Chapter 459: Seventh Realm, Cruel Realm Passing
After the first six realms ended, the seventh realm came a few days late. This was to give all participants who made seventh realm time to rest.
Because of the start of seventh realm, the cruelest and most merciless realm was about to start!!
Chu Mu’s seventh realm was Realm Passing! Realm passing meant that he had to pass through a highly dangerous bewildering world in a certain spot!
The Passing Realm stage had almost no restrictions to the player. Even if a player doesn’t enter the bewildering world and does a wide walk-around to reach the other side, it wouldn’t be against the rules.
However, the competition has a clear time restriction. If the competitor can’t reach the other side in time, they will be eliminated. And, the competition usually selected bewildering worlds that couldn’t be circumvented.
There were countless high ranking bewildering worlds in the realm of Tianxia City. When Chu Mu walked to Tianxia City from the west side, he would also often go straight through bewildering worlds.
Having passing realm as the seventh realm was within Chu Mu’s expectations because Passing realm was a massive environment. It was like a huge contest where all participants could act freely. Often, it was highly likely for everyone to meet and have an intense battle at the appointed location at the end.
In difficulty selection, Chu Mu naturally selected second tier commander rank. Once they were at seventh realm, third tier, second tier, and first tier were very clearly split. Occasions where Chu Mu reached first tier honors list were impossible to happen again. This was because now, the true experts of Tianxia City were all appearing. The honor list would soon be just a compilation of members who made it past seventh realm alone!
The seventh realm was entering the preparation stage.
Before entering the bewildering world, no player knew which world it would be. They would be brought in by members of three different factions.
From previous years’ news, the competition staff would usually just throw players to the edges of bewildering worlds and tell them where they needed to be in a few days. After that, it was up to the participants to do their thing.
When the day came, the three competition members appeared in the appointed location.
They didn’t have much to say. They simply summoned their wing type soul pets and covered up Chu Mu’s eyes to bring them towards the Realm Passing location.
Since it was the seventh realm Passing Realm, the bewildering world they had to cross definitely wasn’t a simple one. This could be seen simply by the distance.
With the three competition staff members taking turns, it took a full five days of flying before they reached the starting point.
In these five days, Chu Mu’s eyes were constantly covered, so even if Chu Mu had gone to the bewildering world before, he wouldn’t know where he was beforehand.
All of the participants of this realm were the same as Chu Mu. They may have passed the same bewildering world, but each player was dispatched from Tianxia Realm along different routes to different points on the outer ring.
To ensure the fairness of the competition, the true Realm Passing wouldl start on the seventh day, which was when all the participants were at their location.
Under the watch of the three competition members, Chu Mu waited for two full days. When the sun on the seventh day rose, the three members finally told Chu Mu the final destination.
“The final location is Lake Chen east side, with a time limit of fifteen days. On the sixteenth day, the main judge, secondary judge, as well as other competition staff will arrive. If you are there then, you will be counted as passed.”
The competition staff said to Chu Mu.
“Then, how is the ranking decided?” Chu Mu asked.
Since the judges only arrived on the sixteenth day, how would they decide rankings? After all, no competition staff would be able to judge who arrived first.
“We aren’t sure of that. Our responsibilities end here.” The other two competition staff said.
They very simply handed off the task and started an incantation to summon their wing type soul pets and returned towards Tianxia City.
Chu Mu watched as the three left. He didn’t rush to go forward, but instead started thinking about the question he asked further.
“Fifteen days is quite tight for a Passing Realm, but there are probably a lot of experts of training in the wild in seventh realm. There would be plenty of people that reach Lake Chen’s waterfall. Since the competition judges will only appear on the sixth day, there is a hidden rule underneath the task.” Old Li’s voice slowly came.
Chu Mu wasn’t stupid. With these rules, it meant that the competition staff definitely wasn’t planning on using speed as a determinant of rank.
And the rule Old Li was alluding to was, “On the sixteenth day, if you are the only one there, you naturally are first place!”
Once he understood this, Chu Mu couldn’t help but sigh at the competition’s design of this contest. For true honor, every realm was underlined with a cruel survival of the fittest rule!
Chu Mu started looking around himself. Before entering bewildering world, Chu Mu’s first mission was to understand the surroundings.
Chu Mu was currently standing on a forest of rampantly growing grass. The grass was already the height of many large trees, each blade of grass standing tall. Standing amongst these stalks, one felt like a shrunken person.
At least the competition staff told Chu Mu the direction of east before they left. Chu Mu summoned his Night Thunder Dream Beast and told Night to go in that direction.
The nearby grass’s flexibility was very high. When the Night Thunder Dream Beast started running, these tall stalks immediately split off to the side, but they weren’t being damaged by Night Thunder Dream Beast’s lightning fast speed.
After the high grass field, the vision ahead suddenly opened up. Looking across, there was a curved piece of land. This land was full of low weeds, covered in green and occasionally rippled in the wind like water, sending waves down the entire length.
Inside this piece of land, occasionally Chu Mu could see high grass zones similar to the one Chu Mu was in, as if tiny forests sprouting on flat ground.
Chu Mu only had one direction- westwards. When Chu Mu looked that direction, he vaguely noticed that on the west side was a winding mountain range. This mountain range extended from north to south, blocking Chu Mu’s incoming path.
The back of the mountain range was already beyond what Chu Mu could see. Chu Mu knew that it wasn’t possible to see both grassland like regions with both lakes and waterfalls, so they could only be beyond this mountain range.
“Old Li, what bewildering world is this?” Chu Mu asked.
“I really don’t think I’ve seen this place.” Old Li signalled that he hadn’t heard of this place either.
Since he had no information, Chu Mu could only walk forward. Presumably, the mountain range was a bewildering world and had its own special regions. As long as he reached the east end of these regions, he wouldn’t be far from Lake Chen. Once he found Lake Chen, he would find the waterfall!
The faraway mountain range seemed to be right under their eyes, yet Chu Mu rode his fast Night Thunder Dream Beast for a very long time without arriving.
This visual illusion often happened in the wild. Chu Mu wasn’t hurried, and simply ran at a normal pace forward, sometimes glancing around him to see if there were any other participants running towards the mountains like he was.
Nearing midnight, the mountain range finally appeared completely in front of Chu Mu.
From afar, the mountain range just seemed to be a few distinct lines on the horizon. However, when he was really standing under this huge mountain, he felt the grandeur of a mountain that spanned an entire region!!
The mountain range wasn’t as calm as Chu Mu thought. Chu Mu made Night Thunder Dream Beast climb multiple steep cliffs before barely finding a path into the mountains. “Hui~~~~” Just as Chu Mu planned to go through the path, Night Thunder Dream Beast let out a call to remind Chu Mu.
Night Thunder Dream Beast was already ninth phase, so its detection abilities were much stronger. Under normal circumstances, Chu Mu couldn’t constantly release his soul remembrance. At this moment, Night Thunder Dream Beast’s detection came into use.
“There’s a scent of blood?” Chu Mu rubbed Night Thunder Dream Beast’s horn and said.
Night Thunder Dream Beast nodded and lightly stepped forward, jumping in the shadows of the mountain and glided downwards, finally landing on a hanging canopy.
Once Night Thunder Dream Beast was silent, its body would naturally merge into the darkness and also hide Chu Mu.
“No signs of battle, they’re probably already dead, let’s go down.” Chu Mu said.
Night Thunder Dream Beast appeared in the shadows and lightly stepped on the branches as it glided downwards………..
Under was a clearly narrow passageway in the mountain, barely able to hold larger soul pets. When Chu Mu approached, he specially used his soul remembrance to sweep the surroundings to ensure there was no danger before jumping down into the rubble ridden passage.
A scent of blood came from the rubble, with three corpses barely visible in the cracks.
These three corpses’ blood had already dried, clearly not recently deceased.
“Young master, look to see if they have any identity seals.” Old Li said.
Chu Mu nodded and flipped the corpses over.
Indeed, all three of them had identity seals, but after seeing these seals, Chu Mu’s expression immediately changed!!
“They…...they’re the competition staff!”
Seeing the three bloodied stamps, Chu Mu sucked in a breath and realized something. He went and examined the blood color quickly.
“They’ve been dead for two days.” Touching the tea colored blood, he quickly came to a conclusion that gave him chills: Someone killed the competition staff that delivered them over two days ago!!