly declared. As soon as he spoke, golden meteors fell down from overhead. Hui Santong had attacked.
“I might despise Ku Lei, but you’re even more annoying. No matter if this statue is of the Origin Progenitor, we still will touch it."
"You overestimate yourselves!" The young man pointed his fingertips upwards, and countless white curtains of white light swept upwards towards the golden meteors.
One golden meteor after another fell down, and the curtain of white light sliced through each one of them. A magnificent duel played out in the plaza, and shockwaves shook the area.
As the young man spoke, he slowly and casually walked towards the statue of the Origin Progenitor. He would not allow anyone from the current era to lay a finger on the statue.
No one from the Heavens Sect era had ever truly regarded the people of the current era as their peers. The ancient people were arrogant, and they only saw their own contemporaries as their equals.
This was true even of Lu Lai and Lu Jiao, as they also looked down on the people of the modern era.
In their arrogance, the people of the Heavens Sect era had reached an unspoken agreement: no one from the current era would be allowed to touch the statue of the Origin Progenitor.
Chu Yuan watched as the battles raged across the plaza, but he merely smiled indifferently at what he saw. Regardless of how people struggled, there were only a very select few who were truly qualified to reach the end of this Dao Chosen Selection. Wei An, Hen Mo, and the others from the ancient era were not qualified, let alone anyone from the modern era.
Sky Garan was also still, though he occasionally sent a few glances towards the Lu Heavenly Gate. Was Lu Yin really dead? If so, that was a pity, as it meant that Sky Garan would not be able to defeat him directly.
In another corner of the plaza, Xu San was not only not trying to move forward, but was actually retreating. What he was seeing was simply too scary. Why did Master tell me to fight? These people are all monsters! The Ten Arbiters are getting their a.s.ses handed to them, so what can I possibly do? This is too much. I’ll just wait a bit longer. There are still conniving b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like Ku Wei waiting around, and they haven’t done anything. They probably don’t dare to do anything now that they’ve seen what kind of monsters are here.
Nong Zaitian was thinking the same as Xu San. Nong Zaitian also had zero motivation to compete to become the Dao Chosen. All of that Dao Chosen stuff had nothing at all to do with him, but what could he do? Nong Zaitian’s ancestor had ordered him to partic.i.p.ate while stating that the Nong family had always been lucky. Just remembering that matter made Nong Zaitian roll his eyes. Regardless of how lucky he might be, how could he go against battle force? Even the guys with ten lined battle force were being treated as second-rate partic.i.p.ants!
Dai Ao lay on the floor in the distance. He struggled to lift his head to see Hen Mo slowly approaching. "Anyone who betrays the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate deserves to die. I did everything I could to join Team Resolution, and while you were so close to succeeding, you chose betrayal. You can just go to h.e.l.l!"
As he finished speaking, Hen Mo arrived right in front of Dai Ao. The man raised a foot. He wanted to kill Dai Ao in the most insulting manner possible.
Dai Ao clenched his fists. He wanted to stand up, but the gap between him and this person was too great. Dai Ao had believed himself to be very talented at battle force, but this Dao Chosen selection was not restricted to just battle force. Even Xia Linyue, who had been severely injured by Dai Ao, would not be suppressed if those restrictions had not been in place during the team battle. In fact, without those restrictions, Dai Ao would have never been able to even get close to Xia Linyue.
This was the gap between them. Dai Ao had elected to partic.i.p.ate in the Dao Chosen selection, but a key part of that decision was that he had not truly understood the gap in strength.
From the Lu Heavenly Gate’s section, w.a.n.g Wen frowned as he watched things play out. He had previously attempted to persuade Dai Ao to not partic.i.p.ate in the Dao Chosen selection, but he had been ignored. There was nothing more that w.a.n.g Wen could do.
Hen Mo stomped down, but as his foot fell, a white spear suddenly shot towards him from the side, and it was aimed straight at his forehead.
Hen Mo frowned. He had no choice but to stop his foot so that he could turn and dodge this sudden attack. He reached out and grabbed the spear. “Decent strength."
Ling Gong was tightly clenching her spear, her body shrouded with battle force. She sent a jostle through her spear in an attempt to free it, but her weapon did not budge in the slightest.
"You want to compete with me in battle force?" Hen Mo’s voice grew cold, and he released an invisible battle force from his body. The void started burning, proving that this was actually aurelian force. Ling Gong was instantly overpowered by just its presence, and she struggled to not spit out blood.
She had never expected this young man to have actually mastered aurelian force.