Divine Emperor of Death

[The first Candidate to capture all three spheres of all three sizes shall be declared victorious]

"…?"

Isabella looked at the words projected in front of her eyes. She was just getting her head wrapped around it when the words disappeared, and a ruby sphere abruptly dashed past her vision.

She flinched, looking at it fly around as though it had wings.

As she panned her head, her vision expanded, and she saw numerous spheres flying around.

Some were ruby, some sapphire, and some white. They didn't give off any undulations, nor did they seem to meet any wind or spatial resistance, so Isabella could quickly tell it was hard to detect them if they were to fly past them.

Their soul senses were also blocked here, causing her to check her soul sea, and body to find out that this was not her main body.

'How strange… I feel like this is a genuine fleshly body. Was this made out of chaotic essence…?'

Isabella thought back to the time when she had challenged one of her doppelgangers in the Nine-Treasured Immortal Ordeal Palace. At that time, she faced an opponent whose prowess was five levels higher than her cultivation base. She didn't consider it much of a challenge, but she could still remember how vivid and genuine the other Isabella was.

Although she was at Level One Immortal King Stage right now, Isabella felt like she was in that body right now, able to use her powers to the fullest without the slightest bit restrained.

Myria said it was a usage of Chaos Laws, although Isabella wasn't sure. However, she looked up to that kind of power, wanting to obtain it.

Nonetheless, she took a look around and saw that there were no opponents out of the thirty-one other participants. The sun was at its high, but the heat wasn't glaring. She was in a prairie or grasslands, the cool breeze brushing past her and making her golden robe sway gently.

She wanted to close her eyes and enjoy this calm sensation.

*Boom!~*

But it was soon disrupted by a loud explosion.

Isabella turned to look towards the east. Instead of collecting the spheres like she was ordered, she went there and stood on the edge, looking down as she saw a slope lead to other lush green cliffs before, in the distance, waves hit the shore.

'Is this an island…?'

Isabella considered. She also saw a man hold his arm with an unsightly expression.

In front of him was a cloud of crimson gas. As he moved back from it, Isabella saw that his right arm was missing. There was no sign of the right arm, and there was blood on the greenery below, so Isabella thought his arm had exploded.

But why?

Isabella took a step after the edge and jumped down the cliff.

Looking at her coming closer, the man flinched and ran away, jumping down another cliff and causing Isabella to stop.

'Well, that figures…'

Isabella shook her head.

She didn't know his name, but he was injured, and she was dangerous, so it could be said he made the right choice to leave. However, all Isabella wanted to ask was what had happened. After all, the trial only said for her to capture three spheres of three sizes.

It didn't exactly say to kill others, but this was a competition, so getting rid of others was also valid. She wouldn't say anything to it, but she wasn't interested in killing anyone other than Girias and Harmon.

She investigated the cloud of ruby gas, but in a few seconds, it quickly disappeared.

However, she was able to garner something from it.

'This is immortal martial energy brimming with vitality…'

Isabella was an expert at using immortal martial energy as she used it as her main cultivation, so she was quickly able to figure out that this crimson cloud of gas had destroyed that man's arm in an equal exchange.

'Why…? Because he was unable to capture it?'

Isabella's eyes narrowed. She looked at the suspicious spheres flying around, especially the ruby ones. It was possible that these little spheres, which were the size of pigeon eggs, could be the cause.

She bent down and picked up a piece of rock, throwing it towards the ruby sphere.

However, it missed the target.

But the rock's waves resonated through earthen energy as they traversed abruptly, causing the ruby sphere to expand.

*Booom!~*

An explosion shook Isabella's eardrums as she saw the ruby sphere explode and destroy the piece of rock that had actually moved a kilometer away. Then, there was only a crimson cloud left at the place where the piece of rock was instead of the place where the ruby sphere was.

"I see." Isabella sighed, "If it was that easy to capture, then there would be a winner by now for the time I wasted."

She smirked, knowing if there were three different sizes for these spheres, then the bigger one should be capable of taking out them in a single explosion. She hadn't seen any big spheres.

Right now, all she could see was the pigeon-egg-sized spheres.

She had investigated the ruby sphere but hadn't gone near the sapphire sphere and the white sphere. However, she could already guess what they entailed, although she couldn't tell which one was which.

*Booom!~* *Booom!~* *Booom!~*

Various explosions occurred on the island as Isabella heard them from her perceptive ears.

She chose to head towards one of those explosion sites and looked like she was in absolutely no hurry, maintaining a calm and magnificent. She went up the slope to the other side as the side she was facing in led to the sea.

She didn't think there would be anything there to discover if the confines of the trial were within this island.

As soon as she climbed, she was standing on a hill. It was certainly a peak where she could view the landscape of the island, allowing her to see as many as fifteen Candidates. There were also peaks she could visit, but she didn't care as she spotted Flamerose and Frostrose in different directions.

She went towards Frostrose as Flamerose was also making her way towards her twin sister.

The entire area was a serene grassland that stretched out under a vast, clear blue sky. The grass was lush, vibrant, and soft, making it extremely comfortable to walk on. Although the ground wasn't even but elevated or sunk in some areas with some points all over the place, it made for a place that one could take a leisurely stroll with their loved ones and experience warmth.

There were also hills that provided natural seating areas perfect for a picnic, so Isabella couldn't help but wish Davis was here. She might've even spent two minutes sitting under a tree with him.

"You're here."

Flamerose made it first to Frostrose. They greeted Isabella, nodding at her with respect.

Isabella appeared before them as she came out of her reverie.

"Don't need to be so formal with me. We spent some time together practicing, after all."

"If you say so." Flamerose sounded a bit confused, "I still can't catch up to this reality."

"That's understandable."

Isabella nodded. She understood that it would be disorienting for them to suddenly find themselves here while they inherited Zahara and Yeyin's memories. As far as she could see, their appearance didn't seem to be repossession.

Zahara and Yeyin weren't a different version of their souls but themselves, so there didn't seem to be dissonance. Otherwise, they would find it hard to move around like Everlight had been after possessing a new fox soul and fox body. However, Isabella could see that there was still some disorientation due to being put in this situation suddenly, especially making it harder to digest as they didn't remember coming here by themselves.

"But…"

Isabella stared at Flamerose's right hand. Her hand was missing up to the elbow. However, it had regenerated halfway already, only a few dozen seconds from fully regenerating.

"Oh, this?" Flamerose raised her gory hand, displaying the blood, bone, and flesh rapidly reconstructing at the edge.

"I tried to capture one of these ruby spheres, but it ended up exploding when I had it in my palm. As a result, my forearm was blown off, and I lost one percent of my blood essence..."

"Loss of blood essence…" Isabella nodded, "I also witnessed a man getting his forearm blown off and came to the conclusion that these pigeon-egg-sized ruby spheres are capable of exploding your limbs at the very least. I hope that it didn't hurt too bad…"

"No. It's endurable." Flamerose didn't even grimace but smiled behind her veil.