Chapter 220

Chapter 220: Two Sects’ Soaring Points

The spectators were frantic, scratching their heads as they watched.

Someone shouted: “Look, it seems a Disciple of the Flying Cloud Sect just got eliminated!”

In the Flying Cloud Sect’s rest area, bloodstained Disciples staggered out one after another.

Shen Dao Chen’s gaze froze and his face grew dark as he ordered people to carry them off for treatment.

When Wen Xuan, the last to be eliminated, appeared, Shen Dao Chen’s expression turned to ice. In the Secret Realm, only Bai Mu Mu was left.

His chest heaved, a rush of heat shot to his head, and a buzzing filled his mind so strongly he nearly lost his balance. He could not hold back and demanded: “What happened? What on earth is going on?”

But every Disciple had fainted. No one could answer him.

“Mumu,” he muttered as he slammed the table, a storm cloud spreading over his face. He worried not only about the Flying Cloud Sect’s ranking, but even more that Bai Mu Mu would appear before him covered in blood like the others.

Master Ling Xiao poured Spiritual Qi into Wen Xuan and Luo Chu to stabilize them. When he returned, the air around him turned heavy; like Shen Dao Chen, he feared for Bai Mu Mu’s safety.

Up on Fengling Terrace, cultivators craned their necks toward the Flying Cloud Sect’s rest area.

People whispered: “What happened? Why did the Flying Cloud Sect get almost wiped out all of a sudden?”

Another voice cried: “They’ve only got a little over ten thousand points left!”

Someone fumed: “Let me see! Hurry up! Heaven curse it, give me back the projection!”

A person called out: “Look at the points board. Ninghua Sect, Heavenly Sword Sect, and the Red Desert Jiang Clan each just added about ten thousand points.”

A sharper eye added: “Ninghua gained even more, maybe four thousand more than the other two.”

Many asked: “What did they do to gain so many points so fast?”

Another barked: “Let us see already. Fine, I’ll pay Spirit Stones if I have to!”

Twists kept coming one after another, but the projection showed nothing at all.

Now only a quarter of an hour remained before the team trial ended.

Soon the dust would settle. Ninghua Sect, Heavenly Sword Sect, and the other sects were in high spirits, while gloom weighed on the Flying Cloud Sect.

Shen Dao Chen’s heart sank to the bottom.

A shout ripped through the crowd: “Whoa! The Flying Cloud Sect’s points are skyrocketing! They’ve already passed Heavenly Sword Sect and jumped to second place!”

In barely five minutes, the Flying Cloud Sect shot to over eighty thousand points.

Someone gaped: “That speed is like riding fireworks! At this rate they might even surpass Ninghua Sect!”

Shen Dao Chen sprang to his feet, staring at the board in disbelief.

The Flying Cloud Sect’s rest area exploded with cheers.

People cried: “Could first place in this Sect Grand Tournament still go to the Flying Cloud Sect?”

Others wondered: “But isn’t Bai Mu Mu the only one left for them? Where is she getting so many points?”

Doubt spread among many cultivators.

With no projection in those final minutes, every eye fixed on the board.

The Flying Cloud Sect’s wild chase stirred hot blood in the crowd.

Cries rose: “Almost there! They’re about to catch up to Ninghua Sect!”

Another exclamation cut through: “Ninghua’s points are rising too! Their speed isn’t any slower than the Flying Cloud Sect’s! No, it’s even faster!”

A skeptical voice asked: “Everyone’s fussing over how fast the points are climbing. Does no one care where the points are coming from?”

Someone joked nervously: “Did those two sects poke a nest of heavenly treasures?”

Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of the Sect Grand Tournament.

The atmosphere reached a fever pitch.

No one dared blink as they stared at the board, desperate to see the final winner.

After the gap narrowed to one thousand points, it widened again, and kept widening.

This time, the Flying Cloud Sect could not catch up no matter what. Shen Dao Chen clenched his fists, his mood tossing like a roller coaster, and there was no room left to turn things around.

When the final moment froze, Ninghua Sect stood first with 242,650 points, and the Flying Cloud Sect second with 200,250.

The team trial ended. After eight days, the rankings of the Sect Grand Tournament were finally decided.

But on Fengling Terrace, few discussed the final list. Everyone was still wild with talk about what had happened inside the Heaven-grade Zone, especially in that very last stretch.

In a corner of the Heaven-grade Zone, Bai Mu Mu, whom the System had whisked away, lay dying. When she woke, the burning pain raging through her body pierced her nerves again and again, and the wound the Luan Feather Fan had stabbed still bled.

At the brink of death, the System had saved her.

Her twisted face filled with vicious hate.

[Why? Why did I lose to Shen Sang Ruo again? I refuse to accept this!]

She could not change what had already happened, but the team trial she would win. She cried out: “System!”

[bzz-]

[bzz- ho- bzz- st bzz-]

The System’s voice crackled in her mind with strange static. That had never happened before. Was the System malfunctioning?

Panic fluttered in Bai Mu Mu’s chest, but when she pictured Shen Sang Ruo’s hateful face, she forced the panic down.

“Advance my points. I must take first place in the team trial!”

[If the debt cannot be repaid, the System will punish the Host with soul annihilation, bzz-]

[Please choose carefully, bzz-]

“Advance,” Bai Mu Mu answered without a trace of hesitation.

She was certain she would repay the mission points. She would complete her mission.

[Advance approved. Only one advance chance remains, bzz-]

In the next instant, the scene before her shifted. She stood in a cave stuffed with heavenly materials and treasures. The numbers on her token climbed nonstop.

On the other side, Su Xi Yu fumed: “It must be that Malevolent Spirit helping her again!”

Bai Ruo An frowned hard: “How can we still find a lot of treasures at this point?”

Zhu Miao had said the Flying Cloud Sect’s points were about to catch up.

They had searched for points by their own efforts for five days without rest. Would they be beaten at the very end by a Malevolent Spirit that popped up out of nowhere?

The mood turned heavy.

Shen Sang Ruo smiled slightly: “Not necessarily.”

Ye Huai and the others looked at her, then followed her gaze to the Dodder Flower Sprite crouched in a corner.

A chill ran down the Dodder Flower Sprite’s back, and a bad feeling crept over her. She stammered: “W-what are you going to do?”

Shen Sang Ruo twirled a feather blade that gleamed with cold light and said pleasantly: “Nothing much, just pruning your vines a little. Plants grow better with regular pruning.”

“Don’t come any closer!” the Dodder Flower Sprite shrieked.

Shen Sang Ruo had discovered by chance that the sprite’s vines counted as materials. When she checked what it had given them earlier, she noticed an extra one hundred points, then found a stray vine segment in her storage bag. She had kept it as a backup, thinking she would never need it.

A palm-length segment could be counted for points, and the Dodder Flower Sprite’s vines spread for hundreds of miles.

Su Xi Yu jingled a handful of pills and coaxed: “Relax, I have Pain Relief Pills. It won’t hurt.”

Shen Sang Ruo’s eyes cooled as she said: “Then let’s see which brings more points, the treasures Bai Mu Mu’s Malevolent Spirit delivered, or the Dodder Flower Sprite’s vines.”