THE MARTIAL KING - Season 7 Episode 98

The archers pulled their bowstrings as three giant turtles reached Zen’s small tower attack range. Shots were fired as twelve sharp arrows were let go by the archers. Towards the sky the arrows went, aiming for the three giant turtles.

The archers were very alike, from their looks to their behavior, to the color of their eyes, to the sizes of their hands and feet. There were no questions as to how they all looked alike for they evolved from the same magic array.

“Woosh, woosh, woosh…”

The arrows had different colors wrapped around them. The twelve arrows looked like the rainbow as they traveled the sky and were about to land on the turtles. A very loud sound was heard as a turtle got hit.

“Crack…”

The shot was so strong that Zen could feel the sharpness of the arrows. He looked as if he could feel the pain gush through his system.

The power of the twelve arrows could be compared to that of the masters in the first level of Virtual Tribulation Realm. They were as fatal and destructive as they could get.

As the arrows hit the giant turtle, it screamed in pain and fell to the ground. A loud thud was heard. It became a big helpless creature that lay on the ground, hurt and fractured. The intensity was so massive that it even shook the tower where Zen stood.

‘Wow. I never thought that only one round of arrows can take down the giant turtle, ‘ Zen thought to himself. He was in disbelief with what he saw. No words came out of his mouth. The level 12 tower was definitely stronger than the level 11. To his advantage, he found the loophole that had existed since the day the array was designed and took advantage of it. And that made it easier for him to conquer the beasts.

Zen was lucky enough to have that advantage over other cultivators who had to endure more difficulties in defeating the giant turtles.

The giant turtles put up a fight. Even the icy arrows shot from the level 9 tower only slowed them down. They were not effective. The warriors had to deal with relying on their own skills.

Each round of beasts’ attacks was more difficult to conquer than the last, and since the test came to the sixth round, more and more cultivators were taken down. From the 400 cultivators who stood at the beginning, only 50 remained at the last round.

Exhausting every ounce of strength that these cultivators had, they spared no effort to deal with the giant turtles. They were all in, nothing held back as they were one step closer to victory and passing the first test. But, it was just the beginning. To prove that they were worthy of being warriors, they must make it to the second test, which could give them a high chance of getting into the main draw match.

After taking advantage of the loophole he found, defeating the turtles was a breeze for him. He was relaxed. He was starting to feel pity towards the other cultivators who had a hard time. To Zen, it only took three rounds of arrows for all the turtles to drop dead, lifeless, and turn into light that scattered into the air.

Zen was relaxed. He was not bothered by the time it took for him and Lily to finish the test. To his surprise, he found out that most of the cultivators did not make it to the next test. They were eliminated.
Seeing Zen was bored, Letitia in the palace couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

Cole, the designer of the turtles, had put his time and effort into perfecting the giant turtles to become challenging for the cultivators. After seeing the outcome of the battle, Michael and Xiao were speechless, leaving Cole also rather disappointed. The fight was just going to the good part! The tenth round was supposed to be the big challenge for them all. Level 9 tower would have slowed down the turtles leaving the cultivators constantly attracting their attention and then killing them. What happened?

There was an unforeseen twist to the event — the arrow tower of level 12 instantly killed the giant turtles. Cole was rather confused on how to grade and evaluate the cultivators.

Seeing the miscalculation of the supposed outcome of the fight, Cole decided to add one rule for tomorrow’s evaluation, which was that anyone who had trespassed and conquered others’ fields would be taken off the test, and be eliminated immediately.

Actually, Cole had nothing to worry about. The fight turned out to be different from what he expected, but it showed a fact that Zen could take advantage of anything on his path, making him resourceful. For other cultivators in the exam, they could just transform their life vitality into something as strong and powerful as Zen’s sword spirit. They could perform the same miracles as Zen did, if only they were equally courageous and powerful.

But in reality, what they had transformed their life vitality into wasn’t strong enough to defeat the beasts. As a result, those cultivators dared not to leave their fields and just get others’ points.

Ever since the establishment of the magic array, Zen was the first one to do such thing. But the most important question of all that boggled Cole’s mind was whether Zen would be the one and only person to do such thing. Would he be the last to do it?

Round after round, cultivators were eliminated. Arrows were shot, and landed on the beasts. In the tenth round of the attack, only 22 cultivators remained, but only 3 would proceed to the main draw match.

Seeing the changes in the magic array, Cole announced, “On to next level!” He raised his hands, and started to operate the magic array.

All eyes were on Zen. Would he make it? Letitia was nervous. She fixed her eyes on the Picture Slab, which showed the most important part of the qualifying test. Zen’s performance in this test would determine Zen’s passing or failing. Zen had upgraded his tower to level 12 far beyond what the other cultivators could do. As for other cultivators who also defeated the giant turtles and won some points, the best they could do was to upgrade their towers to level 10. Letitia looked up to and admired the archers in level 12 tower. Those archers were comparable to the masters in the first level of Virtual Tribulation Realm. They were the best in their level.