High Martial: I Use Everything as Swords

Eye of the Wind Floating Island, Trading Hall.

The once spacious and grand hall was now crammed with hundreds of Trial Takers seeking refuge. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The stench of sweat, the reek of blood, and the pungent odor of cheap salves mingled with the carbon dioxide exhaled by hundreds of people, creating a suffocating miasma.

Everyone curled up as much as possible, each occupying a tiny patch of floor.

An occasional bump of limbs was followed by a few hushed curses.

"Zhang Hao, what time is it?"

Wang Meng leaned against a stone pillar, idly fiddling with the Alloy Giant Axe in his hands.

"Seriously, why hasn’t the sun come up?"

He glanced up at the reinforced, pale-blue Energy Shield above the hall.

Beyond the Shield, the sky was still a despairing, leaden gray.

The viscous fog clung to the Shield’s surface like a living creature, writhing in a way that made one’s skin crawl.

Zhang Hao raised his wrist and glanced at his tactical watch. The fluorescent hands on the dial were piercingly bright in the gloom.

"Seven-thirty."

Zhang Hao’s voice was tight.

He didn’t say anything else, but those words landed like a stone in the chests of the surrounding Sharp Sword Society members.

Normally, the gray period of the Suspended Mountain Secret Realm was extremely regular.

It arrived every twelve hours and lasted for a strict six-hour duration, with a margin of error no greater than ten minutes.

This was an ironclad rule, written in textbooks.

That was why, despite their panic, everyone was still able to maintain some semblance of order. They just had to endure these six hours. Once the sky brightened and the fog dispersed, they could contact the outside world, open a spatial passage, and end the trial.

But now, a full seven and a half hours had passed since the gray period began.

Outside the doors, the sky showed no sign of brightening.

Even the chill seeping through the cracks of the doors was more bone-piercing than before.

"That kid, Han Feng, still isn’t back."

Wang Meng swallowed a mouthful of beef jerky and mumbled, "That guy’s usually as crafty as a monkey. Don’t tell me he screwed up this time."

"Shut your jinxing mouth."

Su Yue sat before a portable console, her ten fingers flying across the keyboard.

Her face was pale, her forehead dotted with fine beads of sweat, and the lenses of her glasses reflected the streams of red data flickering on the screen.

"How is it?" Zhang Hao leaned in and asked in a low voice.

Su Yue stopped, took off her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her voice trembled uncontrollably. "The data is all over the place."

"What do you mean?"

"The ambient Spiritual Qi concentration is skyrocketing non-linearly. The activity of the frenzy factor is three times higher than normal."

Su Yue pointed to a curve on the screen that was shooting up at an almost ninety-degree angle. "And the spatial structure here... it seems very unstable."

Zhang Hao’s heart sank.

He turned his head to look at the center of the hall.

There, Zhou Qi, the genius from the Spiritual Energy Technology Academy, was frantically working on the central Crystal Pillar with several other technicians.

Zhao Hai of Star Sea Technology was at his side, his face grim enough to drip water.

’If even the tech guys look like that, the situation is even worse than I thought.’

"I can’t take it anymore! I want to go home! Let me out!"

Just then, a shrill scream tore through the oppressive silence of the hall.

In a corner of the crowd, a young, bandage-covered student suddenly broke down.

The immense mental pressure, combined with a high fever from an infected wound, was the last straw.

He frantically shoved aside his companions and stumbled toward the main entrance.

"This is all a scam! There’s no rescue coming! We’re all going to die here!"

The student howled as he ran, his voice sharp and grating, like a rusty saw scraping against everyone’s nerves.

"Make him shut up!"

"Damn it, don’t let him open the doors!"

The crowd instantly erupted into a commotion.

The tension, already stretched taut by fear, was finally snapped by the scream.

Some shrank back in terror, others shouted in anger, and some, infected by the panic, also began to cry out.

"He’s right... Why isn’t it getting light out?"

"I want to contact my family, but my communicator has no signal!"

"How long do we have to wait? Are those damn Blood Feeding Sect bastards still out there?"

Hundreds of people got to their feet, the uproar growing louder, and some even began to shove the City Guard Army Trial Takers who were trying to maintain order.

The scene was on the verge of spiraling out of control.

THUD!

A massive crash drowned out all the noise.

The floor of the entire hall trembled violently from the impact.

Everyone turned to look in alarm.

They saw the hulking figure from the Martial Arts Academy, Lei Qianjun, holding his ridiculously large Warhammer, still in the posture of having just smashed it into the ground.

His strike had left a half-meter-deep, spiderweb-cracked crater in the concrete floor.

Lei Qianjun’s bare upper body was a mass of knotted muscle, and his "Mad Ape Type Three" exoskeleton emitted a low hum.

He glared around with bulging eyes, his ferocious aura single-handedly suppressing the crowd’s clamor.

"The next motherfucker who starts wailing, I’ll personally smash their head in!"

Lei Qianjun spat on the ground, his voice booming like thunder. "You’re not even dead yet and you’re already mourning for yourselves? You’ve brought nothing but shame to East Sea Martial Arts University!"

This simple and brutal method of physical silencing was exceptionally effective.

The student who had broken down hiccuped in fear and shrank into a corner, not daring to make another sound.

Taking advantage of the quiet, Zhang Hao straightened his collar and strode to the raised platform in the center of the hall.

"Everyone, panicking won’t solve anything."

Zhang Hao’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was steady, carrying a convincing strength.