Chapter 1179: Whitebeard and n.o.beard
Reality had proven that every system had a flaw, and this Collapsed Expanse of Founders was no different. Under Xia Fei’s vicious a.s.sault, the system had crashed?! The countless warriors within the system stopped fighting and looked around them in confusion.
For countless years, the G.o.d-Demon System had been the only shortcut available for those people without much talent to ascend to the heavens in a single step. Stories of ordinary civilians, good-for-nothing wastrels of rich families, and puny minor characters achieving meteoric success had encouraged these people to cast themselves into this vast region of s.p.a.ce.
They saw only the glory of the successes, forgetting that the chances of achieving victory were minimal at best.
They were incredibly tiny. Only those familiar with the details knew that whenever the Collapsed Expanse of Founders opened, only three people would grow famous overnight, no more and no less.
Of course, some people would improve in small ways, like rising by one or two ranks or becoming part of the soul pract.i.tioner or spiritualist lineage.
However, in the end, the more detail-oriented person would discover that the number of people who could emerge from the Collapsed Expanse of Founders and truly stand tall in the Alpha Universe, becoming highly influential people, was fixed to three. Many seemingly stand-out figures from before would gradually be lost to the river of history.
The chances of success were too low, which was why the great clans of the Alpha Universe were not too happy about the Collapsed Expanse of Founders. The great clans naturally possessed extraordinary genes and outstanding potential, so they would never risk it for these three spots that only appeared once every several thousand years.
However, this time was an exception. The most outstanding young scions of the Alpha Universe and Xia Fei had come to the Collapsed Expanse of Founders, and even the long-forgotten Dark Spiritualists had joined in, creating a storm within the Collapsed Expanse of Founders.
…
As the G.o.d-Demon System crashed, the dark red bar that had been crazily rising came to a sudden halt. This was someone who had entered the G.o.d-Demon System at the very end, but the height of the bar was amazing, almost on the verge of catching up with the others.
…
Yellow warning lights began to flash, casting this command center located in parts unknown in a strange light.
Two hasty sets of footsteps began to approach, and then two elders came in. They were dressed very casually and had surprised looks on their faces. It seemed that the cras.h.i.+ng of the G.o.d-Demon System had been completely unexpected.
The ma.s.sive chart was like a river, stretching into the horizon. After all, there were tens of thousands of warriors being tracked here, each person occupying their own little s.p.a.ce, and when put together, they could blot out the sky.
It would truly be a problem if they had to look through them one by one for the error. Fortunately, the G.o.d-Demon System had a rather advanced AI, and a very long arrow pointed the way, the two elders rus.h.i.+ng off to the end of the chart.
*Whoos.h.!.+*
...
The two old men had reached the middle of the chart in a flash; alas, the arrow was still going.
*Whoos.h.!.+*
In another flash, the two of them arrived at the 75% point of the chart. The warriors displayed here had all come in at the later stage and were lacking in potential, so there was no comparing their points to those at the front.
“What’s going on? It’s even farther back?” The old man with a rather long beard scratched his head in confusion.
The other one did not have a beard, but his face had many black spots, and he was sporting a hawkish nose. He shook his head and said, “It’s strange. Usually, those who come in first are the good seedlings, while those who come in at the end are mostly trash; how could they have caused the system to malfunction? Could it be…”
The two of them both trembled in shock, their faces turning grave.
“Has a Fiend gotten in?!” the white-bearded old man blurted out. The two of them looked at each other, their breathing stopping.
*Whoos.h.!.+*
They no longer dared to be slow, the two of them quickly moving to the back. This time, they showed off their real ability.
Speed! Absolutely incredible speed! Speed that exceeded ten million meters per second!
However, if one looked carefully, one would find that they did not move in the same way Xia Fei did. Xia Fei’s speed was the proper kind, relying entirely on the power of his legs and body to carry him through s.p.a.ce and reach maximum speed, his movements were akin to him running on his two feet.
In comparison, the legs of these old men did not move at all. They just slid along the ground like kites in the wind yet still achieved high speeds!
Both methods had their advantages. Xia Fei’s movements were very intense, the wind blasts he created could shatter eardrums and break the morale of his foes. He was as majestic and mighty as a G.o.d among mortals.
If this formidable movement was mixed with Crafty Approach and Breath Control, he would achieve an effect similar to these old men, as silent as a ghost while also being incredibly fast.
In short, when it came to movement techniques, Xia Fei, who could hold his own in both the Alpha Universe and the Law Realm, was not necessarily a match for these two old men. Their movement techniques were simply wondrous to behold!
Finally, the two old men reached the end of the chart. They saw Xia Fei’s name, and those flas.h.i.+ng numbers and the blinking red bar all proved that this challenger was the perpetrator of the cras.h.!.+
They stared at Xia Fei for two whole minutes before exhaling.
The whitebearded one sighed and patted his chest. “That scared me to death. I thought that a Fiend had managed to get in.”
“Hmph! Even if he’s a Fiend, so what? There’s nothing to be afraid of!” The beardless one scoffed.
The whitebearded one laughed and pointed at the beardless one’s head. “Keep acting. You were running faster than me just moments ago. You were clearly terrified out of your mind.”
The beardless one’s face turned red, and he quickly argued back. “Absolute nonsense! I’d naturally be worried since the system has encountered a problem! Fortunately, this is only the first phase. If something happened in the second or third phase, both of us would be in trouble.”
The beardless one was rather good at changing the subject, quickly pulling the whitebearded one back onto the main subject.
“Let’s have the system recover first. It’s not good to delay things for too long,” the beardless one said.
“What do we with that Xia Fei? He’s pa.s.sed too quickly, causing so many points to be added that the system has experienced data overflow. Once we restart the system, as long as that guy is still around, the system will probably crash again,” the whitebearded one said worriedly. The long string of numbers under Xia Fei’s name had left him both surprised and concerned.
“We can’t be worrying about that too much. We’ll just stop his trial process and then intervene,” the beardless one said through clenched teeth.
“Intervene!? Are you crazy?! Stopping his system is essentially letting him pa.s.s the first phase. There are Nine G.o.d-Demon Heavens, and he’s only pa.s.sed three! Plus, be it us, our seniors, or our seniors’ elders, I’ve never heard of anyone who was sent to monitor the system intervening in it. If this gets out, we’re both finished!” the white-bearded one shouted, a look of terror on his face.
Clearly, this G.o.d-Demon System belonged to some unknown higher plane. These two elders were existences beyond the comprehension of the Alpha Universe, apparently.
The universe had its rules, and sapient lifeforms of a higher plane normally did not intervene in the evolution of lower lifeforms.
Life needed countless eons to evolve from simple single-cell lifeforms to primitive savages that could hunt and think and even more countless eons to evolve into intelligent life. More eons were needed to step into the sea of stars, and even more eons were needed to reach the limits of biology; countless eons after that were required for the energy of intelligent lifeforms to ascend to a higher plane.
The evolution of life was an extremely long process. It was only a few years ago that the people of Earth had been talking about the primitiveness of the ancients and the idiocy of the dinosaurs, but today, they were experiencing the sea of stars and were witnessing superwarriors who had unlocked their seventh brain regions, with some of the greater warriors able to use dark energy. This was impossible to imagine in the past.
This was just how things were. While they were all lifeforms, the gap was akin to one hundred thousand light years. When the beardless one spoke of intervening in Xia Fei’s progress, the whitebearded old man was very hesitant, for this went against the rules.
“Who cares?! If the system is out of commission for a long time, we’ll die an even more miserable death!” the beardless one shot back in a very determined tone. Pointing at the long string of numbers under Xia Fei’s name, he said, “Look for yourself! This rascal isn’t a fiend but a monster! He’s done something even a monster couldn’t do, shattering the heavens! This data overflow is on the verge of eruption! If we don’t move to handle it, the system will be done for!”
n.o.beard spoke in a harsh tone, and the Whitebeard began to calm down and think about it. The numbers under Xia Fei’s name were truly frightening. He took up a large chunk of the chart, even forcing up the names of the people around him!
“*Ugh*! This devilish guy! Just what did he do to cause such severe data overflow?! Fine, we’ll do as you say!” Whitebeard gritted his teeth and finally acquiesced.
“Don’t worry. There are always weirdos in the universe. According to the elders, it’s not like this system hasn’t crashed before. It’s just that n.o.body talks about them afterward, and n.o.body has ever dealt as much damage as this guy,” n.o.beardsaid in a whisper.
“You’re saying that similar things have happened to the system in the past?” Whitebeard asked in shock. The G.o.d-Demon System was incredibly formidable, so only a heaven-defying monster could make it crash, and it seemed like Xia Fei was not the only such monster.
“Precisely.” n.o.beardglanced at Xia Fei’s name and spoke viciously. “There’s nothing to be done. These unreasonable guys appear once every few epochs to cause trouble, and it seems like we happened to have run into one.”
Since they had made up their minds, these two mysterious old men got to work, restoring everyone’s testing processes but pulling Xia Fei out of the system.
This could be considered a blessing out of a curse. Through manual operation, Xia Fei had been advanced to the second round without any need to take part in further testing.
Four minutes and 41 seconds! Xia Fei had arrived later than everyone else, but he was promoted faster than all of them!
Wiping off their sweat, the two old men went to the end of the chart, where that name they had pulled out of the system was.
“Fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds! The system was down for nearly fifteen minutes! Even if something like this happened a very long time ago, this is still probably the longest,” Whitebeard muttered, shaking his head.
“Probably,” n.o.beardreplied weakly.
Waving his finger in the air, Whitebeard said, “Let’s see what this monster did.”
*Whoos.h.!.+*
A screen appeared, and Xia Fei’s time in the Collapsed Expanse of Founders began to replay from the very first second. The two of them followed Xia Fei as he worked through the tests, and the more they saw, the more alarmed they became!
Xia Fei had no idea that, besides bringing himself trouble, he often got other people into a lot of trouble as well!