Chapter 160

"Quite a few legions from Huiyang Province have been reassigned, supposedly to carry out a full sweep of all medium-sized spatial rifts across the province."

"The specifics of the sweep, I'm not too clear on either, but in three days I'll be heading out with them."

"Hopefully nothing bad is going to happen..."

Lin Haoran's gaze instinctively drifted down toward the field below.

The year 2544!!

The Golden Age!!

In that era, a great many monstrously talented young people emerged.

And many people also saw it as the clarion call for a full-scale counterattack against the other world!!

However......

Just twenty years after the Golden Age, the creatures from another world launched a frenzied invasion!!

To resist the ravaging creatures from another world.

All eight billion-plus professionals across the entire Blue Star threw themselves into the fight.

After thirty years, at the heavy cost of nearly five billion professionals fallen in battle and countless ordinary people dead.

The offensive of the other-world invasion only gradually slowed, entering the period of peace that has lasted until now.

And that period of frenzied invasion from another world was also called the Dark Age!

Sword Saint of Gale Cang Pinghai and Storm God of Magic Li Shaoyang were precisely the heroic figures born in the Golden Age and risen to prominence in the Dark Age!!

Beyond them, there were also many powerful professionals born in the Golden Age.

It's just that every single one of them perished in the Dark Age......

And the scene today—how alike it is to that period of flourishing just before the Dark Age?

"Hopefully, this is just my imagination."

Shaking his head, Lin Haoran didn't think on it any further.

After more than fifty years of rest and recovery, humanity's overall strength was no longer what it once was.

Across the entire Blue Star, there were not only multiple Sword Saints and Magic Gods who had reached the very peak of professionals!

The number of professionals had also reached an unprecedented one hundred and fifty billion!

Even if the creatures from another world launched another frenzied invasion.

In the end, the ones who would Biding Society be them!!

"It's actually Abyss difficulty—now this is going to be fun!"

"Heh, I just felt Nightmare difficulty might not be enough. Who would've thought, above Nightmare there's actually a brand-new difficulty!"

"Hmph! Just you wait, this young master is going to sweep the Abyss-rank instance in a bit!"

"......"

Unlike the exclamations from the spectator stands, the freshmen out on the field were instead brimming with fighting spirit.

They could barely wait to charge straight into the instance and have a go right now!!

After all, the freshmen who had managed to get into Suhang University had all cleared Nightmare-rank instances in the college entrance exam instances.

Therefore, facing an even higher difficulty, they felt no fear whatsoever—instead they were immensely excited, feeling they had a new challenge.

On the etiquette platform, Wu Mang's gaze swept over those below.

Seeing that some freshmen were dismissive of Abyss difficulty, he couldn't help but frown slightly.

Regular Secret Realm instance gates only have three difficulties: Easy, Hard, and Nightmare.

To unlock Abyss difficulty, a massive amount of Abyss Magic Stones must be invested!!

And Abyss Magic Stones come from another world.

Just obtaining this batch of Abyss Magic Stones alone cost the school no small effort.

Of course......

The difficulty increase was also extremely pronounced.

The monsters in Abyss-rank instances had thicker HP, stronger defense, and far more agile movements!

Overall, Abyss-rank instances were a full ten times more terrifying than Nightmare-rank instances!!

Yet some people actually treated it so lightly.....

"¨」The ignorant fear nothing. Those who look down on Abyss difficulty will Bijiang Society pay the heaviest price!"

Gathering intelligence was also one of the key abilities professionals needed to master.

You don't know what level of difficulty an Abyss-rank instance is—can you really not ask the classmate next to you?

Those scions of noble houses, every one of them wore solemn expressions—couldn't you tell from that something was off about the Abyss instance?

"Fine, then. Let them run into a few snags."

Shaking his head, Wu Mang stopped paying attention to the freshmen's movements and said loudly:

"I'll give you one minute to prepare."

"In one minute, the instance opens! Officially entering the first stage of the Freshman Grand Competition!"

Once the words fell.

The freshmen gathered all across the field immediately sprang into action.

Some burly warriors began wiping down their longswords and shields.

Some sharpshooters began taking stock of their ammunition.

Some people, upon hearing that this Freshman Grand Competition placed no restrictions on equipment, immediately began swapping out their gear!

Fortunately, beneath everyone's equipment there was still a layer of close-fitting clothing.

Otherwise there would've been a scene of full-frontal exposure......

For a moment, the entire training ground fell silent, leaving only the scraping sounds of equipment being swapped.

And the occasional clatter of people checking their gear.

At this moment.

Even the freshmen ranked beyond the top thousand were utterly serious.

On the etiquette platform, quite a few gazes landed on Zhou Yi.

Upon seeing the massive axe-bladed weapon displayed behind him, they could not help but reveal strange expressions.

"It's actually a battle axe......"

For Holy Knights of the heavy-armor support type, the most common weapon pairing is a shield and a one-handed sword.

Some Holy Knights who go purely down the support route even directly give up heavy-armor weapons and gear.

Choosing instead a giant holy cross that has special amplification for buff-type skills as their weapon.

But a Holy Knight like Zhou Yi, who carries a battle axe, is extremely rare......

Battle axe!

That's right.

This time Zhou Yi did not choose to use the war hammer again.

Instead, he chose a level-18 Gold Rank giant-weapon battle axe.

Because, after experiencing the battles inside the Gale Mountain Range, he had discovered.

Although the war hammer has miraculous effects against monsters wearing heavy armor, able to directly shatter their internal organs.

It was not quite suited for him.

He still preferred that exhilarating thrill of blood with every swing of the axe!!

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