Swish swish swish… 

Boundless white light converged on Xu Yangyi. The speed that Althorne seemed to be ‘eroding away in the wind’ was becoming faster and faster. Ten minutes later, a white expanse sparkled, and Althorne’s spiritual form completely vanished. As for Althorne himself, the elf dumbly stood in front of Xu Yangyi with wide eyes and an open mouth. He was trembling.

No one could understand that great horror he’d just experienced.

Body and soul, he was in an extreme state of fear. He’d never felt so close to death. He couldn’t even scream out a word.

He could feel inside him that the Sacred Spirit was roaring, struggling, snarling, and resisting. Nonetheless, inside Xu Yangyi’s body, there was also an existence, one that was higher level, more terrifying, more powerful, and more perfect.

It was that entity that devoured Malorne’s divine incarnation, bite after bite!

“This…” Xu Yangyi shivered and finally took his hand back. In awe, he looked at his arm that was fully covered by a tattoo. It was like Althorne’s, but he couldn’t stop it whatsoever. In his body, something was calling out, hungering and screaming to eat the Sacred Spirit within Althorne.

And likewise, he could sense the Whitedeer King inside the other. And in the same notion, he wanted to eat Althorne, as well. The entity within him didn’t retreat, instead charging into battle head-on. It roared and intermingled with his own will, but in the end he won.

All was silent in the arena. After ages, though, the audience erupted in clamor!

The Counts went wild. They had no clue what had happened.

“Is that a Sacred Spirit? It’s the first time I’ve seen one! Such a powerful Sacred Spirit, from the imperial protectors of the Elves! How could it die?!”

“If I saw that right… did Mr. X absorb it?”

“Are you joking? That’s what I thought too!”

“He… ‘ate’ a Sacred Spirit?”

The racket instantly came to a boil. Even the Marquises were asking their own companions about what had just happened in shock. It wasn’t that they couldn’t restrain their curiosity, but the Five Sacred Spirits were the final trumps of the Woodland of Nature’s Dream. They had once chased away the Grand Duke Impaler! For hundreds of years, no one was willing to set foot in the ancient forests of the Amazon. This consensus was predetermined. Yet today, a Sacred Spirit had been overpowered by a master spirit-technician!

Furthermore… this wasn’t defeated, but devoured. The Sacred Spirit had been absorbed! This was more shocking that defeat!

“Silence,” Holy Whip Lawrence gently coughed, the only one among the five Grand Dukes to do so. Although his voice was soft, the arena became so quiet within five seconds that even a falling needle could be heard.

He gazed into the arena. Xu Yangyi’s spiritual sense was basically uninjured. Across from Xu Yangyi, Althorne, who had just called upon a Sacred Spirit, had already spent all of his essence.

Currently, perhaps one punch could knock him down.

“X wins.” Lawrence’s voice rang out. Not one person objected.

The first battle went far beyond their expectations. They no longer knew what to say. First of all was Xu Yangyi’s great display of power, causing them to see him as a dreadful master spirit-technician. Next, which was even more unbelievable, was that a Sacred Spirit, known as the root of the Elves, had actually been absorbed!

“Up to now, I thought I was watching a hallucination…” A Count shook his head and sighed emotionally. However, before he could even lament these events, his face instantly became deathly white in the next second.

“What’s up?” someone beside him asked doubtingly.

The Count didn’t see, but he wasn’t the only person whose complexion was deathly white. On the contrary, in the arena, there were many, many Marquises at this moment with paper-white faces. There were even some Marquises whose faces were an unsightly green.

Because in the sky… a sweet-sounding jingle rang out. Those two red numbers began to frantically swivel.

One to eighty-five.

6,000 to more than 5,000,000.

Now was the time to pay up.

The formerly sweet-sounding jingle sounded more like a note of approaching death now.

“No…” A Count clutched at his chest, and his other hand tightly gripped the armrest of his seat. Like him, there were countless people looking up above with deathly white faces.

He had forgotten… Just now he was too excited. He’d forgotten about the bet he’d made before. A bet that he thought would be a sure win!

The result left them reluctant to look. The jingles seemed to echo through their souls.

“Hehe…” A smile finally appeared on Lawrence’s old face. It wasn’t like there weren’t dark horses during the Holy Wars. It could even be said that dark horses emerged very, very rarely. But this dark horse was actually dark to the very end! Xu Yangyi had straight up smashed the first round!

Maybe it was fortunate that the bank and the gamblers were totally refuted!

Ding… 

Two sounds rang out, and a Countess began to weep.

“God! I wish I was dead!” She covered her face. She wasn’t fake crying, but actually crying. The sparkling tears sliding down her cheeks were plain to see. “T-That was all my savings from the past ten years! A whole 2,000 middle-grade spirit stones! Boohoo boohoo…”

Before she even finished speaking, miserables cries rose and fell in the Counts’s section.

“God… I just want to die!”

“Althorne lost? W-What about my thousand spirit stones? G-Gone just like that?”

“How could he lose?! I’ve been alive for so many years, but all I had was that much! I-It’s seriously gone in one fight?”

“I’m broke… The estimated resources that I worked hard so I could cultivate for.”

Everyone present understood their feelings.

Because the number at the right side… had went from 5,120,000 to zero.

And the left side was a terrible 1,020,000!

“The betting money, 6,000, times eighty-five, is equal to 510,000. The winner gets all, and the ten percent of the dividend money is 510,000. A total of 1,020,000 middle-grade spirit stones. Mr. X, I think you’ll be needing the Holy White Cross Association’s banking services.”

1,020,000!

There wasn’t a single Count in the arena who laughed, because all of this was their hard-earned cash. In that unimaginable competition they just watched, the feeling they had a worthwhile return on their ticket was instantly obliterated.

This ticket… was really too expensive!

For Counts in an apex family, it was pretty good if they could earn fifty middle-grade spirit stones in a month, while the most talented geniuses earned a hundred. 1,020,000 was so much that they had to work for ten thousand years!

Even the Marquises were also green with envy right now. A Marquis’s resources could be said to be a hundred times greater than a Count’s, with an apex Marquis’s resources being about several hundred times greater. However, 1,020,000… This damn amount was the same as working for a large family for several years!

“Congratulations.” The laughter of the vampire beside Pale Dragon was uglier than crying. The vampire did his best to maintain his elegance, his tone of voice more sour than a tangerine in spring. “In a single battle, you’ve earned at least 30,000.”

Pale Dragon also felt somewhat moved. He really had only wanted to leave behind a little face for Xu Yangyi. He couldn’t have expected that he hadn’t needed to, though. Xu Yangyi had truly made a killing!

Xu Yangyi looked at the numbers in the sky and laughed.

He laughed happily.

Above all else, however, was looking at the faces of the majority of the people who had kissed up to him, but didn’t dare to curse now. How could he put it… 

This feeling was very crisp.

Looking down on me, huh? Planning to double-cross and backstab me?

If that’s the case, sorry. The money is mine for keeps.

“I ask Mr. X to go ahead and rest first. Wait for the notification of the second ballot. If you want to watch the next fight, it will begin in an hour,” Lawrence laughed and said.

Xu Yangyi nodded. His first order of business was to immediately figure out what had just happened. But just as he was about to leave, another voice suddenly rang out in his ear.

“Mr. X.”

It was unfamiliar. Xu Yangyi’s heart chilled.

This voice carried a sliver of Grand Duke-rank oppressive might!

“You can call me Antonio Blackcrow,”

 the voice said neither swiftly nor slowly, 

“At the moment, This Grand Duke is the leader of the Woodland of Nature’s Dream. I hold the rank of high Grand Duke.”

Xu Yangyi took a deep breath. His gaze faintly swept through the surroundings, but he discovered that no one’s eyes fell on him. He realized that the other didn’t want anyone else to know.

“If possible, the representative of the Elves will be waiting for you in your lounge.”

Not waiting for Xu Yangyi to refuse, Antonio smiled. 

“Be at ease. We can still afford the loss of His Highness Whitedeer King Malorne’s avatar. But don’t you want to understand what just happened?”

“Don’t you want to enter the top three? Gain the opportunity to study the Holy Relic? Why the tattoo that appeared on you was able to devour His Highness Malorne’s divine avatar? If you don’t understand for sure, will you really be able to easily cultivate?”

Xu Yangyi hesitated for a few moments and finally nodded.

“Good,” 

Antonio laughed, 

“The Elves are looking forward to a master spirit-technician’s visit. May we see each other later.”

Xu Yangyi got ready to leave again, but he discovered that a tall figure was in front of him. The man stood above him on the first flight of stairs, like a mountain. From above, he looked down on Xu Yangyi.

The man was caucasian.

He was over two meters tall, and he wore no shirt under his suit. On his chest, there was only messy hair. His head was shaved bald, and his silhouette was very rough. On his face, there were three scars that almost went all the way across. He looked at Xu Yangyi with an icy-cold, merciless gaze brimming with killing intent.

“Savidean VII.” Xu Yangyi looked for a few seconds and sneered, “I really didn’t expect that you would be able to get out of your punishment.”

Although both of them had met during the Corvinus’s feast, Xu Yangyi had never truly seen the other. Nonetheless, he wouldn’t mistake the lycan’s energy signature.

A seemingly respectful arc pulled at Savidean’s face. He stepped aside, walked over next to Xu Yangyi’, and grinded his teeth as he laughed, “Just now I called you twice, but you didn’t react, Mr. X. Did some Grand Duke hint that you could go to their side, so you’re thinking of leaving the House of Corvinus? We, who have given you grace as heavy as a mountain?”

“You should speak to me with honorifics.” Xu Yangyi brushed an eye over the other. “Besides, save the trash talk for when we meet.”

“Tsk tsk… how truly ruthless.” Savidean licked his lips. “But some words don’t need to be said when we perhaps meet.”

Xu Yangyi stopped in his steps. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no other meaning. It’s just that I feel that there are some matters that Mr. X should know of first.” Savidean’s eyes contained a vengeful heat. He lowered his head, so Xu Yangyi couldn’t see it and chuckled darkly, “Mr. X, are you perhaps unaware of the Holy War’s rules? Not the ones on the surface, but the internal ones.”

“Oh?” In a blunt manner, Xu Yangyi found a place to sit down, making the Count next to him promptly flip out and leave. Savidean also laughed coldly and sat next to him.

“Indeed. No one expected that a weak master spirit-technician would actually be able to swallow up the Elves’s candidate before. Maybe there are some people with hidden agendas…”

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