Silent Crown

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

When Ye Qingxuan's attention returned, he found himself in the Ultimate. Worse still, he had been stripped of all the movements strengthening him, and even his own Symphony of Predestination had been split into three parts.

The city of ruins that was so huge and complex that it felt dizzying seemed to be shrouded in some deeper power, stripping everything that did not belong to the musicians in it off them. Although the items were still in his hands, they were no longer part of him.

He had been forced back into his original state.

Ye Qingxuan gave a bitter smile and looked around at his desolate surroundings, sighing softly. "What's this? Another trial with weird rules?"

A gust of wind blew silently. Strange words emerged from the dust beneath his feet, lasted for a fleeting instant, and disappeared out of sight again. It was written using letters that circulated among humans towards the end of the Age of Dark, the oldest existing characters that humans could trace back to.

Runes.

Only when such incidents occurred would Ye Qingxuan feel that studying widely was indeed useful. He lowered his head, narrowed his eyes, stared at the traces left on the ground, and deciphered the meaning within. "Under the witness of the various kings?"

Under the witness of the various kings.

The sentence was without rhyme or reason, and simply sounded confusing, but it seemed to suffice in explaining the situation for the moment. A few moments ago, he even saw the traces left by the various kings who had originally established the kingdoms, the three kings of the first generation, and the Three Wise Men.

Ye Qingxuan had a hazy notion but did not fully understand what it meant.

Undoubtedly, the tenacities of the various kings who originally established the kingdoms, the ones who laid down the foundation for human order, still remain here. Even though they already died a long time ago, the decrees they left still remain in the core of the Ultimate.

In other words, this is a test that the various kings who originally established the kingdoms set up for those after them?

It makes sense If you put it that way. After the Holy Cauldron that once established order, as well as the throne of God, was taken away, the Originator should have originally appeared once more after several epochs.

They would certainly leave corresponding countermeasures after having foreseen the situation that would originally happen. After all, they wouldn't just let any random person that entered take away the elements and legacies within. The trial would also have certain conditions and rules…

Participating in the trial with one's most innate and truest appearance must certainly be one of the prerequisites then. After all, who would be willing to hand over the power of the future to those who dare not show themselves openly?

The fact that giant ships and main batteries would get one nowhere here made Ye Qingxuan relieved, but at the same time, he felt somewhat complicated. On one hand, Anglo need not fight tooth and claw against the other countries, nor wear down its strength. But after realizing that he himself was the one that had to fight tooth and claw, the incident didn't exactly leave a good taste in his mouth.

Moreover, most of the music theory I have at hand is frozen, and I have dropped to the Level of Distortion. In the site of ruins that one can only enter via the resonance of one's Symphony of Predestination, being a master is the most basic condition. I'm afraid that musicians of the Level of Distortion can be considered as the weakest here?

Ye Qingxuan sighed and tried to forcibly communicate with the music theory.

The stone of sage in his heart beat wildly. Countless strands of music theory unfolded and forcibly connected themselves to Ye Qingxuan's music theory, disregarding the huge repulsive force. The power gathered, but the external pressure became stronger and stronger…

It was as if he had fallen into the deep sea. The greater the borrowed power, the more alarming the pressure he was under. Moreover, he didn't know what other measures specifically directed towards such actions were awaiting him, or whether they existed at all. Ye Qingxuan dared not try any further and had to stop.

The equipment could probably only be used as a backup.

At the moment, he could only be thankful that he was not wearing the clothes of original sin. Otherwise, the clothes of original sin would be gone, and he could only run around naked…

After contemplating for a moment, he finally decided on a tentative plan. "So, I'll keep a low profile first and meet up with Mabel."

Clang! Right after he took a step forward, he heard a crisp sound, and something fell onto the ground from his clothes. Ye Qingxuan looked down and saw a section of a black branch that resembled iron and wood by his feet. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "After such a long time, I have forgotten that… I still have this thing?"

Poisonous Black Branch.

A few months ago, in the Sacred City, the enraged Abyss Black Branch, Menti, threw one of his only three Poisonous Black Branches at Ye Qingxuan. However, not only did it fail to kill Ye Qingxuan in the end, it was instead sealed by Ye Qingxuan with nature interference and was suppressed within his Symphony of Predestination. Since then, the product of centuries' worth of hard work that Menti had put in became Ye Qingxuan's possession.

It was powerful enough that Gaius could kill the King of Red by stabbing the latter with it in hand. Ye Qingxuan had originally planned to do the same to Arthur, but in the end, he had no use for it at all. If it wasn't for the power of the Ultimate, Ye Qingxuan would have forgotten that he still had such a deadly, awesome item on him.

After Ye Qingxuan was done keeping it, he immediately sensed that the aether waves in the entire city had suddenly begun to fluctuate violently.

Among the hundreds of aether waves, almost half of them had begun to soar in intensity, pulsing rapidly with a fierce tempo.

A fight has been set off? And it's a chaotic and unprecedentedly large-scale one at that…

Ye Qingxuan was stunned, as he had not expected the situation to evolve so quickly.

Without waiting for him to react some more, an aether wave moved towards Ye Qingxuan.

When the musician, who was of the Level of Master and whose entire body had been tempered, emerged from the wall he broke and saw Ye Qingxuan, he was momentarily stunned at first, then his eyes immediately lit up with the joy of surprise.

The Level of Distortion? I have never expected that he would be so weak!

Then, without any mercy or reason, the musician went for the kill!

…

The first to start fighting was the northeast of the city. After being thrown into the city of the Ultimate that was huge and complicated to the extent of being shocking, the hundreds of masters and scepter musicians disappeared in a flash, just like gravel that was thrown into the sea.

By right, conflict shouldn't have erupted so quickly at all. However, the two masters who were the first to meet happened to be none other than the members of the School of Dragon Stone and the School of Blue Blood respectively.

Although they were both schools of summoning, more often than not, peers of the same profession didn't enjoy a harmonious relationship. Even in the Church, heretics were considered more deserving of death than demons, let alone two schools that had competed against each other for centuries.

Right from the beginning when the School of Dragon Stone and the School of Blue Blood were established, their goals and the paths they took were the complete opposite of each other.

The research of bestiality by the School of Dragon Stone aimed to explore the limits of bestiality. It was known for vigorous and vast bestiality, and the Phantom Beasts summoned were often shockingly huge. One of its signatures was the Snake of the Atrium, which was large enough to swallow a city. Ye Qingxuan once saw its projection in Romulus, and even the projection was enough for observers to comprehend its terrifying power.

Meanwhile, the School of Blue Blood explored beast fusion. Like the blood of the Deva, by altering the bone marrow, the blood was mutated, depositing bestiality in one's own body. Those who had undergone the transformation could be considered as humanoid beasts, and their most prominent characteristic was the blue color of their blood after the mutation was complete.

In the centuries of competition, the two sides started off with minor disputes, which later intensified into animosity, and escalated to violent fights, causing countless blood debts to accumulate, and finally spiraled into irreconcilable hatred.

The scale of the war stirred up by the two schools almost expanded, and the problem was so serious that even the Church had to intervene to carry out mediation. The two schools were given strict orders to migrate, just like the School of the Market at Sea and the School of the Buildings of the Clam Monster [1] during the major split-up of the school of magic back then, one to the north and the other to the south.

They were far apart from then on and had no chance to meet.

But the world was only so small, and were they to run into each other on the odd occasion, the two parties would definitely go for the kill without hesitation.

Beasts were the most vengeful creatures, save for musicians of the school of summoning who passed the hatred down via the bestiality.

Therefore, at the very first instant they met, both parties went for the kill.

In the end, the master of the School of Blue Blood won.

On one hand, it was because the bestiality of the School of Blue Blood was stored in his body and could be launched rapidly. On the other hand, in order to kill the enemy in one go, the master of the School of Dragon Stone directly summoned the Snake of the Atrium that the school reared in the aether wonderland. As a result, he only discovered in his dying moments that the Ultimate was resistant against foreign objects.

It was the same even if the subject in question was bestiality.

In an instant, as the two sides crossed paths, the winner survived, and the loser died, just as everyone had expected. Even if someone had intended to mediate the conflict, it would be too late by the time they rushed there.

But immediately after that, a worse incident, or rather, an incident that could be said to have surprised everyone on the scene to the extent that they were unable to restrain themselves, happened.

In the pool of blood, the blood of the master of the School of Dragon Stone rapidly disappeared, followed by his Symphony of Predestination. In the end, even his body was disappeared under the sun as if it had melted. Only a tattered musician's suit was left.

As the deceased vanished, everyone sensed a slight quake of the huge aether wave of the Ultimate from the depths of the city. But immediately after that, the aether wave of the master of the School of Blue Blood who had personally killed the other master increased continually and rapidly skyrocketed. As countless strands of music theory gushed into it, his Symphony of Predestination swiftly increased in power.

In the end, from the stage of just having achieved the Level of Master, he had advanced to the peak of the Level of Master. In fact, he was only one step away, after integrating the elements, he could advance as a scepter musician. It was simply as if the loser's power had been taken away by the winner together with his life!

At the moment, everyone understood the second rule of the trial other than not relying on foreign objects—the loser would lose everything, and the winner would win over everything!

It was the cruelest method of trial.

In the city, everyone's fate had changed in an instant.

One could either become the resources of others and get used as a stepping stone or become the strongest!

…

Meanwhile, at the moment, a steely wind was blowing against Ye Qingxuan. Amid the sonorous melody, the enemy in front of Ye Qingxuan expanded in size once more, and layers of complex movements emerged from his body of metals. In the loud noise of steel scraping against each other, the blue-black crystal of steel covering his body reproliferated, causing the body of the master to expand some more.

In the blink of an eye, his height increased from that of the ordinary person to three meters. The steel turned into majestic armor, covering him.

As for his hands and feet, a completely different movement lit up on the steel covering every part of the body. Dozens of movements were brought together as one under the control of his Symphony of Predestination, becoming a complete whole.

He was a master of the School of Iron Heart—Larbin the Iron-eater.

Ye Qingxuan had once read his archives. Larbin was a powerful and well-known fighter who had single-handedly brought about the rise of the School of Iron Heart, a new, little-known school, from the bitter coldness in the south. After combining the music theory of the school of summoning, he advanced the core music theory passed down in the school one step further, and it became a rare school which involved the music theory of three systems. Modifications, summoning, and choir, the three systems of music theory were merged as one.

By combining the schools of modifications and choir, he further altered his body, even merging it with steel. After transforming himself into a giant of steel, he solved the original flaw of clumsiness and sluggishness. With the music theory of the school of summoning, he merged with the bestiality of Glia the giant from the Holy Bible, and completely turned into the giant of destruction.

[1] This is a reference to a Chinese saying which means mirage and literally translates as "the market at sea and the buildings conjured by the clam monster".