CHAPTER 161: STEALING THE TREASURE ONCE AGAIN? TRAPPED!

BOOM!

Flames tore across the battlefield as a figure wreathed in crimson fire shot forward like a blazing comet. His eyes burned with arrogance, and every step he took scorched the earth.

"I want this relic, who dares to stan in my way?" he roared and his aura which was at the god realm exploded.

In response, a young woman descended like a streak of ice, her silvery-blue robes fluttering behind her. With one wave of her hand, a crescent blade of frost surged forth and collided with his path.

The flames hissed as steam exploded into the air. The two geniuses met midair, their domains clashing violently... fire and ice twisting in a chaotic spiral that cracked the ground beneath them.

"You talk too much," she said coldly, her eyes glinting with killing intent.

Before the exchange could end, a third figure emerged from the distance. A silver-haired youth wielding a coiling staff of thunder. He landed between them with a thunderclap, lightning lashing out in all directions.

"You two can fight over ashes. I’ll take the real prize."

He lifted his staff, summoning a barrage of thunder spears that rained toward the relic like a divine storm.

The moment the spears neared the relic, the air froze. A pulse of invisible force erupted from the divine treasure, disintegrating the first spear on contact. The rest shattered like glass, and the silver-haired cultivator staggered back in shock.

"What?!"

The relic glowed with a faint golden sheen as if mocking his arrogance.

No one had touched it, and already one of the top contenders had been forced back.

Another group burst into motion.

A dual-saber cultivator slashed through the air, spinning like a cyclone as he cut a path through lightning and flame. A ghostly wolf bound in soul fire raced beside him, its master, Lu Fen.

They closed in fast.

One spear cultivator tried to intercept, but in a blur, Lu Fen’s wolf leapt forward, slammed into his chest, and ignited with a flash of soul fire.

The man screamed once before crumbling into ash.

In one move, and someone was dead.

The battlefield changed instantly.

Dozens of genius-level god incarnate cultivators, heirs of divine clans and successors of great sects, erupted into chaos. Sword lights, domain bursts, and elemental forces tore through the battlefield. Divine techniques were unleashed in every direction.

Some tried to fly above.

Others activated movement arts to circle around.

But none reached the relic.

A girl from the crowd let out a furious shriek as she neared the altar, only for the relic’s pressure to push her flat against the earth.

A wind cultivator spun up a vortex to lift it.

The vortex shattered before it reached the altar.

And above it all—the relic floated calmly, sealed within a sphere of divine soul essence that annihilated everything unworthy.

Across the ridge, Kranos and the others watched from within their concealed space.

Kathryn’s arms were folded, her face calm but focused. "It’s begun. They’re killing each other already."

Kranos hand was on eternal hunger as he waited for the perfect moment for them to strike.

Back on the battlefield, the chaos peaked.

A spatial cultivator flashed between afterimages, leaving void rifts in his wake. He reached the edge of the platform and stretched toward the relic.

In that instant, the divine sphere surrounding the relic flared.

A wave of pure soul pressure struck him in the chest and snapped his essence chain.

He fell mid-stride, and had to manuever himself around the attack to regain his footing.

Desmond moved silently through the shadows, his figure slipping between corpses and wreckage. His presence was faint, his aura suppressed to the limit. The flicker of greed in his eyes had grown wilder.

He wasn’t watching the fight.

He was circling the cultivators in the surroundings.

Waiting patiently for the perfect moment.

Suddenly, a new explosion rocked the heavens.

The flame cultivator and ice cultivator clashed again, but this time, both unleashed their domains fully.

Fire exploded in a pillar.

Ice spiraled upward like a blizzard.

The clash struck the relic’s shield directly.

A soundless shockwave followed.

Everyone was thrown back, leaving some coughing blood, while others were knocked unconscious.

The light of the relic pulsed wildly... then dimmed slightly.

The battlefield was still shaking from the last clash when a blur of motion streaked across the broken ground.

Seven afterimages burst into view, splitting in different directions, each moving with incredible speed.

"Again?" Yue Lian snapped. "This movement technique!"

The afterimages weaved through flame strikes, blade arcs, and spirit beasts. Multiple geniuses focused instantly, thinking the same thing—

He’s going for the relic!

Dozens of attacks surged toward the blur.

Who was luka? He loved to call himself the god of speed?

He grinned as he zipped between attacks, letting his afterimages confuse the crowd, forcing everyone to react.

"He’s trying to take it!" Ren roared.

"Block him!" someone else shouted.

All eyes turned toward Luka, and not a single person noticed the second shadow that passed beneath their feet.

Kranos moved silently, his cloak whipping behind him, afterimages flickering with every step.

After receiving the plan from kathryn, he didn’t hesitate in the slightest and quickly moved. After all he couldn’t let his treasure be taken away.

Using the Heaven and Earth Movement Technique, his real body twisted around the surging elemental chaos, slipping through gaps in the formation and sidestepping the spatial cracks caused by the cultivators in the god realm.

In a few seconds he was in front of the relic.

He reached out.

The relic pulsed once, but the backlash didn’t trigger. The seal had already been cracked by the earlier clash between the domains of the female and male cultivator.

His fingers closed around it.

Boom.

The world shook.

The divine soul relic blazed with golden light and vanished into his storage ring.

Just as kranos was about to escape with the treasure, without warning, a massive rune of restriction lit up beneath his feet.

The air warped, and space itself twisted inward.

A voice rang out.

"You think you’re clever?" A youth in a black robe floated above them, five rotating cubes of spatial jade orbiting him. His presence was calm, but suffocating.

"You can’t use movement techniques here."

Kranos looked up sharply.

Around him, Luka’s afterimages blinked once, then shattered. Luka appeared, caught mid-step.

Aurora, Kathryn, and Kevin were trapped as well, the ground beneath them glowing with the same spatial lock.

"We’ve been sealed in," Kevin muttered grimly.

The black-robed youth raised his hand. "You can’t leave this zone until you drop the relic."

Ren, Yue Lian, Lu Fen, and three more geniuses circled around them slowly.

The moment Kranos’s fingers closed around the relic, a blinding pulse of light flashed from his palm and then vanished.

"No one leaves," the youth with five glowing cubes said flatly. "Drop the relic."

The space around Kranos thickened immediately. Even with his movement technique, the resistance was unnatural, like walking through stone.

At the same time, seven afterimages flashed across the field.

Luka burst into motion.

The cultivators cursed as they scattered, trying to follow the flurry of Luka’s illusions. A fireball slammed into one of his afterimages. A sword strike cleaved through another. Lightning wrapped around a third, but each time the result was the same—empty.

"He’s distracting us again!"

"Tch, it’s not him!"

Yue Lian’s eyes narrowed as her frost domain flared. "Where’s the real one?!"

She frowned as the freexing ice spread out drastically.

Kranos also moved at thi smoment, after all he couldn’t wait for death.

His body blurred once, then twice, and reappeared at Kevin’s side. A sharp clang rang out as a blade slashed toward Kevin, but Kranos intercepted it with the flat of Eternal Hunger, sparks flying.

"Keep working," he muttered.

Kevin didn’t answer—he was already slamming down the fourth formation flag.

The black-robed youth above them scowled. With a flick of his hand, one of the jade cubes emitted a sharp hum, and a layer of the spatial dome began to collapse inward.

"You won’t disrupt my seal."

Aurora shot past beneath him, leaping over a crumbled boulder, a blade appeared in her hand. Her blade of light flashed towards the cube. The black-robed cultivator twisted, dodging mid-air, and retaliated with a spiraling blade of condensed space that Aurora narrowly avoided.

To their side, Ren stormed forward, his eyes bloodshot.

"You really think you can walk away after stealing it?!"

His spear blazed with fire, the flames twisting into the form of a phoenix. The technique compressed, folding into a deadly arc. As he lunged, the ground beneath his feet cracked.

Kranos faced him.

He didn’t dodge instead he raised Eternal Hunger and slashed upward.

The blade and spear collided.

A torrent of fire exploded out, rolling in waves, but Kranos didn’t move. He pressed forward, forcing Ren back with raw strength. Sparks lit up the field, heat searing the air around them.

The battle was getting intense!