Advanced competition area, the number of entry slots was plentiful—two thousand to be exact. Yet, the number of people qualified to participate was scarce.
Contrary to the previous battles, where tens of millions, even hundreds of thousands of Awakeners, vied for a mere few hundred spots.
Tang Yu pondered, if there weren't even two thousand Awakeners above the Tenth Layer within the Holy Domain - East Eight Zone, wouldn't that be awkward?
Don't end up with no opponents at the time!
In his mind, the countdown neared its end.
An intangible force descended, enveloping him. Tang Yu narrowed his eyes as he tried to break free, but remained utterly still... The next moment, he appeared thousands of meters in the sky, standing on a semi-transparent orange barrier. Through the barrier, he could see countless Awakeners below, craning their necks, looking upwards.
As the barrier constructed square combat spaces, it seemed to stutter for a moment.
It did not form enclosed spaces, and no signal to start the battle emerged in his mind.
At that moment, Tang Yu received new information, "According to the number of participants in the advanced competition area, there's been a certain degree of rule adjustments. Resurrection qualifications have been cancelled; each person participates in five battles, ranked by number of victories. The top two thousand will obtain entry slots, those with the same number of victories will be ranked by the shorter victory time."
His gaze swept over the sparsely scattered figures on the barrier.
There should be a few thousand people, at most a little over ten thousand (including Transcendents; the Transcendent Tier was not divided into separate competition areas), symbolizing the highest-end of Earth's combat power.
More than he had expected, well, just a tad more.
"In the advanced competition area, Green Shadow won't be able to occupy most of the slots anymore, after all, the participants are just those few."
A month ago, amongst the official Awakeners of Green Shadow, aside from their followers, no one had broken through to the Tenth Layer of Awakening.
Adventurers, however, were a different story; they were already superpowerful figures dominating in various places. After coming to Green Shadow, they had advanced even further... but they still numbered less than two handfuls.
Yet now, amongst the official Awakeners, Lu Xiaopeng, Peng Bo, Ma Jiafeng, Lan Qingya, Ji Ming, Xia Wanru, Cai Jiajia, Sun Yu, and a few others, had already broken through the bottleneck.
Still not many... On one hand, many of the official Awakeners had been trained from Low-level ones step by step to the present, and the average level, when compared to organizations representing the world's pinnacle like Beiting Ancestor Dragon, still couldn't compete.
On the other hand, breaking through was an esoteric affair.
Beiting had many Awakeners, and quite a number were stuck at the bottleneck of the Ninth Layer. Those with good qualifications, deep understanding of the Martial Path, were more likely to break through; yet it wasn't absolute.
Some had strained for a long time without breaking through, while others, perhaps with a fart or a dump, could suddenly smash the bottleneck.
Tang Yu saw the Awakeners from Beiting.
Most wore combat uniforms adorned with patterns of the Azure Dragon, Candle Dragon, and Ying Dragon. There were also a few from other departments, and Freelance Awakeners—Tang Yu saw Freelance Awakeners from Beiting wearing Green Shadow's combat uniforms, standing out strikingly amid the Beiting experts due to their distinct style.
The Ancestor Dragon Army from Beiting was likely the most populous cluster in the advanced competition area.
And those wearing Green Shadow's combat uniforms, scattered here and there, added up to quite a number as well.
Besides these, Tang Yu also saw some dressed in strange and exotic attire. Some had long hair tied into braids, clad in clothing that resembled horse jackets; others wore pointed high hats longer than their faces, with long beards...
There were also those adorned with forehead ornaments, masks; some bursting out with their aura unrestrained, like a burning sun, causing nearby Awakeners' faces to turn to shock, retreating again and again.
These were the Awakeners from the Fourth Epoch!
Just from what he could see, there were two or three hundred of them. Tang Yu believed that many more, dressed like them, were hidden.
Perhaps, some were already Transcendent!
After a brief stutter, walls of light barriers rose in the distance as the combat spaces finally took shape.
Tang Yu looked across at an Awakener opposite him, someone, hmm, he did not recognize. The man was stout, with bulging muscles on his arms holding two large axes over a meter in length, clearly already in battle mode, releasing his aura unrestrained.
Awakening Tenth Layer.
Tang Yu glanced at him, seeing his opponent powering his legs, pouncing like a mighty lion. Tang Yu too raised his hand, not drawing a weapon, as the skills he'd learned quickly scanned through his mind.
"Hmm, let's try the Thunder Series Combat Skills from the Demon Swordsmen heritage."
Crackle and pop, his palm wrapped in lightning, Tang Yu aimed at the burly man across from him, and zip—a burst of purple lightning shot forth.
The "Thunderbolt Strike" hit the target precisely. The burly man was frozen mid-leap, charred all over, his hair standing up like spikes.
The next second, the man disappeared from his sight, having conceded.
Tang Yu nodded slightly. "Thunderbolt Strike" was originally a close-combat skill, but he had modified it to become a ranged combat skill, which could also be called Magic—in the low-end phase, the difference between Combat Skills and Magic was quite evident, but at higher levels of Awakening, and even at the Transcendent level, myriad techniques all led to the same destination.
This meant his control over Source Power had ascended another level.
A force from the Void descended upon him, enveloping him. When Tang Yu came back to his senses, he was already back on the Green Shadow campgrounds, and that force also transformed into a stream, nourishing his entire body, replenishing the Source Power and physical energy he had just spent.
Eileen, Nancy, and the others had already returned to their original places, while some Awakeners who had just broken through to the Tenth Layer were still locked in battle above.