“Mm, this competition seems to have reached a stalemate...” the commentator said dryly. Then, apparently realizing there was nothing to comment on, he simply fell silent.
There really wasn’t much to say.
At that moment, inside the Weight-Bearing Cavern, the Oxes beast Tucker was lying on the ground “sleeping.”
Dragon Soul sat not far away, resting with his eyes closed.
No one could have imagined that a competition that should have been a thrilling back-and-forth battle had turned into this kind of “laid-back” standoff.
“What on earth is going on?”
“I thought Dragon Soul had given up and was just waiting to die, but now it looks like he’s trying to see who can endure the gravity longer, him or Tucker!”
“I can understand Dragon Soul not attacking, since he can’t break through the meteorite-iron scales. But Tucker isn’t attacking either! If it struck back, wouldn’t it win much faster?”
The human spectators found the stalemate strange.
Guan Tong was just as curious. Why was Tucker lying on the ground instead of using its defensive advantage to attack?
If it did, Dragon Soul would surely lose in no time.
Could it have something to do with its species’ traits?
Guan Tong wondered, his gaze settling on the crystalline ridge along Tucker’s back.
If individuals of the Oxes Beast Civilization had evolved their exceptionally strong meteorite-iron scales because they lived in harsh environments, then what was the cost?
It was like humans evolving from apes into Homo sapiens. Their intelligence had improved, but so had their energy requirements.
They had also paid a price physically: reduced muscle strength, poorer climbing ability, weaker bites, a diminished sense of smell, slower reproduction, and so on.
Could the cost of the Oxes beasts’ extraordinary defensive abilities be that they couldn’t move easily?
Guan Tong didn’t believe Tucker was deliberately holding back. Losing the Meltstar Arena Competition meant death, so going easy on an opponent in the arena was tantamount to suicide.
In other words, if Tucker could win quickly, it wouldn’t be dragging things out.
Seen in that light, perhaps Dragon Soul shouldn’t have spent so much Mind Power attacking at the start. Saving it to resist the steadily increasing gravity would have been the better strategy.
Now that he had used up so much Mind Power, how long could he hold out...?
As Guan Tong watched Dragon Soul sitting with his eyes closed, a strange feeling suddenly came over him.
It was as if an existence much like himself were beginning to emerge.
Was this a special perception unique to Awakened Ones?
He remembered Shi Jingyi telling him earlier that Dragon Soul was on the verge of a breakthrough. A thought surfaced in his mind.
Could Dragon Soul be... undergoing an Awakening trial right now?
It wasn’t impossible.
Guan Tong had experienced the same feeling when Shi Jingyi was breaking through and he was guarding her.
Then he remembered how Mr. Ga of the Star Scar Merchant Group had called Shi Jingyi “one of their kind” when he saw her. Now Guan Tong understood the deeper meaning behind those words.
“‘One of their kind’ doesn’t just mean someone who’s Awakened. It means... someone who possesses an Authority.”
The image of the tree that the core agreement called the “True Tree” appeared in Guan Tong’s mind.
If the source of all Authorities lay in that tree, then it was true that the Awakened Ones who had acquired Authorities all wielded creations with the same origin. Perhaps that was what Mr. Ga had really meant by “one of their kind.”
Meanwhile.
In one of the Myriad Sense Net Bubbles, a spectator watching the competition looked rather surprised.
“To be called by an Authority Fruit in the middle of a competition... That’s quite rare.”
“Still, completing an inheritance trial in such an adverse environment won’t be easy.”
The spectator was absolutely right.
At that very moment, Dragon Soul was walking across a bleak, gray expanse with the giants, feeling endless pain bearing down on him.
The gravity imposed by the Weight-Bearing Cavern grew stronger as time passed. He could clearly feel his body growing heavier, his bones beginning to creak. Every time he lifted a leg, it took tremendous effort.
Worse still, he had no idea what the giants’ walking, or his own, was supposed to accomplish.
Across a seemingly endless gray plain, there was no goal and no destination. If he just kept walking like this, where was he supposed to go?
Should he stop? After all, he was still competing, and he bore the responsibility of his country and even his entire civilization.
Dragon Soul knew very well that if he lost this match, Tianshui Star Civilization’s record would become one win, one draw, and three losses.
That meant the remaining four people would have to win all four of their matches to complete this Doomsday Rules challenge.
That enormous pressure might cause someone among the remaining four to break down, leading to a complete collapse and utter defeat.
Dragon Soul also knew that he hadn’t been born with the best advantages. His personal ability was merely average, and he was far behind Ascendants favored by heaven, such as Guan Tong and Bai Xuewu.
He had made it this far through his military background and the enormous resources that came with it.
If he lost this match, he wasn’t afraid of dying. But he couldn’t accept letting down the authorities, who had trusted and trained him for three years, or all the people who had invested so much effort in him.
He absolutely could not lose!
Dragon Soul’s eyes were bloodshot. Ignoring the pain in his bones and the tearing of his muscles under the crushing gravity, he kept moving forward.
If he stopped and lay down, he might lessen the burden the gravity placed on his body.
Perhaps if he held on for one more second, his opponent, the Oxes beast, would be crushed by the gravity first.
But he didn’t dare pin his hopes on that kind of gamble. He would rather bet on passing the trial and winning the match with the Authority he gained.
Walk. Walk. Walk!
Every thought in Dragon Soul’s mind was emptied out, leaving only a simple, mechanical command for his body.
At that moment, he didn’t think of himself as a person. He thought of himself only as a robot. Unless he died the very next second, he would not stop moving before then.
In the spectators’ eyes, Dragon Soul was already starting to falter.
Blood began to seep from all over his body. There was no doubt that the gravity was tearing his muscles apart.
By contrast, the Oxes beast Tucker was still lying on the ground. But a closer look revealed that even its incredibly sturdy meteorite-iron scales were beginning to crack under the ever-increasing force of its own weight.
This meant that crushing Tucker with the environmental gravity was indeed possible, but only if Dragon Soul could hold out!
The biggest problem now was that Dragon Soul looked far worse. He was a bloody, pitiful mess.
“Hold on!”
“Just a little longer! Tucker looks like it’s about to give out too!”
The human spectators who had managed to keep watching this far all urged Dragon Soul on in their hearts.
The commentator made his judgment. “It looks like Tianshui Star Civilization’s competitor is about to give out. The outcome will be decided any moment now. If he’d conserved more energy instead of attacking so much at the start, perhaps he could have lasted longer.”
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, a series of sharp cracks rang out from Dragon Soul’s body.
His head drooped. His shoulders collapsed, as if both his spine and shoulder blades had been crushed by the gravity.
The spectators let out a despairing cry. They had witnessed the very sight they had least wanted to see.
“I told you. So... huh? Huh?!”
The commentator had yet to announce the result when he suddenly seemed to notice something. His voice turned incredulous.
“How is this possible? He can actually do this in an environment like this...!”
The spectators hadn’t yet realized what had happened. The next moment, Dragon Soul, whose neck had clearly been broken, lifted his head.
In his mindscape, after he fell to the ground, the walking giants all came to a stop.
One of the giants reached out and pulled Dragon Soul to his feet. It nodded in approval. In an instant, all the giants turned into specks of light and converged, forming a white fruit.
The moment the fruit touched Dragon Soul, it merged into his body.
He suddenly opened his eyes and stood up against gravity more than ten times stronger than normal. In that instant, every broken bone in his body was restored!
The spectators were dumbstruck, unable to believe what they were seeing.
What had just happened?!
Dragon Soul murmured, “I understand now. I’ll inherit your will and keep walking.”
His voice was quiet, yet it reached every Myriad Sense Net Bubble.
Most people were completely baffled. Only a handful guessed what had happened.
“He succeeded.” Guan Tong let out a sigh of relief.
He knew Dragon Soul had successfully passed the trial and inherited an Authority from that civilization.
He had done it much faster than Shi Jingyi. Perhaps the arena’s gravity, which kept increasing, had actually helped him complete the trial?
Guan Tong didn’t speculate further. Watching Dragon Soul walk step by step toward Tucker, he knew the winner might finally be decided.