As Gong Shangyu activated her Time Pause, Gu Qingying immediately felt like a little mouse that had fallen into a granary.
Taking advantage of the fact that time had stopped for everyone else, she had more time than any other contestant.
She groped through the mist like a headless fly, searching everywhere for the trace of a stone casket.
Soon, roughly 30 zhang away to her upper left, she spotted a stone casket emitting a faint white light.
It was suspended quietly in the frozen mist, clearly visible like a pearl embedded in gray amber.
Around her, the other contestants—who had been lunging around aimlessly like headless flies just a moment ago—were now frozen in various comical poses.
One person was mid-leap, thrusting a palm upward.
Another had a look of utter confusion while glancing around.
One person had even lost their sense of direction and was floating upside down.
The nearest contestant, a burly man, had a massive hand less than 5 feet away from a stone casket.
The expression on his face was one of frantic joy, as if he were about to succeed, but he was frozen forever in that exact moment.
‘That was close!’
Gu Qingying felt a wave of lingering fear, and cold sweat instantly soaked her back.
If Gong Shangyu hadn’t used her Time Stop in time, this stone casket would have likely fallen into someone else’s hands in the blink of an eye.
Then, a massive surge of ecstasy overwhelmed her.
‘Found it!’
She no longer hesitated.
Her gaze locked onto the nearest stone casket, and the Spirit Energy within her body erupted at an unprecedented speed.
Her purple-clad figure was like a cheetah breaking free from its shackles, carving a straight and dazzling trajectory through the frozen space-time.
She instantly crossed the solidified mist and firmly grabbed the cold, hard stone casket in her hand.
The casket was heavy.
Its surface was carved with profound Magical Symbols that emitted faint spatial fluctuations.
This was indeed the target required for the competition!
“I got it!”
Gu Qingying gripped the casket tightly and sent an excited Transmission to Gong Shangyu, who was maintaining the Time Stop below.
Her voice was filled with relief and the joy of victory.
Below the arena, Gong Shangyu received the transmission, and the corners of her mouth curved into a smirk of successful planning.
With a slight thought, she silently deactivated the Time Stop Domain.
wuuuung— It was as if a play button had been pressed again; the frozen world instantly returned to its flow.
The grayish-white mist began to churn once more.
The angry curses, heavy breathing, and the sound of bodies cutting through the air from the surrounding contestants flooded back into her ears.
The wind began to blow again.
The contestants who had been frozen in place had no idea what kind of space-time anomaly had just occurred.
They only felt a confused sense that they had paused for a mysterious split second before continuing their previous actions, scurrying through the mist like headless flies.
Meanwhile, Gu Qingying clutched the stone casket and accelerated toward the Referee, fearing that the other contestants might snatch it from her.
Watching her Junior Sister turn into a streak of light, Gong Shangyu sent a smug, mocking Transmission.
“Hehehe… My dear Junior Sister~ Who was it that solemnly vowed to me just now that they would compete with me and win fairly on their own? Hmm? That momentum, that determination—it was truly touching~”
Gong Shangyu crossed her arms, her pink eyes full of teasing.
“And the result? In the end, didn’t you have to rely on your Senior Sister’s Time Stop System to get it? Tsk, tsk. Where is that backbone you mentioned? Where is that ‘relying on yourself’? This face-slapping came quite fast, didn’t it~?”
“Don’t forget the condition you promised me just now. For the ‘date’ with Master later, the itinerary, the schedule, and where we go—it all has to be according to my commands! If you dare to go back on your word or play double games… Hmph, you know the consequences~”
Gu Qingying’s joy from her recent victory was mostly dissipated by Gong Shangyu’s mocking words.
Her pretty face turned red with anger, and her purple eyes glared downward.
“Gong Shangyu! Don’t get too ahead of yourself! If it weren’t for this damn mist…!”
“Oh my, a loss is a loss. Why look for excuses?”
Gong Shangyu interrupted her, her smile growing even more brilliant.
“The process isn’t important; only the result matters. Now, I have helped you, and you owe me a massive favor. You have to listen to my arrangements obediently. Just accept your fate, Junior Sister~”
Hearing Gong Shangyu’s petty, triumphant tone, Gu Qingying felt a surge of wicked fire rush to her head.
The slight guilt she felt for winning with outside help was instantly replaced by an unyielding stubbornness.
“Hmph! Who’s going to accept their fate!”
She suddenly stowed the stone casket away, then pointed angrily at the area in the sky still shrouded in mist.
“It’s just one stone casket! The competition isn’t over yet! I’ll use my own abilities to go back and grab another one to show you! I’ll let you know that even without you, I, Gu Qingying, can still do it!”
Saying this, she didn’t wait for Gong Shangyu to react.
The Spirit Energy in her body surged again, and her figure blurred.
She actually soared into the sky once more, diving resolutely back into the disorienting grayish-white mist.
“Hey! You!”
Gong Shangyu hadn’t expected her to be so stubborn.
She froze for a moment then shrugged indifferently.
“Tsk, always choosing pride over comfort. Fine, do whatever you want.”
She was more than happy to watch Gu Qingying continue to struggle in the mist.
Re-entering the God-Blurring Mist, Gu Qingying immediately felt that suffocating sensation of losing her direction and having her Divine Sense suppressed.
But this time, she was holding a grudge; she had to prove herself.
She recalled the approximate locations of the other two stone caskets she had seen during the Time Stop.
Combining that with her memory of her previous movements, she carefully adjusted her direction, struggling to grope her way forward through the chaos.
She pushed her movement technique to the limit, weaving through the mist like a butterfly through flowers, avoiding the other contestants who were still acting like headless flies.
Several times, she seemed to sense the faint spatial fluctuations emitted by a casket, but when she followed the feeling and charged over, she came up empty.
The fluctuations seemed as if they were moving.
Time ticked by, and fine beads of sweat appeared on Gu Qingying’s forehead.
Her heart grew increasingly anxious.
Just when she was about to give up and admit that she truly couldn’t find a target in the mist on her own—
Suddenly, not far ahead and to her side, the thick mist seemed to thin for a split second.
The outline of a stone casket emitting a familiar white light became faintly visible!
‘Found it!’
Gu Qingying was ecstatic.
All her fatigue and anxiety vanished instantly!
She pushed her Spirit Energy to the maximum, her speed soaring to its limit as she shot toward the stone casket like an arrow leaving a bow!
Her purple figure pulled a clear afterimage through the mist!
Closer!
Even closer!
Seeing that her hand was less than a foot away from the casket, victory was in sight!
However, in that lightning-fast moment—
A green figure, appearing like a ghost, dived down from the mist above her at a speed even greater than her own!
That person seemed completely unaffected by the mist.
They calculated the trajectory with absolute precision.
Not only did they move first, their slender fingers casually snatching the stone casket away, but as they skimmed over Gu Qingying’s head, one foot landed squarely on top of her head.
Using her as a springboard, the figure soared into the air again and instantly vanished back into the thick mist!
Everything happened too fast, too suddenly!
Gu Qingying only felt a moderate amount of force on the top of her head, and then her target was gone!
Her forward momentum came to a jarring halt.
She froze in mid-air, her mind going blank.
It took several seconds before she realized what had happened!
The stone casket… was stolen?
And… her head was stepped on?!
“AHHH—!!!”
An indescribable sense of humiliation and rage instantly shattered Gu Qingying’s rationality!
She whipped her head around, staring in the direction the person had vanished.
Her purple eyes looked as if they were about to spray actual flames!
She had seen it clearly.
The person who stole the casket and stepped on her head was wearing the standard attire of a Heavenly Sword Sect Inner Disciple.
On their face… was actually a ridiculous and comical Big-Head Doll Mask!
Their features were completely obscured.
That thin figure’s gender was, for a moment, difficult for Gu Qingying to discern.