The scene of countless enlarged faces projecting emotions, first of pain, agony, hatred, grievance, and depression only to meet the holy radiance and experience relief, happiness, excitement, content, melancholy, and acceptance was a sight that no one here would forget in a lifetime and a half. These were lives long lost, freed by their captors and dreary fates. It was beyond moving; to some, it was life-defining to an ultimate degree.
"No wonder..." Na Xinyi softly inhaled as her chest felt a warmth profuse thoroughly within. The end of suffering, to any with emotions, would generate such alleviating, comfortable feelings. She couldn't help but smile, her eyes wet with unshed tears. She didn't know any of these cultivators personally, but she thoroughly resonated with many of their wills for excellence against unbearable odds. The fate of being trapped and tormented, unable to experience a form of release, was heart-wrenching.
Her feelings were not hers alone. The Ascendants all observed this mystical event silently as well.
"Thank you," Xue Yifei gently said as she released the last core and soul in her possession. She wasn't speaking to anyone present, but to the man that was definitely listening in. In this exquisite moment, she grasped an unforgettable lesson that marked her heart: While the world might be filled with challenges, chaos, and death, there where moments where gains and benefits can be set aside, channeling your inner, most purest heart to strive for something greater.
A wish before them, with layers upon layers of plans, yet no one was thinking of that as they freed their fellow cultivator. They had traversed the road of cultivation, and while some lost in the end, one should never forget them. The Ascendants and Chosen of two worlds all set their hearts to one activity, all else was secondary.
Yao Houyi brought out his last mystic core. It belonged to the marble-skinned Evil Sentinel. He tossed it in without a word. While this might dispel the radiance, he nor anyone else made any move to approach. They all maintained seven hundred meters of distance at minimum.
When the marble-skinned Evil Sentinel's core reached the holy radiance
Eeeeek!!!
A high-pitched, soul-throbbing screech resounded that shook the hearts. The core trembled violently, drawing everyone's attention. Then, a shadow of the marble-skinned Evil Sentinel emerged, writhing in unbearable agony, almost begging for death. Her bones and joints twisted and contorted to a disgusting degree. From the shadow's chest, dark lights blitzed out like a light show.
"..." Everyone silently watched. They all knew who this person was as she had been indirectly responsible for the loss of many lives through her insidious spells.
BOOM!!
The shadow was soon overwhelmed by the expulsion of dark light as it ballooned and then exploded! As it did, thousands, no, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of faces of all sizes, ranging from hundred feet to tens of thousands of feet, taller than Da Shan, manifested within the sky.
"My heavens..."
The sight of so many faces churned the heart with disbelief. This Evil Sentinel had countless spirits and souls within her, and many were very ethereal, as if they were on the verge of fading away at the slightest gust of gentle wind.
Wei Wuyin watched this from afar, his gaze wintry with brows deeply furrowed. When he first saw the marble-skinned Evil Sentinel, she had an disgustingly absurd level of sinful aura. The impulse slaughtered her then and there stung him, originating from the Heavenly Daos. She was, by far, the most prolific sinner of the entire bunch. Her alone was enough to outclass the entire batch of Evil Sentinels in sinful aura by a large margin. He didn't know the extent of her sinful acts against the heavenly commandants, but from what he could tell, she siphoned souls and used them in a strange, mysterious method as kindling for her Spiritual Strength. This was directly against the laws of the Heavenly Daos, interfering with the process of a soul's reincarnation and directly affecting their existence.
Yao Houyi was taken aback as he inclined his head, seeing countless faces looking at him. The holy radiance infused some of them, reinforcing their souls to prevent total dispersion. They flashed him looks of gratitude, excitement, relief, and happiness. The Archer was their savior, so they paid respects to the slayer of their tormentor with heartfelt earnestness.
"Rest well." Yao Houyi clasped his hand, giving them a salute and a send off. Their mouths moved as if to give thanks before vanishing. Some looked to the sky, closed their eyes, and slowly allowed the holy radiance to bathe them until they disappeared.
Wei Wuyin's reserves of energy were being drained swiftly as he assisted the faces in not only projecting themselves but also ensured that they didn't disperse, giving the Heavenly Daos time to retrieve them properly, bringing them to Hell via profound laws of the heavens. He was forced to resort to Little Defiant's solar energy after he nearly bottomed out of power from all four of his Astral Souls.
This entire act was costly to an extreme, but he didn't think it was wasteful at all. After ensuring the marble-skinned Evil Sentinel was properly killed, her trapped souls were freed, he glanced at his arm.
First Calamity: Survived - 7/7.Second Calamity: Claimed - 1/1.Third Calamity: Claimed - 3/3.Fourth Calamity: Suppressed - 19 Years.Karmic Luck Value: 197,420.8 â 212,530.5.
Karmic Luck Value was rapidly rising. Moreover, the Heavenly Daos were brewing something mystifying above. He didn't know what it was or could be. The feeling it gave reminded him of a top-tier chef cooking up something unfathomably delicious. It was going to be a bountiful harvest unlike anything that he'd ever seen. This was what he felt.
"Someone has changed the King of Everlore's original trial's setting..." Wei Wuyin thoughtfully considered. He didn't think that the King of Everlore would establish something horrid like this. It was just a feeling, but there were signs that the Chosen King Competition had changed at some point. He also didn't think it was due to that existence either.
He couldn't find out the answer by relying solely on his instincts here, and the evidence he currently possessed could only rule out that existence as there wasn't any sinful aura that he could sense when they had met before. Moreover, as he took the spot as the Overseer, he could see faint signs of changes over the formations and arrays that felt like they were tacked on after their creation. The most noticeable was the formation that retrieved and stored blood energy, spirits, and souls.
The endless manifestations of faces caused silence to fall instantly. People looked onwards at these fallen Chosen, all these brave souls that had once fought valiantly for an opportunity to rise within this cruel world.
The charcoal-skinned Evil Sentinel had their entirety refined and given to Xiao Yanyue, so they had no core to offer. Meanwhile, the golden-bodied Evil Sentinel didn't generate anywhere close to such a show. He was a real talent, barely relying on this world's cruel formations to invest in himself. While he had some, some were less than even a few Mystic Soul cultivators. Regardless of his status as an Evil Sentinel, this alone was evidence that he had unyielding morals and firm principles that he refused to violate so egregiously unlike the others. Perhaps that was why he was able to push his cultivation a little further.
Wei Wuyin's Karmic Luck Value kept increasing as time passed until all the Mystic Cores and Mystic Souls were offered up by the participants of the Chosen King Competition. Solemn to the soul, they all gazed at the holy radiance as its purity and radiance faded bit by bit.
0:17.
Only seventeen seconds remained as the holy radiance dispelled entirely. The Evercrown floated in the sky without any protection. It'll only take a single step, and many of them could reach it in a single breath. However, none of them moved.
Not yet.
San Yongli rubbed her glabella as she looked up to the sky. She felt an odd storm brewing above. Her Book of Heaven's Path was vibrating faintly with a mystical hum.
"Is this it?" She muttered to herself. The memories of her past, this world's potential future, where the Chosen King Competition experienced an unfathomable catastrophic end flashed within her mind. While she was emotionally moved by the faces and the holy radiance, San Yongli understood that she couldn't allow herself to grow careless.
This was her moment to establish herself, preparing a proper and potentially invincible road to the Mystic Ascendant Realm. Her fists clenched tightly as her gaze hardened with steeled resolve.
"So that was his intention," Tian Yinwu softly remarked as he planted another flag. "What a strange, unpredictable fellow." Thinking of that silver-eyed figure, Tian Yinwu couldn't properly ascertain his goals or purpose at all. He would have never guessed that Wei Wuyin intended to directly free the trapped spirits and souls by refining the Evil Sentinels. In truth, he was planning to simply slaughter them all.
His way was far simpler, but the fanfare of this wasn't too bad either. The memory of those faces sending off with smiles was a memory that those Chosen would never forget. He could only sigh as he kept moving-he had a task to complete.
0:16.
Tension rose. There was only a single second of difference, but everyone felt the shift down to their very souls.
SHIING!!!
Heads whipped violently toward the World Forbiddance Array.
A saber howl resounded!
