Chapter 157: Sweeping All the Way Through

And then, there was no more.

A formless force emerged from Wei Lengyue, repelling him and triggering the arena's protective mechanism to halt the match.

Chu Cheng had not anticipated that once his attack speed reached its maximum, the time lock—normally having a low trigger probability—would trigger three consecutive times, causing an instantaneous burst that exceeded Wei Lengyue's tolerance limit.

Without the protective mechanism, continuing this stacking would have undoubtedly resulted in her forced execution.

"Impressive!"

Although many still could not comprehend that he had mastered the power of time, the teaching assistants and several capable senior students seemed to perceive something. They looked at Chu Cheng with a hint of solemnity, silently etching his name and appearance into their memories.

When the second round of challenges began, at least half of the senior students cast their gazes upon him.

In this round, Chu Cheng did not disappoint them either. His opponent was Zhang Xuan, an Arcane Master.

Details of his abilities were unknown; the moment the countdown ended, Chu Cheng raised his hand to cast a spatial mark first, then vanished via time walk, reappearing behind the immobilized Zhang Xuan. Fusing his past, present, and future selves into one, he unleashed nine consecutive strikes, stacking his attack speed by 90%.

The time lock did not trigger, but that was of little consequence; he decisively activated "Steadfast" to continue stacking attack speed.

Within the arena, every concluded match restored all conditions, including the hero mana consumed inside the arena, and reset all skill cooldowns.

Now that he had fully displayed his strength, he would use his hero skills as needed.

Except for Temporal Sanctuary.

Because it was unnecessary; he did not believe that under equivalent levels, anyone could force him to bypass Time Walk and be instantly killed.

Once "Steadfast" was activated, Zhang Xuan, having recovered his composure, immediately launched a counterattack. Frost chains froze Chu Cheng in place, and Zhang Xuan flashed into the air, raising a hand to summon sixteen meteorites the size of human heads that came crashing down, prompting sixteen instances of 300-point damage to pop up.

Yet the very next second, sixteen layers of formless ripples erupted, causing Zhang Xuan's protective arcane shield to flicker sixteen times in nearly a second.

Spatial reflection allowed magic to take effect as well.

However, this minor damage was negligible to an arcane shield with a defense value as high as twenty thousand. Without even glancing at it, Zhang Xuan raised his hand to drop a fireball the size of a bushel basket. The shockwave burst forth, turning the majority of the arena into a sea of fire.

Pressing his hands downward in an empty gesture, the sea of fire swirled without any wind, and dense, transparent razor-sharp blades emerged, rapidly forming a vortex of countless spinning blades that frantically shredded the figure at the center, bringing forth countless damage numbers flashing like a scrolling screen.

Although this damage was applied rapidly, its magnitude was extremely small, mostly consisting of 0s, with occasional 1s or 2s.

Any other person would find it difficult to endure such intensive damage, but unfortunately, Chu Cheng's innate talent specifically countered this type of fast-yet-low-magnitude spellcasting.

Despite employing multiple consecutive burst methods, they were unable to harm him. Instead, the damage from spatial refraction was so dense that it actually tore apart Zhang Xuan's arcane shield.

Zhang Xuan decisively halted the blade vortex, swiftly applied two more defensive measures to himself, and began a prolonged incantation.

It was only then that Chu Cheng broke free from the encirclement of spells. A thought flickered in his mind, activating "Feral Strength" for +100 attack power, and the next second he entered the time walk state, materializing out of thin air directly above Zhang Xuan, who was immobilized by the time lock. Fusing his three selves, fifteen attacks instantly ripped through the arcane shield.

The hilt of his right-hand blade slammed into Zhang Xuan's shoulder, driving him downward with a heavy impact while Chu Cheng used the recoil to halt himself in mid-air. His hands slashed like illusions, successfully triggering the time lock.

Twenty-one strikes in a single second—he had finally managed to trigger a time lock while already under the state of a time lock.

A full forty-two strikes yielding tens of thousands in explosive damage instantly shattered the mage's protective armor, with the remaining force driving Zhang Xuan into a near-death state and triggering the arena's protective mechanism.

"This won't do; I still need to acquire a flight spell."

Otherwise, dealing with aerial units was far too strenuous.

One minute later, the third opponent appeared: Tian Lingyuan, a mid-tier hero class, the Silencer.

He was also a spellcaster whose attacks could drain an opponent's intelligence and inflict silence.

Caught off guard initially, Chu Cheng was silenced and subjected to a fierce beating. Fortunately, his durability was high enough to withstand the opponent's burst. By the eleventh second, his innate talent cleansed the silence, and he decisively activated Time Walk to charge forward and unleash a brutal beatdown.

His luck was even better this time: the time lock from Time Walk triggered yet another time lock within the same second.

A single round of bursting instantly obliterated the equally caught-off-guard Tian Lingyuan.

"Aside from a flight spell, I also need one or two pure crowd-control skills."

Aside from Time Walk, which guaranteed a 1-second time lock, the only options were Raging Charge, which offered a two-second stun, and Thunderous Slam, which could also stun for two seconds but required a one-second wind-up, effectively amounting to just one second.

This control duration was far too brief; he had to secure one or two genuine crowd-control abilities.

If his crowd control was sufficient, he could max out his attack speed in one breath and instantly unleash the most devastating burst.

His fourth opponent was Chen Sifan, possessing the lower-tier hero class, Star-Breaker Knight.

This was a strength-based, purely brutal output hero class whose core skill was Star-Breaking Strike, possessing an instantaneous burst even more ferocious than average mid-tier hero classes.

Regrettably, he ran into Chu Cheng, a cheating anomaly who fought force with force and achieved a frontal suppression and brute-force kill.

The fifth opponent was Yan Hui, a mid-tier hero class, Astral Mage, much like Xu Mingli.

Chu Cheng deliberately held back against this opponent, refraining from finishing him off right away. Instead, he allowed him to deploy various tactics first, particularly the core capabilities of an Astral Mage.

However, after observing, he felt somewhat disappointed, because the path Yan Hui walked differed from the one Fang Xi described for Xu Mingli.

Yan Hui followed a path resembling a traditional mage, whereas Xu Mingli pursued the Astral Covenant path. He had contracted numerous astral creatures, and his abilities differed vastly from Yan Hui's, offering little reference value.

The sixth opponent was Dong Mushan, possessing the upper-tier hero class, Swordmaster.

Chu Cheng was familiar with this hero class; he had reviewed data on all hero classes above the upper tier, and the Swordmaster was among them.

The core specialty of a Swordmaster was called Sword Heart, which reduced sword-type weapon and equipment requirements by 50%, increased attack power by 100%, and increased sword-type weapon critical strike multipliers by 1.

When utilizing other weapons, a Swordmaster fell short compared even to lower-tier hero classes, but equipped with a sword, their combat power instantly skyrocketed. In terms of attack power, they were no inferior to typical legendary-tier hero classes.

10

9

8

The countdown slowly ticked away. Dong Mushan gazed at the expressionless Chu Cheng behind the light barrier, the corners of his lips curling upward.

He had some recollection of this classmate; his class was Weapon Master, a lower-tier hero class posing little threat.

"Fifteen seconds to end the battle!"

He could barely wait to challenge Luo Lingfeng. Only another upper-tier hero class user was worthy of being his opponent.

3

2

1

"Raging Charge!"

"Gale!"

Dong Mushan's figure suddenly vanished. Chu Cheng's charge lost its target and came to a halt. Subconsciously stamping his foot down, a ghostly figure abruptly materialized behind him, driving a sword straight into his back before shifting to split into four figures of Dong Mushan, launching an assault against him.

Swiveling around, Chu Cheng activated Blade Storm. The rapidly spinning blades collided with the swords thrust forth by the four Dong Mushans, producing a continuous series of crisp, clanging sounds.

In a mere five seconds, the four illusions were shredded to pieces by the Blade Storm, yet Dong Mushan was nowhere to be seen.

The moment the Blade Storm concluded, however, his figure materialized out of thin air behind Chu Cheng, his sword precisely piercing the gap between the back armor and helmet.

"Die!"

"Invincible Illusion Slash!"

Dong Mushan's figure flickered and burst apart, ten phantoms erupting from his body to surround Chu Cheng, thrusting downward in unison. The ethereal blades pierced into his body, ignoring his heavy armor, and instantly ten massive damage numbers—ranging from a minimum of two hundred to as high as four or five hundred—surged upward.

Immediately following, the ten phantoms merged back with him like lightning, overlapping into one, and the brilliantly glowing blade stabbed toward Chu Cheng like a thunderbolt.