Apotheosis

On the other side of Willow Island, tens of thousands of warriors were gathering together in a large square.

The journey into the Orange Sea World was a great opportunity for these warriors to spar with the talents of the thirteen palaces. Not only that, if they got to injure or kill any talent, they'd receive quite a number of rewards.

And it was these rewards that made them salivate with greed.

However, this round of Passing the Torch was coming to an end. They could only wait until the next Passing the Torch if they wanted to participate.

"There are one hundred and sixty-one opponents in the last round… Shouldn't the test be over?"

"Yes. It's not two hundred, so those warriors should be the last group. However, they have now especially arranged two warriors to fight!"

"If my guess is correct then this fight is going to be a good one! These two people should be extremely special or outstanding! A test with only the two of these warriors could only mean that they are going to be exceptional!"

"Outstanding? Exceptional? It's just two Life and Death Realm martial artists. I bet that kid at the fifth level won't even pass our first round of sparring!" This first round of sparring referred to Zen's eleventh round of test. Because these martial artists had only started to get involved in the Illusion Space from the eleventh round, those who got eliminated in the first ten rounds had no chance of ever meeting with these warriors.

The warriors all talked amongst themselves as they observed both Zen and Layla through the Picture Slab.

"No matter what, we'll just have to wait and see how our buddies will perform for this round…"

The warriors had all been strictly subdivided according to their strength, with the more powerful ones going into the arena in the later rounds.

Back in the Illusion Space, both Zen and Layla were quickly swarmed by their opponents.

It was impossible for them to easily defeat these warriors by simply slashing at them with their swords. Their opponents were all living, thinking beings who used various strategies to fight them: some ran away, others faked their movements, while a few had decided to launch fierce, all-out attacks.

However, their cultivation method was still very limited. Their only strength came from their sheer number but they were all basically only at the seventh or eighth level of the Life and Death Realm.

They were a mere two or three levels higher than Zen and posed no threat to him whatsoever.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several lights burst forth from the Thunder Wind Divine Sword!

"Ahh…"

The lights shot out and instantly killed four people. The other thirteen were fortunate enough to have used their movement techniques and managed to avoid the sharp lights.

The warriors were mere projections in this Illusion

ing dirty to Layla.

However, not one of them could even lay a single strike on her. The fastest of them, after getting at least twenty feet away from Layla suddenly began to feel his heart beat strangely!

In fact, all of them found it hard to breathe and control their bodies.

And then, an intense pain suddenly burst from their cinnabar field!

A warrior would typically pass out once the pain became too much for his physical body to bear. However, they all remained conscious despite being tortured by the vibrations of Layla's sword.

It was as if they were prisoners who were constantly being tortured and woken up with cold water.

The pain was too much and they all wished they could 'die' as fast as possible to escape the suffering in this Illusion Space.

That was when they realized that they might have underestimated their opponent. Layla might have looked unsophisticated but she was very capable of making sure her enemies suffered for doing her wrong.

Right now, she shifted her focus from competing with Zen to accurately controlling the pain her opponents were feeling instead.

It lasted for a few seconds, a minute, a few minutes…

but it felt like hundreds of years for these warriors!

At that moment, voice of the old man in cotton clothes rang out, "Layla, stop…"

he murmured magnanimously. These martial artists had been invited by the thirteen palaces, after all. It wouldn't be too good if she went on to torture them like this.

"Humph!" she scoffed.

Layla drew a circle with the tip of her sword, her ten feet long black hair casting down from her chest, waist, and going all the way to her legs. The end of her hair spread spirally as she stabbed the sword into the platform and used her finger to lightly flick on its steel surface, producing a clear, metallic sound.

"Pop…"

The suffering warriors instantly exploded into a bloody mist.