The black, viscous liquid in the River of the Dead surged up all at once, covering Han Qiu’s fallen body.
The vortex at the center of Soul Predator Whorl’s translucent form also began to solidify. It stopped spinning, and countless thin threads extended from within, reaching for Han Qiu’s head.
The River of the Dead moved faster. The slime seemed to carry immense gravity, crushing Han Qiu’s head along with the ground beneath him.
Though Whorl was a beat slower, its threads did not return empty-handed.
They seemed to have wound around something invisible to the naked human eye. A faint light appeared along the threads, but quickly vanished.
The threads retracted. Along the way, they touched the proximity mines Han Qiu had planted, and several explosions rang out.
Some of the threads were blown apart, but most were unaffected, returning to the vortex in the Soul Predator’s body.
Then the vortex began spinning again, and “Whorl” returned to its previous state.
Few people paid attention to it. Most eyes were fixed on the ground crushed by the River of the Dead’s liquid.
This revealed what lay beneath the gray-white stone slabs.
It was neither a head nor soil, but a vast, bottomless pit.
Everyone who saw the pit felt intensely uneasy. Even the commentator’s tone turned unusually grave.
“It’s said that the Underworld Caverns connected to the River of the Dead are one of the entrances to the Abyss. If you fall in, you’ll never get out again.”
Guan Tong’s heart stirred at those words.
The Abyss?
Was this the Abyssal Civilization inside the black hole, the one he knew about?
Ever since leaving the Star Sea Court database, he had never forgotten the Abyssal Civilization, nor his goal of finding a way to obtain its specialty, ghost flower liquid.
Unlike him, the other spectators weren’t focused on the Abyss. They were hung up on “never get out again.”
“What does that mean? Han Qiu’s already lost?”
“You’ve got to be kidding…”
“Is that it???”
The human spectators simply couldn’t accept this result.
A battle with no interaction from beginning to end was about as hard to watch as the first match, when Lovska was instantly killed.
If this meant the hope of succeeding in the rule challenge was gone, it would deal a major blow to the confidence humanity had struggled so hard to build.
“Congratulations to the competitor from…”
The commentator was about to announce that Whorl of the Soul Devourer Civilization was the victor, but suddenly stopped halfway through.
The many spectators watching were all wide-eyed.
A figure emerged from the River of the Dead’s viscous liquid. It was Han Qiu!
His skin was no longer waxy yellow like before. It was as if all his internal and external injuries had completely healed. He had been perfectly restored to life.
Countless spectators found the scene impossible to believe. The commentator, who had just said Han Qiu would “never get out again,” was even more astonished.
“The dead have returned to life? How is that possible? Could it be…”
Inside one of the Myriad Sense Net Bubbles, a spectator who had watched several of the Tianshui Star Civilization’s matches recognized it.
“That’s actually the ability of the Reforger Civilization… And it seems he’s just one step away from awakening his Authority Fruit.”
In another Myriad Sense Net Bubble, the spectator who had sensed the source of pain earlier saw Han Qiu reappear and became greatly intrigued.
“Isn’t this the ability of the Reforger Civilization, which went extinct tens of thousands of years ago? That Authority might actually fall into a human’s hands. How amusing…”
Han Qiu’s resurrection from the River of the Dead shocked the spectators. It also made the commentator’s premature announcement of the result seem utterly absurd and ridiculous.
But as soon as Han Qiu appeared, it was as if some tremendous force had dragged him down. His body quickly sank back into the River of the Dead.
The spectators were once again left bewildered.
Taking into account what had happened at the wedding and when Han Qiu escaped the Countermeasures Research Office base, Guan Tong had a few guesses.
If he had still been unsure whether Han Qiu could choose where to “resurrect” before, it now seemed that he couldn’t.
If he could choose, he would surely pick a spot on the ground. He wouldn’t choose to resurrect in the River of the Dead, where he clearly couldn’t stay.
But this also meant that his random-location resurrection was confined within the arena, locked in place by the Doomsday Rules or perhaps the power of the Furnace Arena. He couldn’t resurrect somewhere outside the arena.
That explained why he had returned to life in the River of the Dead. This time, his luck had been poor. The moment he revived, the river dragged him under, seemingly killing him again.
The spectators had seen Han Qiu return to life and hadn’t even had time to cheer before he sank into the River of the Dead again. For a moment, they were completely at a loss.
But when Han Qiu suddenly reappeared on the ground a moment later, everyone realized how his random-location resurrection worked.
“His ability really is unlimited resurrection! That’s ridiculously overpowered!”
“Even if the location’s random, as long as he keeps reviving, he’ll eventually land somewhere safe.”
“That ability is simply against the heavens. Even Shadow can’t compare. I’m so jealous!”
Some spectators marveled at the sheer strength of Han Qiu’s ability.
Ascendants with a measure of strength, on the other hand, weren’t so blindly optimistic.
They didn’t think Han Qiu’s ability was invincible. Instead, they wondered what its flaw and cost might be.
No ability was absolutely perfect. Many exclusive abilities or items that seemed overwhelmingly powerful came with enormous losses or costs.
Han Qiu’s short-term, random-location resurrection would be no exception.
The human spectators couldn’t see what the cost was, but the spectator who had been watching all along understood it perfectly.
“Each reconstruction consumes potential.” The spectator seemed a little regretful on Han Qiu’s behalf. “An Authority that was within his grasp has just grown distant again.”
After resurrecting for the second time, Han Qiu’s expression was blank. Only those who knew him well could tell that he was truly furious now.
Han Qiu looked at his hands. The special stirring he had felt earlier, the one related to awakening, had disappeared without a trace. The meaning was obvious.
Watching from the sidelines, Guan Tong also keenly sensed that Han Qiu’s presence had weakened considerably. It made him guess at one possibility:
Did Han Qiu’s Mind Power upper limit decrease every time he died and resurrected?
And was the decline far from minor, at least by several dozen points, perhaps even a hundred?
If so…
As Guan Tong was thinking, Han Qiu had already walked up to the vortex.
“All the bombs I planted went off. That means you only act after I die, right?”
As he spoke, he pointed at his own head.
“After I come back to life, it seems like I can’t remember some things. Either you or this environment is responsible.”
At his words, the spectators thought of the thin threads that had reached out from the vortex earlier.
They had wound around something in midair, and then lit up… Could what they had caught have been Han Qiu’s soul, invisible to human eyes?
The commentator had said that Soul Predators tore at the souls of the dead. Could Han Qiu have lost some of his memories because they had bitten off a piece?
While the human spectators were still completely baffled, Han Qiu took a pile of demolition items from his Storage Box and attached them to his body.
There was no doubt about it. He planned to die again.
“I hope you like my parting gift~”
After saying that with a smile, Han Qiu didn’t use a dagger this time. Instead, he took out a pill and swallowed it. Within seconds, the signs of life in his body rapidly faded.
The instant he died completely, “Whorl,” nearby, materialized once again. At that very moment, the many proximity explosives on Han Qiu’s corpse activated.
“BOOM!!!!!!”
A powerful explosion, like a small-scale nuclear blast, swept across the entire arena. The spectators were stunned. They hadn’t expected Han Qiu to be so crazy.
The commentator was just as dumbfounded. “It seems… the competitor from Tianshui Star discovered the Soul Predator race’s trait. He used one of his own deaths to force the opponent to appear, then used the powerful explosives attached to his corpse to eliminate it…”
When the smoke and dust from the explosion cleared, “Whorl” from the Soul Devourer Star was nowhere to be seen. Han Qiu had disappeared as well.
This time, the commentator had learned his lesson and didn’t rush to announce the result.
Only after half a minute, when Han Qiu appeared on the ground again, did the commentator finally make the announcement.
“Congratulations to the competitor ‘GM’ from the Tianshui Star Civilization for his victory. He will receive a fine gift provided by the organizers.”
At once, deafening cheers erupted from the human spectators in countless Myriad Sense Net Bubbles.
“Fantastic!!!”
“He did it! Shadow God only has one last match to win, and then the challenge will be complete!”
“My Mind Power upper limit is about to skyrocket! Hahahaha!”
Han Qiu’s subordinate, Lü Tianci, was trembling with excitement. He knew that although this victory had exposed Han Qiu’s ability, it had also earned him the public’s support.
It was easy to imagine that Han Qiu’s popularity would rise greatly after this battle. His ability to return from the dead seemed all the more divine, like something only the chosen could possess!
At a time like this, before teleporting away, the chairman ought to thank the spectators.
That was what Lü Tianci thought as he looked toward the arena, only to find that Han Qiu wasn’t doing that.
Unlike the spectators caught up in the celebration, Che Cai had his head lowered, seemingly not having heard the commentator announce the victory.
A strange light flickered in his eyes. Just as he had resurrected, something had burrowed into his mind.
It was a voice.
“Your ability is quite interesting, and so are you,” the voice said, carrying a hint of bewitchment. “I’m very interested in you. How about making a transaction? Hehehe…”