Chapter 284: A Showdown Among the Best

Ji Jue felt that something was off. This wasn’t intuition or anything as vague as that. He could clearly sense that the world seemed far more real than before!

It was like watching a 1080p screen through glasses with a prescription of minus five hundred and thinking everything looked perfectly clear, only to suddenly switch to 20/20 vision and stare at a 4K display. Only then did you realize just how atrocious the old resolution and frame rate had actually been!

Had the simulation just been upgraded? Did they swap in a better graphics card? At a time like this? Why?

It felt like being in the middle of an exam when someone suddenly appeared at the door, walked up to the examiner with a grave expression, and whispered something to them. One had no idea who that person was or what they had said, but the atmosphere immediately became completely different. One knew that some unknown change was taking place, yet one knew absolutely nothing about it.

It was an extremely unpleasant feeling.

Maybe he was just being paranoid and reading too much into things. But as an examinee who could be manipulated however the higher-ups pleased, having some kind of preparation—even if it was only mental preparation—was still better than having none at all.

After yet another round of eliminations, only thirteen of the original thirty-two contestants remained. Some had been taken out when their opponents dragged them down, ensuring mutual destruction, while others had done the exact same thing to their opponents. Judging from the records, the circumstances had varied wildly.

Somehow, even under conditions like these, Young Master Lou had still managed to survive! Although he had failed to do much to his opponents, Young Master Lou had managed to climb to ninth place by playing for survival points.

After experiencing firsthand just how vicious the competition between the examinees could get, he had poured every last resource into improving his workshop. Within its confines, the Lou family’s Spirit Morph was further enhanced, to the point that he had even used it to reconstruct the entire workshop. He had maxed out his defenses, leaving virtually no blind spots.

His opponents were not going to squeeze a single point out of him. The downside was that he hadn’t earned many points himself. He had only secured the bare minimum, which left him lagging behind in development.

But based on Ji Jue’s impression of that irritable bastard Lou, the man only looked refined and mild-mannered on the surface. In truth, he was calculating as hell. There was a good chance he was secretly preparing something big.

Ji Jue could not afford to let his guard down.

Hmm. Maybe it was time to start thinking about how to counter him. Or rather, how to survive being targeted himself.

Currently, Ji Jue still wasn’t quite strong enough. In fact, compared with the other contestants, he was the one with the most obvious weaknesses. He had simply managed to conceal those shortcomings through all kinds of unconventional tricks.

No amount of clever arguments could change reality. He simply had not been studying for long enough! Even counting everything, it had only been four months since he started. Yet every legacy he had learned was the kind that only truly began to shine in the middle and later stages.

He had completed the basics of Modern Alchemy, but he still hadn’t decided on a direction for further research and needed much more advanced study. As for the legacy of the Treatise on Forms and Swords, he had only just unlocked the prerequisite skills. He hadn’t even properly gotten started yet.

Aberrant Alchemy was an extreme and dangerous shortcut, so naturally, it was out of the question. Aside from the Dissociation Technique, all he could really rely on were Fluid Alchemy and the Solid Alchemy he had developed by applying its principles in reverse. But without Pacifier, both had taken a considerable hit in versatility and convenience.

If possible, Ji Jue would have preferred to keep a killer weapon like Glitch hidden as a trump card, something he could spring on an enemy at the last possible moment.

Unfortunately, he was running out of tricks. Every trick he revealed was one less he had left.

Now that he had already used it as a deterrent, Glitch had lost any chance of catching someone by surprise. The Assault Horsey series was still too limited as well, making it easy to counter. After all, powered armor was only cost-effective equipment for an individual combatant. It wasn’t some all-purpose solution. Even on a real battlefield, you still needed fire support and satellite strikes.

What he had achieved so far was the limit of Ji Jue’s capabilities. There were, of course, far more formidable strategic-class suits above that level, some of which were sacred artifact matrices, such as the Four Symbols series and the Celestial Dragon. But those were far beyond the reach of an unofficial drudge like Ji Jue, who was only nominally attached to a shell defense contractor. He couldn’t even dream of getting his hands on them. Even thinking about it was practically a crime.

That was the awkward position he found himself in now: caught halfway between everything. His foundations were solid enough, but nowhere near solid enough to have fully developed all those late-game skills.

Fortunately, the competition within Ember was so brutally cutthroat that rivalry between peers had practically become common sense. As a result, everyone naturally assumed that the others were more or less the same as they were. It never even occurred to them that Ji Jue, that bastard, relied so heavily on powered armor because, aside from combining engineering with alchemy, he simply hadn’t unlocked that many skills on his skill tree yet!

So, if he wanted to preserve his advantage, he would just have to bring out something nastier. Something much nastier.

“The exam drove me to this.” Ji Jue sighed mournfully. “It’s stripped the last shred of humanity out of little poor me.”

The moment he figured it out, he did not hesitate. He dumped every last point he had—1,416 in total—straight into his plan.

Then he turned and looked back at his workshop. After putting up with such miserable conditions for so long, it was about time the place got a proper renovation. After all, he could hardly disgrace the legacy of a sage, could he?

Ji Jue rolled up his sleeves. “Time to get to work!”

***

Time passed slowly. The torrential rain seemed never-ending, while boundless black mist enveloped the sea and the island.

Even after the long night had passed, there was still no sign of daylight. Time dragged painfully in the darkness. Not even Ji Jue dared to venture outside without adequate preparation and protection any longer.

After wave after wave of black rain accelerated the mutations, Leafway Island had reached the point where aberrants roamed everywhere and evil creatures had become commonplace. According to Ji Jue’s observations, even the ocean beyond the island had completely transformed into a hellscape.

Of the several probes he had launched in succession, almost none made it more than a few kilometers. Some broke down from the contamination, while others were simply swallowed by enormous creatures lurking beneath the pitch-black sea.

Whenever lightning flashed and thunder rolled among the clouds, eerie, twisted silhouettes could occasionally be seen gliding through the darkness. This deathly silent world had already become a chaotic paradise for evil creatures.

Monsters grew at terrifying speed, hunted one another, died, and then gave rise to even stronger and stranger horrors. Once the ecosystem humanity had taken for granted completely collapsed, it reorganized itself into a nightmarish cycle, spawning ever more terrible consequences in a process that seemed destined to repeat forever.

It was like a stagnant, festering swamp. Vermin devoured one another, drawing sustenance from the deeper mire before withering and dying, only to become another link in the cycle of decay.

Sometimes, when Ji Jue sat atop an abandoned launch silo and gazed into the distance, he could keenly sense the vast and sinister transformation taking place before him. Perhaps this was what they called the Putrefied Domain. There were just as many wonders and mysteries within it. Even in the abyss, boundless possibilities awaited.

For a moment, Ji Jue felt as though he could understand Jian Yuan’s ambition and arrogance back then. If such transformations existed in this world, why shouldn’t he be able to understand them?

Only…

“Something this damn awful probably isn’t worth understanding in the first place, is it?”

Creating hell merely for the sake of understanding it would ultimately leave you with nothing but hell. Jian Yuan was arrogant, as he had always stood apart from Putrefaction, untouched by its influence. But how was what he created any different from Putrefaction itself?

Perhaps he had never plunged deep into the Maelstrom or chosen to follow a Great Abomination. But the instant that arrogant desire for omniscience took root and became impossible to suppress, he had already lost himself. He had become a genuine Putrefied Dire Furnace.

Perhaps Jian Yuan had known that perfectly well from the very beginning. He simply didn’t care.

In truth, Ji Jue did not care either.

Maybe Jian Yuan was right. Maybe Putrefaction existed for a reason. Maybe there really was some profound wisdom and wondrous design hidden within the world before him. But none of that had anything to do with Ji Jue.

He slowly raised a hand toward the horizon. Through the gaps between his spread fingers, he gazed at that vast and merciless world of darkness.

If one day he could set all of it ablaze, the flames would surely be beautiful.

***

The torrential rain continued.

Beneath the same oppressive clouds and endless downpour, the simulated time raced onward no matter how agonizingly it seemed to drag. Before long, the countdown reached its end once again.

Only this time, the sight of it made everyone’s heart leap into their throat. Even an idiot could tell that something was wrong.

As time passed, the countdown, originally a pale white, turned blood-red. There was no need for words or warnings. That lofty, oppressive silence was enough to make everyone break out in a cold sweat. No one dared relax for even a moment as they threw themselves wholeheartedly into the competition.

Who the hell knew what had happened?

If you really wanted to let your imagination run wild, maybe the Depths had invaded and turned the exam into a death game where losing meant dying. Sure, that was even less likely than the Association suddenly growing a conscience and waiving its exorbitant annual membership fees. But hey, you never knew! Whatever was going on, they could worry about it after they won.

When the countdown ended, the sound that rang out was no longer a clear chime. It was the thunderous toll of a bell that shook them to the core.

The resounding peal echoed out of nowhere through every simulated world, ringing in the ears of every contestant. Startled, they looked around wide-eyed. One figure after another slowly appeared within mirror-like projections.

It was as though they had suddenly been dropped into some kind of group video chat. The thirteen remaining contestants stared at one another in complete confusion. For the first time since the exam started, they could see one another from up close and with such clarity.

Before Ji Jue could even process what was happening, he noticed a sharp gaze aimed at him from the crowd. Granted, everyone had instinctively turned to look at him, and every gaze was equally fierce and wary. But one of them was still noticeably sharper than the rest and seemed to carry a faint hint of resentment as well.

Oh. It’s Lou!

Ji Jue grinned and waved cheerfully at Lou Feng, his smile positively radiant. “Hey, guess this is where the top contenders finally meet, huh[1]?”

Unfortunately, Lou Feng did not return even the slightest smile. The moment he noticed everyone turning to look at him because of Ji Jue, his face darkened. His lips moved, and although no sound could be heard, Ji Jue more or less guessed that he was offering some very heartfelt “good wishes.”

He would just take it as an early New Year greeting!

Ji Jue looked away.

Then came a sound like heaven and earth tearing apart. As the projections shattered, the world before Ji Jue disintegrated in an instant. Amid deafening rumbles that shook the earth, rainwater surged as the entire world seemed to twist and rearrange itself.

Landmasses collided, and rock ground against rock. The islands shook violently, churning the seawater until it seemed to boil. Beneath the waves, numerous hideous silhouettes emerged, yet none could cross the invisible barriers before them.

Temple-like halls rose from the mountaintops, forming a grand sanctuary. From rainbow light that flickered like phantoms, indistinct buildings appeared and vanished within the mist, impossible to make out clearly. Brilliant rays intertwined as a crystalline tower formed from spirit matter soared between heaven and earth. Elsewhere, deep cavernous hollows resembling ancient grottoes emerged from the heaving earth.

By the end of it, the once-familiar and empty island had become impossibly crowded. In the blink of an eye, all thirteen workshops had been gathered onto Leafway Island, arranged in a circle at equal distances from one another.

For a brief moment, absolute silence reigned. No one said a word.

What else was there left to say? The final elimination round had begun. Time to roll up their sleeves and get to work! Now! Right now! This instant!

Let the bloodbath begin!

1. “巅峰会师” is a common Chinese expression. Literally, it refers to the strongest or highest-level competitors meeting at a final or decisive stage. It is often used in sports, competitive events, and climactic moments in films or novels.