Chapter 92 – Brief Ascension to the Top

A dazzling pillar of thunderous light shot into the sky, momentarily dispersing the heavy dark clouds looming over the territory.

A second or two later, the endless lightning began to converge, thinning like a diminishing beam of light before dissipating from top to bottom. Only residual arcs of electricity continued to flicker within the charred, sunken pit, surrounding the severely shrunken, charcoal-like corpse.

Deeply influenced by the Undead Emperor’s philosophy of caution, Dolai summoned a giant palm once more, relentlessly pounding the remains with loud thuds until confirming the creature was thoroughly dead. Noticing surrounding monsters closing in, Dolai activated its Leap Strike skill, vanishing with a “biu” from the monster horde.

Mid-air, it transformed again, flapping back to the territory in the form of a turtledove before shifting into human form, planting its hands on its hips and letting out a series of “gugu” laughs.

It, General Dolai, had slain the enemy with a single strike!

Thwack!

Mu Yuan reached out and tapped Dolai on the forehead. “Your performance in this battle was highly problematic.”

Even in human form, Dolai’s arms remained charred black. It had failed to control the raging lightning energy and had sustained significant injuries.

This was the price of showing off.

Given Dolai’s offensive capabilities, it was indeed difficult to instantly kill a rare-tier, Professional Tier, thick-skinned monster like an ogre. However, there were numerous ways it could have defeated the ogre without taking damage, and it wouldn’t have taken much time either.

“Ehehe~”

Dolai hugged its head, attempting to evade responsibility with cuteness.

With the defensive battle concluded, the Skeleton Warriors swiftly exited the ‘city’ to collect the Soul Sand and Remnant Souls dropped by the monsters. They then dragged these crimson-eyed creatures into previously dug pits for incineration and purification.

Dolai watched with some regret.

But eating them was out of the question—the Lord forbade it.

Even if they weren’t humanoid monsters.

After all, these monsters carried impurities, and Mu Yuan deeply feared that Devouring them would leave Dolai tainted.

Ding!

Notification: Your territory ‘Tianyuan Territory’ has risen in ranking, temporarily claiming 1st place.

On the Trial Golden Leaderboard, the names at the bottom were small and inconspicuous, while those at the top shone brilliantly, exuding extraordinary prominence.

At this moment, the three characters “Tianyuan Territory” surpassed the previous leader, Great Sun Territory, to claim the top spot, overlooking the world.

This was displayed before the eyes of countless new Lords and observing players!

“Tianyuan Territory—whose territory is this?”

“No idea!”

“Even if it’s only the first day of the trial, and even if he might only hold the top spot briefly, this Tianyuan Territory undoubtedly has the capability to compete for a top-twenty position.”

“But boss, the name Tianyuan Territory… I genuinely haven’t heard of it before.”

“Investigate!”

Currently, the territories in the top ten to twenty of the Trial Golden Leaderboard all had some degree of recognition.

Either they were broadcasting live streams or were already high-profile second-generation Lords or flagship representatives of major groups.

What about Tianyuan Territory? It fell into neither category.

It was as if it had sprung out of a crack in a rock.

Oh, it was previously ranked in the thirties, but what else? Is there any other information?

“This might be a dark horse,” someone murmured.

The second-generation Lord Jiang Luoxing gazed at Tianyuan hanging at the top, unable to resist pondering, “Could it be that mysterious expert? It’s still the Early Stage; too early to tell. Let’s wait and see.”

…

The first night passed quickly. The Real World had already transitioned to daylight, but the sky in the Eternal World remained gloomy and dark, without a single ray of sunlight.The Crimson Mist drifted like an invisible monster lurking beyond the territory, not thinning but seemingly growing denser.

Taking advantage of the lull in the monster assaults, Mu Yuan began arranging shifts for the defending soldiers to rest.

Properly managing the rotation of his own troops and maintaining their condition was crucial to surviving the trial. Even his main forces like the Skeleton Warriors had fluctuating states—after prolonged, intense battles, they would grow weary, their soul flames dimming. However, they recovered much more easily than other troops, requiring only some absorption of the versatile Soul Sand.

Warfare ultimately boiled down to reserves of Soul Sand.

…

Before the war, Mu Yuan had stockpiled over a dozen Soul Crystal Coins. After successive defensive battles, the amount of Soul Sand had actually increased instead of decreasing.

Currently, expenditures were only for troop recovery and repairing worn equipment.

The true major consumers of Soul Sand—defensive structures and Deadbone’s strategic skills—hadn’t needed to be used at all.

The trial process had been too peaceful. Even the crude earthen wall showed hardly any signs of damage so far.

So peaceful that…

Lord Mu felt he was about to fail miserably.

“Aren’t these monsters supposed to be more enthusiastic? I heard the lord trials are extremely brutal, and even top newcomers can’t avoid losses even if they pass safely.”

But here, only a few dozen or hundred monsters would charge forward howling at intervals, their numbers disappointingly small.

The evening glow draped the land in a veil of twilight.

The dawn light then scattered the darkness of night.

In the real world, day and night cycled incessantly.

Time quickly reached the third day of the trial. On the Eternal Continent, the lord trials had grown intensely fierce, already reaching a white-hot stage.

In some novice territories, the troops were exhausted, their armor in tatters, and even the Arrow Towers bore pockmarked scars from monster impacts.

Some novice lords roared, nerves taut, continuously repelling waves of attacking monsters to advance their rankings slightly on the Hanging Golden Leaderboard.

Everyone was fighting desperately.

Mu Someone wanted to fight but had no chance. The ranking of Tianyuan Territory kept falling on the trial leaderboard, dropping from the former top spot to 19th place.

He had no doubt that, continuing at this rate, falling out of the top twenty was inevitable.

“Clearly, my territory stands firm as a rock against the monster tides.”

“Clearly, Undead General and other commanders are immensely powerful, but…”

But why were there no large monster tides attacking?

Mu Yuan had already guessed the reason, and it made his teeth ache.

“Probably because the territory’s strength was too overwhelming before, and we were too thorough in exterminating the surrounding monster hordes. As a result, the monster density within ten or twenty kilometers around the territory dropped drastically, making it impossible to gather enough siege monsters during the trial.”

In reality, when top-tier second-generation heirs cleared surrounding areas, they only focused on dealing with the most troublesome enemies. They neither wanted nor had the excess capacity to scour every inch of land for elimination.

Only in Tianyuan Territory was it different.

With War Falcons scouting in all directions, pinpointing each monster group;

With Skeleton Legions sweeping through everything, even fallen soldiers resurrecting under Deadbone’s black smoke.

In short,

it was all his fault for being too strong and too diligent!

But logically, his extensive exploration range should have attracted the attention of some powerful monster forces, right?

Mu Yuan dispatched Hurricane Falcons deep into the Crimson Mist to search for monster traces, hoping to lure some over, but they soon returned empty-handed.——Under the Crimson Mist, visibility was limited, and units venturing out would unknowingly suffer erosion.

The Hurricane Falcon, having flown out for just over ten minutes, returned with faint bloodshot eyes and needed most of the day to barely recover.

There was great terror within the Crimson Mist!

Even so, Mu Yuan took turns sending the Hurricane Falcon out to scout the situation.

On the third day of the trial, around seven or eight in the evening, dense figures emerged from the Crimson Mist at the edge of visibility.

They came surging forth.

Lord Mu shed tears of joy.

(End of Chapter)