Martial World (Web Novel)
chapter-1246

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“Is something wrong with Purple Blade?”

“He’s randomly climbing about; he’s not going in a straight line at all!”

In the audience, many people noticed something strange happening with Purple Blade. He had already been left far behind by the other four people.

“Elder Senior-apprentice Brother, you can do it, put your back into it!”

“Elder Senior-apprentice Brother, don’t give up!”

The disciples from Purple Blade’s Holy Lands were all cheering for him. However, he wasn’t able to hear their cheers at all.

His sweat had already covered his eyes and his consciousness had gone completely blurry.

“Blood… my hands are holding blood? Am I crawling in a sea of blood… the end, I cannot see the end…” Every time Purple Blade took a step up, he felt as if he were grasping a mountain of swords. His palms and legs ached with a cutting pain.

His exhaustion had reached the limit. He felt as if he weighed 10,000 jins, and the pain was so intense he thought he would die at any moment.

With his final fading will, he forcefully grasped what he could. But, he no longer had the strength to take another step up.

Purple Blade had already lost consciousness. At the moment when the flow of energy within his body stopped, he was no longer able to withstand the pressure on the 31st step. The body of an essence gathering system martial artist was frail to begin with, and without the protection of energy around him, he simply wasn’t able to withstand the impact.

Blood rained down and Purple Blade fell from the cliff.

An aura of energy caught him, cradling him; he had been defeated!

“Purple Blade has lost! He was the third to reach the 22nd step, and yet he actually wasn’t able to reach the 30th step!”

“Heavens, this is far too difficult! Will there even be anyone capable of reaching the 32nd or 33rd step?”

Originally, many people thought that Purple Blade was inferior to Nether Limitless, but close in strength to Dragon Fang and Lin Ming. Now, they all realized just how great the disparity was.

“The other four are already nearing the top!”

“Lin Ming, Dragon Fang, and Nether Limitless are in the lead. Bloodless Sword has fallen behind them just a bit. Does this represent the difference in their strengths?”

“That might not be true. To find the actual difference in their strength, they have to undergo true combat. The Divine Seal Altar is merely a platform used to test the comprehensive fusion of one’s cultivation and talent.”

“It seems that all four of them will be able to reach the top. If so, they will have to fight!”

“I’m really looking forwards to it. Regardless of who fights who, it will surely be a clash of rivals!”

“These two fellows!” Nether Limitless looked at Lin Ming and Dragon Fang with disbelief in his eyes. “What are those two doing that they are climbing up so quickly? I have to give my everything in order to just barely keep up with their speed!

“Is it possible that the two of them have some sort of special immunity to soul pressure?”

Thinking about it, Xiao Daochild had said that the Divine Seal Altar was not just a test of one’s cultivation and thickness of true essence. It was also a test of one’s will, potential, and all sorts of other factors combined together. Nether Limitless thought all of this was a bit grating to his ears.

He was confident that his own strength and depth of true essence were far above that of Lin Ming and Dragon Fang. Could it be that his potential was inferior to theirs, thus they equalized each other and all three were able to maintain a similar speed?

“Can my potential truly be inferior to those two?”

Nether Limitless found this hard to accept.

In the way he viewed the world, he could accept it if an Empyrean descendant was superior to him. After all, someone that came from a Great World King Holy Land background simply couldn’t compare to the talent, inheritance, and resources of an Empyrean Heavenly Palace.

But, for small influences, even if they were dark horses that rushed out from the endless masses, he could not accept that they were on par with him!

It had to be known that in Nether Limitless’s nearly 40 year years of life, he had consumed a massive amount of resources. With all these resources gathered together, their value was no longer estimated in violet sun stones, but nine sun jades.

Nine sun jades were refined by half-step Empyreans and above by combining violet sun crystals with nine different types of yang energies. A single nine sun jade was equal to nearly 100 million violet sun crystals, or a trillion violet sun stones.

Nether Limitless had used so many resources and also practiced a transcendent divine might. Even so, he wasn’t much superior to two common martial artists. How could Nether Limitless accept this? It made him feel as if all those resources used on him had been wasted, as if they had been used on a dog.

“It’s impossible that they are better than me. I will not believe this. They must have some special arcane skill capable of resisting soul pressure, or their own soul force is astoundingly formidable, thus they are able to reach this speed…”

Nether Limitless speculated. In truth, his guesses were half right.

Lin Ming and Dragon Fang both had an extremely strong resistance to soul pressure. One cultivated the soul and the other had a special variation soul body.

An hour later, Dragon Fang was the first one to reach the 31st step of the Divine Seal Altar.

And behind Dragon Fang, just after 20 breaths of time, Nether Limitless arrived at nearly the same time as Lin Ming.

At this time, Dragon Fang’s pupils had returned to normal. His face was a bit paler than before, and he seemed extremely fragile. It was hard to imagine that a terrifying strength slumbered within him.

“These two people haven’t exhausted themselves too much… they must have some special technique to resist soul pressure.” As Nether Limitless saw Lin Ming and Dragon Fang’s appearance, he was increasingly sure of his own speculations. “If that’s the case, I will simply use my absolute strength to defeat all of you!”

After another quarter hour passed, Bloodless Sword finally crawled up the cliff of the 31st step with great difficulty.

The four of them had all successfully climbed up. Without a doubt, besides the four of them, there wouldn’t be another person that could make it up this high.

A decisive battle would soon erupt between these four people!

“This is too intense! The four of them are all peak masters; who will battle who?”

“I feel that Bloodless Sword is the weakest, Lin Ming and Dragon Fang are both similar, and Nether Limitless is the strongest!”

Based on their performance since the 21st step, Bloodless Sword was a bit worse and the other three were the same. But in the eyes of the audience, Nether Limitless was at the late Divine Sea, thus his cultivation and true essence were the deepest of the four. Lin Ming and Dragon Fang should surpass him in potential, but if they truly fought, Nether Limitless was likely stronger.

“This Lin Ming is truly a freak. He’s only at the peak of the early Divine Sea realm, yet he’s this strong. I really have no idea just how he has trained.”

…………..

At this time, several hundred miles away from the Divine Seal Altar, a spirit ship floated high in the skies.

In the spirit ship, a tall man in black robes was sitting in a grand black stone throne, looking through a window at the far off Divine Seal Altar. Even though he was this far away, he was able to clearly see everything happening on the Divine Seal Altar in crystal clear detail.

“Of those four people, two of them registered to enter the First Martial Meeting at my True Martial Word. But, the truth is that they aren’t from my True Martial World, nor do they belong to my True Martial Holy Lands. One is a wandering cultivator that just happened to be passing by, and the identity of his master is a mystery. As for the other, he is a disciple of a mere peak Holy Land. Even so, the two of them are able to stand on the 31st step! But, the disciple that I carefully raised up for all this time was actually eliminated on the 27th step! I used my portion of the income from Starbind Bank and the Imperial Auction House as the foundation for your resources, and even gave you an incomplete transcendent divine might as an inheritance. Even though I did all of this, this is the trash result that you gave me!”

This black-robed man was fuming with anger. He was the Great World King of True Martial World. In truth, True Martial World was only a sect from a second-order world, so it was normal that they wouldn’t have any disciples able to reach the 30th step. But now, four people had appeared that were able to step on the 31st step, and although two of them had even registered at the True Martial World, they actually weren’t from there. This was truly a matter that made one lose all face.

As the black-robed man spoke, the martial artists in front of him were all kneeling on the floor, trembling in fear. No one dared to speak up.

The black-robed man heaved a heavy sigh. “It has been over a million years and I have used up countless resources, and yet… if another million years pass and my True Martial Holy Lands still aren’t able to raise another World King, then that is simply the hand of fate. There will be nothing else I can do…”

The black-robed man shook his head, no longer speaking. He alone was the pillar that propped up the entire True Martial Holy Lands, but he would be unable to do so forever…

At this time on the Divine Seal Altar, the four participants still hadn’t fought. Rather, they rested for a moment. This brief period of rest was most beneficial to Bloodless Sword because he had exhausted the most energy of the four.

The pressure on the 31st step was extremely suppressive. Even though it was completely flat ground, Bloodless Sword still felt his own strength suppressed to no more than 40%.

“These damned fellows have actually climbed up faster than me. This weird Divine Seal Altar simply doesn’t allow me to display my sword skills to their full potential. In terms of total combat strength, with my sword in hand, I don’t believe that I will lose to an early Divine Sea or middle Divine Sea brat!”

The truth was that a Great World King Holy Land would deliberately train core disciples to participate in the Divine Realm First Martial Meeting. To guarantee the greatest chance of victory, they would make sure all disciples that entered were at the late Divine Sea realm. By entering a time enchantment it was easy to accomplish this.

Thus, Crimson Wishjade, Wu Finalcloud, Nether Limitless, Bloodless Sword, and the rest were all late Divine Sea martial artists.

If one wasn’t at the late Divine Sea realm, it was easy to suffer a great loss. Only those scattered smaller sects would send a group of early or middle Divine Sea realm disciples to participate as cannon fodder. In any case, for them, attaining any kind of good result was impossible to begin with.

“Choose your opponent!” Xiao Daochild indifferently said, his face like a 10,000 year glacier. No matter how amazing the participants on the Divine Seal Altar were, he didn’t have any expression at all, as if everything that happened was natural. To Xiao Daochild, the 31st step wasn’t anything at all!

As Xiao Daochild spoke these words, the billions of people in the audience held their breath.

And on the 31st step of the Divine Seal Altar, Lin Ming, Nether Limitless, Dragon Fang, and Bloodless Sword all glanced at each other, a fierce and vivid fighting spirit blazing in their eyes, nearly causing the air to burn.

“The two of you have quite wonderful soul support arcane skills, hm? To think that you would do something so cheap as using them to climb up here.” Nether Limitless was the first to speak.

“Oh? What are you trying to say?” Lin Ming asked, an eyebrow arching up.

“Even if you don’t want to admit it, you cannot hide from my eyes. But from now, it will be a battle of strength, something that will depend on your true ability. Do you want to choose first, or shall I choose first?” Nether Limitless had an extremely confident expression, as if he were the top master of the four people here.

Dragon Fang was silent, but Lin Ming grinned and then laughed. “Since you let me choose first, then I won’t be rude. I choose… you!”

Lin Ming pointed his spear towards Nether Limitless!

This movement caused a great commotion!

Of the four martial artists, no matter how one looked at it, Bloodless Sword should be the weakest. Thus, if one was allowed to choose first, choosing Bloodless Sword was the most appropriate choice. But, Lin Ming had actually chosen the supposed strongest Nether Limitless!

“This Lin Ming is too crazy!”

“What a badass!”

As Nether Limitless saw Lin Ming’s icy spear pointed towards him, a thick killing intent flashed in his eyes, “You’ve got guts!”