Chapter 200: None Can Escape

About fifteen minutes later.

The five major competitions begin simultaneously.

There were 697 participants in the formation grand competition, so they were divided into seven hundred-person melee matches.

Yuan Yao drew lots with the other formation contestants and got number three, meaning she would compete in the third hundred-person melee match.

The first hundred-person melee match started soon.

The participants all used formation techniques, either attacking or defending.

Yuan Yao watched closely.

Watching, she saw their formations had glaring weaknesses and lacked strength.

Most were low-tier formations.

Those who could cast mid-tier formations stayed calm and quickly eliminated many nearby contestants.

Elimination happens either by surrender or by being blown off the stage by a formation.

The ten who last on the stage are deemed to have advanced.

Yuan Yao fell into thought.

She entered the formation grand competition not to win, but to better approach her targets.

So she cannot allow her targets to concede on the stage.

Half an hour later, the first hundred-person melee match ended.

Right after, the second hundred-person melee match started.

Meanwhile, Cang Li had already qualified in the pill-refining preliminaries; he skipped the waiting area and went to sit in the formation competition's spectator seats.

"How is it? Is it Yao Yao's turn?" Cang Li asked.

"This is only the second match; the third will be Yao Yao's turn," said Xiao Lingwei.

"I think Yao Yao can finish in the top five with her formation skills," Cang Li said after watching briefly.

These formation masters look far too weak.

"Could Fellow Daoist Yuan be a formation genius? When did she start learning formations?" Zhai Qingye asked, leaning forward.

"Her formation skills are just average; she only started dabbling this year," Cang Li said offhand.

Zhai Qingye gave a meaningful smile.

"Just started this year?" He knew how strong her formations were, yet was shocked she'd only begun this year.

Just what kind of monster is Yuan Yao?

Her mental strength is terrifying.

Her formation talent is terrifying too; in such a short time she grasped many mid-tier formations, even high-tier ones.

This goes beyond genius; she's a monster.

Countless formation masters spend a lifetime unable to comprehend mid-tier formations.

In the cultivation world, how many high-tier formation masters exist?

The more Zhai Qingye thought, the more tangled his feelings became.

He looked up at Yuan Yao in the waiting area and recalled their first meeting, when they'd been trapped in a house constructed by a Nightmare Beast…

He first noticed her for her beauty, then her mental strength.

He witnessed Yuan Yao's mental strength increase.

Zhai Qingye lowered his eyes.

He had trained his mental strength since youth, been called a genius by all, confident and proud—until meeting Yuan Yao shifted his mindset.

He realized something.

——There are always higher peaks and greater talents.

Zhai Qingye gathered his thoughts, glanced at Song Yan and his five companions plus Xiao Zhufeng, then resolved to also contend for the Heavenly Pride Token.

…

Soon the third hundred-person melee match was about to start.

Yuan Yao stood on the vast stage with ninety-nine other contestants, raised her hand, and warmly greeted her senior brothers and sisters as well as Weng Mingshu and others.

Most eyes were drawn to her, feeling her lively aura.

Many male disciples took a liking to her.

The referee appeared and announced the start of the third hundred-person melee match.

At the start, some contestants launched formations to try to eliminate those nearby.

Yuan Yao had also prepared beforehand.

She first laid down a high-tier sound-blocking formation!

The formation totem appeared from above, instantly like a huge net covering the whole stage.

All the contestants felt it, their faces turning to shock.

A sound-blocking formation?!

The referee outside the stage: "???"

"Confess your sins!" Yuan Yao giggled.

The contestants gaped in shock; before they could gang up on Yuan Yao, they were trapped by her formation barriers.

Yuan Yao casually raised a hand and cast a formation.

So fast it left everyone stunned!

At the same time, three formation grandmasters overseeing the competition stared in disbelief, rose, and muttered, "This is impossible!"

Such formation masters could not possibly cast a formation in so short a time, let alone continuously deploy different ones.

In the cultivation world, the ranks of Formation Practitioners are: low‑level Formation Practitioner, mid‑level Formation Practitioner, high‑level Formation Practitioner, Grand Formation Master, Formation Grandmaster.

The onlookers watching the Grand Formation Competition were also stunned.

"I'm going, I'm going, I'm going!"

"Yuan Yao can't possibly be a Formation Grandmaster, can she?!"

"That's impossible!"

"Yuan Yao's Formation talent is this terrifying?!"

"Quick, summon Master Shen!" one Grand Formation Master shouted urgently.

The Ninth Province has only two Formation Grandmasters: one is Shen Jing of the Heaven and Earth Domain, the other is the Saint Gate ancient ancestor Dai Cheng Tian.

The commotion here also alerted people in other areas.

Gradually, many spectators hurried to the audience area of the Grand Formation Competition; when they focused their eyes, they saw the white‑clothed girl on the arena continuously casting formations, with totems of various colors unfurling and enveloping the other contestants on the arena.

In an instant, the arena flashed with lights of different colors.

It looked extremely chaotic!

The contestants showed panicked expressions, opened their mouths as if shouting: I concede! I concede!

But their voices could not be heard at all.

And Yuan Yao was smiling.

She seemed to say another line: Repent to me.

This scene made the young disciples who had once repented to Yuan Yao instantly get gooseflesh and a chill down their spines.

"She's here again!"

"She made someone else repent to her again!"

"She deliberately set up a soundproof formation! She did it so those contestants couldn't concede!"

"So terrifying! The Repentance Immortal is so terrifying!"

"What Immortal? She's basically a demon!"

The crowd in the spectator area debated heatedly.

Among the five major competition zones, only the area of the Grand Formation Competition was noisy. Moreover, the clamor came not from the contestants on the arena but from the onlookers.

"They're all crying; they must want to concede! Referee! Referee! Can you rule them as conceding?"

"That probably isn't a foul, right?"

"So terrifying! If we ever face Yuan Yao in a competition, we must concede first! Otherwise we won't even be able to run away!"