Monster Paradise

“Participant Xie Lin defeated BOSS, points accumulated: +100!”

A push notification popped up in front of all the competitors.

Lin Huang was no exception.

When he saw the push notification appear, he was stunned.

“What on earth? Does that mean other competitors received this announcement as well?!”

To be honest, this was something that Lin Huang wished had not happened as the announcement revealed his identity as the participant. Although many might still be too confused to wrap their minds around the differences between ‘participant’ and ‘competitor’ at such short notice, there had to be some who noticed that something was amiss.

Naturally, the same group of people would start making assumptions about Lin Huang’s identity.

After the ‘global’ announcement disappeared, only then did Lin Huang’s personal push notification appear.

“Sword Servant defeated, points accumulated: +100”

On his personal page, Lin Huang’s original 11 points had increased to 111 points.

On the leaderboard, Lin Huang’s name rocketed to first place, far ahead of Shen Wushuang who was the current first runner-up.

Shen Wushuang only had 49 points currently—not even half of Lin Huang’s points.

At this moment, Shen Wushuang stood at under the eaves of a house, gazing from afar at the small building where the bearded middle-aged man was. His brows creased slightly as he brooded.

‘Could someone really defeat that fellow?! Despite the various restrictions placed on him, he’s still a Heavenly God nonetheless. Under the restrictions, all of their abilities are capped at virtual god-level and their Sword Dao is at half-step True Meaning Level. Other than that, their combat experiences and consciousness far exceed that of a Virtual God…how did that fellow manage it?’

Shen Wushuang was quite sure that Lin Huang had not won with the help of a team.

Firstly, the trial had only been in progress for less than half a day and the competitors’ placement was all random. It was not possible for Lin Huang to locate members from the same organization and team up together in such a short amount of time.

Secondly, even with restricted strength, a Heavenly God was not an opponent who could be defeated just by forming a team. If the challengers’ Sword Dao was not on par with the BOSS, it would not make any difference whether it was one challenger or a hundred challengers. In the BOSS’ eyes, all of them were no threat at all.

Thirdly, all 300 trial BOSSes specialized in different fields respectively; each of them had different weaknesses as well. In theory, everyone could form teams based on the BOSS’ weakness to increase their chances of winning. However, it was only the first day of the Trial. Whether it was the location of each BOSS, their abilities, or weaknesses, nobody really knew any of that yet. It had already been difficult for him to find himself a team in just half a day, not to mention he and his teammates bumped into a BOSS who annihilated them moments after the team was formed.

The only possibility that occurred to Shen Wushuang was that this fellow named Xie Lin was so powerful that he defeated the BOSS on his own.

Moreover, unlike most people, Shen Wushuang’s focus was usually on different things.

Many smartasses noticed the use of the word “participant” almost immediately.

“Participant? Based on previous push notifications, shouldn’t all of us be called “competitors”? Does it mean participants and competitors are the same and I’m overthinking things? Or does it mean that this Xie Lin person is different from the rest?

“Participant?! He can’t be the person who initiated this Competitive Trial, can he?”

“This Xie Lin is somehow different from the rest of us…”

…

Most competitors, however, did not notice the different words used in the push notification.

“Don’t participants and competitors simply mean people who are participating in the trial? What’s the point of nitpicking at those minor details?”

They were mostly concerned about the BOSS’ defeat at Lin Huang’s hands.

“God, please accept my kneecaps as an offering so I can defeat the Heavenly God BOSS (simplified version)!”

“The reason why he was quiet for the past two hours must have been because he was fighting the BOSS. The end boss is so OP!¹”

“He defeated the BOSS who’s a Heavenly God, and you’re saying he’s not cheating?! Despite being restricted in all aspects, we’re still talking about a Heavenly God powerhouse! Anyway, I’m a hundred and one percent convinced that no Virtual God could have beaten an opponent like that!”

“That fellow must be a participant from outside the God Territory. With abilities like that, he must be among the top ten Virtual Gods, if not number one. But this name, Xie Lin, I’ve never even heard of him in the God Territory. Could he be a local super-genius from the Great Heaven Territory?!”

…

The few Death Sickle members had mixed responses as well.

“He managed to defeat a BOSS who was maxed out at virtual god-level? Seems he’s much stronger than I imagined.” Fallen Star was very aware of how powerful even a suppressed Heavenly God could be. She had no confidence that she could defeat one herself. Read latest chapters at NovelFull

“From the looks of things, it looks like Master Buried Heaven made the right choice,” mumbled both of Twin’s heads at the same time.

“Boss Xie Lin is OP!!!” Destiny was an absolutely NC fan.¹

Meanwhile, Lin Huang remained in the small five-story building.

After fighting the bearded middle-aged man and briefly checking his accumulated points, Lin Huang immediately sat down with his legs crossed and started absorbing the gains from this fight.

Warlord stood guard by Lin Huang, not stirring even an inch from his side.

Lin Huang started replaying the fight in his head rapidly, lapping up all the minor details. Even though the bearded man did not think too highly of himself—admitting that he was not very skilled at everything he learned—in the eyes of any Virtual God sword cultivator, he was at peak capacity. For Lin Huang, he was a rare opponent.

The bearded man was way more proficient in sword techniques than Lin Huang—this was why Lin Huang could unleash all of his abilities without reservation. To defeat the bearded man, Lin Huang had exhausted almost all of his own sword techniques. In fact, Lin Huang had even utilized many of the inheritances obtained from the Demon Sword Tomb which he had yet to practice.

The fight had been extremely satisfying, but he learned a lot too.

Lin Huang sat for more than two hours in the small building.

Although his Sword Dao strength was already maxed out to its limits, Lin Huang could feel that his Sword Dao was almost at the breakthrough point.

His accumulated experience had reached its maximum limits too. He could now see the vague form of Sword Dao true meaning behind the proverbial window paper. All that was left for him to do was to break through the paper covering the window, so to speak.

However, Lin Huang was aware that he could not rush it. Even though he could sense his breakthrough, it still depended on luck and opportunity.

If luck was on his side and the time was right, he might achieve that breakthrough in his next fight.

If he was not lucky enough or it was not his time yet, he might not be able to breakthrough in the next three hundred fights.

‘It’s most crucial to not be anxious at moments like this.’ Lin Huang was clearly aware that pivotal moments like this required him to stay calm. Otherwise, he might jeopardize his chances and mess up.

After Lin Huang composed himself again, he snapped his head toward Warlord

“Have you discovered other Sword Servants?”

“Currently, I have discovered eighteen suspicious locations. My surveillance bugs have all disappeared for no reason after getting close. There is a high probability that those are areas guarded by Sword Servants but there’s still the possibility of strong competitors finding the surveillance bugs,” Warlord replied instantly.

“There shouldn’t be too many competitors who can do that. Let’s go to each area and find out since most of those areas are almost certainly where the Sword Servants are standing guard. So what if they’re competitors? We fight when we need to. We need to decide who wins and who loses eventually,” Lin Huang said confidently. Then, he added shamelessly, “If I bump into a super-genius who can dominate this entire era, I’ll just run away if I can’t beat them. It won’t be that hard to run away, right?”