The audience watching the live broadcast were all people who had seen storms and waves, but even they were stunned. Let alone the contestants witnessing it live.
Su Cha’s silver hair, which usually gave off a fragile vibe, now danced wildly like the sharpest kite string, capable of cutting throats at any moment. The violent energy particles stirred chaotically. Spectators outside the arena were shouting “What the h*ll,” while those inside were yelling, “Oh sh*t.”
No one expected Su Cha’s spirit power to be this overwhelming—it had clearly felt soft and powerless during earlier probes.
“Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!”
At this point, Ge Shixu couldn’t care less about her teammates. This spirit storm was like a miniature tornado. If they waited for it to snowball, it would be too late to escape.
Slap slap slap slap.
Even now, Su Cha was still relentlessly slapping.
The sound was crisp and loud, even within the storm.
Ge Shixu, who was about to run alone, noticed the drone hovering in the air. Considering the live broadcast and Li Xingqu’s identity, she turned to Ji Tianjin with an expression that said: “Aren’t you going to say something?”
Ji Tianjin, being trained by Cyril, was already a known fact. Probably only he had any chance of persuading Su Cha.
Seeing that things had gone far enough, Ji Tianjin was about to speak to tell Su Cha to focus on his awakening, when he heard Su Cha still slapping and cursing, “You? And you wanted to put your hands all over me?”
Ji Tianjin immediately changed his tone, calmly saying: “What you constantly think about will eventually come back to you.”
Good hit.
Slap.
As if responding to his words, Su Cha landed another crisp slap.
The commotion was so loud that contestants from other planets were drawn over, initially thinking they might benefit from the chaos. But when they saw the scene in person, they nearly forgot to conceal themselves.
“What the h*ll is going on?!” They were completely shaken.
A heavy sigh suddenly sounded.
It came from Zhao En, who had desperately wanted to kill Li Xingqu himself.
He was sighing at how everything had actually been foreshadowed. On the battleship, when Su Cha joked about needing to be near-death to trigger Li Xingqu’s protection device, they had laughed about it in private. Now they realized it was truly inhumane.
Li Xingqu’s face was nearly beaten to pulp, yet his protection device never activated.
Su Cha suddenly stopped and said something baffling: “I know you actually enjoy this.”
Earlier, he had only been using brute force. But after pausing, when he slapped again, he drew a wisp of spirit power.
“Ah~”
Li Xingqu’s already-numb face suddenly felt something. He only felt a slight jolt in his body but was sure Su Cha hadn’t directly attacked him.
Such a small trace of spirit power was imperceptible.
So what was this? A natural reaction?
Still plotting revenge, Li Xingqu now completely doubted his own sanity.
“Hit me again,” he slurred, wanting to confirm.
By now his mind was nearly shut down—under normal circumstances, Li Xingqu would never say something so perverse, no matter how curious he was.
Su Cha obliged with another slap.
“Ah~”
Li Xingqu curled his toes, clenched his fists, his whole body shuddered—no mistake, he really did feel something.
Su Cha sneered: “So young and already a masochist. Could it be genetic?”
The live audience all turned to look at the Federation President. If the upper beam is crooked, the lower beams will be slanted too. Could it be… the Federation President is also an M?
“Utter nonsense!” Even the most composed gentleman couldn’t hold back in this situation, let alone this smiling tiger of a president.
Others began to ponder: He’s panicking, he’s panicking. How many more surprises does the Federation have hidden?
The high-ranking Zerg royal clicked his tongue like he’d swallowed a fly: “So dirty.”
They were always calling the Zerg perverts, and the Zerg had always thought they were indeed arrogantly twisted. But now they saw that the Federation could neither pamper nor dominate better than others, yet still had the audacity to criticize them every day.
Where’s their shame?
….
Li Xingqu’s face was almost completely smashed.
Insults alone are hard to truly break someone. To shatter their psychological defenses, you must make them doubt themselves.
Li Xingqu saw only two possibilities:
One, he really was a pervert.
Two, he had developed Stockholm Syndrome from being slapped.
Neither option was acceptable to him.
“Ah~” His last groan was cut short as Li Xingqu finally fainted from rage.
Ji Tianjin pressed his dagger down at the right moment. As a bit of blood seeped out, Li Xingqu’s emergency protection device finally activated. Ji Tianjin then casually tossed him aside like trash.
Ge Shixu quickly dragged him away.
Su Cha turned around and said faintly: “Don’t play identity-swapping romance games. Understand?”
Everyone else instinctively nodded like pecking chickens.
Ji Tianjin was more focused on Su Cha’s awakening process, casually rubbing a silver coin between his fingers. Cyril had anticipated the possibility of Su Cha awakening during the competition and had specially prepared a suppressant to forcibly stabilize him if necessary.
In truth, neither Ji Tianjin nor Cyril had expected Su Cha to actually awaken.
Just like his spirit form—the magnolia lotus—which had recently evolved in a fit of rage, Su Cha, who was normally carefree, shouldn’t have been this furious, even if he didn’t win the championship.
But plans never keep up with changes.
Now, the air was filled with the fragrance of flowers, forcefully dispelling the stench of beast blood that lingered before. Su Cha half-closed his eyes, letting his spiritual power continuously circulate within him.
As the contestants quickly retreated, Ji Tianjin still hadn’t moved to a safe distance in order to ensure Su Cha’s safety.
“Look at the sky.”
Someone whispered.
Energy particles exploded in mid-air, forming mushroom clouds.
But the real trouble was still to come. As the particles violently swirled, some nearby poisonous creatures, like mushrooms, began madly spraying toxins.
“Sh*t!”
A contestant widened his eyes as a dagger from the shadows pressed against his sternum, triggering his emergency protection device.
Di Yuansi and Liu Xiqin took advantage of everyone’s distraction, moving like grim reapers to swiftly take the lives of other contestants.
Having learned their lesson, the others quickly snapped out of it. Teammates regrouped, and everyone began retreating with heightened vigilance.
Knowing sneak attacks wouldn’t be so easy now, Di Yuansi wiped the blood off his dagger and said, “Forget it.”
They had already taken down the Federation and just eliminated another faction—this was enough of a gain.
The team captain’s permissions were with Ji Tianjin, so Di Yuansi reminded him to transfer half the points to Su Cha.
Ji Tianjin nodded, his gaze still focused ahead.
The intensity of this spiritual power had already exceeded expectations. From the higher vantage point of the warships in the sky, it was clear that one-third of the rainforest was being swept by abnormal, roaring headwinds.
Lande, on one of the warships, watched with pride in his eyes. “As expected of the little prince.”
The strength of deep awakening couldn’t even be measured by conventional units.
The storm scared off dangerous beasts but attracted more from faraway places.
Standing at the center of the storm, Su Cha coldly watched the beasts circling in the sky, suddenly revealing an indescribable smile.
Amid the massive hurricane, a wave of spiritual power, orderly like a sequence, swept over two of the beasts. One beast’s tail suddenly struck its companion. But because the wind was too strong and the rainforest beasts were poisoned, it simply looked like a missed attack in the energy storm.
After confirming it worked, Su Cha didn’t continue using this ability. He switched to pure physical attacks.
Within mere seconds, vines appeared out of thin air near the beasts. Su Cha’s spiritual power wrapped around them, and the devil vines lashed out wildly, striking the diving beasts in mid-air.
The vines moved at incredible speed, their afterimages forming what looked like an inescapable net, making it impossible for the beasts to maneuver. Their normally tough bodies, which they were so proud of, were now torn apart.
The gushing blood quickly made the air, which had just been purified by floral scents, foul again.
Su Cha stood at the eye of the storm. His short stature was only relative to the typically tall interstellar races; in fact, he had broad shoulders, a slim waist, and long legs—a perfectly proportioned figure.
His slender fingers deftly manipulated the vines, and the whole scene exuded an eerie, ascetic allure.
“Honestly…” said a Pritt star contestant who had retreated a kilometer away, “it’s really not entirely Li Xingqu’s fault that he found pleasure in being hit.”
This scene was genuinely too intense.
Su Cha’s spiritual power was so abundant that his body, out of self-protection, forcibly expelled a portion of it to externally rearrange and reconfigure.
While the beasts howled in pain, Su Cha himself wasn’t as unaffected as he seemed. He felt like his cells, blood, and even bones were being broken down and reforged.
The reason he hadn’t moved from his spot was because the pain made him unwilling to take a single step.
All this pain was vented onto the beasts, who also refused to give up on the prey in front of them. Su Cha’s flesh had an irresistible allure to them.
“Just a bit more…”
Su Cha took a deep breath, preparing to reel in and realign his spiritual power.
The difficulty and pain of reabsorbing it was several times greater than releasing it.
His curled fingers tightened more and more until he finally, as if collapsing, flung the vines. Several beasts fell from the sky, crashing into the ground and creating deep craters—their survival uncertain.
At the same time, the terrifying energy storm in the rainforest finally began to subside.
Reabsorbing such a tremendous power at once, Su Cha was hit by his own spiritual power’s backlash and staggered back several steps, tasting a surge of blood in his throat.
When he came to his senses, his mouth was full of blood, and Ji Tianjin was already by his side, steadying him and asking, “Are you okay?”
Su Cha forced a weak smile. “Nothing serious.”
After years, he had finally achieved deep awakening.
Su Cha’s voice was soft: “Soon, it’ll be their turn to tremble.”
After deep awakening, he finally activated the spatial talent unique to Fog Star people. His spiritual power, which used to only soothe, could now reverse and incite rage in others.
From now on, he could silently provoke conflicts among other contestants and harvest their spiritual power from the shadows.
Forcing himself to stand straight, Su Cha walked toward a certain place.
“Don’t, don’t come over here.” Zhao En was genuinely scared of him now.
Su Cha ignored him and stepped closer to Li Xingqu.
“What are you trying to do?” Ge Shixu was extremely on guard. “Once the protection device is activated, you can’t touch him.”
Earlier, the arena had been filled with raging energy particles, so the warships hadn’t immediately come down for rescue.
Su Cha, of course, wouldn’t risk ending up in the interstellar court over scum like Li Xingqu. Looking down at him coldly, Su Cha said, “Don’t toy with feelings. Understand?”
Barely awake from unconsciousness, Li Xingqu dizzily nodded.
“Good.” Su Cha bent down, his voice chilling: “If I ever catch you again, daring to love but not daring to admit it—even if you’re the Federation President’s son, I’ll kill you.”
…
In the arena.
Everyone was pragmatic. No one cared about Li Xingqu anymore. They were far more interested in Su Cha’s awakened abilities.
Powerful. Fierce. Beyond imagination.
This completely overturned their initial impression: the heir of Fog Star was not a harmless lamb, but a wolf in lamb’s clothing.
The situation changed so quickly that many in power began reconsidering the prospect of forming marriage alliances.
They despised the Federation, but in truth, even before the competition began, they had privately hinted for their own contestants to try to get close to Su Cha.
“Is someone like that really suitable for a political marriage?” they began asking themselves.
“There’s no such thing as true empathy,” one leader sneered. “This child must’ve had a similar experience.”
Yes, everyone’s first reaction was the same: he must have once had a youthful romance that ended because his lover wouldn’t admit to the relationship.
Their gazes drifted toward the Galan Empire side again. When Su Cha made his contestant speech, he’d mentioned studying on Galan Star. Could it have been during that time that he experienced that first love, but the other party refused to acknowledge it?
“Little… little sister.” Wu Zhi was so nervous he stuttered. “You don’t think Su Cha has something going on with the captain, do you?”
“The captain had the guts to run to Fog Star—how could he not have the courage to admit it?”
At this moment, everyone around them was watching, whispering among themselves.
The topics were roughly the same: some guessed it was Ji Tianjin, others suspected that “the darker one” was involved.
The darker one? Wu Zhi suddenly turned to Rong Shao. “Could it be you?”
Rong Shao spat in annoyance but was also curious, so he turned to Wu Shui and asked, “What do you think? Did you ever notice anything odd about your brother back then?”
Wu Shui ignored him.
Rong Shao called out again.
Wu Shui expressionlessly replied, “If I remember correctly, Xiqin and I are the only girls on this team.”
How is it that from beginning to end, no one ever suspected them?
“…”
Sanses gently released some spiritual pressure, finally causing those probing gazes to retreat.
The various planetary leaders resumed their formal sitting posture.
Regardless of the truth, after personally witnessing Su Cha warning Li Xingqu via the live broadcast, they became even more determined to seek a marriage alliance—
Because even though Su Cha was fierce… he was, after all, a hopeless romantic.
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