Chapter 31: The Positions of One Hundred City Lords

In the Eight Trigrams Region, on the aerial seats, all the cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage had already taken their seats.
At this moment, in the Yin-Yang Fish area in the center, the figures of twenty-eight Divine Kings appeared—all the Divine Kings of the Divine Realm had shown up.
The Divine Kings of the Mountain Gen Region: Qiu Yan, Qiu Meng, Qiu Qi, Gou Fang; the Divine Kings of the Earth Kun Region: Tian Chen, Tian Yu, Tian Jian.
The Divine Kings of the Thunder Zhen Region: Bai Rong, Bai Lan, Chai Ying, Jing Miao; the Divine Kings of the Wind Xun Region: Sang Yu, Sang Rui, Sang Xue.
The Divine Kings of the Water Dui Region: Gongye Ming, Gongye Zhong, Gongye Yu; the Divine Kings of the Heaven Qian Region: Jin Chengbo, Jin Chengzhu, Jin Chengrui.
The Divine Kings of the Water Kan Region: Wu Lian, Wu Quan, Yu Enheng.
The Divine Kings of the Fire Li Region: Yan Yi, Yan Que.
The three island lords of Nan Yin Island: Divine King Zong Jing, Xu Miao, Qian Mao.
“Divine Kings! Divine Kings…”
When the twenty-eight Divine Kings appeared, the cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage from all eight regions of the Divine Realm stood up from their seats, shouting excitedly, filled with admiration, respect, and submission.
Meanwhile, Qu Yi, Qing Wu Gui, and Wu Yuan continued to sleep lazily with their eyes closed, seemingly unaware of the arrival of the Divine Kings, looking extremely comfortable and at ease in their sleep.
Undoubtedly, among the 19,000 cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage in Tian Feng Fort, seeing that their three fortress lords—Qu Yi, Qing Wu Gui, and Wu Yuan—showed no reaction, they remained calm, sitting quietly in their seats.
The 19,000 people in Tian Feng Fort, dressed uniformly in blue robes, already caught everyone’s attention. Now, with no movement from them, they drew the attention of all the Divine Kings.
“Nearly 20,000 cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage!”
Apart from the three Divine Kings of Nan Yin Island, the Divine Kings of the other eight regions showed expressions of surprise. As Divine Kings, they had seen many extraordinary things, but the sudden appearance of nearly 20,000 more cultivators at this stage was enough to shock them.
Immediately, the Divine Kings of the eight regions sent out their divine senses to scan the bodies of the 19,000 cultivators in Tian Feng Fort.
“What!”
“There’s 100 million Unified Spiritual Entities in each of their bodies!”
Once again, all the Divine Kings were astonished. Their composed and steady demeanor vanished, replaced by expressions of disbelief.
The 19,000 cultivators in Tian Feng Fort, after receiving the Spiritual Entity Crystals given by Qu Yi, had been practicing in silence. Eventually, each of them had increased the number of Unified Spiritual Entities in their bodies to 100 million, reaching the limit for cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage.

At the same time, the ten chieftains—Zhu Chen, Zhao Jing, Zhen Lan, Zhuo Rui, Qing Yiyi, Yu Deming, Yu Chongxiu, Yu Zhuting, Meng Yan, and Fei Changxia—all had a total of over 100 million spiritual entities within their bodies. However, even so, the number of spiritual entities in these ten people was still less than that of the top ten figures on the Heavenly Ranking.

The Eight Realms Divine Kings all showed expressions of great surprise. They never expected that the 19,000 people of Tianfeng Fort had unconsciously advanced in their cultivation levels and expanded the number of spiritual entities in their bodies to 100 million in just over 100 million years. What was even more terrifying was that the Eight Realms Divine Kings hadn’t received any news about these 19,000 people at all—it was truly frightening.

Naturally, when the Eight Realms Divine Kings saw the cultivators of Tianfeng Fort surrounding Qu Yi, Qing Wugui, and Wu Yuan, they immediately understood that these 19,000 people were all under Qu Yi’s control, and various thoughts rushed through their minds.

“Qu Yi… it’s Qu Yi again…”

The various divine kings looked at Qu Yi with complex expressions, with several of them fixing murderous gazes on him—gazes powerful enough to shatter a star. But for some reason, these divine kings seemed to hold back and dared not act in this void battlefield.

“Dear divine kings, could you please take your eyes off me?” At that moment, Qu Yi suddenly opened his eyes, sat steadily in his seat, and spoke with a smile.

Calm. Composed.

The Eight Realms Divine Kings, seeing that Qu Yi remained so relaxed despite the pressure from all of them, naturally raised their assessment of his strength even further.

Qu Yi nodded in greeting to the three divine kings from Nan Yin Island, then met the gazes of the Eight Realms Divine Kings who wanted to kill him. The atmosphere became tense, and silence filled the void battlefield, as if everything had frozen in place.

Just then, an ancient and enduring voice echoed through the void.

“The Divine Kings shall take their positions to oversee the one-on-one battles.”

With the emergence of this voice, the entire world seemed to undergo a profound transformation, as if time had rushed by in an instant, and the present had already become the future.

Upon hearing this voice, the twenty-eight Divine Kings grew solemn, their expressions tense, as if they feared the owner of this voice greatly.

After the voice faded, twenty white floating chairs appeared evenly along the circular boundary of the yin-yang fish area in the center.

The twenty Divine Kings quickly flew up and each sat on one of the floating chairs.

“The host of these one-on-one battles will be Zong Jing,” the voice, now seemingly coming from nowhere, spoke softly once more, reaching everyone’s ears.

“Understood!” All the Divine Kings replied in unison.

Then, the Eight Realms’ Divine Kings all looked at Divine King Zong Jing with some resentment, as the role of hosting individual battles had always been chosen from among the Divine Kings of the eight great realms. They never expected that this time, it would be taken by the first island lord of Nan Yin Island. Xu Miao and Qian Mao, of course, smiled happily. Among the Eight Realms’ Divine Kings, Qiu Yan from the Shan Gen Realm, Bai Rong from the Lei Zhen Realm, and Gong Ye Ming from the Ze Dui Realm were the most annoyed. Their strength was on par with Zong Jing’s among all the Divine Kings in the divine realm. The four of them had been secretly competing, and now that Zong Jing had won the position of host, it naturally filled them with dissatisfaction. However, Qiu Yan, Bai Rong, and Gong Ye Ming did not dare express any complaints, knowing that the person who had spoken just now possessed a strength beyond their ability to challenge or question. Zong Jing simply smiled faintly at the resentment of the other Divine Kings before giving an order: “The individual battles begin now!” As soon as his words fell, two long pillars rose in the black-and-white Yin-Yang fish area, ten meters tall, one black and one white. They emitted a strong aura of unified spiritual entities, as if the origin of such entities in the world lay within them. “The first step of the individual battles is the Heavenly Ranking Battle. All cultivators at the Divine General stage can go to the Yin-Yang fish area, place their hands on the spiritual entity pillars, and activate the spiritual entities within them to obtain a value representing the number of such entities. The top 100 cultivators will be recorded on the Heavenly Ranking. At the same time, the cultivators on the Heavenly Ranking can choose any city lord position they desire,” Zong Jing announced immediately as the spiritual entity pillars stopped moving. In every individual battle for cultivators at the Divine General stage, the first step was to re-establish the Heavenly Ranking. Cultivators did not need to fight; they only needed to reveal the number of spiritual entities in their bodies, which would determine their rank on the Heavenly Ranking. As soon as Zong Jing finished speaking, the cultivators sitting on the seats above the Bagua area all looked hesitant. Instead of immediately flying to the Yin-Yang fish area, they fixed their gazes on the Divine Kings in front of them, seemingly waiting for their instructions. The opportunity to automatically obtain a city lord position through the Heavenly Ranking undoubtedly attracted all cultivators at the Divine General stage. Yet, no cultivator dared act rashly; they had to follow orders. After all, the eight great royal families controlled certain city lord positions in their respective realms, which could only be held by members of those families, not by other cultivators. All cultivators at the Divine General stage were aware of this, so they could not act against the will of the eight great royal families at any step.

Especially in the eight imperial cities, positions as city lords that were crucial to the reputations of the eight imperial families must not be held by cultivators outside the royal families. The divine kings of the eight divine realms sensed the gazes of the cultivators behind them and immediately sent mental messages to give instructions one by one. Soon, cultivators at the Divine Marshal stage took off from their seats in the eight-trigram area and went to the two spirit pillar areas. They placed their hands on the spirit pillars, activating the integrated spirits within them to resonate with those inside the pillars. As for the movements of these Divine Marshal stage cultivators from the eight regions, the 19,000 Divine Marshal stage cultivators of Tianfeng Fort remained completely still, acting as if nothing had happened, and continued to sleep leaning back in their seats. “Is Qu Yi showing off again?” As the host, Zong Jing smiled inwardly upon seeing Tianfeng Fort’s behavior. He then stopped paying attention to anything else and focused on recording the numbers of spirits displayed by the Divine Marshal stage cultivators on the spirit pillars. “Domingo, 70 million spirits!” “Pavarotti, 75 million spirits!” “Carreiras, 76 million spirits!” … Zong Jing held a jade slip, read out the numbers displayed on the spirit pillars, and immediately recorded them on the slip. Apart from the top ten on the current ranking list, all the Divine Marshal stage cultivators from the eight regions showed off their strength by revealing the number of spirits in their bodies. None of them had more than 100 million spirits! After all the Divine Marshal stage cultivators had revealed their spirit counts, Qu Yi opened his eyes, as if he had been waiting for this moment. “A bunch of clowns, daring to show off on stage—such a lack of self-awareness,” Qu Yi said indifferently, seemingly addressing the cultivators of Tianfeng Fort, but his words were a direct insult to their dignity. “Fort King, we also want to go up and check the number of spirits in our bodies,” said the 19,000 people of Tianfeng Fort, opening their eyes and shouting in unison, filling the entire battlefield with a roar. The divine kings and Divine Marshal stage cultivators of the eight regions glared at Qu Yi in anger upon hearing his words. Qu Yi ignored their gazes, smiled, waved his hand, and said, “Brothers, choose 100 of the weakest among you and let them go to the spirit pillars to test their strength.” “Okay!” Everyone in Tianfeng Fort laughed and agreed, quickly selecting 100 people to go up and check their spirit counts.

One hundred people immediately flew over to the two Spirit Pillar columns and activated the spirits within them.
“Zhang San, 100 million spirits!”
“Li Si, 100 million spirits!”
“Wang Lao Wu, 100 million spirits!”
……
Jing of the Divine King Sect, who was in charge, watched the Spirit Pillar columns with a calm expression and loudly called out, recording the total number of spirits of these 100 people from Tianfeng Fort in a jade slip.