Chapter 1044 - 456:

The whole thing started with spontaneous mourning from the people.

The Awakened who survived the battle against the Blood Demon began recounting the events online.

Billions of the Blood Demon Army, powerful Divine Envoys, and the treacherous Celestial Kings, the indefensible Zhang Family Patriarch, and Chu Xiu, who saved everyone in the last moments. And, of course, the legend of Chu Xiu’s decisive step into the void to avoid implicating others during the final blow of the King of Bronze...

They believed that Chu Xiu sacrificed himself to protect them, and even if they couldn’t do much, they at least wanted his story to be known to more people.

However, at first, this didn’t cause much of a stir online.

Because although Chu Xiu’s talent was known among the higher-ups, where almost every powerhouse had heard of this unparalleled prodigy leading other talents, he was not well known among ordinary people.

The reason was simple: Chu Xiu was too low-key, and almost all information about him was strictly confidential. The only known battle of Peng City was attributed to Qin Yu.

In fact, the title "Dark Night Monarch" only had some notoriety within Jiang City and was of little interest outside of it.

Even though Yammer showed astonishing talent at a young age, people’s attention was always focused on Messi and C Ronaldo. Before a genius truly develops, they do not gain much public attention because the path to realizing talent is filled with many uncertainties and too many geniuses appear like meteors only to fall.

So the initial reaction to this news was disbelief: Nonsense?

Some even thought it was just the latest brainless fiction.

After all, it’s too bizarre—reaching Peak Demigod in three years is more absurd than brainless fiction!

But gradually, people began to notice something was off.

Because there were too many people sharing this information, including speeches from King Tier and Heroic Spirits!

This was entirely different, considering there were only about five hundred Heroic Spirits in all of Huaxia, each holding significant influence!

And when the genius Mechanician Zhou Yanyang presented a video recorded on an accompanying mechanical device, everyone was dumbfounded.

Although the speed of Demigod battles was too fast for the recording device to capture anything but shadows, the terrifying battlefield did not need a Demigod Powerhouse for manifestation!

A total of eight hundred gigantic Blood Sea Giants, like eight hundred Celestial Gods, leading their vast legion like a blood-colored flood capable of sweeping away everything, engulfing all in their path. They witnessed Zhou Yanyang, this top-tier Heroic Spirit Mechanician, firing at full capacity, but still only a drop in the bucket against that massive legion, even the detonation of nuclear missiles only temporarily slowed the terrifying legion’s march!

And the rise of the Blood Sea Prison, covering a vast domain of thirty kilometers, left people unable to imagine how much energy it must consume!

Next, they saw the roar of the Celestial Master Demon-Vanquishing Map, a divine artifact famous on the heroic weapon list and a common subject of online debates. When this map was deployed, it demonstrated that the Zhang Family Patriarch and Divine Power Daoist had given their all.

Yet their ending was defeat by the mysterious man. In the midst of widespread despair, Chu Xiu overcame the boss behind the scenes with thunderous might, scaring off the mysterious man who even three powerful Demigods couldn’t defeat together...

Then a Light Saber descended from the sky, the ghostly realm arrived, and the previously unstoppable Blood Demon Army was shattered like dry wood...

Every frame of this video truly refreshed the viewers’ perceptions!

"Are you telling me that the person who single-handedly destroyed the Blood Demon Army is an Awakened who only awakened three years ago?"

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Do you have any idea? From the video’s performance, that is undoubtedly Celestial King Level power! There aren’t more than twenty, no, fifteen people worldwide with such power! Are you claiming an individual awakened for three years possesses nearly Celestial King power? Even with the help of the Civilization Domain, it’s unrealistic!"

"Indeed, fools are deceived thoroughly, but smart people can see this is just a hype. Maybe this video is simply AI-generated."

The majority of netizens continued denying the facts despite the video’s appearance because this was no longer a matter beyond their understanding but directly shattering their worldview!

However, this wasn’t their fault, much like if one was told a high school student had proven the Goldbach Conjecture; even if they presented a two-hundred-page coherent paper, most would believe there must be an error somewhere, thinking it’s just another attention-seeking hype.

Yet, when Zhang Zhengdao published a memorial for Chu Xiu, the entire internet was astounded!

What sort of identity does the Zhang Family Patriarch hold? His status is almost only beneath the three Celestial Kings and the Venerable Supreme, and every move of such a person is significant news!

And once a hot topic ignites, it spreads at an astonishing speed. For three full days, the name "Dark Night Monarch" did not leave the trending topics! As more and more people paid attention, a significant amount of corroborative information began to emerge, forcing people to accept the fact that there truly was such an unparalleled genius! That there truly existed a high school student capable of proving the Goldbach Conjecture!

But along with this came deep regret.

Such an exceptionally rare genius, just like that... fallen?