81: Chapter 81 The Final Battle Begins

Soon, Xiao Qingwu and Zhou Mingzhi took the stage once again to confront each other, and the third- and fourth-place playoff officially began!

Zhou Mingzhi held nothing back as he fully opened his Undead Divine Kingdom, sending his massive Undead Legion pouring out in full force to densely cover the arena, filled with eerie white bones and surging black mist as a suffocating aura of death rushed toward them.

Xiao Qingwu wore a cool and indifferent expression as she raised her hand to summon all her Xueli Ice Luan, more than six hundred crystal-clear luan birds spreading their wings to take to the air, where their extreme frost instantly froze the entire airspace, spreading layers of biting freezing power that locked down all movement across the battlefield.

The battle was on the verge of breaking out, but the outcome turned out to be completely identical to Lin Ye's earlier prediction.

Zhou Mingzhi's Undead Legion originally had stiff bodies and sluggish movements, but under Xiao Qingwu's all-encompassing freezing domain, their speed plummeted once again in a cliff-like freefall.

The sky-filling extreme frost continuously covered, froze, and imprisoned the bodies of the undead, with thick layers of ice wrapping around the skeletal warriors and completely locking down all their mobility.

Xiao Qingwu's Xueli Ice Luan had agile and unpredictable movement techniques, constantly hovering high in the sky to deal damage while kiting, freezing from a distance, and continuously wearing down the enemy.

Despite its massive numbers, the densely packed Undead Legion could not even touch the hem of the Ice Luan's garments, forcing it to passively stand in place and take a beating as the endless ice slowly ground its skeleton to pieces, froze its soulfire, and melted its origin source.

The entire battle was completely a one-sided crushing attrition war.

Zhou Mingzhi successively activated his trump cards, mobilized soulfire to sustain stamina, and forcibly thawed the undead, but it was all to no avail.

The layers of imprisonment from the Ice Dao were endless, and his repair and regeneration speeds could not possibly keep up with the speed at which the freezing was causing them to perish.

The undead under his command grew fewer and fewer, and the surviving familiars were all frozen while injured, reducing their combat power to zero entirely.

The situation was beyond saving.

Watching the Undead Legion that had been completely frozen and almost entirely wiped out, the last trace of luck in Zhou Mingzhi's eyes completely vanished.

He finally fully admitted that he was indeed perfectly countered by Xiao Qingwu, and from beginning to end, there was no possibility of a comeback.

"I concede."

Three calm words brought down the final curtain.

The referee immediately announced the final rankings: Xiao Qingwu firmly claimed third place in Quanzhou, while Zhou Mingzhi ranked fourth in Quanzhou.

With this, the top four rankings of this Nantan Prefecture league were completely finalized, leaving only the final, highly anticipated ultimate battle for first place in Quanzhou — Lin Ye versus Bai Ruoxue — which would officially begin in the afternoon.

At noon, the competition took a break, and the noisy stadium briefly returned to peace.

Lin Ye did not deliberately engage in harsh cultivation to stay tense; instead, he was exceptionally relaxed, thoroughly enjoying a high-nutrition meal specially provided by the competition to fully replenish his physical strength and spiritual power foundation.

He knew very well in his heart that the afternoon's ultimate battle would be the most difficult and perilous match of this tournament, and his opponent was Bai Ruoxue, whose foundation, talent, and bloodline were all maxed out. What they were competing on was not only familiar combat power and tactical game theory, but also enduring physical stamina and mental composure.

Only by resting up and reaching peak condition would he have the capital to reverse the situation and make a comeback.

After filling his stomach and resting, Lin Ye sat cross-legged in meditation, his mind quietly sinking into the Fiendish Divine Kingdom to check the latest status of the Soul-Devouring Owl at the first opportunity.

The full two thousand clusters of Grade C pure soulfire obtained from the morning trade had, after a continuous period of devouring, refining, and settling, been completely absorbed by the four hundred eighty-six Soul-Devouring Owls by now, without a single trace remaining.

The ensuing transformation effect caused a trace of obvious pleasant surprise to instantly emerge in the depths of Lin Ye's eyes.

Across the entire Divine Kingdom airspace, the Soul-Devouring Owl soared and circled on flapping wings, its pitch-black wings becoming increasingly condensed and heavy, the dark spiritual light lingering around its body growing deeper and more restrained, and the originally restless soul fiendish aura now astonishingly pure.

After an all-around investigation, clear data on the surge in combat power flashed into Lin Ye's mind.

Nourished and tempered by the massive amount of soulfire, the overall soul strength of the Soul-Devouring Owl had increased by a full twenty percent compared to before, and its foundational background had grown solidly refined.

The power of its matching exclusive moves—such as Soul Shock, Soul Tear, and Soul-Devouring Erosion—also rose by twenty percent simultaneously, and its suppression capability against the enemy familiars' soul bodies and martial artists' minds leaped forward significantly.

Only the effect of bloodline purification was relatively weak, with the overall bloodline concentration increasing by merely a two-hundredth, which was nearly imperceptible.

Upon seeing this, Lin Ye was not surprised; instead, he understood and took it calmly.

The Soul-Devouring Owl of today had long since broken through the shackles of its grade, firmly ranking among the top-tier Grade S familiars with an extremely high origin foundation.

Furthermore, what he had obtained through trade was merely Grade C soulfire, and the grade gap was simply too large. Low-level resources attempting to temper the bloodline of high-tier familiars naturally yielded very little effect, so being able to achieve even a shred of purification effect could already be considered an excess harvest.

Even if the bloodline improvement was weak, just this twenty percent increase in soul strength was already a huge, unexpected joy.

Soul combat power belonged to the scarcest and most core special attribute, which ordinary resources found extremely difficult to nourish and enhance. This refinement meant that the Soul-Devouring Owl's soul-suppressing and killing abilities had crossed another step forward, granting it even more terrifying suppression effects against opponents' soul-type familiars and mental defenses in future battles.

After carefully sensing the status of all his familiars and confirming that everyone's combat power was stable, their condition was at its peak, and there were no hidden dangers whatsoever, Lin Ye felt his inner confidence grow increasingly sufficient.

Time quietly slipped away, the midday break ended, the scorching sun moved westward, and the long-awaited two o'clock in the afternoon arrived as scheduled.

The Nantan Prefecture stadium, which had been silent for a moment, instantly erupted once again with a deafening wave of clamor.

The venue was packed to capacity, with all one hundred thousand spectators having returned to their seats. The densely packed crowd covered the entire grandstand, voices boomed, and waves of heat soared to the skies.

The online viewer count of the nationwide livestream room had long since shattered peak records, with countless netizens staring intently at their screens, holding their breaths as they awaited this ultimate showdown at the peak of Quanzhou.

Everyone's gaze crossed layers of human seas and penetrated the arena barrier, locking fiercely onto the decisive battle stage in the center.

With a loud start declaration from the referee, the highly anticipated ultimate battle officially opened its curtain.

Two figures stepped through the air onto the stage one after the other, standing at opposite ends of the arena and confronting each other across the distance.

Bai Ruoxue wore white clothes that surpassed snow, her otherworldly figure standing upright, her skin translucent and fair, surrounded by a faint sacred halo without a trace of mortal fireworks.

Her brows and eyes were cool and indifferent, showing neither joy nor sorrow. As the only SSS-grade prodigy in Quanzhou, she naturally carried the innate majesty of a favored daughter of heaven, resembling a holy maiden from the nine heavens falling to the mortal realm, carrying a detached posture that looked down upon her peers.

Opposite her, Lin Ye was dressed in neat black clothes, his posture as upright as a pine. Although his figure appeared lean, it harbored a majestic power capable of shattering heaven and earth.

Black and red intertwined fiendish aura faintly flowed around his body, with the biting aura of slaughter restrained within him. He was calm yet not weak, plain yet hiding sharpness, facing Quanzhou's ceiling without the slightest timidity as he confronted her open and square.

Their auras collided from afar: one sacred, one fiendish; one righteous, one evil. Two extremes of completely opposite power pressures enveloped the entire arena, causing the hundred thousand spectators in the audience to instantly hold their breaths, plunging the noisy stadium into absolute silence where a pin drop could be heard.

The next instant, the two of them simultaneously moved their minds and fully opened their Divine Kingdoms!

Hum—!

Two boundless, vast Divine Kingdom phantoms simultaneously enveloped the battlefield.