The crowd erupted with noise, the noise even louder than the cheers to announce the start of the tournament. Some were yells of confusion, others shock, and some complete doubt.
"Who the hell is this John Fenix?" A youth in the Heaven Tribulation Realm, who wore the robes of the Sword-Dao Sect, roared with anger. "There's no way this is correct! How the hell can a nobody place higher than Ji'Han?"
"He not only placed above Ji'Han, but also received the highest score in history! Impossible!" another Sword-Dao Sect youth roared furiously.
"And look at all those one hundreds! Impossible. His score must be false! He's a cheat! A cheat!" another yelled angrily.
"That's right. He's a cheater! A fraud! Remove him from the tournament!"
"He doesn't even belong to a Dao-Sect! He's a nobody! He's a fraud!"
Similar discussions dominated the arena, as many of the spectators were members of the Sword-Dao Sect or their subsects. Even the Yang-Dao Sect members and the Yang-Dao sub-sect members, from youths to elders, roared with anger and rage, unable to believe the score.
"Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!" a Sword-Dao Sect youth started chanting angrily. His chant quickly caught on, with much of the crowd, over ten million strong, chanting the same in unison. Their chants reverberated through the entire arena, and even the Yang-Sphere, a testament to their fury and rage.
In one of the exclusive rooms at the top of the stadium, the Sword-Saint looked down on the crowd, his face filled with a mix of amusement and anger. He was angered that the score had been officially posted, but was amused, even happy, that the crowd had reacted with such vitriol.
"You see this, Yang-Sovereign?" the Sword-Saint said softly to himself. "This shame, this embarrassment, will now stain you forever. You had the chance to rectify this situation, but refused to do so. When the boy reveals himself to be a fraud, this shame will permanently stain your name."
…
In another room at the very top of the stadium, the Prime Shadow sat, smiling at the development. Next to him sat a figure of power, as if he was the embodiment of the sun and the stars. The Yang-Sovereign's gaze drifted over the crowd, his face emotionless, unmoved by the crowd's actions.
A moment later, the door to the room opened. Zuri and Naelia walked in, then moved over towards the window where the Prime Shadow and the Yang Sovereign were. Their faces were twisted with anger, clearly having heard the chants before they entered the room.
"How can they call John a cheater without even knowing him?!" Naelia grumbled, unhappy by what she heard and saw. Zuri gave her a sideways glance, a small, amused smile appearing on her face.
"You thought John was a cheater as well," she said, her words causing Naelia's eyes to widen, her face then turning red.
"I…that was different," she pouted, taking a seat next to Zuri overlooking the arena below.
"Their chant's will be silenced soon," Zuri said, then took out a formation disk. It was the same as everyone else had, and sent her divine sense into it, linking it with John's name. A screen of light appeared before her in the air, revealing a scene within the labyrinth.
At the same time, the stadium stands began to alight with floating formation screens, revealing the same scene Zuri was seeing. In their shock and rage, most had forgotten they could select a name on the list, which would reveal what they were doing in the trial taking place. Usually, spectators would select to watch a member of their sect, or those towards the top of the list who still had to take this trial.
Today however, there was only one name everyone selected. One name they chose to watch.
"Hehe," the Prime Shadow laughed, truly amused by this situation. He gazed down at the massive labyrinth on one side of the arena, his gaze piercing stone and earth, then laughed again.
The Yang-Sovereign stared in the same direction, one eyebrow raising on his normally emotionless face.
"Your…successor is quite brutal," the Yang-Sovereign said, then gave the Prime Shadow a sideways glance. "And his Dao Name…Immortal Asura…"
"What of it?" the Prime Shadow asked.
The Yang-Sovereign stared at the Prime Shadow for a short moment, then silently looked back towards the labyrinth.
As the floating formation screens revealed a scene to everyone in the crowd, their angered face's immediately changed. Eyes went wide, hands were placed to gaping mouths in shock and disbelief, lips trembled, not with rage, but with horror. In a single moment, the entire crowd had been silenced, their rage forgotten, as if a distant memory. Now, only shock and horror remained.
…
In the air above John and the others, the formation orbs floated, each focused on a youth in the room. The one assigned to follow John projected a scene to all the viewers, revealing something none of them had expected.
Cries of agony and pain dominated the room John was in, which sounded more like a torture chamber than anything else. Three different agonized voices cried out, creating a harmony of anguish.
Gerid, as well as two of his friends, laid motionless on the ground, the only visible movement their trembling bodies. Both their legs and arms were shattered in several places, bones sticking out of the flesh, blood flowing out of the wounds created by the broken bones.
Their faces were damaged beyond recognition as well, becoming a jumbled mess of blood and exposed flesh. John stood over these three, who had been gathered in a pile of broken bodies before him. They twitched with excruciating agony, their cries of pain bellowing out ceaselessly. As Gerid had promised to do to him, he had done to Gerid and the two others.
While his actions were barbaric and brutal, they were not against the rules. He could not kill or cripple, which despite the gruesome things he did, did not violate those rules. Dao Transformation cultivators would heal up from these wounds in several weeks with some healing assistance, and thus it was not considered crippling. However, the mental crippling would remain, a permanent scar on the souls of these three.
John's gaze shifted from the broken bodies before him, towards the four others in the same room as him. His handling of Gerid had been nearly instant, at which point two of his friends lashed out at John, trying to take advantage of the situation to cut him down. After seeing what he was doing to Gerid, they didn't care for the rules or disqualification, and tried to team up on him to take him down.
Their combined assault had been squashed as soon as it began, and John reduced the state of their bodies to the same condition as Gerid's.
The four cultivators' on the other side of the room, all appearing to be around twenty to twenty two, flinched upon being stared at by John. Their wide eyes stared at him with absolute fear, as if they were staring at a beast about to devour and consume them.
"We…we didn't take action against you!" one said, a male with long brown hair and silver eyes. He had a Middle Dao Transformation cultivation, as did the four others. The others nodded their heads upon hearing their companions' words.
"That's…thats' right. We never targeted you. We only watched. Surely, we can let bygones be bygones?" another asked, voice unsteady.
"You only watched?" John said thoughtfully, then nodded his head in agreement. "I suppose you're right."
His words caused the four to sigh with absolute relief, as if they had just escaped the jaws of death.
"Since each of you only watched your friend's attempt to brutalize me, then each of you can watch as I break the four of you one by one," John said, his smile sending shivers of horror down the spines of the remaining four.
They immediately scattered to both sides of John, trying to rush past him towards the only opening into the labyrinth. John smiled as they rushed by, snapping his fingers without even turning around. At the same time, his divine sense linked with the armband of all four, allowing him to attune to, and fight each one of them.
Hundreds of nodes appeared in the air directly at the only exit. Beams of lightning sprang into existence a moment later, linking from one node to the next, immediately forming a solid net of lightning.
The four bounced off the lightning as it appeared in an instant, their bodies slightly charred from the brief contact. They recovered a moment later, then unleashed simultaneous attacks towards the wall of lightning, hoping to break it apart.
Battle arts exploded against the wall of lightning, drowning the relatively small room in a combined explosion of their power. The eyes of the four went wide with horror as they were consumed by their own power, which faded a short while later, revealing the four lying on the ground, injured from the blasts of their attacks.
Their eyes slowly drifted upwards towards the one exit, horror filling their bodies a moment later. The wall of lightning was still intact, unbroken by their assault. The sound of steady footsteps behind them grew louder with each steps, each step filling their hearts with horrified dread.
They did not sound like the steps of a tournament participant, but instead sounded like the approach of a reaper of death, a harbinger of pain, a creature of nightmares. Each tried to scramble to their feet, but each was too late.
The sound of shattering bones and agonized screams filled the room for a time, as millions of shocked and horrified eyes looked on.
