Bone Cage halted Divine Phantasm’s charge immediately. It stopped his mount from being able to move a millimeter, and during this time, Ringwraith was already gathering his magic and preparing for the next attack!

"Tsk!"

Divine Phantasm jumped down his mount immediately and ran toward the undead mage. He raised his sword before he even got close and yelled, "Eat this!"

A rainbow-colored ray flew toward the skeleton. It was a sword energy attack!

Ringwraith didn’t panic though. He simply raised his scepter and yelled, "Bone Wall!"

Bang!

A solid wall made of rows and rows of bones burst out of the earth in front of Ringwraith. It was as big as Lian Xin’s Origin Force Field, but unlike hers, his magical obstacle could be used to block attacks. Divine Phantasm’s attack hit the wall and dealt exactly zero damage to Ringwraith.

Before Divine Phantasm could launch a second attack, Ringwraith ran backward and waved his scepter. A full second later, black, draconic energy burst out of his scepter!

"Roar!"

79022!

The moment the skill called “Black Dragon Wave” engulfed Divine Phantasm, Ringwraith stomped his foot and shouted again, "Come out, Death Puppets! Kill this man!"

The earth split in half, and two undead generals clad in armor climbed out of the crack. It was a skill from the necromancy branch! The two undead generals shared the exact same level as Ringwraith, and they rushed toward Divine Phantasm, swinging their bony blades at him like crazy. Not only that, their presence greatly reduced the magic knight’s mobility!

I clenched my fists. The competition had appeared calm on the surface, but the truth was revealed the moment we entered the play-offs. If even an expert mage like Ringwraith had emerged to challenge the WEL, I could only imagine how much stronger China would become after the competition was over, and all these experts emerged to full view!

Divine Phantasm never had a chance to beat Ringwraith. Not only did Ringwraith countered his skills and tactics completely, he was able to control his undead puppets and himself perfectly to utterly dominate his opponent. He used one undead general to attack and the other one to block Divine Phantasm’s way, all the while firing one Black Dragon Wave after another annihilated the magic knight’s health pool. Despite having almost 200k HP, the knight saw red in just the matter of seconds!

"Roar!"

One final Black Dragon Wave later, Ringwraith officially scored one point over Divine Phantasm!

The second battle went more or less the same way. In the end, Soul Battle Robes scored one over Rose of the Holy Domain and took the lead!

……

The second match was attended by Song of Cloud and Water herself. Her opponent was a skilled archer who knew how to chain-stun her target and kite them like a butterfly. Unfortunately, Song of Cloud and Water had a shield, a high-level mount, and War God Recovery to restore her chipped health. Unable to take down Song of Cloud and Water in a short time, the archer was eventually caught by the little girl and killed two times in a row. The match went to Song of Cloud and Water with a perfect 2:0 score.

For the third match, the player Rose of the Holy Domain dispatched to secure a point and deny the enemy’s victory was their ace and guild leader, Rose Thorn herself!

Swhoosh!

On the other side of the arena, God Bone rode a warhorse covered in glowing armor and wielded a glowing warblade. He shot Rose Thorn a smile as she slowly appeared on the battlefield.

Rose Thorn stared coolly at God Bone before saying, "Why is someone like you staying in a second-rate guild like Soul Battle Robes, God Bone? Come to Rose of the Holy Domain. I promise you that you’ll always have a seat of power with us."

God Bone smiled again before replying, "Thank you for the offer, but I didn’t join Soul Battle Robes because of their prospects. I joined them because I still couldn’t let go of the good ol’ days, and to fulfill a promise I made to someone. I will stay until Soul Battle Robes’ name is spread across the whole world once more!"

"What promise? And which game did you belong to?" Rose Thorn pursued.

But God Bone simply shook his head and said, "It’s none of your concern. Some things can only exist in the heart, especially because you’d laugh at me if I told you about it…"

Rose Thorn looked surprised, but she stopped talking. It was because the countdown had begun!

Whoosh!

When the battle began, Rose Thorn immediately used her signature skill, Guardian Soul, and drastically increased her Defense for a short period of time. It was to stop her opponent from catching her off-guard. Then, she dashed toward God Bone and used her quadruple-hit skill, Storm Slash!

God Bone took two steps backward in a zigzag pattern. He was only hit once because successfully nullified two hits with his shield, and one with his weapon!

27472!

"Good damage!" God Bone praised.

Rose Thorn wore a murderous expression as she raised her sword in front of her. Then, she thrust forward and used Barrier Break!

However, God Bone calmly tilted his body slightly to one side and struck Rose Thorn’s shield with his own with explosive strength. Then, he launched an attack combo that he had clearly practiced for a very long time, raining blow after blow onto Rose Thorn’s exposed shoulders. The name of two skills appeared on the screen—

Bloodbreak Slash!

Coldblood Flurry!

Bloodbreak Slash was a skill that ignored Defense, and Coldblood Flurry was a lightning-fast triple-hit skill. Four damage numbers rose above Rose Thorn’s head at once—

76723!

31029!

31282!

29833!

Rose Thorn couldn’t believe it. God Bone’s shield bash had caused her Barrier Break to narrowly miss the target, and the consequent counterattack had left her with just a sliver of HP. Looking at her expression, it might even be an understatement to say that God Bone’s retaliation had crushed her confidence completely. One last Barrier Break later, Rose Thorn was deleted from the battlefield!

In the end, Rose Thorn lost to God Bone with a 0:2 score as badly as Divine Phantasm did earlier. Rose Thorn was somewhat of a famous expert in Vanished God City and a guild leader with greater power and prestige than her peers, Throne Seeker and Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch, but God Bone was so much stronger than her that she was not able to put up even a single shred of resistance. God Bone’s skill and technique were simply far more accomplished and polished than hers.

Just like that, Soul Battle Robes advanced to the eighth-finals with a 3:0 score!

……

Fei’er asked the members of Soul Battle Robes, "Do you want to play out the last two matches?"

Standing at the edge of the stage, Song of Cloud and Water shook her head before responding, "No, we refuse to fight out the remaining matches. We’ve already won, and we see no point in participating in pointless matches!"

Fei’er nodded. "Alright, understood! I hereby declare that Soul Battle Robes has defeated Rose of the Holy Domain and advanced to the eighth-finals!

On the other side, Rose Thorn’s shoulders were shaking, and her expression was filled with regret. She probably never imagined that a team as strong as hers would be eliminated at the 16th-finals.

……

"Big brother Lu Chen, why did Song of Cloud and Water refuse to fight out the last 1v1 and 2v2 match? Does she not respect her opponent?" Lian Xin asked me.

I shot Soul Battle Robes’ team members a glance before replying, "It’s not that. She just has loftier goals than we initially imagined. Normally, people would go all out during the 16th-finals, but she’s aiming to conceal her team’s strengths because she’s aiming for the championship. Frozen Berserker is spared from revealing his skillset, and this Song and Ice and Fire is probably an expert as well. His eyes look sharp…"

"Just where is she finding this confidence?" He Yi couldn’t understand.

Lin Yixin explained with a smile, "Again, Song of Cloud and Water is Seven-Star Lamp’s younger sister. With his reputation, it was never a question whether or not he could recruit a couple of people to help her. Still, the quality of these helpers is rather surprising. Poor Rose of the Holy Domain never stood a chance."

I raised my hand to catch their attention. "Girls, look, Snow Moon’s members just entered the arena! This is going to be another exciting match!"

"Mn!"

Everyone followed the direction I was pointing and saw eight or so players with the emblem of Snow Moon floating on their shoulders. They looked eager to go to town with their opponents already.

……

Snow Moon’s opponent was none other than our close ally, Blazing Hot Lips. We saw Stranger of Three Lifetimes and her girls waiting to step into the battlefield. Coincidentally, both Snow Moon and Blazing Hot Lips’ teams were all female, but that didn’t mean that they weren't absolute powerhouses in their own right!

The first match was between Eyes Like Water and Summer Last Year.

Swhoosh!

The vice leader of Blazing Hot Lips appeared on the battlefield atop a huge horse. On the other side, a beautiful petite girl appeared in a magical flash. She was none other than the current guild leader of Snow Moon, Summer Last Year, and she was a Level 180 mage. She seemed pretty strong just looking at her level alone.

Neither girl attempted to make conversation with each other. The moment the countdown reached zero, they immediately raised their weapons and charged the enemy!

As the vice leader of Blazing Hot Lips and a trusted aide of Stranger of Three Lifetimes, Eyes Like Water wasn’t a weak player. After running around and probing for weaknesses for a bit, she closed the distance between herself and Summer Last Year in the blink of an eye and stabbed the mage in the face using Barrier Break. She dealt over 20k damage despite the Magic Shield, and deleted almost all of Summer Last Year’s HP in the blink of an eye!

"Touch of the Dragonkiss!"

Seeing that Summer Last Year refused to back down even a step, Eyes Like Water endured the full brunt of the spell and retaliated with her own Triple Slash. Just like that, the mage was one-shot and knocked out of the battlefield!

The next match didn’t go any better for Summer Last Year. After Eyes Like Water defeated the mage with a clean 2:0 score, she returned to the edge of the arena and muttered depressedly, "Oh man, I know I haven’t PvP’d in a long time, but this is even worse than I expected. Big brother Shusheng is definitely going to laugh at me tonight…"

Beside her, the Holy Archer Nangong Lexi consoled her with a smile, "It’s fine, Shusheng knows exactly how good you are, so there’s no way he’ll blame you for losing your match. Plus, didn’t you girls join only because you were bored with work? You even forcefully dragged the two of us into this. We just want to enjoy the game and farm some equipment…"

Yi of Ice nodded in agreement. "Yeah. We wouldn’t care if we were still young, cute hotties, but now we’re all about to pass the dreaded threshold as single women, and you want us to fight against Heavenly Kings like Lu Chen and Lin Yixin? Are you kidding me? You should’ve just asked Shusheng to help you!"

Summer Last Year pouted. "You think I don’t want to? Big brother Shusheng’s account is only Level 23. That shameless bastard even begged Ling Xue to join him on his journey to restart from zero, hmph…"

Yi of Ice said, "Alright, alright, enough. Lele, it’s your turn now. Go get 'em!"

"Mn!"

Nangong Lexi raised her weapon and teleported into the battlefield. Her opponent was none other than Stranger of Three Lifetimes herself, one of the strongest mages in the entire China!

……

Swhoosh!

After Stranger of Three Lifetimes appeared on the grassy field, she smiled lazily and greeted Nangong Lexi, "Nice to meet you. Wasn’t expecting experts from the Twenty Four Snow Moon Cavalry to make a return."

Nangong Lexi smiled. "Hello stranger. Goodbye stranger. This match is mine!"