Those who dared to participate in the Shenxiao Sect's examination were hardly cowards who valued their lives over all else.

At this moment, faced with a situation that almost certainly spelled death, the group of candidates erupted with a battle spirit so fierce it seemed to shake the heavens and the earth.

More than twenty Martial Path cultivators charged at the ranks of aberrations that had torn through their formation.

"ROAR!"

"ROAR!"

The deafening roars, a chorus from dozens of aberrations, did not suggest chaos but rather a calculated preparedness, as if they had anticipated this confrontation.

Upon seeing the human cultivators charge forward, the aberrations rolled in like tidal waves, belching forth vile energies and roaring as they surged ahead.

The charge of the aberration army was fearsome indeed.

In just an instant, the Martial Path cultivators began clashing with the aberrations.

Blood!

Mutilation!

Sparks flew!

This was, from the very start, a brutal battle of life and death.

The ground quaked violently; the soil within a radius of hundreds of meters collapsed and fractured, heaving up and down. Embodying raw physical prowess, both the Martial Path cultivators and the aberrations fought savagely. The primitive, barbaric combat filled the air with a terrifying atmosphere.

Every now and then, figures were thrown about like rag dolls, only to swiftly pick themselves back up and return to the fray to continue fighting!

In this chaos, the seven brothers of the Daliang Wolf Cavalry, led by Yan Baizhe, were particularly eye-catching. As warriors savvy in military tactics, and hailing from Northwestern Daliang, a place known as the Demon Cave, they were extremely familiar with positional warfare, battles fought at a disadvantage, and life-or-death struggles.

The seven wolf cavalry transformed into seven terrifying afterimages. Like a sharp blade, they wove frantically through the aberration army, forcibly tearing their tight formations apart and throwing their ranks into disarray.

When some of the Martial Path cultivators were encircled and overwhelmed by aberrations, these cavalrymen would suddenly burst forth, wielding mountain-toppling strength to forcefully repel the aberrations and resolve the dire situation.

Standing on the stump of an ancient black tree, Li Guanqi's eyes shimmered with white light as he surveyed the entire battlefield, orchestrating the situation with a Secret Technique.

If any side seemed on the verge of being breached, he would communicate using Secret Method Sound Transmission, coordinating from the center. He continually advised the front-line Martial Path cultivators about the aberrations' weak points and the critical moments for evasion and counter-attacks, effectively granting all fighters a god's-eye view of the battlefield.

Positioned in the rear, Qi Xiu's eyes brimmed with purple intent, his aura fluctuating and his robes billowing. Suddenly, he lifted his hand.

A scarlet bolt of lightning roared out like a streaking meteor and thundered down into the center of a group of aberrations!

"AHHH!!!"

Agonizing screams echoed across the battlefield. The aberrations struck by the Thunder Magic writhed and spasmed on the ground, their formidable regenerative capabilities seemingly stripped from their bodies.

Their charred flesh turned to blackened cinders and crashed to the ground, exploding into bursts of thick blood mist.

These aberrations seem particularly vulnerable to Thunder Magic...

With a sharp gaze, Qi Xiu observed the aberrations' abnormal state. His mind raced, and his eyes suddenly glinted with a fierce light. I've got it! These aberrations all hail from the Yellow Springs Path—ambiguous monstrosities, neither truly alive nor dead. And Thunder Magic is the embodiment of the righteous power of Heaven and Earth—majestic and vast, stern and profound! It represents the rules of Heaven and Earth! As species born in violation of these rules, aberrations are highly susceptible to Thunder Magic. It can even strip away their formidable regenerative abilities. In the first round of the examination, the jade imprint must have contained a trace of Thunder Magic's power, which is why it managed to scare the aberrations away. I understand now! The key to overcoming this trial... is the Palm Thunder from the second round!

Once his thoughts cleared, Qi Xiu quickly found Li Guanqi and shared his deduction.

After hearing Qi Xiu's analysis, Li Guanqi's eyes brightened. He, too, had suspected early on that the Shenxiao Sect wouldn't arrange an insurmountable examination. There had to be some clue to breaking the deadlock, but they hadn't found it. He just hadn't expected the Shenxiao Sect's exam planners to be so cunning, embedding the entire clue deep within all three rounds of the examination: the jade imprint in the first round, and the Palm Thunder in the second. Without paying meticulous attention to every stage, who would have realized that Thunder Magic was the key to this trial!

"With this, Thunder Magic becomes the key to our survival over these ten days! If I remember correctly, twenty-three people successfully cultivated Palm Thunder in the second round. Let me think..."

With Qi Xiu's reminder, Li Guanqi began to formulate a more robust and reliable plan, aiming for a greater chance of victory. But as time passed, his frown deepened.

No, even though we've found the key, only twenty-three people have mastered Thunder Magic. The energy consumption for activating it is enormous; it takes at least five blasts of Palm Thunder to kill a single aberration. And even if they exhaust all their True Gang, one person can only unleash about nine blasts.

Li Guanqi spoke gravely, scratching on the ground with a tree branch, "Thunder Magic can indeed kill the aberrations. But due to its immense energy cost, one person, even at full strength, can barely kill a single aberration. Twenty-three people mean only twenty-three aberrations. Compared to the total of several hundred, this number is still somewhat insignificant."

Noticing Li Guanqi deep in thought, Qi Xiu shifted his feet and gently reminded him, "Li, don't forget, the third round of the examination lasts for ten days!"

"Ten days? Right, ten days!" Li Guanqi's expression suddenly changed as he realized, "That's right! The entire round is ten days long. The Shenxiao Sect must be sending the aberrations from the lake onto the island in batches. Otherwise, if hundreds of aberrations swarmed us at once, even a great cultivator of the Blood-Stained Realm couldn't withstand it. So, as long as we manage the number each day, we have a chance to endure these ten days."

Qi Xiu added, "Exactly. And the Shenxiao Sect's condition for passing isn't to kill all the aberrations, but to survive for ten days. So, for these aberrations, we just need to injure them enough to neutralize their combat ability. We don't necessarily have to go all out to slay them. This way, we can also conserve some energy."

"That's right, that's right! Qi, you see far and possess true insight. I, Li, have nothing but admiration!" Li Guanqi's eyes sparkled as he looked at Qi Xiu. In his impression, the Qi Xiu from before had a simple aura and a calm demeanor, exuding an ordinariness that couldn't be more common. Now it seemed this was the true meaning of returning to simplicity, the quality of unpolished jade.

"Li, you flatter me," Qi Xiu replied. He genuinely admired Li Guanqi. To command the entire battlefield, attention divided among a dozen fronts... If it weren't for such excessive mental exhaustion, how could he have been troubled by this minor issue? A single person, his attention divided among a dozen matters. Although Li Guanqi isn't directly engaged in combat, the mental toll he bears is definitely several, even dozens of times greater than anyone else's.

"Hahaha, you're too kind, too kind." With Qi Xiu's help in discerning the key to breaking the deadlock, Li Guanqi immediately began to alter his arrangements. He used Secret Method Sound Transmission to give orders to the twenty-three cultivators proficient in Palm Thunder. He had them spread out, not aiming to annihilate the aberrations completely, but to injure them with Thunder Magic and strip away their power of recovery.

With this change, the aberrations' overwhelmingly aggressive momentum was instantly curbed, and the precarious defensive line stabilized once more. The Martial Path cultivators even seized the advantage, driving the aberration army completely out of their formation. This provided Zhu Mo and the other formation cultivators with the space and time to repair the Great Formation.

"At this rate, holding out for ten days won't be difficult!" Not expecting the first day to go so smoothly, a hint of a smile appeared on all the candidates' faces.

The slaughter continued, the bloody battle raged on. Day after day passed.

「Before long, eight days had passed.」

The area around the white jade stairway plaza was now piled high with aberration corpses, forming small hills. The intense stench of blood was enough to instantly suffocate a living person. Thick, filthy blood oozed out, converging into meandering, babbling blood rivers that flowed ceaselessly. The prolonged battle had left all the candidates, especially the Martial Path cultivators at the forefront, utterly exhausted, barely able to maintain their Body-Protecting True Gang. Yet, there were still two full days left until the end of the assessment.

Qi Xiu pressed his palm against Zhu Mo's back, silently transmitting streams of Hunyuan Gang Qi. At this time, Zhu Mo's face was deathly pale. His left arm was gone from the shoulder, and half his body was soaked with blood. He had exhausted his Gang Qi using Palm Thunder and couldn't maintain his Body-Protecting True Gang, leaving him vulnerable to an aberration's sneak attack. If not for Qi Xiu's timely rescue, it wouldn't have been just an arm; Zhu Mo himself would likely have been swallowed whole by that ambushing aberration.

"Lao Qi, don't waste your True Gang..." Zhu Mo spoke weakly, opening his eyes.

The battle had raged for so long that Gang Qi had become the biggest problem for all the candidates. Aberrations surged forward in relentless waves, giving them barely a moment's rest. Everyone was gritting their teeth and holding firm. Every strand of Gang Qi was exceedingly precious.

"You should worry more about yourself." Qi Xiu's fingertips moved, and a series of Medicine Talismans emerged. Their Divine Marvel-like healing power rapidly mended the wounds, bringing a hint of color back to Zhu Mo's paper-white face.

Having stabilized Zhu Mo's injuries, Qi Xiu slowly rose and surveyed his surroundings. By now, nearly all the candidates were injured, including the seven Yan Baizhe brothers. Qi Xiu gathered his sleeves, his expression grave. His earlobes twitched slightly as he turned to look towards a distant part of the forest. Dark figures seemed to be surging towards them from there.

They don't even give us a moment to breathe, huh. "It seems it's up to us three now," Qi Xiu said, his gaze shifting to the only three individuals who remained unscathed: a man wearing a Bamboo Hat and chewing on a grass stalk, a sword resting by his side, who had been silent from the very beginning; a slim figure with squinted eyes, wearing pitch-black gloves and carrying a longbow on his back; and Li Guanqi, who was coordinating from the center, sporting a pair of massive dark circles under his eyes.

"Fifteen of them are coming. How about us three take five each?" Squinted Eyes asked, shielding his forehead with his hand as he peered into the distance, then turning his head.

"Whatever." The sword-bearing man spat out the grass stalk, glanced thoughtfully at Qi Xiu and Squinted Eyes, and slowly drew his imposing, door-panel-sized greatsword!

"Alright then." Qi Xiu nodded slightly with a faint smile.

BOOM—

The aberrations drew close!

The three men's gazes sharpened as they struck out decisively!

Palm Thunder!

Raising his right hand high, Gang Qi roared within Qi Xiu. He no longer suppressed the mighty Cultivation held within the ten Mixed Primordial Beads, allowing torrents of Hunyuan Gang Qi to pour into the thunder pattern on his palm.

BOOM—

A surge of scarlet thunder radiance erupted, brighter than the sun itself! The thunder light, which should have been fleeting, transformed into a sustained, terrifying pillar of scarlet lightning due to Qi Xiu's ceaseless infusion of Gang Qi!

"AHHH!!!"

Completely engulfed by the violent, domineering scarlet thunder light, the lightning—representing the majesty of Heaven and Earth—pierced through the bodies of five aberrations, forcefully erasing their existence. The aberrations managed only a single, horrifying scream before their bodies were incinerated by the thunder. Their flesh and blood turned to rigid, charred husks that toppled over and shattered into a scattering of carbonized fragments.

Watching the aberrations perish, Qi Xiu slowly lowered his hand, gathered his sleeves, and calmly stepped back.

At that moment, the way everyone looked at him changed.

This man, who had always seemed unremarkable and remained quietly in the background, possessed such profound, abyss-like Cultivation!

That unending pillar of thunder...

Is his Gang Qi limitless?

A prodigy!

Somehow, these two words surfaced unbidden in everyone's mind.

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