"Match, start!"
The referee’s voice was like a starting pistol.
The moment the words fell, Lei Qianjue, his opponent, moved!
No probing. No flashy moves.
He simply took a step forward and swung his saber.
SWOOSH—!!!
A terrifying slash, as black as ink and seemingly capable of devouring light itself, instantly tore through space and descended upon Qin Feng’s head!
It was too fast!
Impossibly fast!
But what was truly terrifying wasn’t its speed, but the impossibly complex yet perfectly fused aggregation of Mental Power and Spiritual Energy contained within that one slash!
One Heart... Nine Uses!
Qin Feng’s pupils abruptly contracted to the size of a pinprick!
In the instant he swung that saber, his opponent’s Mental Power and Spiritual Energy had simultaneously executed a flawless convergence across nine distinct modules!
The power of this slash had far surpassed the scope of a conventional Fourth-level Killing Technique!
[Qian Yuan]!
Faced with this earth-shattering blow, Qin Feng didn’t dare to be complacent. He pushed the physical power of his body—a body with potential comparable to a Starry Sky Giant Beast—to its absolute limit.
At the same time, he poured all the Will of his strongest killing techniques into the [Raging Tide] Long Spear in his hand and, without dodging or evading, fearlessly met the attack head-on!
BOOM—!!!
The Long Saber and the Long Spear clashed once more!
But this time, the result was completely different!
A terrifying, overwhelming power—the likes of which Qin Feng had never experienced—surged madly back along the shaft of his spear!
Qin Feng felt as if he had been struck square in the chest by a small, head-on meteorite!
The immense force sent him staggering back more than a dozen steps. Each step left a terrifying, half-foot-deep imprint on the solid alloy of the arena floor!
The web of his hand gripping the spear instantly split open, dripping with fresh blood!
In contrast, Lei Qianjue merely swayed slightly before steadying himself, his expression completely unruffled.
Strong!
Absurdly strong!
For the next fifteen minutes, Qin Feng was completely on the defensive, forced into taking a beating.
He pushed his speed, his strength, and his spear techniques, which had already reached the realm of Perfection, to their absolute limits.
[Flowing Light Chasing Shadow], [Wind and Thunder Chasing Shadow], [Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion]...
He executed countless exquisite killing moves with ease.
But no matter how he struggled or resisted, he could never break through his opponent’s terrifying, impenetrable curtain of slashes, which was like a Heaven and Earth Net!
Every one of his opponent’s slashes contained the dreadful might of "One Heart, Nine Uses." In power, speed, and variation, they all firmly suppressed Qin Feng.
Fifteen minutes later.
With a crisp snap of breaking metal, the Level 6 Alloy Long Spear, [Raging Tide], was knocked from Qin Feng’s hands by a single slash!
Immediately after, the pitch-black Long Saber came to rest against Qin Feng’s neck.
The cold blade sent a layer of goosebumps rising on Qin Feng’s skin.
[Arena 7834. Victor: Lei Qianjue!]
The referee’s voice rang out at the opportune moment.
"..."
Qin Feng looked at the Long Saber poised before his neck, then at the expressionless Lei Qianjue across from him, and finally shook his head in resignation.
He accepted the result calmly.
’What rotten luck.’
After being teleported back to the spectator stands, only this one thought remained in Qin Feng’s mind.
His loss wasn’t unjust.
To be able to execute "One Heart, Nine Uses" with a Fourth-level Killing Technique meant that his opponent’s Mental Power had to have reached the terrifying level of at least 50 points!
This was undoubtedly a true veteran powerhouse who had been immersed in the sixth-level Soaring Realm for a very, very long time.
His own Mental Power, on the other hand, was just over 10 points at best.
The gap between them was simply too vast.
A killing technique using "One Heart, Nine Uses" possessed power infinitely close to that of a true Fifth-Level Killing Technique.
An Amplification of Combat Power of this magnitude was enough to nullify, and even surpass, the advantage granted by Qin Feng’s terrifying physical foundation.
His luck was just too bad.
Based on Qin Feng’s month-long observations during the elimination rounds...
Among the remaining one hundred thousand contestants, only a few thousand at most had mastered this kind of Multi-tasking killing technique.
And those who could reach the freakish level of "One Heart, Nine Uses" were even rarer, numbering no more than one hundred people.
Yet he had run into such a monster in the very first round.
However, despite the loss, Qin Feng wasn’t too disheartened.
He knew full well that with his strength, he could still fight a grueling battle for a full fifteen minutes before being defeated, even against a top-tier expert like this.
This was proof enough that his strength was definitely among the top echelon of the remaining one hundred thousand contestants.
If his luck were a little better and he didn’t run into such a monster, he was absolutely confident he could fight his way into the top thousand.
Just as Qin Feng was sitting quietly in the spectator stands, watching the matches in the other arenas and waiting for the round to end, his personal terminal suddenly vibrated lightly.
It was a message from Master Yu Han.
[Qin Feng, leave the competition area immediately. Take a planetary flyer and return to the orbital Space Fortress. Go to Assembly Area A1823 and await transport to the ’Extreme Enlightenment Stele’ for comprehension.]
[Understood.]
Qin Feng replied with a single word, then immediately stood up and, following the instructions, quickly left the bustling arena.
「...」
About an hour later, Qin Feng appeared in Assembly Area A1823 of the orbital Space Fortress.
It was a vast, pure-white space resembling an airport departure lounge.