Chapter 172: Chapter 171: The Final Round of the Preliminary Selection Ends!
Translator: 549690339
When Du Gang appeared at the edge of the winner’s group arena, it took the other spectators a good ten seconds to react to the sight.
“Did Du Gang win?”
“Triple Domain beat Quadruple Domain?!”
People glanced back and forth between Du Gang standing under the winner’s group sign and Zhao Biao; it took them a while to confirm that they were not seeing things.
“Incredible…”
Not to mention the spectators, even Zhao Biao himself was dazed.
If he were not physically restrained, he would have run over to Du Gang to ask how he was defeated.
The five arenas were all set for Triple Domain versus Quadruple Domain. If it were not for the intense competition between Du Gang and Zhao Biao, which attracted the attention of the other competitors, their matches would have been over by now.
Now that the match had ended, the competition resumed in the other four arenas.
Those from the Triple Domain, with a mix of doubt, excitement, and nervousness, tried to emulate Du Gang and turn the tables. However, they were swept off the arena by their opponents within three seconds.
Soon, the five matches ended. The highest scorer among the winners, a Quad Domain user of the Thunder Element, won the first chance to advance.
The second round of the competition began!
This time, Du Gang’s opponent was again a Quad Domain user.
“Du Gang, I’m not Zhao Biao. You can’t count on stepping over me…” “No matter how invincible you are, it’s just your bad luck to encounter me…” “Remember, my name is Cui Chengxuan…”
In response to Cui Chengxuan’s provocation, Du Gang stretched out a single finger.
“What?”
Cui Chengxuan frowned and asked, “What do you mean by this?”
Smiling, Du Gang calmly replied, “It doesn’t matter, I’m just letting you know I’ll finish this in one minute!”
“Hiss!
Moving on, Cui Chengxuan flew into a rage, fuming, “You’re asking for death!”
The moment he finished speaking, the match started, and he launched his Wind Domain towards Du Gang.
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
In an instant, Du Gang disappeared from his original spot.
“Running away?
While pursuing his opponent, Cui Chengxuan burst into laughter, “Didn’t you say you’d finish me off in one minute? Come at me then!”
Still not satisfied, he accelerated again, chasing the illusion left behind by Du Gang.
Instantly, there were figures all over the arena, as if both participants had countless clones.
Seeing the Wind Domain user take the bait, Du Gang sneered.
He had defeated Zhao Biao of the Fire Element user by employing a million-fold critical strike simply because fire restrained gold and he hadn’t been able to break through Zhao’s domain in a short time to harm him, hence he used force to break the domain.
However, against the Wind Domain, the situation was different. Du Gang was confident that he could break through his opponent’s ten-meter domain and attack him bodily by stacking their speeds.
At the moment, Du Gang felt out his enemy’s speed, gradually enticing him into increasing it.
After about four to five seconds, feeling that his opponent’s speed had reached the standard, he rapidly executed the Folding Mystery technique and charged at Cui Chengxuan.
‘Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
“Bang!”
A burst of white light flashed the next moment, and the two disappeared from the arena, reappearing moments later under the winner’s and loser’s signs.
“Hiss-
Quite a few of the spectators who had been paying close attention to Du Gang’s fight sucked in a breath when they saw how quickly the match was decided and that Du Gang was the victor.
“It was only a few seconds, how did he win that round so quickly?” Everyone was shocked. Was Du Gang really that strong?
After winning the match, Du Gang refrained from further taunts.
He had no grudges against Cui Chengxuan, he had only retaliated to agitate him and ensure his victory.
Now that he won the fight, he naturally had no interest in continuing the taunts.
As the match between Du Gang and Cui Chengxuan ended quickly, the remaining three matches had no competition. Quadruple Domains versus Triple Domains, ended swiftly.
This time, another Quadruple Domain advanced, leaving a Triple Domain eliminated.
With just six contestants remaining, it was an even split with three Triple Domains and three Quadruple Domains.
This time, Du Gang, being in the winner’s group, was coincidentally matched against a Triple Domain, leaving another arena where two Quadruple Domains had to face off.
The third round was still without suspense, Du Gang effortlessly overpowered his opponent.
Once again, Du Gang didn’t make it through in the winner’s group. He didn’t score enough even though he won three consecutive rounds with nearly three hundred points, but it wasn’t the highest score amongst them.
During the fourth round, he was pitted against a Quadruple Domain player again.
This time, his opponent was all fired up but couldn’t change the situation.
When Du Gang swung close to eight hundred thousand spears, he launched the ‘Sky-Defying Spear’ again that dealt a trillion-fold damage, easily killing his opponent.
At the end of this round, Du Gang and Zhao Biao were the only ones left in the winner’s bracket. Zhao Biao was lucky to have been given the remaining Triple Domain player.
Du Gang, on the other hand, scored enough points from a series of victories to secure the fourth advancement spot.
The final fifth round was a duel between Zhao Biao and the Quadruple Domain player who had previously lost to Du Gang.
Unfortunately, despite Zhao Biao’s best efforts, he still lost to his opponent and was finally eliminated from the competition.
This meant that among the three finalists from ten thousand subsidiary star systems, one was already eliminated.
When they appeared in the waiting area again, the number of remaining participants was 1250.
Among them, there were 1249 four-domain competitors, and there was one three-domain competitor, Du Gang.
At this point, if anyone still didn’t see what Du Gang was up to, they must have been living under a rock all this time.
“Three-domain taking down four-domain, is that real?”
“It’s real—allegedly, in their last group, there were five four-domain competitors, three of whom were taken down by Du Gang!” “He took down three of them? Did the other two beat Du Gang then?” “No, the other two didn’t get paired up with Du Gang!”
All those who got the news were a bit dumbfounded. A three-domain competitor made it seem like they were a five-domain one, leaving a group of four-domain competitors jittery here.
The main reason was that Du Gang, who was clearly a three-domain competitor, counter-killed four-domain competitors—his methods were baffling, and they shook people up.
Fear comes from the unknown!
Some people wanted to encounter Du Gang to see what he was actually capable of, while some didn’t want to meet him at all.
However, a small portion of people remained unmoved by all the chatter and speculation.
“I’m not sure who would win if the Imperial Sons clashed with Du Gang…”
Many four-domain competitors now turned their attention to the distant individuals who were separate from everyone else, situated in their own space.
They didn’t choose to be on their own; it was just that other competitors didn’t dare to approach them.
This group of individuals consisted of around one hundred people, all of whom were the top-ranked Imperial Sons from various top families.
As the name suggests, these one hundred or so people were the strongest ones among all the Imperial Sons in those top families!
In their eyes, the only things that mattered were ranking and progression.
They weren’t interested in Du Gang or any gossip about him.
People like Chen Feng and Xiong Cang, who came in first and second during the preliminaries, were also in that group.
During the preliminaries, they were very interested in Du Gang as they thought he was an unfamiliar strong competitor.
However, when the competition ended, and they learned that Du Gang had only placed first by five hours with some opportunistic tricks, they lost interest in him.
Their sole goal was to represent their families and compete with the top-ranked Imperial Sons from other families.
Of course, this was a short-term goal. In fact, they were all holding their breath, preparing to clash with the heroes of the world after they advance to the second stage of the competition. Their aim was to display their strength and become famous!
At this moment, Chen Feng, who was tired of hearing Du Gang’s name, said irritably to Xiong Cang, who was next to him: “Why can’t these people stop talking about Du Gang and stick up for others?”
Xiong Cang, whose name fit his Herculean physique, laughed and said: “He’s just a jumping clown. He won’t last long!”
They didn’t have to wait long for the fourth round to begin.
This time, apart from Du Gang, the remaining nine contestants were all four-domain competitors.
Compared to the top-ranked Imperial Sons, these contestants were quite ordinary.
Du Gang won three consecutive battles, taking as little as four to five seconds in the quickest one, and a maximum of two minutes in the slowest one, before advancing to the next round.
Then, two more rounds took place. By the end of the sixth round, the remaining number of competitors had dropped to 156.
Before the seventh round started, the system provided another explanation.
[In the seventh round, the final game, as per the previous rules, 78 players will directly qualify for the ring competition!]
[The remaining 78 players who are eliminated will compete in a last man standing competition for the final 22 spots!]
After the explanation, Du Gang understood.
There was no change from the previous competition, except that in this round, the eliminated competitors had a chance to snatch the last 22 spots.
[The competition begins!]
This time, Du Gang’s opponent was a competitor who had previously ranked 88th.
According to the information provided by Bara, this person’s name was Hou Hongbo, a four-domain Gold-element competitor, and he shared the same laws attribute with Du Gang.
When Du Gang cast his gaze at the other arenas, he was stunned.
“Chen Feng?”
He naturally recognized the person who was ranked first in terms of points.
Although Chen Feng secured the first position because he was a Wind-element competitor, who could accumulate points fast in the early stage, he was still a strong contestant who ranked in the top ten.
When Du Gang looked at Chen Feng, Chen Feng also looked over as if he sensed something.
After seeing Du Gang, Chen Feng showed a slight smile.
Without gazing at him for long, Du Gang swiftly scanned all the other competitors.
There weren’t many spectacular opponents left; their ranking generally lay around 80 or 200.
Of course, it didn’t mean that these competitors weren’t strong. Du Gang remembered last round’s match against a competitor who was ranked over 100th—the match lasted for ten minutes and still ended in a draw.
So, he didn’t underestimate these enemies.
After identifying the condition of his enemy, he quickly focused his attention back on his own arena.
Hou Hongbo, a four-domain Gold-element competitor, the top-ranked Imperial Son of the Hou family.
The information he received was not much, but his ranking alone spoke volumes about the situation.
The contestant he encountered in the previous round and ended in a draw with was the top-ranked Imperial Son from another family.
But now, it was the final game, and excluding Du Gang, everyone else was a top-ranked Imperial Son!
“Wait a second!”
Du Gang originally prepared for the enemy when he suddenly turned his head again and started observing.
The more he watched, the more headaches he got.
He discovered that his opponents this time have a much higher score than his!
These opponents, during the preliminaries, defeated their adversaries almost instantaneously, accumulating a large number of points.
Du Gang only made it to the 30th round, and the rate of his point growth began to slow.
However, these people had added more than 2000 points, plus the points given by the victory in the final…
After carefully estimating, he found that his score was indeed the lowest of all!
This means that if he loses a single game, he will be eliminated! So, does he need to win five games in a row to advance?!
[The game starts!]
Without any time to think further, Du Gang rapidly sprang into action.
As before, he started attacking aggressively, stacking the probability of critical hits.
At this moment, Hou Hongbo suddenly pulled out a golden shuttle.
Mind Master!
Du Gang was surprised, he hadn’t encountered a Mind Master for a long while and had completely forgotten about this unique combat profession.
Mind Masters are exceptionally rare, each one’s Mental Power is unordinary. Not only is their attack powerful, but it is also fast, leaving opponents no chance to evade.
As Hou Hongbo uttered lightly, the golden shuttle in his hand instantly disappeared and started chasing Du Gang at a high speed.
At this moment, Du Gang, moving around in the whole arena, was taken aback.
He had been fighting for so long, hardly any of the opponents could pinpoint his exact location.
Even though everyone had Mental Power, they were still unable to lock onto his exact location.
But now, Hou Hongbo was able to do so, instantly locking onto his location and directing the golden shuttle to attack him.
“Whiz whiz whiz!”
Seeing the situation, Du Gang immediately ran away.
After dodging hundreds of attacks in a row, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
While the golden shuttle was extremely fast under the control of the Mind Master, it still couldn’t catch up with him.
After all, every material moving in space experiences friction, which causes their speed to decrease gradually.
Du Gang was different. His Laws of Friction could be adjusted to allow him to move in space with no friction whatsoever.
Seeing that the golden shuttle couldn’t catch up with him, Du Gang continued to run while unleashing shadows of his spear to stack up the chance of his critical hits.
Facing a Quad Domain wielder, Du Gang’s strategy was to stack up critical probabilities and strike down the enemies by overpowering their Domains.
Unlike other Domain wielders, Hou Hongbo, as a Mind Master, mostly relied on his golden shuttle for attacking, remaining motionless in his Domain.
Du Gang knew that a Mind Master typically invests his abilities fully into his weapon, so while stacking his critical hits, he kept a vigilant eye on the golden shuttle.
So it went on for ten more seconds. When Hou Hongbo found the golden shuttle ineffective, he slowly took a small box out of his pocket and opened it.
Inside, there were eight silver needles of varying sizes.
Hou Hongbo took out the silver needles and with a low shout, threw all eight of them.
Suddenly, the ranks pursuing Du Gang were joined by eight more silver needles.
“Whiz whiz whiz!”
This time, the eight silver needles seemed to be controlled by different people, sealing Du Gang’s path forward from eight different directions.
Seeing this, Du Gang could only constantly seek the optimal position to escape.
However, after each escape, the space enclosed by the eight silver needles got larger, allowing Du Gang less room to escape.
“Hehe!”
Seeing that the silver needles were effective and Du Gang’s movement was severely restricted, Hou Hongbo could not help but crack a smile.
“Intimidate!”
The next moment, his eyes suddenly released a powerful oppressive aura, glaring fiercely at Du Gang. At the same time, a powerful mental shock wave was released from his body.
Great opportunity!
Du Gang was pleased to see this. No longer pretending, he directly used the Folding Mystery, evading the eight silver needles and rushed towards Hou Hongbo.
In just a moment, he was at the edge of Hou Hongbo’s Domain.
“Mental Assault!”
Hou Hongbo growled, releasing another mental attack.
However, to his shock, Du Gang remained steady in mid-air, not flinching at all, and continued to dart towards the core of his Domain.
“Boom!”
Just as a metal pedal appeared at Hou Hongbo’s feet, preparing to quickly distance himself, Du Gang struck him.
Immediately, a white light flashed, and in the next second, they both appeared outside the arena.
Du Gang, Winner’s Group!
Hou Hongbo, Loser’s Group!
“Well done!”
As soon as Du Gang reached the side of the winner’s arena, he heard a voice coming from the side.
Turning his head, he saw Chen Feng already standing in the winner’s group, looking at him with a smile.
Only then did Du Gang realize that apart from his own platform, two other matches had already ended.
After nodding slightly at Chen Feng, Du Gang immediately began to assess his other opponents.
His strength is no match for Chen Feng, therefore, he cannot afford to waste time, he needs to gain as much information about his opponent as possible.
Soon, the other two matches finished, and Du Gang let out a sigh of breath, there were no particularly strong competitors.
At that moment, the system notification sounded again.
[In the winner’s group, Chen Feng has the highest score, obtaining the first seat for advancement! ]
After he ascended to the advancement throne, there was naturally someone who fell into the abyss from the loser’s group.
“What a pity, we won’t be able to fight each other this time!”
Chen Feng was somewhat regretful, he originally wanted to have a speed battle with Du Gang, but it seems like there would be no chance for it now.
Hearing his regretful tone, Du Gang laughed, “Don’t worry, there will be chances in the future!”
Soon, the second round of the competition began.
This time, his opponent became normal, without any mental tactics. After dragging it out for a few minutes, Du Gang seized the chance and cast
‘Heaven-defying Spear’ at the enemy.
“The power of this spear, it’s truly mighty!”
Mid-air, Chen Feng couldn’t help but express his admiration, he didn’t expect a triple domain user to be able to release such a powerful attack.
He felt that even if he were to face such an attack, he wouldn’t be able to escape unscathed.
However, he was just saying it, he didn’t actually care much. This shows that he actually had a way to deal with it, therefore he wasn’t in a panic.
Then, the third and fourth matches ended smoothly as well.
And in the fifth match, his luck continued as Du Gang only had one Wind Element Quadruple domain user left.
Seeing Du Gang expressionless and not initiating conversation, his opponent couldn’t help but say:
“Du Gang, your doomsday has arrived, I am different from them, this time, you’ll definitely be eliminated…”
Du Gang just smiled and said, “I have met many people like you who said the same thing, do you know what their final outcome was?”
The Wind Element opponent frowned.
Not waiting for his response, Du Gang continued, “Those people, were swept off the stage in six seconds!”
“Hmph!”
The Wind Element opponent snorted disdainfully.
“You think, I’m the same as them?”
“Exactly! ”
Du Gang laughed, “That’s the feeling, at that time, all those people were just like you…”
In the final match, he didn’t want to risk any unexpected events, so he employed his method of mockery.
Of course, he knew how to choose the right strategy for different enemies. He usually wouldn’t taunt an opponent who preferred not to talk, because such people often have firm wills and are not easily swayed.
But those who initiated provocation were different. They were usually more prone to agitation.
As anticipated, the Wind Element man opposite was already brimming with the desire to charge and kill Du Gang.
[Match has started!]
Just as the system voice finished, the Wind Element man plunged forward.
“Die!”
He yelled angrily, “I will make you understand, the end of a loudmouth…”
This time his charge didn’t hold back at all, reaching the peak speed that his Wind Element could attain… “Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
“Boom!”
A flash of white light, and the battle ended!
“Hehe!”
In mid-air, watching the match, Chen Feng laughed.
Looking at Du Gang appearing in the winner’s group below and the Wind Element competitor who had a dumbfounded expression appearing in the loser’s group, he shook his head and said:
“Can’t even control his own emotions, always thinking of provoking others, such an emperor, is just talented, otherwise his achievement would be limited…”
Before his voice fell, Du Gang had already risen and sat on the fifth throne.
[Congratulations, you’ve advanced!]
After the system reminded them again, this time, they didn’t take away their thrones but instead moved them with their thrones to a new space.
The next second, five people appeared in a new space.
There were already many people sitting on thrones here.
[Please wait patiently, the loser’s group has already started the competition for the last 22 seats of advancement…]
At this moment, everyone’s position was in accordance with the ranking of their points, without a doubt, Du Gang was placed last.
As for the arrangement of the thrones, it was in a straight line which resulted in the people in front not noticing the Triple Domain user sitting behind them.
After about half an hour of waiting, the space suddenly trembled, and the next second, another twenty-two thrones flew in.
[The finals have ended, all 100 advancers have appeared!]
[Congratulations on advancing to the ranking match…]
[Congratulations, you’ve won the chance to participate in the elimination match!]
[After the conclusion of the ranking match, you will represent the White Dragon Mountain Elementary Universe Country in the second round: the Elimination Match!]
Hearing this, Du Gang’s spirit rallied.
The Cosmic Peak Talents Competition, the second round of the five major tournaments, was finally nearing! !!