CHAPTER 1023: CHAPTER 1025: THE BATTLE FOR THE CUP BEGINS

The tour group in the Holy City primarily explores the deep-seated and long-standing religious culture of the area.

Therefore, they are staying in Xizhu District, in a luxurious hotel near the inner city. Upon arrival at the hotel, Wen Wen, Tao Qingqing, and Sifumo, the three of them, immediately left all the tourists behind, allowing them to freely move around here.

Although the Glory Church is currently at odds with the Hunter Association and Wen Wen and others are soon going to cause trouble in Xizhu District, those low-powered Demon Hunters will not encounter any danger here.

In fact, the Glory Church will provide them with high-level protection; they wouldn’t dare let visiting Demon Hunters encounter mishap on their territory, or else the ruffians of the Hunter Association would demand a cost far greater than those Demon Hunters.

But Wen Wen and others have no safety guarantee here, because the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood will certainly occur within the urban area, and once fighting takes place within the city, the Glory Church holds the advantage.

After leaving the hotel, Wen Wen and Tao Qingqing parted ways with Sifumo, as there was less than an hour left until the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood, and Sifumo didn’t want to stay with Wen Wen during this time.

Without the burden of Sifumo, Wen Wen and Tao Qingqing arrived at Xizhu District in less than fifteen minutes.

As for Sifumo, it is estimated that he will arrive at the boundary line at the last minute.

Strangely enough, despite Sifumo being hopelessly directionally challenged, whenever something important happens, he always manages to arrive right on time...

Xizhu District is located southeast of Spring Grass District, belonging to the outer city of the Holy City. Besides these two districts, the Holy City also has Autumn Leaf District and Winter Wood District.

These four districts surround the inner city of the Holy City, with each district the size of an average city.

Furthermore, each district has its own distinct style; for example, Xizhu District is filled with all kinds of bamboo.

Originally, this would also be part of the tourism agenda, but Wen Wen currently is not in the mood to tour here, as the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood is about to start.

Before it starts, Wen Wen needs to do something.

He quickly arrived at the center of Xizhu District, found a quiet location, and reached out his hand to release the chains.

A moment later, a Surveillance Point was established.

Thus, any superpower user in Xizhu District, unless intentionally concealing their presence, would not be able to evade Wen Wen’s watchful eyes.

Moreover, Wen Wen had previously sent several monsters to lurk here, ready to swiftly transform Xizhu District into his main battlefield.

Via the Surveillance Point, Wen Wen observed densely packed light spots on the holographic projection of Xizhu District.

After filtering out those below the Disaster Level, the interface appeared much clearer, but probing each spot still required a considerable amount of time.

"Release the bats and investigate all the points I have marked... Keep it discreet, just assessing will suffice."

Tao Qingqing nodded, energy surged throughout her body and formed into several small black bats, identical in appearance to those in nature.

Then, under Tao Qingqing’s command, these bats scattered and flew towards the marked positions of the Surveillance Point.

The time passed bit by bit, with bats returning one by one, Tao Qingqing appeared somewhat weakened as they had consumed quite a lot of her strength, but half of them were directly killed before finding the target.

This was expected, as the targets the bats were searching for all possessed at least disaster-level strength, so it was easy for them to be discovered and then directly obliterated.

In the Hunter Association tour group, Wen Wen found Ye Wen and Li Natuo, while Lin Zheyuan and the Wanderer were nowhere to be seen, nor was Sifumo... probably hasn’t reached Xizhu District yet.

What surprised Wen Wen somewhat was that the bats saw five young priests in white uniforms, scattered in various places of Xizhu District, seemingly searching for something.

The most important part was that they had symbols on their hands similar to Wen Wen’s.

"Looks like they’re another group of contestants. Judging from the size of the runes, the marks of these five people combined should piece together a complete Cup of Divine Blood rune."

"But these guys are too inexperienced, although they barely reached the Assimilation Realm, their strength looks very immature, likely lacking much real combat experience..."

"And all five were discovered by me, couldn’t one person at least notice Tao Qingqing’s bats?"

"Estimating a round-robin match, Li Natuo could probably handle them all."

"They should be people from the Glory Church, this is the territory of the Glory Church; they likely have some hidden tricks up their sleeves."

...

After waiting a while longer, another Upper Sequence’s presence appeared on the Surveillance Point, indicating that Sifumo finally entered Xizhu District.

In mere seconds after he came in, the symbol on Wen Wen’s hand started to heat up, then a dim red light appeared on what was originally like a tattoo, seeming alive.

This signified the official start of the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood.

At this point, not only did the symbol on his hand change, but the environment also underwent some alteration, with a faint smell of blood lingering in the air.

Wen Wen could confirm that this smell is harmless to superpower users, but what it means to ordinary people is unclear to him.

On the boundary line of Xizhu District appeared a thin layer of light red membrane, invisible to ordinary people and even regular superpower users.

Only contestants with the mark on their hands could clearly see this red membrane.

This red membrane isn’t meant to block contestants; rather, it resembles a giant monitor.

Contestants with the marked hands, for whatever reason they leave the range of the red membrane, would immediately trigger the curse of the mark, turning into monsters like Lao Shiren and others, and then return to Xizhu District to compete again.

But these were minor matters to the current Wen Wen, because after the official start of the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood, the Catastrophe Gloves surprisingly reacted again!

And this time the reaction was triggered by Wen Wen’s left hand.

The symbol was always on Wen Wen’s hand, but the Sanctuary showed no previous reaction.

Now that the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood commenced, the symbol also exhibited unique powers, making it appear delicious in the eyes of the Sanctuary.

Wen Wen attempted to place his right hand over his left hand, immediately sensing a strong suction force emanating from his right hand, causing the symbol on his left hand to become unstable, seemingly being absorbed by the power of his right hand.

When the pattern became blurry, Wen Wen immediately withdrew his hand.

He knew being able to remove the mark was sufficient; he didn’t want to lose the qualification for the battle for the Cup of Divine Blood prematurely.

Then Wen Wen turned his gaze towards Tao Qingqing, wondering if the Catastrophe Gloves could absorb the marks from other people?