113: Wasteland Battle Royale

One minute later, eleven million contestants were teleported to the wilderness border, spread out widely so they wouldn't immediately encounter each other.

Not far behind the contestants was a chaotic spatial turbulence violent enough to destroy Ninth Order Gods life forms.

At this time, the spatial turbulence had not yet activated; three hours later, it would move at a constant speed, advancing 0.01 light-years per day, which is 94.6 billion kilometers, or 1.09 million kilometers per second.

As long as the contestants weren't foolish, they generally wouldn't be caught by the spatial turbulence, provided no other contestants used sealing methods to directly trap them in place, making escape impossible, and ultimately forcing them to watch themselves be devoured by the spatial turbulence.

During the initial three hours, all contestants moved away from the spatial turbulence, heading towards the central area of the wilderness; if they encountered other contestants, they eliminated them if possible, or avoided them if not.

Lin Chen took one step and arrived 70 billion kilometers away.

In the Doushen Arena stands, each audience member had ten large screens and countless small screens, with each screen locked onto a contestant.

The ten large screens displayed the contestants chosen by the audience themselves, as watching the competition on a large screen was more enjoyable; almost all audience members reserved a large screen spot for Lin Chen.

Even though Lin Chen hadn't done anything yet, his popularity instantly surpassed all other contestants.

As a human contestant, Lin Chen was watched by countless angels from the Missah God Country; supporting a fellow race's genius was one thing, but the real spectacle was a genius from a super-race like humanity, which was a rare sight.

Rarity makes something valuable; currently, Lin Chen was like a precious monkey, surrounded by countless angels from the Missah God Country, who wanted to understand what the legendary human race was like through Lin Chen.

“Holy cow, 70 billion kilometers in one step? And he’s still a Demigod!”

“His speed is over the top!”

“A Demigod Peak with the extreme speed of a God Ascension Second Level, is this a human genius? I love it, I love it.”

… … … …

“Damn, those who bet on this Qingyuan contestant must have won big; I regret it, I deeply regret not betting on him.”

“Hehe, I really did win big!”

“The betting market is closed; I can only leave it to fate now. I hope the contestant I bet on performs well.”

… … … …

Lin Chen’s single Mirror Teleportation caused countless audience members to exclaim, as Lin Chen was truly too exceptional.

A typical Demigod Peak has a maximum speed of about 5 billion kilometers per second, a teleportation speed of 0.0005 light-years per jump; this speed is already sufficient for travel in the universe.

Moving within tens or hundreds of light-years doesn't take much time; for truly long-distance travel, one still needs to rely on warships or teleportation arrays.

A regular God Ascension First Order has a maximum speed of about 50 billion kilometers per second, so Lin Chen’s single step of 70 billion kilometers is already the speed of a God Ascension Second Level.

After landing, Lin Chen did not continue to teleport forward.

The battle royale has two metrics: survival and points.

Lin Chen was not worried about survival at all; once Spiritual Stealth was activated, only a few exceptionally talented oddities among all contestants might be able to find him, so he was inherently in an unbeatable position.

Since survival was not a concern, he had to strategize for points, striving to improve his ranking as much as possible; the higher the ranking, the better and greater the resource rewards corresponding to that ranking.

He didn't care about resources, but resources that could be obtained for free naturally deserved some attention; the more he could get, the better, as the Missah God Country would be the one losing out.

Moreover, the higher the ranking, the more fortune he would ultimately gain; under the allure of fortune, Lin Chen naturally had to exert his full effort, as opportunities to acquire fortune were rare.

Lin Chen, remaining in place, began to mobilize heaven and earth energy to set up an array.

Without physical objects as support, an array purely constructed from heaven and earth energy would not be very strong, but there was no other way for now, as using physical resources for array formation was against the rules.

If he could truly use physical objects to set up arrays, with Lin Chen’s array formation skill and resource reserves, he could take on everyone, blocking all contestants outside the central area of the wilderness.

So, the rules truly protect the weak and strive to maintain fairness and impartiality; for powerhouses like Lin Chen, constrained by the rules, the means he could use were greatly reduced, effectively weakening his strength.

“Is that a trapping array!”

“No, it’s a killing array!”

“Your level is too low; this is clearly a God Ascension First Order level composite array, covering a radius of 30 billion kilometers, with a highly effective, modified energy-gathering array as its core. On top of that, it directly incorporates nine trapping arrays, nine sealing arrays, and nine killing arrays. Nine illusion arrays form a Four-Nine Composite Array.”

“Terrifying!”

… … … …

“Contestants who descended near ‘Qingyuan’ are in luck; I wonder how many contestants can pass through this clearly long-lasting composite array.”

“There won’t be many if you calculate it that way. You need to calculate how many contestants will be affected by the array and ultimately die within it, or be swallowed by the spatial turbulence.”

… … …

Lin Chen spent half an hour setting up the array. While he was doing so, many contestants entered the array's range; they were either killed by the killing array or trapped in place by the trapping, sealing, and illusion arrays, left to calmly await death.

Only a few Ascension to God tier geniuses sensed the danger and directly detoured, not plunging headfirst into the array.

Ascension to God tier geniuses inherently secured their rankings; as long as they reached the central area of the wilderness and avoided the most threatening spatial turbulence, they were virtually in an unbeatable position.

As long as they didn't provoke opponents of the same tier and only hunted Demigod Peak contestants, survival and points were not an issue.

Therefore, for Ascension to God tier contestants in the early stages, sensing danger and immediately choosing to detour was the most correct approach; the essence of a battle royale is survival, and killing is merely a necessary means for survival.

Lin Chen also didn't bother with those detouring Ascension to God tier contestants; it was best to avoid conflicts if possible. He could entirely leverage the early-game reluctance to fight among everyone to harvest a wave of points using his array.

Not only did Lin Chen think this way, but the top few dozen virtually invincible God Ascension Second Level contestants also did the same, though they didn't have Lin Chen's grand scale, starting with an array covering 30 billion kilometers.

Those individuals were also not bad, each with their own methods.

After setting up the array, Lin Chen stepped away again, no longer managing the array, letting it operate on its own, leaving it to fate how many contestants it could intercept and kill.

Upon teleporting and landing, Lin Chen continued to set up arrays; this time, the arrays were primarily killing arrays.

The previous array eliminated the weaker ones; contestants who could pass through that array and reach the second one likely had some special skills, making them harder to kill, so a killing array was directly employed.

“No wonder the human race is called Sky Demons!”

“He’s practically inhumane!”

“Leveraging his speed advantage to artificially create obstacles for other contestants, that’s too villainous.”

… … … …

“It’s not scary when the villain is strong, it’s scary when the villain has a brain.”

“Clearly, he’s very smart and knows how to use his advantages. This year’s contestants are in for a treat.”

“Perhaps they’re in for a shock, not a treat.”

On Lin Chen’s viewing screen, countless bullet comments scrolled by, with countless audience members watching the competition commenting on Lin Chen’s actions, some good, some bad, with varying levels of quality.

Because the killing array was difficult to set up, Lin Chen spent forty minutes arranging the Four-Nine type composite killing array properly.

“My points are increasing too slowly; it’s been two hours since the competition started, and I only have a little over seventy thousand points.”

Contestants could see their real-time points but not their rankings. Hiding the rankings made it more exciting; not knowing if one was in the top ranks, contestants could only continuously kill and dare not stop for the sake of ranking.

The outside audience, of course, could see the contestants’ rankings. Lin Chen was directly ranked first, with over seventy thousand points, leading the second-place contestant by over ten thousand points, a very significant gap.

Next, Lin Chen continued to teleport, performing eight consecutive teleports, directly reaching the edge of the wilderness's core area.

All the audience saw a slight smile on Lin Chen’s lips, a smile that was somewhat meaningful.

“He’s definitely thinking up something bad!”

“Currently, all contestants haven’t approached the central battle zone yet. The fastest Ascension to God tier contestants and the strong Demigod Peak contestants are blocking paths, gaining points. They don’t know someone is pulling a fast one, waiting for them to walk into a trap.”

“What kind of powerful array do you think he can set up?”

… … … …

Countless bullet comments flew by, but Lin Chen, who couldn’t see them, was unaffected and continued to do things at his own pace.

Standing at the edge of the core area, Lin Chen pondered for a moment, and an interesting idea formed in his mind.

He wanted to set up a circle of random teleportation arrays at the edge of the core area, with the teleportation direction anchored to the location of the spatial turbulence. As long as one’s spatial resistance was insufficient, they would be unable to resist the random teleportation.

At that time, countless people would likely fall victim, becoming lost souls in the spatial turbulence, only able to revive once for the revival match.

The so-called revival match meant that each contestant had one chance to revive. After reviving, they had to gain more than one point to truly revive and qualify to continue the competition.

If they failed to gain points and were still killed, then it was a complete death, unless their supporting race paid a price to gain a third chance to revive and exit; otherwise, it was a true “fall.”