["Ding~ The Gate of Flame has been opened, please completely cross within 5 seconds!"]
["Ding~ The Gate of Flame has been opened, please completely cross within 5 seconds!"]
["Ding~ The Gate of Flame has been opened, please completely cross within 5 seconds!"]
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
As one Gate of Flame after another opened, Zhang Yue kept leaping between the various high grounds.
Up to now, he had crossed almost a hundred high grounds, and the strength of the monsters faced had already risen to the point that, on average, for every ten Crimson Flame Dragons, there were two leader-level Fire Dragons + one BOSS-level Fire Dragon.
Although it did not affect Zhang Yue's speed in collecting Flame Orbs and opening the Gates of Flame, it instead sped him up.
But after jumping across so many high grounds, until now, Zhang Yue stood on this high ground, looking around, and what he saw was still endless high grounds.
During this period, he had also stepped onto quite a few "dead high grounds," then retraced his path to jump to other high grounds.
Every time he crossed a high ground, he would enter a mark, to prevent accidentally returning to the starting point.
Even so, Zhang Yue still felt like he was in a maze, unable to see even a bit of light from the exit.
Luckily, Zhang Yue's strength was not weak; no matter how much the difficulty increased later, he could ensure that upon reaching a high ground, he would open the gate to the next one in the shortest possible time.
If it were an ordinary person who accidentally stepped in here, they would probably have long been buried in that scalding molten lava.
Of course, if death could achieve the effect of quickly leaving this place, Zhang Yue would have tried it long ago.
After all, since stepping into the Otherworld until now, Zhang Yue's total number of deaths had not exceeded three times, much better than those professionals who had to use up two resurrection opportunities every cycle.
The two resurrection scroll uses for this cycle had also not yet been touched; it wasn't that he couldn't afford to die.
It was only because he knew: the God of Desire Wu En's demon domain, besides being able to make enhanced maps seal enemies and cut off their contact with the outside world, it had another effect: making enemies revive on the spot after dying inside the map.
This meant Zhang Yue could not leave this place directly by dying and reviving at the safe zone.
"What exactly is this place? The difficulty is actually this high."
For a moment, even Zhang Yue began to feel a little suspicious.
Even the Gate of Immortality probably wasn't this complicated.
What's more, this was just a small hidden map existing within the World 32.
Zhang Yue looked at the time.
"At this time, the Arena Level-5 should already be open."
Thinking of this, Zhang Yue couldn't help but frown slightly.
"God of Desire, you old schemer, you'd better not let me get my hands on your life lock."
The urgent matter was still to find a way to leave here quickly and return to the Hell Gladiator Arena.
The champion reward, a Mythic-grade profession scroll, was a small matter.
The most important was that once Asura, using the Devouring Body, restored his strength in the Hell Gladiator Arena by devouring the lives of high-level professionals from the major empires, at that time, the entire Otherworld would have no power capable of resisting Asura and the Three Great Demon Gods.
"Master, is that armored person really that powerful?"
Seeing Zhang Yue looking so worried, Cherry couldn't help but ask.
Zhang Yue countered, "Which do you think was stronger, me a hundred years ago, or me now?"
Cherry thought for a bit, then said, "The Master from a hundred years ago was a bit stronger."
"That's right," Zhang Yue said, "He really is that powerful."
Cherry said, "But now, the Master has more potential; it's just that the Master's level is too low. If he restored to the level from a hundred years ago, your strength level would only be stronger than a hundred years ago."
"When that time comes, it will be too late."
After a short rest, Zhang Yue picked up his staff and stood up again.
No more words.
Rolling up his sleeves, 'Time to fight!'
———
While Zhang Yue was trapped in the Molten Lava Realm—
On the other side, in the Hell Gladiator Arena, the battles of the Arena Level-5 were raging fiercely.
In the live broadcast rooms of the major contestants and popular streamers, the atmosphere was blazing hot.
The rules of the Arena Level-5 were: after each participant entered the arena, the system would freely assign them to one of the three major factions, [Angel], [Light], or [Heaven].
At the same time, all monsters in the arena were also divided into the three major factions, [Devil], [Darkness], and [Hell].
Angels fought Devils.
Light fought Darkness.
Heaven fought Hell.
Killing monsters of the opposing faction earned points.
If one mistakenly killed monsters not of the opposing faction, they would be penalized with point deductions.
Additionally, between participants, killing a professional from a different faction would let you plunder their points.
Conversely, killing a participant from the same faction would cause you to lose points as a penalty.
Whether participant or monster, faction alignment was hidden; except for oneself, no one knew their own faction.
In the Arena Level-5, dying once deducted 100 points, and after revival, participants could choose their faction again.
By killing monsters, opening treasure chests that randomly refreshed around the arena, or killing other participants, one could obtain skill cards.
Skill card types included [Identify] (used to obtain enemy faction information), [Immunity] (immune from point deduction penalties for mistakenly killing non-enemy faction monsters), [Double] (next point gain doubled), and others.
In addition, there were also some relatively special hidden skill cards.
Hidden skill cards had more significant abilities, but at the same time, were harder to obtain.
After the number of battlefields was reduced to 30, competition clearly became more intense.
Moreover, after Zhang Yue's "death," the nature of this gladiator match also changed.
Previously, the main goal of the major empires' participants was to clear the Hell Gladiator Arena and remove the crisis that the King-tier Secret Realm would bring to the human world.
Although there were also some conflicts between countries, they were ultimately just small skirmishes.
With Zhang Yue gone, the eight major nations strictly blocked Dragon Country, Bear Nation, Thracian, and other nations' professionals from entering the Gate of Immortality to explore the Resurrection God Stone, and even carried out assassinations against members of the Gate of Immortality strategy teams, completely igniting the hatred Dragon Country had buried deep in their hearts.
The Hell Gladiator Arena was gradually evolving into a military battlefield between the major empires.
The key was that when Zhang Yue was here, even without major actions, his mere existence was enough to deter many, making them afraid to act rashly.
Now, without Zhang Yue, those countries' professionals who had long disliked Dragon Country began to act freely.
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