Chapter 514 - 228: Your End, My Beginning
Chapter 514: Chapter 228: Your End, My Beginning
"What’s going on? Am I seeing things?"
"What’s wrong with the scoreboard?"
"What’s with this string of question marks?"
After a brief moment of stunned silence, a landslide and tsunami of discussion instantly drowned the entire hall.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
They had witnessed with their own eyes how the two phantoms of the Celestial Human Realm were obliterated in an instant, struck by the backlash of their own attacks.
They had also seen the point total after Lin Ye’s name jump frantically, as if it had gone mad, before turning into a series of question marks.
In the main seat, the calm, strategic composure on Zhu Mingyi’s face cracked for the first time.
He stared at the screen, somewhat stunned, his brow tightly furrowed.
The attack power of those two Celestial Human Realm phantoms had been precisely calculated, enough to pose a threat to an actual Celestial Human Realm expert in the real world.
Lin Ye was only in the Gang Condensation Realm, yet not only had he withstood it, but he had also managed to counter-kill the attackers?
’Wasn’t he immobilized, completely unable to move? How on earth did he fight back?’
"What’s going on?"
Zhu Mingyi’s voice carried a trace of suppressed fury as he turned to the aide behind him. "What is the situation with the tech department?!"
Cold sweat was already trickling down the aide’s forehead.
In previous years’ grand examinations, they had always been fully prepared.
Forget an incident of this magnitude; not even the slightest mishap was supposed to happen.
But this year, despite their thorough preparations, they couldn’t account for the sudden appearance of an ultimate monster like Lin Ye.
"Reporting, Chief... The tech... the tech department is investigating now!"
"They said... the backend received two unprocessable damage assessment commands! The damage source and the damage target were the same ID. The system registered it as a logical conflict, which directly triggered the highest-level safety protection mechanism and automatically suspended the score calculation for that candidate!"
Listening to this messy report only made Zhu Mingyi even more furious.
"I’m asking for the cause! How on earth did he do it!"
The aide trembled and quickly read out the analysis report that the tech department had just sent over.
"Reporting, Chief! The tech department’s preliminary analysis suggests this is likely an extremely rare Damage Transfer-type ability!"
"Because this is an endurance test, to simulate the realism of the attacks, the Life Value of all attack phantoms was set to the minimum of 1 point."
"Under the rules of this test, the phantoms cannot be attacked, so 1 Life Value is equivalent to being invincible..."
"But candidate Lin Ye’s ability seems to have transferred 100% of the phantoms’ attacks on him back to the phantoms themselves... which caused the bug where the phantoms were one-shot by their own attacks, and the system couldn’t determine the damage attribution..."
As Zhu Mingyi listened to this explanation, the anger on his face slowly faded, replaced by a sense of absurdity.
’Damage Transfer? Exploiting a loophole in the system’s design?’
He looked at Lin Ye on the screen, and suddenly, everything became clear.
’This kid... he’s doing it on purpose! From the moment he refused to end the test and chose to continue the challenge, his goal was already set. In his own way, he was challenging everyone—and challenging Xiao Lingchen, the one predestined for first place! He wanted to prove that he could not only reach the theoretical maximum of one hundred million points, but even... surpass it!’
Having figured this out, the look of admiration in Zhu Mingyi’s eyes could no longer be concealed.
Geniuses always have their pride.
And they will compete with one another.
What Zhu Mingyi feared was that they *wouldn’t* compete!
Zhu Mingyi pondered for a moment.
Finally, he gave the order.
"Inform the tech team to set the Life Value of all attack phantoms to the maximum the system can handle."
"If he can pass the next wave of attacks, then let him share first place with Xiao Lingchen!"
Just as Zhu Mingyi’s voice fell, Yi Jiugao, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up.
"Why... share first place?"
His voice wasn’t loud, but everyone around him heard it clearly.
"Xiao Lingchen’s ability is to prevent attacks from landing on him."
"But Lin Ye can not only do that, he can even return all the damage he receives..."
"In that case, he is stronger than Xiao Lingchen."
"If he can do it again in a retest, then he is the undisputed first place!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the entire hall was in shock!
Zhu Mingyi and He Zhenghong both looked at Yi Jiugao with some surprise.
They never expected that Yi Jiugao, a man whose standards for geniuses were always so strict as to be almost perverse, would actually say such a thing!
Zhu Mingyi mulled it over for a moment before slowly nodding, the light in his eyes growing brighter.
"Alright! Then let’s see if he truly deserves to be number one!"
「Inside the Virtual Space.」
The system’s notification sound echoed in Lin Ye’s ears once again.
Following the command, the energy in the pure white space before him surged violently.
This time, three phantoms of the Celestial Human Realm, each with a majestic aura, coalesced simultaneously!
One had Sword Qi that soared to the heavens, another had a tyrannical fist intent, and the last was wreathed in destructive lightning!
Three terrifying pressures, each powerful enough to crush space itself, locked onto Lin Ye from three different directions!
「Meanwhile, in the distant depths of the Painful Labyrinth, inside the Soul Sacrifice Hall.」
Ah Qiang, who had just caught his breath, shot up from his throne, one hand clutching his chest tightly, his face a mask of horror and pain!
"??!"
Below, the expressions of Carlos and the other elites of the Curse Bone Race all changed. One by one, they looked as if they were being choked by a great, invisible hand, their faces contorted in extreme agony.
The feeling, which came from the depths of their souls—the sense that they would be utterly erased in the next second—was more than ten times stronger than before!