—

[Rankings]

[1. Theron Galethunder - 100,000]

[2. Orin Zimone - 1,133]

[3. Rose Milone - 917]

[4. Ailon Trum - 899]

[5. Lilac - 833]

[6. Violet - 833]

[7. Bertrum the III - 819]

—

Lyrah's pupils constricted into pinholes when she saw it.

There was only one sort of death that could cause that number of points to just suddenly appear out of nowhere.

A Quasi Dome of Heaven Ice Spirit Beast.

Not just any Quasi Dome of Heaven Ice Spirit Beast, but a humanoid one.

Impossible. Simply impossible.

But then she looked up at the Tribulation clouds that were slowly dispersing.

The entire crowd had been in a daze despite how far away they were. It was hard to tell exactly how strong those Tribulation clouds were given the strong barrier protections around the Forest of Ice and the sheer distance between them, but the fact it had given even her cause to pause from so far away painted a clear picture.

Could it be that Theron's Tribulation was so powerful because he had triggered it with a Quasi Dome of Heaven Realm expert present? Was that why he had felt panicked enough to do it?

And if that was the case, then could it be that Theron had actually managed to survive such a thing?

How?!

**

Theron slowly walked out of the core ring and into the inner ring. There was something particularly unreadable about his current expression. It had been much the same since he left the core region and entered the core ring.

It had taken him some time to find a new bag of holding he could use. The moment he came across a disciple, he snatched it away. The poor soul holding onto tenth place hadn't even been noticed by most others, but he fell from the spot he was clinging to right to zero after Theron tossed his other Ice Spirit Crystals away.

The Quasi Dome of Heaven Ice Spirit Crystal in Theron's possession was so powerful that the bag of holding could barely hold it. In fact, if not for Theron suppressing its power further, the bag of holding would have already burst. So, he had no choice but to get rid of what the tenth-place disciple was holding.

Even so, he had done it without much of a reaction the entire time. He knew that others would feel that he had likely used his Tribulation to do it. As for the truth of the matter, he didn't care to explain it.

Let them think what they wanted. That would only help him.

Without his [Entangling Blood Vein Pupils] and revealing the fact he had four Mandates and Echoes, it was impossible for even the current Theron to beat a Quasi Dome of Heaven expert.

He bet that without revealing everything, he could only protect his life against one. Beneath the Quasi Dome of Heaven, though, so long as it wasn't a Primal Resonance talent, he was likely undefeatable even without them.

Even so, since his [Entangling Blood Vein Pupils] were troublesome to use openly given how closely linked to Blood Mancy they were, it was better people think he was unable to kill a Quasi Dome of Heaven expert.

What he was more interested in was why his Cores hadn't entered Gold Mancy if his soul had.

It seemed that he had undergone a Soul Tribulation instead of a normal one…

What Theron didn't know was that he had actually undergone the Tribulation that Quasi Cloud Resonance experts underwent to enter the Touching Cloud Realm.

Because people's souls usually lagged behind their Mana, the process of entering the Touching Cloud Realm was actually tied to their souls entering the Gold Resonance Realm.

Theron's body, down to its very cells, had been completely frozen. When he showed his intent to trigger his Tribulation, the only part of him that moved was his soul.

The irony of this was that he had never triggered his Core Tribulation at all.

Theron's steps paused as he was about to leave the Forest of Ice entirely.

To his side, a young man with a calm smile on his face walked through the icy forest. When he saw Theron's disheveled state—right down to the torn disciple robes that had become a skirt for him—he didn't seem to have an adverse reaction. Instead, his gaze only lingered just the slightest bit longer on the large black box on Theron's back.

Orin, the only disciple of the Matriarch of the Hall.

"You must be Theron. You gave me quite the good fight. It's unfortunate what happened. I'm sure your performance in the Trial of Heart will be even better."

Theron glanced at Orin, immediately guessing who he was by the words he spoke. It wasn't too difficult to understand Orin's thought process after he figured that out too.

Orin had probably been glancing at the leaderboard quite a bit when he and Theron were trading places back and forth. But after Theron's points plummeted to zero, he lost interest in checking.

He probably hadn't noticed the change to the rankings at all.

Theron only nodded. Maybe in another circumstance, he would have said some ingratiating words. But right now… he didn't have the patience for it at all.

With a step, he was out of the Forest of Ice to find a large crowd of people all turning their gazes toward him.

Orin smiled, following soon after Theron.

Seeing the gazes, he, of course, thought that they were for him. His smile remained quite calm until he looked up to see the large, looming leaderboard—and it froze.

Orin's pupils constricted into pinholes, his head snapping toward Theron, but the latter had never stopped walking. Theron just casually returned to the group of Nightingale Sect members, a cheery young, petite girl lunging at him moments after.

Lyrah was so relieved to see Theron that she didn't seem to notice just how many people were paying attention to him right this moment.

In that silent and simple moment, Orin had never felt so humiliated in his lifetime.

It was then that a strong power thrummed from above, and Orin managed to regain his calm.

There was no way the elders would let this slide without questioning, and it seemed they were just as impatient as he was.

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