Lu Yin’s eyes widened when he saw Chilian Daynight’s innate gift. This forest of seaweed was obviously poisonous, so it was no wonder why he specialized in holding large groups back.

About a thousand students from the ten academies were participating in this tournament, and this was only because participation was limited. Otherwise, every single student would have chosen to join.

Astral-3, Astral-7, and Astral-10 had to send students to defend the valley, which left around 700 students from the other academies to charge into the valley. One versus 700 plus students from the Astral Combat Academy: it was a pressure that could only be imagined. But Chilian Daynight’s face remained calm as two-lined battle force appeared all around his body.

It was no surprise for an Area Master to possess two-lined battle force, but in the context of the poisonous seaweed-filled valley, it caused many students to despair.

The dozen of students that were leading the charge ran right into the poisonous seaweed. As soon as they made contact with it, they directly collapsed to the ground, dead. However, despite their near instantaneous death, their bodies gradually vanished from view. All of the competing students wanted to charge straight through the valley, but they first had to face the intense poison of the seaweed forest.

Countless people throughout the universe saw this scene depicted on their screens, and they could all feel the terror of the intense poison.

Nobody knew how the Astral Combat Academy was able to broadcast what was happening in the Lifeseek Realm, but because they were, Chilian Daynight’s name immediately became known by many. He, by himself, was enough to deal with nearly half of all the students here.

In the rearmost area of the valley, Silver leaned against a wall in a relaxed pose with his classic wolfish grin. Lu Yin’s brows furrowed the moment he saw Silver’s grin. He had an odd premonition that this fellow, or perhaps actually the Neohuman Alliance behind him, wanted to mess things up!

Suddenly, the scene in the valley changed once again; a blue aura had covered the skies and frozen the poisonous seaweed. Blue had replaced the green as far as the eye could see.

Liu Xiaoyun’s face shifted; this drastic change was a result of someone forcefully using star energy to simulate ice, to the point where even the color of the sky had changed. A powerhouse had joined the battle.

In the middle of the valley, Chilian Daynight’s face also shifted, and he gritted his teeth as he stared into the distance. “Sha.”

Sha was from Astral-4 and was the Dao of Slaughter’s Ice Domain Area Master. He had also been Silver’s backer when Astral-10 student first entered the Dao of Slaughter.

“You want to help these people cross through and thus instantly eliminate our three academies? Impossible,” Chilian Daynight shouted as he rose into the skies. He then pressed both palms down and in a low voice, growled out, “Blossoming rain.”

The previously frozen poisonous seaweed shook as they tried to break free from the layer of ice to reach the students.

The crowd of students did not wait for his attack to land and continued charging toward the back of the valley as quickly as they could.

When Chilian Daynight had acted earlier, he had eliminated almost a hundred students. But now, he was now obstructed by Sha. Even more importantly, a giant beast had suddenly appeared, overshadowing almost half of the valley. It rose into the air, covering the sky and separating Chilian Daynight from the students below him.

Outside the valley, the students watching the battle exclaimed, “It’s Long Ze, the sylvan dragon clan’s powerhouse! He’s one of Astral-4’s Area Masters as well.”

“It looks like Astral-4 is doing their best to help half of the students pass through so that all three academies guarding the gate will be eliminated. It would reduce the number of opponents.”

…

To the south of the valley, there was a high peak that stood above all the others. Ten seats had been placed there for the seeded students from the ten academies. The seeds represented the academy leaders, as was tradition. Aside from the first, seventh, and tenth seats, all of the others were filled.

A girl sat in the third seat, her black-and-white long hair undulating in the gentle breeze. Half of her face was covered by her hair, revealing only her purple eyes. She was Astral-3’s leader, the Undying Realm’s Realm Master, Nightqueen Yanqing.

As she watched the scene unfold before them, her purple pupils glanced coldly to one side. “Was this your idea?”

A male was sitting on the fourth seat, not far from Nightqueen Yanqing. He had shocking red hair, a cold expression, and a thin, indistinct red aura emanated from his body. He was Astral-4’s leader, Dao of Slaughter’s Realm Master, Xue Liuyun.

Xue Liuyun did not say anything when he heard Nightqueen Yanqing’s accusation, though a scarlet red glint appeared in his eyes. He was the most detached among the gathered academy leaders.

Nightqueen Yanqing frowned and did not speak further. Even further down along the row of seats, Kuang Wang laughed. “Daynight lady, after so many years, you still don’t understand the old blood, do you? Does he look like the plotting sort? Obviously, someone further down is ignoring him.”

Nightqueen Yanqing snorted. “Humans change. It’s no secret that Astral-4 has always wanted to take my Astral-3’s position, but unfortunately, Astral-7 will go down together with them.”

Xue Liuyun’s eyes widened slightly, and he hoarsely replied, “I will make Long Ze pay, but I’m not familiar with the other person.”

Kuang Wang said, “You mean Sha. He’s a bit of an oddball.”

Nightqueen Yanqing stopped talking, as Xue Liuyun’s meaning was clear. The actions currently taking place went against his instructions. The sylvan dragon was simply too haughty and dared to ignore his Realm Master’s wishes. It really thought that its race had established itself in the human realm, but really, it was only a race that had betrayed the astral beast star expanse and then been forced to settle down in a fiery fringe Flowzone.

In the northernmost area of the valley, the rampant forest of poisonous seaweed finally broke through the ice seal and descended to once again attack all of the charging students. But unfortunately for Chilian Daynight, a good portion of the seaweed was blocked off by Long Ze’s enormous body. The dragon had an enormous body, but it also had extreme speed. Though it was not allowed to attack Chilian Daynight, it could still defend itself.

A moment later, the blue ice seal expanded once more and rose above the dragon to cover the sky and isolate Chilian Daynight from the students.

Nightqueen Yanqing’s face turned ugly as she remarked, “That fool.”

In the middle of the valley, the student from Astral-7 had a solemn expression on his face. He had thought that this stage would be easy to pass, and he had not expected that Chilian Daynight would be targeted. When Astral-4 used its full force, even the power of the Daynight clan was not enough to compete against them.

Dai Ao could hear Chilian Daynight’s furious roar, but it would be very difficult for him to break through the defenses of two Area Masters who were each as strong as himself.

Back on the Nalan family’s spacecraft, Liu Xiaoyun’s face turned ugly as she watched the scene. This sort of incident rarely happened in the past during the first stage of the tournament. The Astral Combat Tournament paid great attention to fairness, and this first stage was only meant to eliminate the students who did not qualify for the next stage of drawing lots. It was very rare for someone to intentionally attempt to knock out the three defending academies, as this would incite conflict between the academy branches. This had occurred in the last tournament because Astral-10 student had been too lousy and burdened the other two. Now, even though Chilian Daynight had acted, more than half of the students had managed to break past him. This was already equal to them half-successfully breaking through the three academies.

“Xiaoyun, how’s the student from your Astral-7?” Madam Nalan asked.

Liu Xiaoyun solemnly replied, “Dai Ao is strong and no weaker than Chilian Daynight. However, he specializes in one-on-one combat and not against a crowd. Astral-7 has a battle technique called the Starburst Palm that allows the user to use their entire strength in every attack without excessive energy consumption. This technique is very potent in single handed combat, but not so much in a large battle setting. Also, Dai Ao himself is not adept at extreme speed.”

Lu Yin felt that they did not have much hope. In this situation, a slow guard could essentially be disregarded; how many students could Dai Ao possibly block with a slow speed? These Astral Combat Academy students each had their own unique skills, and it would not be easy for even an Area Master to defeat them. Many of the students were Limiteers, even though there were a few Melders.

Lu Yin thought about it some more and then shifted his gaze towards the rear of the valley, where Silver was still leaning against the mountain in a relaxed manner, though a butterfly knife had appeared in his hand at some point.

No matter how furious Chilian Daynight was, his blockade had already been broken through, and he was now tangled in a fight against two Area Masters. It would be difficult for him to chase after the students now.

In the middle section of the valley, Dai Ao took a deep breath. His face was peaceful despite facing the horde of students attempting to charge through the valley.

When the first student stepped within a hundred meters of him, Dai Ao attacked. It was not the Starburst Palm that Liu Xiaoyun had mentioned, but instead—a gravity field.

When the black gravity field descended upon the valley, the ground shattered, shocking countless people. The students from Astral-7 were especially shocked because Dai Ao had never revealed his innate gift of gravity. Additionally, his field immediately intensified gravity by a hundred times, which was so powerful that even a Limiteer would find it difficult to endure.

Not even Liu Xiaoyun had known that Dai Ao possessed an innate gift of gravity.

Lu Yin’s eyes widened. Gravity, and an energy-efficient Starburst Palm... This combination reminded him of someone, Invincible Palm, whom he had met in the ported battles. They had exchanged twenty three strikes before Lu Yin’s organs had been crushed by the opponent’s gravity.

Lu Yin grimaced as he watched Dai Ao act completely unhindered in the valley. He had only been able to hold out against this person for so long due to pure luck; Invincible Palm had never revealed his full strength during their battle. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that Starburst Palm was only a portion of his strength. It was no wonder why Lu Yin had been finished the moment he had unleashed his innate gift of gravity.

Within the valley, Dai Ao consecutively eliminated seven students, though the eighth managed to block his attack.

Dai Ao was shocked and glanced at the surviving student. It was an Area Master who immediately slipped away. The goal of the three academies guarding the gate was to eliminate half of the students, and an Area Master was obviously not chaff to be tossed away.

If the Astral-7 students were shocked, then those who had barged into the valley felt condemned to doom. They had all thought that the second student would be easy to deal with, but they had actually run into another freak. His innate gift of gravity affected the entire region, and they could not avoid it even if they tried.

This Dai Ao was no easier to deal with than Chilian Daynight.

Outside the valley, Coco was shocked. “There are so many powerful people here. Sister Zora, are we really going to compete against them?”

Zora felt helpless as she replied, “These are the cream of the crop of the Astral Combat Academy. We don’t have to compete with them.”

Michelle’s gaze burned as she stared at the commotion inside the valley. The stronger the students were, the greater her desire to do battle.

The entire valley was trembling. Regardless if one was present in the valley or merely observing the events through a screen, they could all feel that stifling strength.

Within the Great Yu Empire palace, Undying Yushan sighed as he remarked, “This goes to show the disparity that exists within the younger generation.”

Gerbach and the rest were speechless. If they were the ones running through that valley, they would not even be able to react before they were killed and eliminated.

On Earth, everyone watched the screens and marvelled at the terror of the universe’s powerhouses.

Dai Ao’s sudden eruption of strength had elevated the Astral Combat Tournament to even higher heights. From the very start, this tournament was fated to be different from the previous ones.

Just as everyone assumed that Dai Ao would be able to persevere and hold the line, a melodious tune pierced through the air, stunning him. In the sky, an absolute beauty sang and captured everyone’s attention.

“That, that’s Xi Yue! The celebrity!”

“The Souldream Tribe’s young leader has made her move. Xi Yue’s music can’t be considered an attacking technique. And since it’s not based on star energy either, it’s also not a battle technique. At its core, it’s just music.”

“It looks like Astral-8 and Astral-4 are intent on eliminating Astral-3 and Astral-7 here.”

…

Xi Yue’s music was extremely unusual. Even though it held no star energy, her dreamlike tunes caused the unprepared Dai Ao to fall right into her trap. This was not an attack, but it dragged him into an inescapable vortex of desire.

Student after student streaked past Dai Ao and charged towards the end of the valley. Everyone was very excited as there was only an Astral-10 student left blocking their path. In their minds, they had already won. Astral-10 was nothing in their eyes. The academy newspaper had stressed that there were powerhouses amongst Astral-10 students, but ultimately, everyone had deemed it impossible for Astral-10’s students to truly compete against the other academies’ students.

Xi Yue’s music could not hold Dai Ao for long. He suddenly opened his eyes and saw that a student was trying to sneak past him. Without hesitation, he struck that student with a Starburst Palm. That student pursed their lips and lifted their leg before sweeping it across.

Bang!

The void was torn apart as a spatial crack extended towards the sky, tearing through the valley.