Swallow the starry sky, grind to become the strongest in the universe

Chapter 41: The Preliminary Rounds Concluded
“Something’s not right… The order of the fundamental laws of time is different from my understanding.”

Yu Duan, sitting cross-legged on the rooftop, frowned, with the Time Sword resting horizontally on his knees.

"Qiang!"

The sword suddenly rang out, and countless fine lines appeared on the clear and transparent blade, interlocking to form a complex and mysterious pattern.

A rich black and white glow flowed across the sword, spreading in all directions and forming a field that flickered.

Yu Duan sorted out his understanding of the fundamental laws of time, while also experiencing the changes in the laws of time.

Many insights that I previously believed to be correct, insights that could invoke the power of the fundamental laws of time, now seem to be completely wrong.

To be precise, it's not that Yu Duan's understanding is wrong, but rather... it's not precise enough, not accurate enough, and too narrow-minded.

"According to my previous understanding of logic, the mystery of chronological order is indeed like this, but if you try to understand it in a different way, you will make new discoveries."

Yu Duan was deep in thought, sorting out his own insights and comparing them with the fluctuations of the laws of time that permeate the natural environment, trying to verify each other.

This change in mindset brought Yu Duan the greatest benefit: to view and understand the mysteries of the fundamental laws from multiple dimensions, directions, and perspectives.

The more Yu Duan reflected on his experiences, the more he realized that his previous understanding was limited and narrow-minded. He had seen a black spot on a leopard through a small hole and concluded that all leopards should be black.

"Phew... I'll study it again after my consciousness returns to the real world."

During the preliminary rounds, there was no one with 'Silver Eyes' to learn from, nor was there anyone to guide Yu Duan.

Not only was it inefficient, but Yu Duan was also worried that he had misunderstood and it was a complete waste of time.

"Those who have been sitting here for a full 12 days and haven't been eliminated yet should have accumulated some points by now."

Yu Duan stood up, the Time Sword trembling slightly as he held it in his right palm.

In the next instant, Yu Duan transformed into a dazzling ray of light, appearing almost instantly at the very front of the 24th floor of the flight base.

There is a passage here that leads to the upper levels.

The entire flight base is a long, spindle-shaped or olive-shaped spaceship with a total of 72 floors.

Therefore, the largest cross-section is in the middle area, which is the 36th floor.

That area probably has the largest number of contestants, and also the largest number of strong players.

……

On the 36th floor of the flight base, in a spacious and comfortable hall, two figures huddled together.

"Ice Demon, have you heard? A super monster appeared on the 24th floor and supposedly destroyed the entire 24th floor, turning it into ruins."

A blonde woman in a golden battle suit spoke up, looking at the blue-haired youth wiping his sword beside her, and asked curiously.

Upon hearing this, the blue-haired youth's expressionless face showed a look of astonishment: "Destroy the entire 24th floor? He must have nothing better to do."

Even for experts like them who have mastered the field, they cannot easily destroy buildings made of B9 grade materials.

Who would bother cutting down buildings if they had nothing better to do?

"It is said that... the domain spread directly, and all buildings within its coverage area were instantly reduced to dust."

The blonde woman realized that what she had said was somewhat absurd.

She had even seen geniuses who had reached the ninth level of the realm and entered the realm of primordial laws.

But I've never heard of anyone possessing such immense power in terms of domain pressure. The strength of B9-grade material is far greater than that of a ninth-tier stellar-level body.

In a battle between opponents of the same realm, is there even a need to make a move? Simply unleash your domain and kill your opponent instantly.

The blue-haired youth pondered for a moment and asked, "Is your source reliable?"

"Well... it's hard to say. During the hunt today, someone begged for mercy, offering information in exchange for his life, and I agreed."

The blonde woman continued, "I heard that the monster's domain is a dark domain. When the domain spreads, everything is annihilated. It's currently killing its way up from the 24th floor."

"If it's true, then he must be a genius who has mastered the mysteries of the higher-level fundamental laws. You are a member of the imperial family, have you ever heard of any geniuses of this level in the universe?"

Upon hearing this, the blue-haired youth's expressionless face darkened even further.

"The realm of light, the supreme fundamental law... I think I know who it is. This news is probably true. Let's run!"

Without the slightest hesitation, the blue-haired youth known as the Ice Demon set off to escape to the upper levels.

Seeing this, the blonde woman quickly followed.

The two knew each other in the outside world, and both came from a medium-sized universe country, the Lanting Empire.

Although the two had only met at a family gathering before and weren't close, at least they had a teammate they knew well and could trust during the qualifiers.

"Tell me what happened!" the blonde woman's voice echoed.

"We'll talk about it in detail when we get to the top floor."

About half a day after the two left the 36th floor and moved to higher floors, Yu Duan arrived at the 36th floor.

"Boom!"

A blazing field of light swept outwards, like a star shrunk countless times as it fell, carrying an unstoppable force, and within just a few seconds it traversed the entire 36th floor.

Wherever it went, countless people were eliminated before they could even react.

Various tall buildings and structures were pierced through the middle, creating a large hole, and then collapsed with a crash.

Looking from a distance, a 'ravine' suddenly appears in the middle of the large and small building area.

"call out!"

"Shh!"

"..."

In an instant, countless streams of light rose from every corner of the 36th floor, densely packed, like a reversed meteor shower, soaring in all directions before rapidly escaping into the passages at the far ends of this floor. Even though more than ten days had passed since the start of the preliminary rounds, over a million people had still gathered on the largest floor of the 72-story world zone. Those who could remain on this floor were basically experts who had mastered their respective domains.

However, right now, these so-called experts are all frantically running for their lives, with only a very few figures not running away, shouting, "Senior Brother Yu Duan, I am also from the Northern Ming Holy Land!"

Unfortunately, Yu Duan didn't know them.

Boom!

In the blink of an eye, the dazzling meteor shot out from the other end once again, leaving a blazing white tail in mid-air.

Yu Duan made a direct move from behind to arrive first. Even though the peak star-level participants were extremely fast at escaping, more than 100,000 contestants still didn't have time to react before Yu Duan blocked them at the entrance of the escape route.

During this process, any contestant who was touched or even brushed against by Yu Duan's Time Domain would either die or be missing an arm or a leg.

"Is this even human? It's a humanoid B9-class railgun!"

Someone looked at Yu Duan, who was blocking the exit, with a desperate expression, and spoke in a trembling voice.

Under the intense light, only a figure could be vaguely seen floating in mid-air, like a deity descended to earth.

"We can't outrun him, but if we join forces, there's still a sliver of hope!"

Someone shouted, and a dazzling crimson wheel spun wildly in his palm; it was an extremely powerful psychic weapon.

The next instant, the telekinetic weapon shot out, spinning wildly at a terrifying speed, emitting a piercing sound.

"kill!"

"Break it for me!"

"..."

That psychic attack seemed to sound a charge, with thousands upon thousands of attacks erupting in an instant, like the final roar of a trapped beast, bursting forth with the resolute determination of a desperate battle.

"Buzz!"

At that moment, the blazing field of light suddenly transformed into a pitch-black, lightless realm.

In an instant, it seemed as if all the light was swallowed up by the invisible darkness, to the point that even a star-level expert could not see his own hand in front of his face.

At that moment, endless fear and panic enveloped the hearts of many participants present.

Even when they could see Yu Duan, they still had the courage to launch an attack despite being in dire straits.

But once they were completely enveloped in darkness, they all lost their courage and only thought about escaping.

However, before they could make a move, almost at the same time as darkness spread, subtle starlight patterns rippled across the dark domain like waves on water.

In an instant, everyone felt a tingling sensation throughout their bodies.

Those subtle starlight patterns easily penetrated their bodies. The power of the fundamental laws of time and light was unstoppable within their fragile cells, easily destroying their cellular activity.

As a gust of air swept away, countless figures transformed into countless grains of sand and dust, scattering between heaven and earth.

A moment later, the dense domain of darkness began to shrink.

Yu Duan's figure appeared behind them at some point, easily dodging the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of full-force attacks launched by those tens of thousands of star-level contestants.

They are too slow.

Even the speed of their weapons, secret techniques, and other attacks was far inferior to Yu Duan's movement speed.

Even though Yu Duan can annihilate experts of this level with his domain, he still needs to shrink his domain to within a hundred meters, which cannot cover a large area.

The ability to kill almost instantly everyone within a radius of hundreds of kilometers is also due to the speed of his movement.

Especially the burst speed, this is the most important aspect.

Taking the ninth order of the cosmic scale as an example, the fastest speed in space is generally around 1500 kilometers per second.

However, they need to fly for a period of time to accelerate to their own speed.

Having mastered the basics of the "Time Flowing Shadows" movement technique, Yu Duan could accelerate to his peak speed in just a few seconds.

"Our current points are definitely enough to maintain our number one position in the world, so we don't need to deliberately hunt anymore."

Yu Duan raised his right hand, and his information appeared on the wristband's light screen.

Participant: Yu Duan (Northern Ming Universe Kingdom)

Points: 173246845
Ranking: 1
"Shh!"

A flash of light appeared in Yu Duan's palm, and the Time Sword was carried on his back.

"With only ten days left, let's practice our movement techniques. If we encounter anyone, we'll kill them; if not, so be it."

A blazing white light emanated from Yu Duan's body, then transformed into a streak of light that flashed through the air in an instant.

……

The preliminary rounds last for a month, which isn't a long time.

Starting from the 12th day of the preliminary rounds, the departments in various cosmic nations that were specifically responsible for collecting intelligence on geniuses all discovered Yu Duan's existence.

In just one day, the frenzied killing spree caused the points to skyrocket from less than a million to 1.7 million.

This sets a new record for the fastest points increase in this qualifying round, bar none.

Naturally, Yu Duan became the most monstrous talent to emerge in this preliminary round of the Genius Battle.

Countless people have carefully analyzed Yu Duan's record, wanting to know just how strong he is.

But from beginning to end, until the final qualifiers were completely over, Yu Duan never went all out.

(End of this chapter)