Twin Scepters!

  Amid the roar of the music, the Mountain of Nomadism let loose a violent hurricane, tearing through the clouds. The Petitioner's main guns warmed up, taking aim at the massive sea fortress.

  They would not yield! They would not compromise!

  Up in the sky, several dozen Scepters faced each other threateningly. They displayed their power without hesitation. Movement after movement, fearful music theories overlapped each other, distorting the sky of the Physical World and transforming it into the primordial darkness of the universe. Against that primordial darkness the Scepters blazed like stars.

  They menaced each other with mutual hostility.

  In a flash, the musician's on the outskirts scattered in all directions. If a battle broke out, even the sweeping aftermath would be enough to smash them into pieces.

  All of the mid-level musicians seemed to have disappeared without a trace, or fallen silent. But under the water, huge, gloomy shapes began to emerge from the depths of the sea.

  They waited for the perfect opportunity……

  The original masters' waves of aether increased under the induction of the Jiu Xiao Huan Pei. In a flash they had soared to nearly one hundred. That deep and restrained wave of aether hid terrifying potential.

  Of the masters who had come here on this day, there was not one who had not been deeply immersed in music theory for hundreds of years. Tired of being limited to just being masters, they had waited impatiently for an opportunity to advance themselves. Now that the Ultimate was in sight, not one of them was willing to back down.

  The gate to becoming a Scepter was frightfully difficult to open. Countless people had wasted their lives in front of it, for each Scepter was the hero of their generation.

  If they could get through it, they would be famed throughout the nations and be established as a Holy Spirit. If they could not, in a hundred years they would be nothing but dry bones.

  If they missed this chance, who knew how long they would have to wait for the next one?

  Battle seemed inevitable.

  In the dead silence, a hoarse sigh came out of the Ultimate.

  It was the chorus of the three Wise Men's incantation.

  "……from then on, he will be led astray."

  A sound like the ringing of a great bronze bell came out of the Sacred Cauldron. A formless waved surged out in all directions at the sound, and in an instant had covered the entire area.

  Limitless power began to blaze out from within, casting its light on everyone.

  Everyone felt as if the deep tolling of that bell had swept through their bodies, causing the Symphony of Predestination to ring out.

  The sound instantly overpowered all of the music, fusing it all into a single note. A light descended from the sky as all stood there dumbfounded.

  Hundreds upon hundreds of rays of light fell upon the masters. When the light was extinguished, the masters had all disappeared.

  In that moment, Ye Qingxuan could only see a flash before his eyes.

  The light cut like a knife, easily piercing through the boundary between the realm of aether and the physical world and pulling him into the suffocating sea of aether. Innumerable undercurrents seemed to drag him down, only to lift him up again. He could see nothing but countless strands of flickering light flying around him.

  Suddenly, he could feel gravity again.

  He fell onto the floor, coughing violently. In his dizziness he vomited the undigested remains of his dinner.

  His heart was beating wildly.

  Wait……

  That wasn't right. He felt his pulse.

  He was shocked.

  To anyone else, a heartbeat would be the most ordinary thing in the world. But not to Ye Qingxuan. His heart was already immersed in the Sub-Originator. After fusing with the stone of sage it was half-elementalized and rising into the realm of aether.

  In other words, his heart should no longer be in his body.

  But now it was back.

  He looked at the ring of braided piano wire on his index finger, the Jiu Xiao Huan Pei. Even though it had been transformed into Heaven Ladder music theory and immersed in the Symphony of Predestination, it too had returned. Next to it, the signet ring on his middle finger was giving off a dim light.

  It was the signet ring of the Prince of Avalon, the deputy ruler of the Anglo Kingdom.

  Now, it had become the place where the music theory of the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth had accumulated. The blessings of the Chapter of the Golden Victory had all flowed into it.

  And a movement had appeared in black on the back of his hand. Ye Qingxuan rolled up his cuffs, and could see the dark movement that looked like it had been engraved into his skin.

  "Catastrophe resonation."

  Ye Qingxuan was silent for a moment, then he pricked his forefinger and watched the metal-colored blood flow out of it……it was the blood-soaked seal of moonlight.

  The stone of sage, catastrophe resonance, the seal of moonlight……his three-in-one Symphony of Predestination had been broken apart at some time, and distributed back into the Sub-Originator.

  The blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth had been set inside the signet ring.

  The music went silent, without so much as an echo.

  This meant that……the worst had happened.

  All of the foreign objects had been forced out of his body. His power had fallen from halfway to the Scepter level all the way down to the Distortion level.

  Ye Qingxuan concentrated hard for a moment, trying to control the music again, trying to put the divided pieces of the Symphony of Predestination back together again. But just as he managed to put it back together it was forcibly split again by some kind of repulsive force.

  It was like trying to force the same poles of two magnets together.

  There was something that would not allow Ye Qingxuan to receive the support of those objects anymore.

  He smiled bitterly and looked around the labyrinthian city, seeing that there were streets that gradually extended upwards before converging at the top.

  Ah, it was the Ultimate.