Chapter 2264: Chief Seat
After entering the Gate of Destiny, Zhang Ruochen had Mo Yin transform back into the Devouring Saint Flower and return to his body. Now, only Lianxi remained by his side.
During the banquet, Great Saint-level attendees were allowed to keep one maid or servant nearby to attend to them at all times.
The Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet was grand and majestic, with five thousand Great Saints and five thousand top-tier Saint Kings gathered, all under a thousand years old. Such a stunning feast was extremely rare in the Heavenly Court.
There were Ghost Emperors exuding chilling yin energy, Bone Clan Great Saints with ferocious white skeletons, Death Clan experts shrouded in deathly light... Even though Lianxi knew she was in the Hell Realm, she was still overwhelmed beyond words.
She dared not imagine what her fate would be without Zhang Ruochen’s protection.
“The Hell Realm is too powerful. The Heavenly Court Myriad Realms haven’t produced this many Great Saints under a thousand years old in the last millennium. And the Great Saints here under a thousand years old are definitely not all of them,” Lianxi thought, a deep sense of helplessness welling up inside her.
She finally understood why, for the past hundred thousand years, the Heavenly Court had always been on the losing side in the Merit Battlefield, reduced to a passive defensive stance.
“I wonder if the Heavenly Court cultivators watching this Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet feel the same way? If this continues, the gap between the Heavenly Court and the Hell Realm will only grow wider. Perhaps...”
Lianxi dared not think further, a sense of confusion settling in her heart.
Just then.
“Lianxi, wait here. I’ll be back soon.”
Zhang Ruochen stood up and walked upstream along the Fate Stream.
Lianxi stared at his tall, upright back, a puzzled expression on her face. What was he going to do?
The thought only flickered through her mind before her thoughts returned to the previous topic. She mused, “The Hell Realm has so many Great Saint experts, like fish in a river. Can Zhang Ruochen, an outsider, really achieve anything at the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet?”
Although she had become a Spiritual Power Great Saint, facing the assembled powerhouses of the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet, she felt incredibly insignificant.
It was like a helpless, delicate young girl surrounded by thousands of burly, fierce men—filled with despair, helplessness, humility, and fear.
Yet, Zhang Ruochen could stand before her alone, preventing those fierce men from daring to act rashly.
This planted a subtle seed in her heart.
As Zhang Ruochen walked upstream, it was exactly when Spear Emperor, Muyang Tianjun, and others were looking at him. They were all surprised, wondering if Zhang Ruochen had changed his mind and was going to seize a chief seat.
But going now, no matter how fast his analysis speed, it would be too late.
The seat competition was nearing its end.
Beside the fourth chief seat on the left, Xu and Yu Huang were both less than a zhang away from their seats, just five or six steps away.
“That’s enough. No need to keep stringing her along.”
Xu curled his lips into a mocking smile and stopped holding back.
One step, two steps, three steps.
Xu took three consecutive steps, completely pulling ahead of Yu Huang.
“What? How... how is this possible...”
Yu Huang stared at Xu in disbelief, straining to take a step forward. But because the restrictive inscriptions within that step hadn’t been fully analyzed, as soon as her foot moved, she was struck by spatial restrictive inscriptions. A spatial rift slashed her arm.
Bright red sacred blood dripped from her arm.
She dared not advance recklessly.
“Xia Yu, your strength is actually quite impressive, but you shouldn’t have come to compete with me. Why humiliate yourself?” Xu said.
Yu Huang finally realized she had been toyed with by Xu. A fierce flame surged in her starry eyes, and she almost lost control, wanting to strike at Xu.
“Can’t take it? You must restrain yourself. In the Blood Heaven Tribe, you’re the only worthy opponent. If you’re expelled from the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet, what fun will there be in this year’s Earth Fiend Ghost City’s hunt of the Blood Heaven Tribe?” Xu taunted with a sneer.
He loved seeing other cultivators hate him to the bone yet be powerless against him.
Yu Huang dared not break the rules of the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet, so she suppressed her anger and looked downstream along the Fate Stream.
“Don’t bother looking. Head downstream quickly. You’ve definitely lost your chance at the chief and host seats. Maybe you can try for a secondary seat,” Xu said.
Just then, Zhang Ruochen arrived beside Yu Huang and extended a hand. “Give me your hand.”
“Why are you here?”
Yu Huang was extremely surprised, but she knew about Zhang Ruochen’s terrifying analysis speed. She decisively extended a snow-white jade hand and clasped it tightly with his.
The next moment, Yu Huang noticed a large number of time imprints appearing around her, slowing the flow of time.
At the same time, she felt truth rules flowing from Zhang Ruochen’s palm into her body, converging in her pupils. Her eyes seemed to transform into a pair of truth eyes, allowing her to quickly see the distribution of the restrictive inscriptions.
Although Zhang Ruochen’s appearance surprised Xu, he didn’t take it seriously.
He was only two steps away from the seat.
Taking it was a foregone conclusion.
Taking another step, Xu looked at the chief seat before him, a satisfied smile on his face.
But the smile quickly froze. He looked to his left and saw Yu Huang and Zhang Ruochen standing beside him, also just one step away from the seat.
How could they be so fast?
Xu’s shock was beyond measure.
At this moment, whether it was the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet venue or the cultivators watching the projection, everyone was in an uproar.
Nothing like this had ever happened at the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet—someone actually helping another cultivator compete for a seat!
After all, the closer the seat—chief, secondary, or last—the harder it was to break the restrictive inscriptions. So, although the cultivators at the banquet had vastly different cultivation levels, the time it took them to reach their seats wasn’t that different.
Helping another cultivator seize a seat was nearly impossible.
Moreover, Zhang Ruochen could only do this because he simultaneously mastered time power and truth power, and had cultivated them to a very high level.
For other cultivators, even as powerful as Lan Ying and Yan Huangtu, the help they could give to their clan members in the seat competition was quite limited.
Above the Fate Stream, within the Divine Bone Jade Tower, a Thousand Questions Realm Great Saint from Earth Fiend Ghost City said, “Cheating! This is cheating! Zhang Ruochen has broken the rules of the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet. He must be expelled from the venue.”
Zhiyuan Blood Emperor snorted coldly, “The Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet has never had a rule forbidding helping clan members compete for seats. How can that be considered breaking the rules?”
“All the gods are watching the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet. None of them have spoken, which means Zhang Ruochen hasn’t broken any rules,” Spear Emperor said.
The Great Saint experts of the Blood Heaven Tribe were all overjoyed. If Zhang Ruochen could really help Yu Huang seize the chief seat, it would be a huge blow to Earth Fiend Ghost City.
That was exactly what they wanted to see.
Without any suspense, Yu Huang took the final step first and sat down on the fourth chief seat on the left.
“Whoosh—”
The white jade platform emitted a dazzling light, enveloping her. The name “Xia Yu” appeared on the platform.
Xu, who was just one step away, stared blankly, unable to accept this outcome.
He had intended to toy with Yu Huang and suppress the Blood Heaven Tribe, but he never expected such a result.
Yu Huang let out a long sigh of relief and quickly pulled her hand back from Zhang Ruochen’s grip. She glared at him with her beautiful eyes, but there was no anger in them—it was almost as if she was just putting on a show.
Just now, Zhang Ruochen had done something in front of the entire Hell Realm that she would never have tolerated before. Although he was helping her seize the seat, it was too intimate and would easily invite gossip.
For example, Bore and Feng Hou would never let another male cultivator hold their hands. As candidates for goddess, such an incident would damage their image.
Xu’s mental state nearly collapsed. Gnashing his teeth, he glared at Zhang Ruochen and Yu Huang, who seemed to be “exchanging affectionate glances, feigning reluctance,” and clasped his hands in a bow toward the Destiny Temple atop Destiny God Mountain. He raised his voice, “Zhang Ruochen and Xia Yu have broken the rules of the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet. I beg the gods to expel them from the venue.”
During the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet, the gods of all clans would gather in the Destiny Temple.
The gods had their own feast.
After a long silence, the Destiny Temple gave no response.
Yu Huang sneered coldly, “Stop shouting. Head downstream quickly. You’ve definitely lost your chance at the chief and host seats. If you don’t hurry, there won’t even be a secondary seat for you.”
Xu’s lips trembled with rage. He spat out a harsh remark, “Don’t be too smug. Just wait and see.”
Xu rushed downstream at top speed.
Yu Huang looked back at Zhang Ruochen, only to find that he had already left without a word, returning downstream. She muttered to herself, “I just glared at you, and you’re already angry? With so many cultivators watching, I couldn’t exactly act like I was cooperating with you. Those who don’t know might think we have some kind of relationship. Anyway, thank you for this.”
Whether Zhang Ruochen could hear her or not, she still said it.
Thinking back to when she was being humiliated by Xu and felt utterly disgraced, Zhang Ruochen had suddenly appeared, helped her out, and turned defeat into victory. A touching smile involuntarily appeared on Yu Huang’s face, like a spring breeze.
In the Fate Stream venue, Bore and Luo Sha’s gazes unconsciously drifted toward her, catching her smile.
Bore quickly looked away, lowering her eyelids, her thoughts unreadable.
Luo Sha, however, puffed out her cheeks in anger and muttered something under her breath.
Publicly holding hands at the Heaven Hunting Grand Banquet was indeed too intimate, and combined with Yu Huang’s beauty, which rivaled that of the Nine Immortals, it naturally sparked all kinds of speculation.
In the King Mountain, Xiao Hei clicked his tongue, pointing a claw at the projection above, and said to Han Xue, “Beastly! See that? See that? You still say he’s acting against his will, that he has no choice. In my view, he’s already defected and has no intention of returning to Kunlun. He suffered losses with women, so now that he’s in the Hell Realm, he’s definitely going to get his revenge. He’s completely let himself go. I’m going to the Hell Realm too. I can’t let him keep sinking like this.”
In the Central Imperial City, at the Ziyu Palace.
Canglan Martial Saint slammed a hand heavily on the stone platform and snorted coldly, “It seems I was overthinking. That bastard Zhang Ruochen is in no danger at all. He’s thriving in the Hell Realm and even has the leisure to fool around with women.”
Shengshu Cainü stared at Yu Huang, a hint of envy and deep thought flickering in her black-and-white eyes. She said softly, “I didn’t expect the Undying Blood Clan to have such a beautiful and moving woman. Being able to sit in the chief seat, she must be very powerful.”
Suddenly, Canglan Martial Saint became serious and asked, “Do you think Zhang Ruochen has really defected to the Hell Realm?”
Shengshu Cainü gently shook her head but didn’t answer.