The laughter from the audience continued, but Maggs couldn’t be bothered with it any longer.
"Since all the legions have entered, the 127th Abyssal Preliminaries officially begin!"
His voice spread through the arena via a spiritual wave, instantly quelling all noise.
"The rules of the competition are simple—an eighteen-legion melee, and the last surviving team qualifies for victory!"
With the announcement, the arena’s ground began to change.
The originally flat area split and reorganized, forming a complex battlefield full of traps and obstacles.
Some areas turned into lava pools, others rose with jagged stone pillars, while some were divided by cracks, forming natural terrain barriers.
"Let the chaos commence!"
As soon as Maggs finished speaking, the seventeen "powerful" legions immediately took action.
Surprisingly, their first target was not each other, but together they aimed at the seemingly weakest team, Nari.
"Let’s deal with the simplest target first!"
Delir’s Fallen Angels were the first to launch an attack, with six twisted figures flying at the stand-in puppet with rotting wings.
Their attack method was extremely cruel.
Anyone they touched would experience the despairing pain of faith collapse.
"It’s over." Someone in the audience began to shake their head:
"Nari’s little toys won’t last a minute."
But just as the Fallen Angels were about to touch the puppet, something shocking happened.
The stand-in puppet slowly opened its eyes, and in those eyes flickered the same calm glow as Ron.
The next second, its form vanished from the spot like a phantom.
When it reappeared, it was already at the center of the six Fallen Angels’ encirclement.
"What..."
The foremost Fallen Angel didn’t have time to finish its exclamation before it felt an irresistible force erupting from the puppet’s body.
The puppet raised its right hand, gently pressing its five fingers on the Fallen Angel’s forehead.
"Rest in peace."
... Hunting Evil, activate!
In the next moment, this powerful Fallen Angel began decomposing from its head.
Not a bloody tear, but an almost artistic dissipation.
Its body, like sand blown away by the wind, gradually turned into light particles and was entirely absorbed.
Along with its twisted soul, it was given a sort of "release."
The whole process was eerily quiet, with no screams, no struggle, only a kind of transcendental tranquility.
"This... this is impossible..."
The remaining five Fallen Angels retreated in shock, the flame of hatred in their eyes wavering.
In the Abyss, a power capable of "purifying" fallen beings so easily almost doesn’t exist.
The jeers from the audience abruptly stopped, replaced by a deathly silence.
All the spectators widened their eyes, finding it hard to believe what they just witnessed.
"That puppet..."
"How can it have such power..."
"Such purity... cannot appear in the Abyss..."
As everyone was still in shock, the attacks from other legions had already arrived.
Kempes’s dimensional soldiers launched an attack from multiple spatial planes simultaneously.
Their weapons crossed through space-time, stabbing at the puppet from impossible angles.
Kro’s time eroders attempted to drag the puppet into a death loop, forcing it to continuously endure the agony of being killed and revived.
Faced with lethal attacks from multiple directions, the stand-in puppet remained in that transcendent calm.
It lifted its left hand lightly, and a transparent shield instantly unfolded.
Those weapons crossing space-time struck the shield and melted instantaneously like ice and snow meeting a raging fire.
The power of time erosion was entirely shut outside, unable to affect the puppet at all.
"Such defense..."
Maggs’s nine eyes were fixed on the battlefield, increasingly shocked:
"Absolute isolation... This is no mere defensive skill, but some kind of rule-level protection..."
At the same time, that seemingly harmless music jellyfish suddenly began to move.
The pleasing tones they emitted instantly turned into a kind of terrifying frequency, acting directly in the enemies’ subconscious.
Kempes’s dimensional soldiers were the first to be affected.
Their bodies scattered across multiple spaces began losing synchronization, performing conflicting actions.
Some soldiers’ heads wanted to turn left, but their bodies were moving right;
Some soldiers’ arms wanted to attack, but their legs were running away.
This internal discord rapidly developed into sheer chaos, with soldiers in multiple dimensions beginning to attack each other.
Kro’s time warriors weren’t much better off.
The frequency attacks from the music jellyfish disrupted their precise time loops.
What was once a structured process of death and rebirth turned into chaotic time turbulence.
Some soldiers were accelerated into the future, instantly becoming skeletons;
Some were dragged back into the past, re-experiencing the pain of death;
Others were trapped at wrong nodes in the time loop, with different body parts in different time states.
"These jellyfish..."
Someone in the audience began to realize the severity of the problem:
"They can disrupt the most fundamental laws of existence..."
"Not just disrupt; they are redefining reality." Another more knowledgeable High Tier Awakened supplemented:
"It seems that Nari has assimilated power within them, but this should only be something the Throne Holders can achieve..."
Explorer One at this moment also demonstrated astonishing power.