But in the next instant, that Host who'd just been sliced in two reappeared several hundred meters away. Clearly, when Ian Song killed him, the Substitute Life Talisman on his body had activated.
Ian wasn't surprised by this.
After all, if he could draw so many Substitute Life Talismans, other Hosts could too.
But don't forget one rule: if you're killed even once, you lose the qualification to earn the twenty-point survival bonus.
This shows that whoever set the War's rules had already accounted for all the Substitute Life Talismans Hosts might carry. You can have a Substitute Life Talisman save you at the moment of death, but you'll still lose those twenty points.
You only get three points for killing a Host.
But killing other Hosts isn't easy, since who doesn't have dozens of Substitute Life Talismans on them?
So, the Host Ian had killed once was now glaring at him with venomous eyes—it was Ian Song who'd made him lose his twenty-point bonus.
"Not happy about it, huh?"
Sensing that look, Ian stepped forward and slashed at him again.
This time, the guy was ready and dodged quickly, but Ian's sword was just too fast. With a soft thud, the man's arm was sliced off, and Ian sheathed his sword, standing calmly.
"Bastard!"
The guy cursed furiously. When Ian killed him with a single stroke, he hadn't been this mad—after all, with a Substitute Life Talisman, he wouldn't really die, and another death wouldn't cost him more points. But losing an arm meant he was injured.
Getting injured meant losing another ten points, so Ian cutting off his arm made him even angrier than being killed.
Ian ignored him.
Instead, he looked at the other two Hosts.
They had already stopped fighting Mona Meng.
One was eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortal, the other seventeenth-layer. The three together had the advantage, but with Ian Song's arrival, they lost it—so there was no point in continuing.
"Let's go!"
The eighteenth-layer Host glared at Ian, then quickly left with the other two.
With more than eight thousand people fighting for just a hundred spots, there was no need to go all-out against Ian Song here. It was better to hunt down isolated Hosts and cut down their point totals.
"Thanks, Ian!"
Mona Meng smiled.
"We're allies, after all!"
Ian grinned. "Come on, let's go find the others!"
"Alright!"
The two of them flew off cautiously in one direction, not too fast, worried about falling into someone else's trap.
Soon, half an hour had passed.
During that time, Ian and Mona ran into quite a few Hosts, but since both were eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals and clearly not easy to mess with, none of the others tried anything.
Finally, after more than half an hour—
Ian and Mona bumped into another ally: Victor Xuanyuan. In the first Human Immortal trial, he’d only lost seven Human Immortals under his command.
In the later Earth Immortal, Golden Immortal, Profound Immortal, and Ancestral Immortal trials, his losses stayed low, so he was the most eye-catching among all the Hosts.
But as the saying goes, 'the nail that sticks out gets hammered.' He'd been ambushed once by five Hosts working together, losing his chance at the twenty-point bonus, so he looked pretty sour.
"I want revenge. Will you help me?"
Victor Xuanyuan looked at Ian and Mona and asked.
"Of course we'll help!"
Ian answered without hesitation.
"Alright, let's go now!" Victor Xuanyuan's eyes flashed with a hint of excitement.
"Sure!"
So, led by Victor Xuanyuan, the three of them sped off in a certain direction.
Just as they were passing through a forest, six figures suddenly attacked Ian Song and Mona Meng. Victor Xuanyuan whirled around, drew a divine long-blade, and slashed at Ian with a vicious look.
"Thud, thud!"
With Victor Xuanyuan and six eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals attacking together, Ian and Mona had no chance to resist—they were instantly cut into blood mist.
Seeing this,
Victor Xuanyuan burst out laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
Suddenly, a voice sounded in his ear.
Then Victor's head was smashed to pieces. Of course, he wasn't truly dead—when he reappeared hundreds of meters away, he saw the five Ancestral Immortals who'd helped him ambush Ian were all frozen in midair, dazed.
Ian and Mona stood side by side, watching him with amused expressions.
"You... you saw through it from the start?"
Victor Xuanyuan asked grimly.
"What do you think?"
As he spoke, Ian casually killed the five Hosts one by one. His soul-type divine ability, Phantasm, was just too effective—eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals couldn't resist, and he could easily drag them into an illusion.
The scene where he and Mona were 'killed' was just an illusion. From start to finish, they'd been standing off to the side watching the show.
After being killed once, the five snapped back to awareness.
When they looked at Ian, their faces showed obvious wariness.
"Let's go!"
Victor Xuanyuan said coldly.
"Wait!"
Ian called out.
"You could pull us into an illusion once—do you really think you could do it a second time?" Victor Xuanyuan watched Ian warily.
"Why not?"
Ian smiled at them, and in the next instant, all six fell into a daze. Ian walked up and took every Substitute Life Talisman and Storage Ring from them.
"Let's go!"
Ian said to Mona and flew off ahead.
"Why not just kill them? Killing them would get you eighteen points!" Mona Meng asked with a smile.
"Now isn't the time to kill. The more attention we draw now, the more likely we'll become everyone's target!" Ian explained, still pondering something as he spoke.
In fact, he'd been watching carefully, trying to see if any other Hosts had the Pangu Bloodline. But after a thorough look, he sensed none.
"Heh, you think the Pangu Bloodline is as common as cabbage? You can't just draw it whenever you want." Meowu's voice suddenly sounded in Ian's mind.
"You mean, since I drew the Pangu Bloodline, no other Host can get it?"
Meowu replied, "That's not it."
Ian paused, confused. "Then why don't any of them have the Pangu Bloodline?"
Meowu sighed. "You're hopeless. Think about how long it took you to fuse the Pangu Bloodline."
"Haha, now I get it!" Ian laughed. He had the Divine Temple artifact that could adjust time ratios, but the others didn't—so even if they drew the Pangu Bloodline, they wouldn't have time to fuse it.
His soul-type divine ability, Phantasm, was derived from the Pangu Bloodline. Since the other Hosts couldn't fuse it, his soul ability was unique.
If that was true, then this Immortal Kingdom War wouldn't be too difficult for him. After all, his soul had undergone ten metamorphoses; once he cast Phantasm, even eighteenth-layer Ancestral Immortals couldn't resist and would be pulled into an illusion.
Of course, there might be some Hosts with exceptionally strong souls who wouldn't fall for it, but could their souls really be stronger than his, after ten metamorphoses?
A day passed in a flash.
Ian and Mona soon found more than twenty of the Hosts they'd allied with back on the platform.