The formation beast fell at John's feet, shaking the ground lightly. Wounds covered most of its body, which was obviously broken in many places. Unlike a creature felled by a sharp blade, with cuts and blood everywhere, this creature was bashed to death instead.
A second later, the formation beast faded away. John nodded, satisfied, then continued onwards. More tests and trials appeared on his journey through the arena. Illusory trials, combat trials, speed trials, power trials and more.
None of them came close to giving John a hard time, let alone stopping his progress forward. Almost all the way through the trial, he stopped as another formation-based opponent fell, downed by his barrage of attacks from his human shaped weapons.
'This trial is far easier than I thought it was going to be,' John thought. 'Although I suppose its difficulty makes sense. This trial isn't trying to eliminate everyone, but instead find the worthiest candidates to move onto the actual tournament. If it was so hard it eliminated everyone, it would ruin everything.'
A tall, barren mountain blocked his path forward. The air around the mountain shimmered ever so slightly, revealing some sort of energy covering it. John stepped onto the base of the mountain, feeling a powerful energy descend on him, trying to block his path forward.
He sighed with disappointment, then moved forward. The energy intensified as he continued, but even at the top where it was the strongest, it was not strong enough to force him to use his Dragon-God Shift, let alone strong enough to cause him any problem.
He crested the top of the mountain, peering down on the other side. An open field, one that stretched from one side of the arena to the other came into view. On the other side of the field was the finish line. It was a large stone archway several hundred yards wide and tall, with Elders of the Yang-Dao Sect standing nearby.
Between him and the finish line was the open field. The field was littered with formation-based enemies, thousands in total. It was closer to a battlefield than anything else, with thousands of human and bestial enemies.
The battlefield was exploding with activity, as trial participants who had arrived this far tried to make their way through the field. The formation enemies surged towards them ceaselessly, causing each participant to fight their way through hordes of enemies. From what he could tell, this was the hardest trial by far, which made sense as it was also the last one.
John focused on a girl from a sect he didn't recognize making her way through the battlefield. She was in the Early Dao Transformation realm, and as each enemy approached her, their cultivation shifted towards the Early Dao Transformation Realm as well. Dozens threw themselves at her, wave after wave.
The girl, spear in hand, faced the onslaught head on, slowly but surely making her way forward. She was struggling a bit, but was not on the verge of defeat. John watched her for a short while, then sighed again.
'If only the enemies were of a higher cultivation than my own, this could have been fun.'
Shaking his head with disappointed boredom, John made his way down the other side of the mountain and arrived at the start of the field. He walked onto it without pause, and soon a horde of enemies noticed him, then sped towards him, weapons raised, battle arts flying out.
John lowered his Sword-Dao Sect weapon, who he had named Sword of A Thousand Morons, and steadied it before him. His Yang-Dao Sect weapon still rested on his other shoulder, its natural yang aura bathing him in a nice, comfortable warmth.
On his way through the trial, John had favored using his Sword-Dao Sect weapon for almost every battle, while the Yang-Dao Sect weapon was merely ornamentation.
A muffled protest, one barely audible through the coils of lightning, sounded out.
"Silence, Sword of A Thousand Morons," John said, shaking the weapon violently in his hand. "You are a weapon. You cannot speak."
Another angered cry sounded out, which turned to frenzied pleading, then pain, as the battle began. Enemy after enemy threw themselves at John, each enemy in the Middle Dao Transformation Realm. John swung his Sword of A Thousand Morons outwards, each swing slamming into an enemy with violent power.
Each swing was strong enough to blast his opponent aside, and sometimes blasted multiple enemies aside at once. John was like a tempest on the battlefield, moving slowly but surely without pause, a storm of chaos following wherever he went.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The battlefield trembled from each attack, which continued ceaselessly as the horde of enemies seemed to never end. When one was felled, another formed from thin air, then threw itself at John. Some attacked physically, other enemies used battle arts. Each attack was met with his Sword of A Thousand Morons, which held up quite nicely in this battle, much to John's approval.
While most of it was due to his powerful lightning wrapped completely around his weapon, it was still holding up quite well.
The crowd watched with stunned awe as John made his way through the battlefield with calm composure. By now, they had realized that his strength was the real deal. Every single trial, every single test he had endured had been completed with comical ease, as if the trials were nothing more than playthings to him.
Not a single one had given him any difficulty so far, and even his battles with the powerful Sword-Dao Sect and Yang-Dao Sect members had been an easy victory for him.
A long line of destruction trailed behind John, who finally arrived on the other side of the open field. The enemies stopped moving towards him, and instead focused on other participants that were fighting in the battlefield.
The finish line was only a dozen yards away. John stepped towards it, then paused before stepping over the line. The crowd looked on with surprised confusion, wondering why he had stopped moving right at the very end.
John stood there for a second, then turned around. He laughed at himself lightly, shaking his head.
"I probably almost just got disqualified," he said to himself, a self-deprecating smile on his face.
He then took both of his weapons off his shoulders, and set them upright on the ground before him, an ankle held in each hand.
"You two were good weapons," John said. "May we meet again in the future, so that I may use you once more."
With that, he picked up the Yang-Dao Sect weapon, took a step forward, then heaved his arm powerfully. The Yang-Dao Sect weapon arced into the air like a lightning bolt, surging through the sky. It sailed for dozens of miles back towards the labyrinth on the other side of the arena, eventually landing just before the stone door where he had obtained it.
Just as the weapon hit the ground, the lightning unraveled. The Yang-Dao Sect youth's aura flared with furious might as he landed on his feet. His head swiveled in all directions, searching for the one who had turned him into a weapon.
He looked upwards, noticing another object speeding towards his location. The object, a human shape wrapped in lightning, sped towards his location with incredible speed and power. Unlike before, the lightning did not fade away as it arrived.
"Ahh!" a startled, panicked try rang out from within the lightning coils.
The Sword-Dao Sect cultivator, still coated in lightning, slammed violently into the ground. The ground shattered in all directions as the youth pierced into the ground, disappearing from sight. A cry of agonized pain drifted out of the human-shaped crater a moment later.
The Yang-Dao Sect cultivator watched that all happen with wide eyes, then breathed a sigh of relief that his fate had not been the same. His face lit up with embarrassment as he noticed the crowd staring at him. He shook his head to compose himself, then made his way forward through the rest of the trial once again, hoping to still qualify for the actual tournament.
John nodded his head, satisfied with the outcome of things, then turned around, and stepped through the finish line of the elimination trial. The first step of this tournament, the first step towards defeating Ji'Han and winning Lilian's freedom was complete.
