A great number of participants on the eastern side of Zenith Mountain felt helpless when they saw that even people from the Great Eastern Alliance had been eliminated. They finally realized that Lu Yin was more focused on individual strength rather than status when he chose who to eliminate.
“Let’s rush through the checkpoint all together! If hundreds and thousands of us go, I refuse to believe that he can block all of us. At least some of us will be able to make it through,” someone quietly suggested, and many others quickly agreed.
Similar situations occurred on all three other faces of the mountain.
Only those who were powerful or knew the gatekeepers well had dared to boldly approach the checkpoints alone. The gatekeepers had full autonomy when it came to deciding whether or not a participant was allowed through the checkpoints, though most of the competitors refused to accept that.
However, they also knew that the five gatekeepers needed to eliminate half of the competitors.
The only viable method was to overwhelm the gatekeepers with numbers. If everybody rushed through the checkpoint at the same time, then at least some of them would be successful.
The competitors who had gotten close to the checkpoints stopped and decided to wait for people further back.
Zenith Mountain continued to change, and it was soon shrouded in darkness. When the competitors looked up, a sky full of stars greeted them. Each star shone brightly, and some even occasionally launched attacks at them.
Many competitors immediately began grumbling when they saw these incoming attacks, as they had already nearly given up after experiencing the unending energy waves coming off of the peak of the mountain and the strength of the gatekeepers. Despite the already absurd level of difficulty, the competition would only become more challenging as time went on.
The attacks from the stars grew increasingly powerful, and some competitors were forced to work together to endure.
Lu Yin looked up at the sky and suddenly remembered the entrance examination that he had taken to join Astral-10. At that time, he had been astounded to see countless stars sparkling high in the sky, but that had only been because he had not understood what he had been looking at back then.
At the moment, Lu Yin knew that the stars that he was looking at were not actually real. Rather, each one had been condensed from a powerhouse’s star energy.
This was nothing difficult, as star energy could be forcibly condensed, though not in the same manner as Lu Yin’s Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation. That technique was much more powerful, though it also required one to gather a massive amount of star energy.
Lu Yin suddenly realized that it had been quite some time since he had last visited the Daosource Sect’s ruins. As soon as he had that thought, he decided to return to the Daosource Sect’s ruins after ZENITH and absorb more of the cauldron energy.
He had many means of attacking, and he even had more than one secret technique along with several sourcebox arrays. Despite all of that, Lu Yin still wanted to learn the complete Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation, as he felt that it was one of his techniques with the greatest potential. Lu Yin would never forget the scene that he had seen when he had first comprehended the Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation. It had been as if he had traveled back in time to a primeval era.
The Ninesuns Cauldron Transformation would be invincible after Lu Yin completed all nine suns, and he would never give up on such a battle technique.
Two people rushed towards Lu Yin: Lulu and Grandini Mavis.
These two girls had been competing ever since they had been students at the Astral Combat Academy, and they were still competing with each other during ZENITH. They were always fighting, but they had also supported each other when the Sixth Mainland had invaded.
The two girls rushed past Lu Yin without even glancing at him.
Lu Yin laughed. “Be careful. Don’t fall.”
Another person rushed towards Lu Yin at an extremely high speed. They were actually even faster than Lulu and Grandini, which surprised Lu Yin.
With this speed, this person should have arrived at the checkpoint a long time ago.
It was the stutterer. He nervously looked at Lu Yin. “I- I- I-”
Lu Yin was taken aback; did this person want to fight him?
“I’m going to fall!” the stutterer screamed and collapsed.
Lu Yin stared as the stutterer fell down and stopped moving. Just what did this fellow want from him?
The stutterer rubbed his head and blinked excitedly the moment he saw Lu Yin. “Meat! Meat! Meat!”
“You want to eat meat? Then go home,” Lu Yin said coldly.
The stutterer grew anxious. “Long- long- long-”
Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed as he realized the man had a stutter.
“Longevity Bri- Brigade. Me.” The stutterer pointed at himself.
Lu Yin suddenly remembered that he had seen this before, in the Mountain and Seas Zone’s tablet world. Even back then, the young man had been talking about meat.
“You’re from the Longevity Brigade?” Lu Yin asked.
The stutterer nodded, and his face flushed red. “Mas- Master said that I’ll get to eat meat if I follow you.”
Lu Yin was confused. “I don’t have meat with me.”
The stutterer gulped and did not know what else to say.
“You can pass,” Lu Yin said. This guy was from the Longevity Brigade, which was one of the four most powerful crews in the Cosmic Sea.
There were four powerful crews in the Cosmic Sea, which were Leon’s Armada, the Longevity Brigade, the Ignition Crew, and the Soldier Crew.
The four crews each controlled a part of the Cosmic Sea, and they were all extremely powerful. Any one of the crews had the strength to go up against the Innerverse’s eight great flowzones.
Leon’s Armada ruled over all of the pirates in the universe as Highsage Leon was the King of Pirates, and he naturally headed the strongest crew.
The Ignition Crew consisted of former powerhouses from Gods’ Origin, and Lu Yin had heard that Gods’ Origin was actually trying to kill everyone from the Ignition Crew.
Finally, both the Longevity Brigade and the Soldier Crew were very mysterious, and Lu Yin had not heard much about them even from Big Sis.
Lu Yin was quite curious toward the Longevity Brigade, but he clearly would not be able to learn anything about them from the stutterer.
Xi Qi finally arrived at the checkpoint after avoiding all the energy waves cascading down upon Zenith Mountain, the falling attacks from the stars, and the various shockwaves from all of the battles between the elites.
She felt reborn the moment she arrived at the checkpoint.
“I’m so tired.” Xi Qi sighed.
“Hey, you’re a familiar two-legged beast! Do you want to be my ride? I’ll teach you how to become a Progenitor.” The fish atop Xi Qi’s head grew excited as soon as it saw Lu Yin.
Lu Yin pouted. This darn fish was still present.
“I’m sorry, Brother Lu! I’m sorry!” Xi Qi nervously apologized. She even turned pale since Lu Yin was a gatekeeper.
The stutterer stared at the fish in shock; how could a fish talk? This was insane.