Chapter 384: A New Legend Is Born Here!

Regarding the questioning voices in the post, Brother Ming Hou only publicly replied with one message:

"Watch my performance."

Then he pinned this reply at the very top of the tutorial post's comment section.

Before challenging the Ancient God Arena, Brother Ming Hou began reviewing relevant information about the Ancient God Arena.

He thoroughly studied the combat style under the Ancient God Arena mode, as well as many competitive PvP videos posted by arena-focused players.

After several hours of review, Brother Ming Hou already had a detailed understanding of the arena-focused playstyle.

Since he had decided to take on the challenge, he had to make a stunning debut.

He wanted forum players to see the real-combat effects brought by his elemental conversion technique.

Using this to overturn forum players' cognitive logic regarding the Fa Xi Wan Fa.

At the same time, he wanted his upcoming livestream to become a practical combat lesson.

Paving the way for his subsequent forum tutorial.

Silencing all the doubters, making the four characters "Throat of Defying Fate" become a new legend in the eyes of arena-focused players.

The stage of the Ancient God Arena had long been set; now it was just waiting for him to go up and perform.

But there was still one problem that hadn't been solved.

If he fought with his main body, even if he wasn't a match for the Ancient God, he could still clear the Ancient God Arena with ease.

Crushing the champion fighters inside the Ancient God Arena.

But right now he was still a player who had only entered the game a few months ago; his life strength was a serious shortcoming.

Relying solely on exquisite elemental conversion could indeed grant a technical advantage, but to achieve the kind of absolute crushing, overwhelming effect he envisioned, he also had to form a generational gap in basic attributes.

In the face of absolute suppression of strength, the advantage brought by technique would be severely weakened.

Therefore, in this challenge, his strength could not lag too far behind at the very least.

This required borrowing external force to greatly enhance his own strength.

There was only one way to quickly raise Painful Painful Minghun's level, and that was to spend money.

Summoning the Jiao Yi Xing Jie interface, he used his consciousness to click on "Medicines" in the page.

Immediately, the interface jumped to the medicine trading category.

Then he typed "Jin Hua Dan" into the search bar, and immediately related medicines were listed on the page.

His gaze focused on one of the Jin Hua Dan, and detailed introduction information appeared in his mind.

【Jin Hua Dan】:

Quality: 28.

Effect: After consumption, grants Life Evolution Points (Painful Painful Minghun experience).

His gaze shifted to other Jin Hua Dan; each Jin Hua Dan had a different quality, and the prices were completely different as well.

After checking the prices corresponding to quality, Brother Ming Hou began bulk purchasing.

This expenditure would temporarily be diverted from his stored Shou Shou Jili.

Next up.

Spend money, get stronger!

……

Two days later, the Ancient God Arena.

The Arena Ladder.

This was a competitive path leading straight into the clouds, composed of 15 arena stages.

Giant Serpent Arena, Flame Arena, Tidal Arena, Thousand Forest Arena... the ladder was composed of countless interlocking rule runes; each level was an independent arena scene with different scene characteristics.

Every fighter needed to start from the lowest arena, challenging increasingly stronger opponents.

This was a bloody battlefield in the eyes of all living beings.

Failure meant death.

And this was also a hall for tempering technique in the eyes of players; only the strongest players could stand at the pinnacle of the ladder.

At this moment, the Giant Serpent stage at the very bottom of the Arena Ladder.

As teleportation spirit patterns surfaced on the ground, two figures simultaneously appeared above the stage.

One of them was Brother Ming Hou, who had finally been selected to enter the arena.

He wore a flowing cloud silver-thread long robe, his silver hair tied behind his head, with a few strands of silver silk hanging down at his temples.

Just standing still here, he was utterly out of place with the killing aura pervading the Giant Serpent stage.

An otherworldly temperament radiated from his entire being.

He didn't look at all like a warrior about to throw himself into a bloody gladiatorial fight, but rather like a deity's incarnation who had mistakenly wandered into the mortal world, gazing down to scrutinize the mortal realm.

And his opponent was an alien race fighter covered in dark, heavy scale armor, holding a serrated bone blade.

After appearing, it let out a threatening low roar toward Brother Ming Hou, and immediately a thick baleful aura rushed at his face.

The two faced each other—one like a cold moon above the nine heavens, the other like a vicious beast beneath the nine underworlds—forming a confrontational stance in the livestream footage.

The artistic conception of confrontation before the battle began led many players to choose to screenshot and save it.

The gazes of all spectating players ultimately focused on Brother Ming Hou.

Everyone wanted to see whether this strategy-post big shot who had recently sparked heated discussion on the forum truly had the ability to carve out a place for himself in the arena.

Although they knew Brother Ming Hou's ability was definitely not weak—after all, he had taken first place on this season's newbie leveling event leaderboard.

But hunting monsters and arena duels were completely two different things.

Hunting allowed picking opponents strong enough to crush as targets.

But in the arena, the strength of opponents would increase exponentially with each victory.

The battle began at this moment, and the "Duel Brand" suspended above the arena dissipated.

Two pieces of information entered the minds of both combatants simultaneously.

The alien warrior's body suddenly lunged forward, mouth open, letting out a roar.

Its muscles tensed all over, scales clanking, the blood and Qi around its body condensing into something solid, transforming into a blurry phantom of a vicious beast.

The instant it pushed off with its feet, brief crack-like patterns instantly appeared on the arena floor; its body shot forth like an arrow loosed from the string, wrapped in a foul wind and its full strength, the serrated bone blade tearing through the air, chopping straight down at Brother Ming Hou's face.

This strike was fast, vicious, precise—brimming with a barbaric, violent aesthetic.

It was also the most common opening on the Giant Serpent arena: an all-out charge to decide victory quickly.

Facing the thunderous pounce, Brother Ming Hou's reaction was utterly calm.

He didn't even let his gaze waver, merely slowly raising his right hand.

The instant his fingertip crooked.

Hum~!

Blazing fire elements instantly answered the summons, condensing out of thin air before him into a sheet of fire-red crystal wafer, thin as a cicada's wing yet radiating terrifying heat.

It precisely intercepted the trajectory of the bone blade's slash.

Clang!

The serrated bone blade, charged with violent force, hacked against the thin flame crystal wafer—sparks flew, yet it couldn't shake it in the slightest.

The savage expression on the alien fighter's face instantly turned to shock; it felt as if its full-strength slash had struck a mountain, and the rebound force numbed its arm.

Brother Ming Hou's finger crooked once more, as if plucking an invisible zither string.

The seemingly indestructible flame crystal wafer instantly disintegrated, its blazing fire-red fading, transforming into a gently flowing stream of clear water, like a spirit snake suddenly awakening, surging forward along the serrated bone blade.

The change was too fast; the alien fighter's arm was still sore and numb from the rebound, and it instinctively tried to pull back the bone blade.

But before it could react, the surging water had already flowed past the bone blade's thick body.

The next second, in Brother Ming Hou's cool silver eyes, a cold glint flashed and vanished.

The clear water, winding upward and touching the alien fighter's chest and throat, solidified in an instant!

Crack!

Extreme cold erupted suddenly, the flowing live water instantly transforming into countless razor-sharp ice crystals.

Like an ice-crystal thorn flower blooming in an instant, it blossomed centered on the alien fighter's body.

The alien fighter held its posture of pulling back its blade, yet its body was completely frozen in place.

Its pupils dilated sharply, its eyes filled with incredulous horror.

Sharp ice spikes pierced through its scale armor, thrusting out from its chest, throat, and eye sockets.

No blood spurted—the extreme cold had frozen everything.

Brother Ming Hou slowly lowered his raised right hand.

Instantly, the ice crystals wrapped around the alien fighter shattered with a rumble, turning into a skyful of crystalline ice dust that drifted away on the wind.

The battle had ended the moment it began.

The entire process flowed like clouds and water—from the flame parry, to the water winding around, to the final ice-crystal killing blow—all in the span of a snap of the fingers.

There was not a single superfluous movement; what it brought to the players in the livestream was only a cruel, poetic sense of grace.

A sense of weightlessness struck, and Brother Ming Hou, having ended the battle, was teleported to the preparation room of the 2-win arena.

The Barbarian Slave's prompt sounded in his mind, announcing his victory and the initial reward obtained.

A low-grade martial soul bead radiating crimson light, with a sacrifice price to Beneath Di Zhao of around 2,500 points.

Brother Ming Hou reached out and stored it in his spatial pouch, not intending to linger in the preparation room.

He decisively requested the start of the next round of battle.

Not long after, the Barbarian Slave answered his will.

Next, on the ladder of the Ancient God Arena, a silver figure began to climb at a jaw-dropping speed.

2-win ladder, Greatsword Arena.

Brother Ming Hou's opponent was a two-headed giant wielding the power of Blazing Flame, who roared and hurled massive fireballs capable of melting rock during the fight.

Throughout the battle with it, Brother Ming Hou never moved, merely extending one finger.

The howling fireball, as it approached him, suddenly became docile, as if it had encountered its sovereign.

Then the violent energy element hovered before Brother Ming Hou, being stripped away layer by layer and transformed, finally condensing at his fingertip into an even more condensed white fire seed, which he flicked back with an effortless gesture; its speed and power multiplied several times over, blasting the two-headed giant to pieces.

3-win, Flame Arena.

The environment was a field wreathed in flames.

The opponent was a sea-beast priest of the "Tianbei Clan" from the Sea of Death.

In this battle, Brother Ming Hou stood upon the flame-wreathed arena, his silver hair flowing like moonlight.

The moment the battle began, the sea-beast priest unleashed the power of the sea, creating a favorable combat environment.

Brother Ming Hou's choice was to counter with the very water-control ability the sea-beast priest was most adept at.

With his hands slightly pressed together, the sea-water domain the sea-beast priest had generated instantly calmed, then he compressed the sea water into a high-pressure water sphere that trembled constantly, containing terrifying energy, refining the sea-beast priest along with it inside the compressed water sphere.

4-win, Thousand Forest Arena.

Brother Ming Hou's opponent was a hunter whose racial talent allowed it to alter its life structure and perform short-range blinks, wielding a dagger coated with neurotoxin.

The moment the battle began, the hunter vanished from where it stood.

The next instant, several blurry afterimages stabbed simultaneously from different angles toward the spots on Brother Ming Hou's body where vital energy was densest—his spine, heart, and head.

Brother Ming Hou didn't move, merely tapping the ground lightly with his toe.

A ring of clear water spread outward from him as its center in an instant; the ripples precisely reflected the position of every afterimage, as well as the true body's movements.

With the target identified, the air around him twisted, and a heat wave materialized out of thin air.

The close-range hunter crashed into an invisible flame furnace, its stealth broken in an instant, and its next movements warped by the searing heat.

Once the hunter's true form was revealed, a droplet of water flung from a water ripple condensed in midair under Brother Ming Hou's will into a willow-leaf-thin ice shard, slicing soundlessly through the air and piercing precisely through the hunter's throat.

The battle ended right there.

The fifth match — Brother Ming Hou's opponent was a sorcerer, one who possessed formidable psychic-strike power.

The sorcerer floated up the moment the fight began, purple light blazing from both eyes, and an invisible psychic storm roared as it swept toward Brother Ming Hou.

Brother Ming Hou merely lifted his left hand calmly, five fingers loosely spread.

A barrier woven from baleful-wind vortices appeared before him.

The raging psychic impact slammed into the wind-vortex barrier — like a clay ox into the sea — and was sliced, deflected, and scattered into nothing by countless swirling currents.

At the same time, his right hand pointed at the sorcerer in the air.

The sorcerer's body went rigid on the spot; Brother Ming Hou flicked a finger, and a highly compressed "psychic-impact bullet" shot forth, striking the sorcerer from a distance and knocking him unconscious.

The next second, his falling body was enveloped by baleful wind and instantly shredded to powder.

His eighth victory — the opponent was a Lei Ting giant wielding a rune-inscribed warhammer, terrifying in strength; every swing of the hammer carried the force of thunder, and its roar alone could shake the soul.

At the opening, the giant bellowed and charged, the hammer crashing down wrapped in ten-thousand jun of thunder, its might staggering.

Facing the ferocious charge, Brother Ming Hou still did not move; his silver eyes flickered slightly.

The ground beneath the giant's feet instantly softened, turning to quicksand, and finally into a mire.

This time it was a demonstration of combining water and earth elements.

The Lei Ting giant's frenzied force slammed into the mire, most of it absorbed and buffered, dragging it deeper in.

At this point, Brother Ming Hou raised one hand in an open-palmed lift; the thick lightning bursting from the giant's warhammer was forcibly guided by him, gathering in his palm like a tame stream, compressed into a crackling, blazing thunder-ball, which was then imbued with the Streaking-Thunder property, instantly turning frenzied and brimming with destructive power.

The giant struggled to wrench its legs free, only to see Brother Ming Hou gently send the thunder-ball in his hand forward.

The thunder-ball shot forth, struck the giant's chest, electrocuted it black all over, and sent it crashing to the ground.

Its vitality too was devoured utterly as the thunder-ball continued to ravage…

Match after match, tier after tier.

Brother Ming Hou's fighting style utterly overturned players' understanding of how magic-class combat worked.

Distance equals safety — that is the universally accepted combat logic for magic classes.

In the common perception of players, including those of the player class, magic classes should hang back and go "pew~pew~pew"; going melee is outright suicide.

But in Brother Ming Hou's hands, elements switched at will, capable of both attack and defense.

It was like an elemental symphony, and he was its sole conductor.

Wherever his will reached — earth, water, wind, fire… all became loyal musicians, performing a movement of destruction for him.

Throughout, besides commanding the elements, he was constantly transforming and reshaping them.

Flame could become an unbreakable earth shield; flowing water could condense into an unstoppable ice spear; raging wind could be woven into shackles of confinement, or into baleful wind that sliced through everything.

The earth could shift from solid to quicksand or to hard rock in a single thought of his.

He could even rapidly parse the elemental energy his opponents used, siphon off the energy in their attacks at a discount, and convert it to his own use.

In a string of consecutive victories, Brother Ming Hou, in an invincible stance, elegantly crushed opponent after opponent.

Every battle ended in an extremely short span of time.

He never even let a single opponent touch the hem of his garment.

During this period, the number of players and visitors in the livestream exploded.

Posts about "Throat of Defying Fate" kept flooding the forum.

All players realized they were witnessing the birth of a new legend.

Finally, beneath countless gazes of shock and disbelief.

Brother Ming Hou stepped onto the arena leading to his thirteenth victory.