Just as Chen Xu finished speaking, not far behind him, two Eternal Rank powerhouses from the sponsor teams raised their hands and struck down, each blowing up a planet.
The exploding planets produced brilliant fireworks, incomparably vast and magnificent.
Such naturally born fireworks were by no means comparable to those artificially created by the humans of Blue Star.
Next, the pre-arranged performers from various races took the stage to put on a show.
The "various races" here meant it in the truest sense of the word.
In the vast myriad worlds, there were countless races. For this First Grand Assembly of Transcendents of the Myriad Worlds, those wealthy sponsors claimed that to fit the theme, they had spent a fortune to assemble a multi-racial performance troupe for the opening ceremony.
Of course, Chen Xu did not believe a word about them spending a "fortune."
One sold arms and the other sold medicine, both businesses far more lucrative than printing money. Could hiring a performance troupe really be considered a fortune? What a joke.
But since Chen Xu did not have to pay for it anyway, he just let them fuss all they wanted.
In any case, the bigger the fuss, the better. Only then would his name as the organizer be deeply remembered by the myriad worlds.
Stepping out, Chen Xu passed through a spatial gate and arrived at the 44th layer of the new Land of the Undead to find Miracle.
“Holy crap, Miracle, it's pretty hot in here.”
“My Lord, why are you here?”
Ever since the Assembly of Transcendents became a hot topic across the myriad worlds, the temperature in this dedicated tournament server room on the 44th layer had never dropped.
To address this, Miracle had even seconded several Wind Element Lords from the Wind Element layer on the 46th layer to help it manage the airflow on the 44th layer, speeding up the heat dissipation.
“The Assembly of Transcendents has begun. How is the popularity right now? Are there any issues with the livestream rooms?”
“My Lord, our official livestream room is extremely popular. The real-time viewer count has consistently maintained a figure in the tens of trillions.”
“At the same time, there are also internet celebrities from various civilizations rebroadcasting it. The popularity of those rebroadcast streams is also extremely high, reaching the hundreds of millions.”
“Mmh, this is just the opening ceremony. Once the matches officially begin, there might be even more people. Miracle, you'll have to work hard then.”
“For your will!”
Soon, the opening ceremony performances concluded, and it was finally time for the next highly anticipated segment.
That was the main event of the Assembly of Transcendents: transcendent battles.
Chen Xu reappeared and took the microphone from the host.
“Up next is the first round of the Transcendent Division, the qualifiers. The number of participants is 29,125,701,210,248,322. All contestants, please prepare yourselves and enjoy the matches to your heart's content!”
As soon as he finished speaking, a wave of world fluctuations spread out from Chen Xu.
This wave rapidly propagated through the Undead Network.
One contestant after another was precisely identified and captured by this wave. One second they were still in their own worlds, and the next, they were teleported into the dedicated tournament worlds.
One second, two seconds, three seconds... After ten seconds had passed, Chen Xu completed the operation and withdrew the fluctuations.
“The players are in position! I declare! The tournament has officially begun!!!”
Looking at the small slip of paper Boss had prepared for him beforehand, Chen Xu completed the final tasks of this stage, tossed the microphone aside, and vanished once again.
Beside him, the host steadily caught the microphone.
“Dear viewers, dear viewers, welcome to the First Grand Assembly of Transcendents of the Myriad Worlds! I am your host for this Transcendent Division qualifier, Tie Gelei from the Myriad Crucible.”
“Joining me are our two commentators for this match: His Excellency Kunpeng from the Land of the Undead, and His Excellency Li Hu from the Universe Daoist Academy.”
...
“Ah, my head is spinning. This teleportation entry experience is just awful.”
A teleported Transcendent-tier Martial Artist had already stood up, taking a few deep breaths to recover.
However, in just that brief moment it took to catch his breath, the surrounding fallen demons, skeletons, and ghouls had already sensed his presence and were closing in on him.
“Rakanishu!”
Clack, clack.
“Argh!!!”
Sensing the movement around him, the Martial Artist immediately went on high alert, adopting the offensive stance of the cultivation technique he practiced.
Yet, just as his senses cleared, the Martial Artist instantly felt the malice of this world.
In front of him were more than a dozen skeleton soldiers wielding bone blades and bone shields. To his left were seven or eight ragged, clawing ghouls.
Behind him was a large pack of screeching fallen demons, and behind them, a fallen demon mage was already channeling a fireball in its claws, which was on the verge of completion.
To his right was a river. It looked safe enough, with no skeletons or demons in sight.
But the Martial Artist knew for a fact that he would absolutely not step foot in there.
The river was unnaturally clean, without even a single ripple from a fish. Heaven knew if something far more terrifying was lurking beneath the surface.
Gritting his teeth, he chose to charge toward the skeleton soldiers, planning to break through their line.
Similar scenes played out one after another across various worlds.
For those weak Transcendent Rank contestants, the pincer attack of the undead and demons was absolutely fatal.
Dealing with just a pack of skeletons or fallen demons was already a handful, let alone a combination of both.
Chen Xu had not programmed any racial hatred between the undead and the demons in the tournament worlds. In these realms, the undead and demons were close allies, brothers in the same trench.
Oh, and there were also elements, though Chen Xu had placed them in deeper areas.
Only after the participants traveled a certain distance from their landing zones would they encounter various elements.
After all, as semi-physical, semi-elemental creatures, elements possessed a dominating level of suppression over low-tier Transcendents.
Take a Transcendent-tier Martial Artist, for example. If a Martial Artist of this rank encountered a fire element, they would either have to be lucky enough to practice ice-attribute or water-attribute true qi to counter it...
...or possess exceptional comprehension and have grasped something conceptual like fist intent.
Otherwise, their only option was to turn and run. Fighting was out of the question—completely impossible.
Punching a fire element would do nothing to it, but the Martial Artist's hands would be cooked in no time.
Sure enough, just as Chen Xu expected, a massive number of Transcendent Rank participants failed to even leave their starting areas, dying under the onslaught of the undead and demons.
“Wow, as our viewers can see, less than an hour has passed, and tens of millions of contestants have already been eliminated.”
“And what knocked them out wasn't another contestant, but the undead and, uh, demons created by His Excellency the Lord of the Undead within the tournament worlds.”
“His Excellency Kunpeng, what are your thoughts on this?”
“Ants. Not worth watching.”
“Uh, hahaha, His Excellency Kunpeng certainly has a unique and lofty perspective. Let's see what His Excellency Li Hu thinks.”
“My thoughts? I actually share a similar view with Brother Kunpeng. His Lordship organized this Assembly of Transcendents to provide a platform for the elites of all worlds to compete, not for these self-unaware people to perform sideshows.”
“If they can't even handle a few skeleton soldiers and fallen demons, there was no need for them to participate in the first place. They are only embarrassing themselves.”
“Uh, hahaha, thank you to His Excellency Kunpeng and His Excellency Li Hu for their commentary. Director, please cut the camera back to the field, and we will continue...”
Kunpeng and Li Hu's remarks were quite explosive. Their blunt disdain for the weak instantly triggered a storm of public opinion—a storm centered on the law of the jungle.
Surprisingly, on the Undead Network, their comments did not draw backlash; instead, they received a great deal of praise.
What everyone wanted to see was clashes between the strong and competitions between geniuses. This was the Grand Assembly of Transcendents, not the Grand Clown Assembly.
No one wanted to watch clowns who couldn't even beat skeleton soldiers in such a grand tournament.
In the Age of Transcendence, regardless of species, everyone revered the strong. Kunpeng and Li Hu's seemingly radical views were actually quite conservative in this context.
In this minor storm of public opinion, the only ones singing a different tune were perhaps the Divine Dao transcendents, such as the priests of various pantheons led by Heaven.
It couldn't be helped; to propagate their doctrines, they had to lead by example.
However, the transcendents of the myriad worlds were sensible people, and they all regarded those priests as clowns.
Father Hack: You should not be like this. God loves all people; we should not mock them.
Like Wolves and Tigers: Father Hack, don't be so busy preaching about helping the weak. If you have the time, you'd better pray for that kid paladin of yours.
My Staff Is a Greatsword: Yeah, Father Hack. That little paladin of yours who loves helping the weak seems to have drawn public outrage. He's being hunted down.
In one of the tournament worlds, a short paladin clad in heavy armor raised his head high, casting a disdainful gaze at the enemies surrounding him.
“Ha, a paladin from Heaven, preaching even in the middle of a tournament.”
“Exactly. It's one thing if he just saves people, but he even saves those skeletons, fallen demons, and ghouls. He won't let us fight players, and he won't let us kill monsters. How the hell are we supposed to get points?”
“If you ask me, there's something wrong with his head.”
“Hey, shall we go in together?”
“Heh, since we've already surrounded him with such great coordination, of course we're going in together.”
With that, dozens of contestants moved at once, launching attacks toward the small paladin in the center.
This paladin's actions had severely disrupted their tournament plans.
For the sake of points and qualification, they had to eliminate this troublesome paladin first.
Facing the onslaught, the little paladin remained unfazed. He slowly raised his shield with his right hand, and a pillar of Holy Light cascaded from the heavens, transforming into a shield around him.
“The Holy Light will defeat evil!”
Rate on N.U.
