Chapter 1185: Chapter 933: The Zealot
At this moment,
within the Ancient Mage Tower,
Long Yi had been feigning death for some time, or rather, the Ascender whom Long Yi was impersonating had been feigning death. Ever since the last time the Ascender, played by Long Yi, had ’repelled’ Long Yi, the Ascender’s status within the entire Ancient Mage Tower could be described as skyrocketing. Even the master of the Ancient Mage Tower, Elma, admitted that without the Ascender’s intervention at that time, the Ancient Mage Tower would very likely be facing a completely different situation now.
Because of this, the legends about the Ascender had grown more and more intense within the entire Ancient Mage Tower. Due to Long Yi’s tremendous strength, the entire Ancient Mage Tower had fallen into fear; if it were to come to a direct confrontation, none within the Ancient Mage Tower could possibly be Long Yi’s match. It wasn’t just within the Ancient Mage Tower, even the entire Plane might not have anyone who could stand against him. And now, the Ascender had stepped forward and defeated Long Yi! Keep in mind, this was an Ascender who hadn’t even fully utilized his power yet! What chance would Long Yi have once the Ascender fully recovered his strength?
It was precisely for this reason that reverence for the Ascender had surged within the Ancient Mage Tower.
However, this reverence had nothing to do with Hayden.
Although the Ascender was currently hiding within Hayden, when the Ascender fell into a slumber, Hayden’s own strength was very limited. So even though everyone initially showed love and care for Hayden by association, as the Ascender failed to appear time and again, everyone lost patience with Hayden.
The most extreme actions were taken by an organization named the Ascender Alliance.
This was a group formed by young people, with a leader who proclaimed that he had received the Ascender’s secret support. He claimed that by following the Ascender, one could access the Ascender’s powerful secrets, which included the ability to become powerful or even immortal. Of course, this was false, but when rumors circulated widely, people couldn’t help but believe.
Some people began to secretly follow Hayden; wherever he went, they would loosely tail him from a distance. Later, they were not satisfied with trailing behind, and began brazenly following closer. Eventually, they even openly appeared around Hayden.
All of this was originally harmless. Until one day, a zealous member of the Ascender Alliance rushed in front of Hayden, knelt directly before him, and begged him for the Ascender’s secrets. Hayden could only very innocently tell him that the Ascender was still sleeping and he knew nothing of any Ascender’s secrets.
Seeing one person rush over to kneel and beg, more and more people gathered in front of Hayden. This amused Long Yi to no end; these people didn’t believe Hayden’s words, instead they believed in a stranger whom even Hayden had never met. Was this a classic case of a dysfunctional brain? No, perhaps they had been brainwashed by some sort of multi-level marketing scheme!
But Long Yi was not responsible for looking after these misguided youths; he felt a force behind them, a powerful one driving them from the shadows, and this was something he was very happy to see.
Let there be chaos, the more chaos, the better!
The number of kneeling people kept growing. They had developed an understanding among themselves, believing that if enough people knelt before the Ascender with sincere hearts, the Ascender would surely appear.
But obviously, Long Yi, acting as the Ascender, didn’t think so.
"Please get up quickly, my ancestor truly has not awoken yet, and kneeling here is of no use," Hayden urgently hastened away from the spot.
But the dissatisfied zealots chased after him again, and this event kept recurring, over and over, and as more and more people heard about it, the number joining the kneeling crowd only increased. By now, the rumors most people heard were quite different from the original ones; some even heard that the Ascender had decided to share his power equally with everyone, but Hayden had hijacked the Ascender’s power, attempting to monopolize it for himself.
One would know that this rumor was completely implausible with a little thought, but those covetous of the Ascender’s power had completely lost their minds and zealously followed Hayden, kneeling and raging simultaneously.
Finally, unable to restrain himself, a fanatic stepped forward and grabbed Hayden’s arm. Hayden instinctively jerked his arm away, causing the person not to stand firm and to fall to the ground, breaking his nose and standing up with a face covered in blood.
"Disaster! Hayden has killed someone!" someone far away shouted, and instantly the surroundings exploded into commotion.
"What? Hayden killed to monopolize the Ascender’s power?" someone exclaimed in shock.
"What did you say? Hayden suddenly went mad and killed many people?" another shouted.
Even though the truth was not far off, the actual facts had become completely distorted.
Long Yi found it all very amusing now, as he could clearly identify the ones who were stirring up the people around them. However, he was still Hayden for now, and couldn’t stand up to kick them all to death.
But what could they do now?
At that moment, a voice again called out from the crowd, "Hayden has imprisoned the great Ascender! Kill Hayden, liberate the great Ascender!"
The call was met immediately with echoes, "Kill Hayden! Liberate the great Ascender!"
At first, only a few responded, but quickly the numbers increased. In reality, people didn’t agree with the act of killing Hayden; they were simply afraid of missing the chance to share the Ascender’s power that might become available later on.
Thus, what was originally a group of fanatics transformed in the blink of an eye into executioners.
"Brothers, calm down, I’m just an ordinary person, and even if you kill me, it is impossible for you to obtain the great ancestor’s power. Moreover, if my life is in danger, the magic prepared in advance by the ancestor will take effect, and at that time, all of you present will die!" Hayden said with a hint of a threat in his tone.
"To think you’re still threatening us at this point! Kill him! Kill him!" Someone in the crowd urged again. And this time, it wasn’t just incitement—several people actually charged out, shouting, "Long live the Ascender!" and rushed straight at Hayden.
Long Yi naturally wasn’t going to sit and wait for death, and immediately started to fight back.
"Stop, brothers! I have already received new power from our great ancestor, I am no longer the person I was before, you are no match for me!" Long Yi said.
"Even if you did receive power, you’re still nothing but a weakling! Hand over your power honestly!" the attacker shouted with a ferocious look on his face.
Long Yi quickly raised his hand and the array sprang open, meeting the attack with a direct Auffa burst. This spell—using pure mana as a means of attack—is even simpler than a magic missile and has an even faster casting speed, though its damage is naturally very limited. The pure mana blasted out without any transformation, just like that, a straightforward bombardment, and unless the opponent was a complete fool, this move would definitely not cause any harm.
"Hahaha! If you say this is the power that the Ascender gave you, I absolutely don’t believe it!" the attacker laughed loudly.
"What the great ancestor gave me is this kind of power!" Long Yi shouted.
The mana he had just expelled didn’t dissipate but, under Long Yi’s control, converged towards the attacker!
The attacker unfolded a mana shield to try to block it, but the mana that had dissipated around the shield was completely absorbed onto it!
"Mana explosion!"
Boom!
The surrounding air’s mana exploded along with the attacker’s mana shield, and the attacker was blasted to pieces on the spot!
This was a move none of those present had ever seen before. It had been described in the first Chapter of the textbooks back in the days at the White Dragon Empire’s Dragon Knight Academy, but only as part of magical anecdotes. In the Human Realm, the limited mana made the power that could be unleashed by this spell very poor, so almost no one ever used it. But here, in this unrestricted world, one could utilize a sufficient number of spells to detonate an opponent’s shield or spells.
One could say that, given enough mana, the power of this move was practically limitless!
With one strike bringing death, everyone around was shocked.
In their eyes, Hayden had just been trash, even the most useless among the trash. And now he was so strong! Could this be the power brought by the Ascender?
"Let’s go together! Don’t give him a chance to fight back! As long as we kill him, we can get the Ascender’s power!" People in the crowd shouted again. But this time, those around hesitated, as this didn’t seem like a good choice. Nonetheless, several people still charged forward, and this time Hayden didn’t use the mana explosion but instead fought by casting spells in a proper manner. After a few exchanges, Hayden began to show signs of defeat. At that moment, some people in the crowd rushed out, shouting, "Kill Hayden! Free the Ascender!"
It was clear to anyone with eyes that they were vying for the Ascender’s power!
With these few people setting an example, others immediately went mad, rushing forward, fearing they would fall behind in the struggle for the Ascender’s power.
As the number of people increased, the pressure on Hayden surged. At first, he was still able to fight back, but now he was barely hanging on, and counterattacking was simply out of the question.
"Brothers, I beg you to stop forcing me! Don’t listen to other people’s instigation! Power cannot be obtained in this way!" Hayden shouted.
"After all this, he still dreams of monopolizing the power! Kill him! Kill him!" A few people in the crowd started shouting again.
"It’s a disaster! Hurry and get out of here! The protective spell set by the great ancestor for me is about to be activated!" Hayden yelled.
"Don’t believe him! There’s no protective spell at all!"
At this moment, Hayden was withstanding attacks from all sides. Despite barely holding on, he looked like he was about to collapse.
"Everyone, attack together! The power of the Ascender will soon be ours!" Those people in the crowd kept calling out, prompting those still hesitating to join the fight, so again, some people couldn’t restrain themselves and charged forward.
On the other hand, Elma had also been informed of the incident. At first, Elma didn’t take it seriously. But in the blink of an eye, the situation had drastically changed! Those fanatics had actually started attacking Hayden, trying to obtain the Ascender’s power?
How idiotic must someone be to believe in such a claim? (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian.com to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)
