Monster Paradise

In less than half an hour, the Overlord’s tiny surveillance bugs found more than thirty participants.

After watching the surveillance footage that the Overlord projected, Lin Huang noticed a familiar face.

However, that did not mean Lin Huang and this person were actually acquainted—Lin Huang merely knew of the person’s existence and had read up about him.

After finding out about the Virtual God rankings, Lin Huang had scanned through the leaderboard the first chance he got, then looked on the internet for information on some of the top-ranked people on the list.

In the projection, Shen Wushuang—number one among the Protoss Virtual Gods and a sword cultivator—was the person Lin Huang had paid the most attention to and had looked up the most details for.

Shen Wushuang was the number one genius from the Combat God Temple and a sword cultivator. He was a non-Pure Blood Protoss. Rumor had it that his parents were both big shots in Xeno, a grade-7 organization. Yet, he did not join Xeno. The next day after he came of age, he inconspicuously signed up at one of the Combat God Temple’s branches. After joining the Combat God Temple, he had steadily made a name for himself without receiving any preferential treatment.

Due to his impressive talent and good looks, Shen Wushuang had many female fans in the God Territory with female non-Pure Blood Protoss forming the largest percentage of them.

There were even videos of him in combat on the internet, mostly taken by his female fans. Lin Huang had watched some of the videos too and thought that they were not exactly impressive. He could only say that among people of similar combat strength, Shen Wushuang’s sword skills were undoubtedly of the highest caliber. However, he still had some ways to go before he could become the Number One Virtual God.

However, in the few years after Shen Wushuang achieved rank-9 Virtual God, he rarely fought in public. The tasks that the Combat God Temple allocated to him were similarly discreet, as though he was intentionally hiding his real ability from public scrutiny.

Moreover, Shen Wushuang’s had fans stopped sharing his old combat videos to outsiders as well. The most recent combat video that Lin Huang had watched dated from seven years ago.

Therefore, when Lin Huang saw Shen Wushuang’s face in the projection, he could not help but wonder if the Shen Wushuang of today was worthy of his title as the God Territory’s Number One Virtual God.

“Overlord, zoom in to his footage.”

Lin Huang pointed at Shen Wushuang’s face in the surveillance footage.

The footage, originally the size of a palm, was swiftly transformed into a big screen of about fifty inches.

In the video, Shen Wushuang was currently in a room that looked suspiciously like a storeroom and was locked in fierce combat with another person.

After concentrating on the video for a few seconds, Lin Huang could not help raising his eyebrows slightly.

“Is that a Sword Servant?”

In the video, Shen Wushuang’s loose long hair gave him a disheveled look. Meanwhile, his opponent was a middle-aged man sporting a beard. Despite his rather ordinary appearance, this man looked as if he was winning this fight with Shen Wushuang.

Both of them clearly displayed skills higher than Level-6 Sword Dao. Going purely by their accomplishments in Sword Dao, Lin Huang felt that they were no weaker than himself.

What prompted Lin Huang to think that Shen Wushuang’s opponent was a Sword Servant was that there was no such person in the God Territory’s Virtual God ranks. If there had been, this person would have been in the top ranks; at least the top three. Yet, Lin Huang had seen all the pictures of the top twenty Virtual Gods and none of them resembled the person in front of Shen Wushuang.

Of course, the man could have been a resident of the Great Heaven Territory. Lin Huang considered this as well, but he was leaning more towards the assumption that the man was Great Heaven’s Sword Servant, who was also a trial BOSS in the Competitive Trial.

Judging by his ability to contain Shen Wushuang’s attacks, Lin Huang would not have been at all surprised if the bearded man’s actual combat strength was at Heavenly God level.

In the footage, both of them directed their Sword Dao through sheer will.

In the void, shafts of gold and black sword gleams clashed against each other, triggering explosions.

Every sword gleam that they sent out was almost on par with Lin Huang’s current abilities.

However, Lin Huang quickly noticed something strange—he suddenly realized that Shen Wushuang was a left-hander.

However, in the combat videos that Lin Huang had watched a few days ago, without exception, Shen Wushuang held his sword in his right hand.

‘Has this fellow been hiding his real strength from the very beginning? Or has he realized in recent years that his left hand makes him more skillful, so he switched to cultivating with his left hand instead?’

The fight in the footage fascinated Lin Huang greatly, but it was purely a match of sword skills and Sword Dao. From beginning to end, Shen Wushuang did not utilize other skills and neither did the bearded middle-aged man.

The fight lasted for more than half an hour. When Shen Wushuang started showing defeat, Lin Huang saw his figure retreat frantically out of the storeroom-like space.

The bearded man did not chase after Shen Wushuang however. After he sheathed his sword though, his head suddenly snapped in the direction of the surveillance camera. The screen blacked out in an instant.

“Discovered,” the Overlord explained.

“I know.” Lin Huang was more convinced now that his upcoming opponent was one of the 300 Sword Servants in this Trial.

Despite being restricted to rank-9 Virtual God abilities, a Heavenly God’s detection abilities were far above those of a Virtual God. It was not too much of a surprise that he would have discovered the Overlord’s surveillance bugs.

Shen Wushuang might have lost the fight in the footage, but Lin Huang did not dare underestimate him. In the half-hour fight, Shen Wushuang had demonstrated enough of his abilities to prove that he was indeed the Number One Virtual God.

‘This bearded fellow in the footage—Sword Servant or not, he’d make a great opponent. He didn’t pursue Shen Wushuang when he retreated. Whatever his reasons for not giving chase, I guess he won’t pursue his opponents no matter who retreats anyway…’ The thought of training with the bearded man arose in Lin Huang’s mind. After all, even if Lin Huang could not defeat him, he would not need to use any skills than a direct retreat. ‘If I train with an opponent like that, he’d probably be a great help to me in assimilating what I’ve harvested from the first two stages.’

Most people would prefer to stay away once they realized how powerful the bearded man was. Yet, for Lin Huang, the man was the perfect training target.

“Overlord, plan my route from my current position to this bearded fellow’s location. If there are other participants in between, mark them for me too. I can take them out on the way and earn more points,” Lin Huang proceeded to make good on his thoughts.

Immediately, the Overlord created a route as directed and projected it to Lin Huang.

“Target is currently located two hundred and eighty kilometers away. Based on the previously determined locations of the Trial participants, we ought to encounter four participants en route. This is calculated based on a ten-kilometer deviation along the route between us and the target. If we take a twenty-kilometer deviation, there’ll be nine participants.

“Basically, all the participants are moving around; I’ll be constantly updated on their positions. But there’s still a problem—the target can detect my probing methods, so he can’t be tracked. There’s a good chance that he’s left his initial position.”

“If he’s a participant, then he’s left for sure. But if he’s a Sword Servant, he’d most probably guard his own territory. No matter what, let’s go and find out.”

Naturally, Lin Huang hoped that the man would remain in the same location. It was hard to find a good opponent after all. If the man turned out to be a participant from the Great Heaven Territory, he would probably not stay in the same spot after a match. With his abilities, the man would be actively out hunting and would probably not linger in the same area.

Nevertheless, Lin Huang decided to go and find out.