Chapter 1330: I Know

The Lich didn’t even move, a dark energy pulsed from his body as a black dome appeared around him. With a catastrophic blast, seven various booms echoed through the cloudless sky as seven attacks landed simultaneously. The dark energy shook as though it was about to crack and shatter at any moment, but nothing happened, it simply shook then remained still.

The Lich’s smile remained as his eyes stayed on the ones in front of him. Six pairs of eyes narrowed as their combined attacks hadn’t even made the Lich move or use any specific attacks. Although they hadn’t used their Laws, as they were merely probing, but with this probing, they had gotten their answer.

The Lich’s dome shone with pulsing dark lights. None of the geniuses dared to remain, they knew an attack was coming, the next moment all seven of them vanished from their positions in the sky, their bodies appearing kilometers away in less than a second.

The moment they moved, the dome collapsed outwards like a nuclear blast. A dark wave streaking everywhere as the air shrieked, space cracked like an egg, shockwaves and the blast slamming into the geniuses despite them moving earlier.

Seeing the attack reach them regardless of distance and their instant reaction, six of them tapped into their Laws, their speed increasing exponentially as they dodged with flickering ease. As for Anthony, he simply waved his hand as though swatting a fly away, and the moment he did, the explosion that tore towards him tore to the side as he deflected the explosion itself.

His body twisted as he landed on one foot with a calm ease, his robe fluttering as his hands remained at his back with an apple held in his mouth. The moment he landed, one hand held the apple as he bit into it nonchalantly, his eyes rising towards the Lich.

The six other geniuses landed with a deft touch, their heads snapping towards their enemy. Although they had just been shown the gap between them and their opponent, a flicker of determination flashed in their eyes.

But before any of them could even take a step, the Lich’s presence pulsed outwards as the dignity of a Higher One pressed down upon the entire domain.

Sensing the presence, the geniuses froze in horror, their determination vanishing as though it was never there. They stood rooted on the spot in pure fear... they had dared to attack a Higher One. The next instant, they all dropped to their knees in respect reserved for a Higher One.

"We apologize, Oh Higher One," the six of them spoke as their heads lowered ever so slowly.

Higher Ones were shown immense respect, no matter what race, no matter if they were from an enemy faction, it didn’t matter. A Higher One was a Higher One.

But the Lich didn’t speak, instead, his eyes shifted towards Anthony, who didn’t kneel towards him in respect. His gaze stayed on his handsome boy who seemed to be eating an apple and staring at him with an indifferent expression.

The six geniuses shifted their gaze towards Anthony who remained standing, they wondered if he had gone mad. But they said nothing, they just waited for what the Higher One was going to do.

But, unknown to people below the Eternal Apex realm, Eternal Apexes didn’t care if people knelt to them or not. Millions of people knelt each time they made their presence known, why would they suddenly care and lash out just because one or some people didn’t kneel and bow to them?

Their mindset wasn’t that broken, they didn’t get to their level by caring about such useless things.

Deep down, the six geniuses sort of saw this as a good thing. To them, maybe, just maybe, the Higher One would change the rules of this challenge to maybe killing Anthony, then allowing them to leave and hunt for other treasures.

"You are interesting... Anthony," the Lich spoke, stating Anthony’s name despite Anthony not saying it.

Anthony chewed and swallowed his apple as he replied, "I know."

His tone was flat as ever.

The Lich turned towards the kneeling geniuses as he spoke, "No need of having useless hopes, while I can’t read your minds, I was quite a schemer myself back in my days," he mused.

He could guess what they were thinking, trying to scheme against a Higher One was simply wishful thinking.... well, not that they were trying to scheme against him or outsmart him.

The geniuses froze for a moment, then sighed internally as they were simply amazed at how they had been seen through so easily.

"You may rise," the Lich stated flatly as he didn’t care about their show of respect.

The six of them rose to their feet, their eyes staying on the Lich. Within their hearts, some of them cursed Luth Aleksandr of the Universal Cauldron Pavilion, he was the instigator of all this.

"While I appreciate your kneeling and show of respect, the challenge remains the same, only one of you is leaving here alive," the Lich continued speaking, "but this time, I will make it worth your while," his tone turning mischievous.

His eyes turned from the six of them and focused on Anthony as he spoke again, "At the beginning, I said that you all will gain the rewards each of you have in your space rings... but what you don’t know is that the Human by the name Anthony possesses some finer treasures than y’all’s combined."

At the Lich’s words, their heads snapped towards Anthony as they stared at him, wondering what he had within his space ring. But Anthony didn’t react, since he was done with his apple, he now held a bowl of popcorn in his hand.

"He possesses the corpse of an Eternal Apex within his space ring, gotten from the second domain he entered before becoming here," the Lich continued with a bony smirk, "and he also has a Genesis Grade Trident artefact gotten from the first domain he entered when he entered Master’s Tomb," he stated in finality.

Each word that left the Lich’s mouth shocked the six geniuses to the absolute core. The corpse of an Eternal Apex was worth the pressure from six different factions, because this way, their own organization can even gain more Eternal Apexes in a few centuries at most.

And not only that, he possessed a Genesis Grade Trident. While that wasn’t rare to an ancient Faction like theirs and wasn’t worth the pressure of six different factions, but the corpse of an Eternal Apex definitely was.

"So, tell me, does the reward he possesses worth the risk?" the Lich asked as he remained seated back into his seat.

’It is!!!’ they screamed in their minds as they couldn’t help but imagine the amount of resources they could exchange the corpse for, probably enough to take them to the Progenitor rank... or the Starseer rank.

Deep down, they had waited for Anthony to deny it, after all, maybe, just maybe the Lich was playing them, but seeing Anthony simply eat his popcorn and stare at them, that was all the confirmation they needed from him before they made a move.