Their gazes pierced through energy and flesh, locking onto Qin Feng’s brow with unerring precision!
Just a moment ago!
At the very instant Qin Feng broke through mid-battle, synthesizing his life’s learnings!
The two golden Divine Chosen Nails on his brow, invisible to the common person, had erupted in a flash of brilliant, fleeting light!
The entire process took less than a hundred-millionth of a second.
It was nearly impossible to perceive for the ordinary spectators outside, or even for planetary-level powerhouses.
But to the dozen or so Black Hole Level Powerhouses present, men who had tempered their very souls and Will to the absolute limit, that momentary flash of light was as distinct as a star suddenly flaring to life in the dead of night!
The room plunged into a deathly silence.
A few seconds later.
"...Two Nails?"
The one-eyed captain slowly turned his head. His good eye was wide as a saucer, fixed on Zhou Xiong. His voice was as hoarse as two rusty iron plates grinding together.
"Zhou Xiong! You son of a bitch... didn’t you just say it was one Nail?!"
His voice suddenly shot up, filled with the fury of betrayal.
"So, after all this time, you were still holding out on us, weren’t you?! You wanted to hoard this peerless, two-Nail genius for yourself?!"
BOOM! The entire room erupted into chaos.
"What’s happening?!"
"I saw it clearly. That flash of light... it was definitely from two Nails!"
"Zhou Xiong! You old bastard, that’s a dirty trick!"
Zhou Xiong was just as stunned and dumbfounded. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
’I didn’t know either.’
’When did this happen?’
"Quiet down, all of you!"
The most senior-looking captain slammed his hand on the table and barked, "Notify the Imperial Court of Justice immediately! Encrypt the raw footage of that last match segment at the highest level! Lock down all potential channels for leaks!"
"Move!"
Jarred from their stupor, everyone’s expression turned incredibly grim.
"A two-Nail genius... Now we’re in for it!"
"I don’t know if our Ultramarines Chapter can even hold on to a genius of this caliber!"
"The moment this leaks, those Madmen from the other Warbands will stop at nothing to poach him!"
"Two Nails... As long as he doesn’t die prematurely, his future is, at minimum, in the upper echelons of a Warband. He might even... have a shot at reaching a higher tier! A person like this will absolutely secure a top-tier rank after the Great War Zone tournament. When that happens, the choice won’t be ours to make anymore!"
"It’ll be tough! Far too tough!"
"Enough talk! Report it up the chain, now!"
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the frantic tapping of fingers on personal terminals.
Over a dozen encrypted messages shot out from the room at faster-than-light speeds, heading for the supreme commanders of their respective sub-Warbands—the Marshals.
Then, after a mere ten-odd seconds of silence...
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!—
Everyone’s personal terminal in the room went wild, blaring with a flood of urgent communication requests all at once.
The one-eyed captain glanced at the list of senders, and his face instantly became darker than the bottom of a scorched pot.
"The Blood Angels Chapter, the Raven Guard Chapter, the Emperor’s Fist, the Son of the Empire, the Fire Salamander..."
He ground out a series of illustrious Warband names through clenched teeth. "Shit! I’ve already got ’greetings’ from colleagues in over seventy other Warbands!"
"Same here!"
"Me too!"
"These damn hyenas! How did they get wind of this so fast?!"
someone cursed.
"It’s to be expected."
Zhou Xiong had calmed down a little by now. He explained with a bitter smile, "We send people to watch their Warbands’ selection trials, too, don’t we? With millions of Warbands out there, planting spies and poaching talent is just standard operating procedure, isn’t it?"
"Standard, my ass!"
The one-eyed captain slammed his fist on the table in a rage, leaving a deep Fist Seal in the sturdy alloy surface. "It feels damn good to poach someone else’s genius! But when everyone’s eyeing your own genius to poach, it feels fucking awful!"
The brief chaos that erupted in the room over the sudden revelation of the "two-Nail" genius was quickly brought under control by the battle-hardened captains.
But the incessant flood of communication requests, nearly overwhelming their personal terminals, served as a constant reminder that a war over the genius—a war without a single shot fired—had already begun.
"Damn it, this pack of wolves has a better sense of smell than a hound!"
The one-eyed captain irritably closed his communications screen. "So how do we respond? We can’t just tell them we’ve got a two-Nail on our hands and invite them all to a bidding war, can we?"
His words were crude, but they perfectly captured the predicament everyone was in.
Concealing the truth was no longer an option.
Once again, silence descended upon the room.
"Screw it."
In the end, it was the one-eyed captain who broke the stalemate.
He leaned back, crossed his arms, and essentially gave up.
"Reply to what? The hell with that! We’ve already kicked this problem upstairs to our own bosses. What happens next is a clash of Immortals between those Marshals. It’s got nothing to do with us captains."
He pursed his lips, his tone tinged with a hint of schadenfreude. "In the end, the kid will go to whoever makes the best offer."
His words did much to ease the tense atmosphere in the room.
Indeed, a strategic game at this level was far beyond the authority of sub-Warband captains like them.
"No, no, no, that’s not the right way to look at it."
A captain who had remained composed throughout shook his head and offered a different perspective. "There’s another possibility."
All eyes in the room snapped to him.
"Have you all forgotten the old unwritten rule?"
He said slowly, "If Qin Feng manages to secure a spot in the top one hundred during the final ’Great War Zone’ tournament, he’ll qualify for a special option—to go to the Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races."
"The Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races..."
Upon hearing that name, everyone’s expression tensed.
"Then, by convention,"
Another man quickly caught on, chiming in, "the Guardian team for a Trial Taker heading to the Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races must be provided by our Ultramarines Chapter!
That way, once his trial is complete, regardless of what he accomplishes, he will ultimately return to our Warband!"
This possibility was like a ray of light, instantly dispelling the gloom that had settled over them.
"Hey, that’s right! There is a rule like that!"
The one-eyed captain slapped his thigh, but then his brow furrowed. "But would he choose that path? It’s far more dangerous, after all, and our non-disclosure agreement prevents us from revealing any of the benefits beforehand."
"He will."
Zhou Xiong, who had been silent until now, finally spoke, his tone filled with unshakable conviction.
As everyone looked at him in confusion, he raised a finger and pointed to the ornament hanging from Qin Feng’s waist on the screen.
"He’s different. Didn’t you see what that kid has hanging from his waist? That’s a Demon Skull, blessed by Khorne."
Zhou Xiong’s voice was deep and forceful. "The Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races would let him cut loose and slaughter Greater Daemons to his heart’s content. Do you really think he won’t be tempted by that?"
His words struck home like a hammer blow.
"That... actually makes a lot of sense..."
"That kid’s style... he definitely seems like the type to make that choice."
"Exactly."
The composed captain nodded and added, "After all, the path of the Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races offers the greatest allocation of the Empire’s resources and the fastest route to power for a young genius.
Judging by the terrifying speed at which he has progressed through all the stages before the planetary level in under a century, he’s clearly pursuing ultimate efficiency and growth.
Besides, the kid is sharp. He’s already figured out how the Empire operates on his own. He’ll see the angle without us having to spell it out for him.
He’ll almost certainly choose this path in the end."
With the analysis complete, the atmosphere in the room finally, and completely, relaxed.
"Ah, let’s not overthink it."
The one-eyed captain waved his hand, fully reverting to his devil-may-care attitude. "This whole affair is way above our pay grade now. Let the higher-ups fight it out and make their own moves. We just get to watch the show."
"Who knows,"
A captain said half-jokingly, looking at the black-clad young man on the screen who had now started watching the next match intently, "by the time that kid gets back from the Battlefield of Ten Thousand Races, we’ll probably have to line up to salute him. If he keeps up this pace, he might already be a Warlord Level figure by the time he returns."
"Indeed."
Though it sounded like a joke, everyone couldn’t help but nod in agreement.
He was a two-Nail genius, after all.
A monster of that caliber couldn’t be measured by common logic.