Demon Sword Sect’s Undercover
Chapter 856 - 855: Seeking Defeat

Chapter 856: Chapter 855: Seeking Defeat

Hou Niao’s heart finally settled. It wasn’t that he was particularly capable, but because the opponent chose the worst Wood Element, which was like walking right into a trap for someone like him who plants orchids and practices swordsmanship in Sui Mo City.

There was calculation, but also luck.

Golden Core Cultivators are subject to celestial phenomena dissolution, but the phenomena were confined within a small space. Amidst the intense dispersal of spiritual workings, many storage rings fell, becoming his spoils.

This battle was mentally and physically exhausting, forcing him to the brink; the universe is vast, with many Daoist legacies and talents everywhere. He couldn’t act recklessly like he did on Jinxiu Continent.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, recovering from the depletion, he continued to reflect on where he was lacking.

Within the Cultivation System of Jinxiu, the Golden Core Realm isn’t split into detailed stages. If differentiation is necessary, it would be early stage, mid stage, and late stage, like a tumor...

Using the Anchor Chain Cultivator’s analogy, if one compares the dantian to the moon, there are three states: waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, and full moon, representing the progression from weak to prosperous of the Golden Core.

His current state is difficult even to compare to the waxing crescent of the Golden Core early stage; it’s more accurate to call it a waning moon. The disadvantages of such a Golden Core in mana output are obvious, for example, the power of his Sword Thunder Pill is completely inadequate in front of experts, which is why he was constrained before Zhi Xuan and Mu Fan.

The key issue is that his Flying Sword lacks the ability to directly kill opponents, rendering it useless. This is why Jinxiu Continent cultivators do not venture outside within ten years of Core Formation and must stay at the Mountain Gate to rigorously train and supplement their Cores.

He had formed his Core less than two years ago, which is the outside world’s time; within Hell Star, it’s barely been a year. Even with the nourishment of the Thunder Whip, how much success can one show in a short time?

The Cultivation World is filled with countless Divine Technique Secret Skills, but before comparing these myriad means, Cultivation is the foundation, the guarantee, a necessity.

If there is a significant gap in mana cultivation, the so-called Divine Technique Secret Skills become ornamental; opponents can easily outmaneuver you, not to mention his swordsmanship is far from complete, with too many flaws.

This is a matter of legacy, and forming a Core on Hell Star meant there was simply no library for him to learn from. Relying on one’s own strength to explore what numerous predecessors have summarized over a long time after forming a Golden Core is somewhat wishful thinking.

This is fundamentally where he is powerless.

As for swordsmanship, it further clarified the importance of Flying Sword Skill for him. If it were a Sword Cultivator like Yue Duo, with the Sword Light Division releasing dozens of Sword Qi at any time and merging into a Unify Sword, how could he allow Mu Fan to endlessly cast techniques?

The Body Sword Skill is very powerful but also has its flaws—single sword being the biggest issue. Who knows if this can be changed in the future?

In this round of trials, he had already endured nine opponents, leaving one more; if another opponent like the Daoist Mu Fan were to appear...

In truth, he had no desire to achieve any goal through winning a hundred consecutive battles. It was clear that the so-called "win a hundred consecutive battles" was a gimmick, unattainable, unclear what trouble was lurking behind it.

The best approach was to retreat voluntarily, which required planning and, more importantly, observing the opponent’s attitude.

In the previous nine matches, he had killed four people and spared five, indicating that the Trial Arena rules allowed for defeat and retreat. How should he proceed?

......

In the Anchor Chain Star System, a stone tower was rotating slowly in the void. The tower was a thousand feet high and a hundred feet in diameter, with a faint treasure light circulating within and a soothing sound.

This is the Acquired Spirit Treasure used by the Anchor Chain Star System to maintain the Trial Arena, the Glazed Tower.

The Glazed Tower has seventeen levels, with the seventeenth level housing the core of the tower spirit, not open to the outside; within the sixteenth level, two Daoists sat in meditation, eyes closed, and spirit contemplated.

Zhi Le Daoist and Shang Que Daoist, both with True Monarch cultivation, were responsible for supervising the operation of the Glazed Tower and protecting the Spiritual Treasure from being lost in the void. Normally, it was a leisurely task, but now it was different. They had to focus fully to differentiate the countless spiritual powers’ paths, success, and fall within the Glazed Tower.

The True Monarch is the pillar of this universe, but the True Monarchs are also divided into levels. This kind of routine task can only be done by the lowest-level Yin God True Monarchs; they are not in charge of this universe.

Simultaneously, countless battles were taking place, but their real focus was not on the petty cultivator battles between the Anchor Chain’s eight main stars. They focused on the battles on Hell Star because the battles there were completed through another innate spiritual treasure on Hell Star, and the control there wasn’t as clear, slightly vague.

The focus was on the twenty Golden Core Disciples prepared to enter Hell Star and the disciples ranked in the top thousand trying to eliminate the extraterrestrial visitors on Hell Star.

There were variables because the innate spiritual treasure on Hell Star wasn’t as cooperative with humanity’s clandestine dealings.

Might kill or be killed; nothing can be guaranteed.

After several days, the Trial Arena’s situation was disappointing. Since full targeting wasn’t achievable, it often became a matter of luck, like a blind cat catching a dead rat. Results were not as imagined.

First of all, the twenty core figures, who were expected to physically enter Hell Star, were all within the top hundred in trial rankings; it wasn’t possible to take trial’s top twenty, as there were always those unwilling to go, loose cultivators, members of small sects, or Golden Core Disciples from other small realms outside the Anchor Chain who couldn’t explain the hidden reasons behind each case, so they could only search for candidates from the core Daoist legacies of the eight main stars.

In this area, there was practically no difference between ranking first or the hundredth. Often, outlying factors are more important than actual strength.

These twenty people have already had results, with seventeen passing smoothly, and three were defeated and lost.

Smooth passage meant they had slain their respective opponents; defeated and lost meant they were slain by their opponents. If such carefully selected experts from the Anchor Chain Star System were eliminated, exactly who did it is self-explanatory.

As for asking the higher-ranked Golden Core Disciples to try to eliminate the Hell Star rebel cultivators, there were some successes and some failures, making it impossible to ascertain who exactly they killed—whether it was the ordinary rebel cultivators or those twelve extraterrestrial visitors?

Although not admitted verbally, the Anchor Chain high leadership understood that the former was more likely.

These envoys from the Upper Realm fully demonstrated why the Upper Realm is the Upper Realm in terms of ability.

Their actions had two purposes, one was to send twenty elites into Hell Star, and the other was to eliminate as much of the Upper Realm’s invading forces as possible. Looking at it now, the first goal was accomplished reasonably well, but the second goal...