Chapter 172 – Earth Trial
He stayed here for a long time. The path in which the pillars moved spiraled upwards. w.a.n.g Lin continued to fly for half a month. He followed the stone pillars until he finally reached the top.
This was the final destination of these stone pillars. There was a giant vortex here, and all of the stone pillars were disappearing into the vortex.
w.a.n.g Lin looked at the vortex and began to ponder. He made a seal with his hand as a flying sword came out of his bag of holding and floated motionlessly in front of him. He placed a small piece of his divine sense on the flying sword before sending it into the swirl.
w.a.n.g Lin slightly closed his eyes. The flying sword charged toward the vortex and entered without any resistance.
When the flying sword reached the vortex, it was like it was sinking through mud. After a while, it slowly pa.s.sed and came out on the other side. What appeared before w.a.n.g Lin was a world filled with bright light. A thick layer of ice covered the ground. The sky was dark, but there was still light s.h.i.+ning down and being reflected by the ice.
The wind spun around on the ice for a bit before moving into the distance.
This place was very vast with no end in sight, but one could clearly see black towers in the distance. The closest black tower was only 100 feet tall, but the further away the black towers were, the taller they got. The most distant tower that w.a.n.g Lin could see exceeded 400 feet.
These black towers formed a straight line.
The black towers were very eye-catching because they were made of black stone. Even when the light reflected off the ice and onto the tower, it was all absorbed; none of it reflected off the tower.
The flying sword paused here for a bit before going back through the vortex and landing in w.a.n.g Lin’s hand.
Outside of the giant vortex, w.a.n.g Lin opened up his eyes as he withdrew the divine sense from the flying sword and put the sword back into his bag of holding. After pondering for a bit, he took out the dragon’s tendon, shook it, and the devil immediately flew out. He was filled with excitement as he stared at w.a.n.g Lin and shouted, “Who are we killing this time?… Ehh… what is this place?” The excited devil was startled after taking a look at his surroundings.
He quickly flew around the area. He then looked at the giant vortex before looking back at w.a.n.g Lin. He rubbed his hands and cautiously said, “You… could it be that you want me to go inside there? No, not possible! Absolutely not possible!”
w.a.n.g Lin didn’t say a word as he pointed at the vortex and stared at the devil with a cold gaze.
This place was filled with danger. Until he had thoroughly scouted the place, he wouldn’t recklessly charge in.
The devil had a bitter expression on his face as he firmly said, “Who knows what is inside there? This d.a.m.n place gives me a weird feeling. I won’t go. I absolutely won’t go!”
w.a.n.g Lin slapped his bag of holding and took out several soul flags. All of these used to belong to someone else. w.a.n.g Lin picked up one of the flags. His eyes lit up as he reached out and grabbed Sang Muya’s soul.
Back when w.a.n.g Lin met Sang Muya, who killed his own senior brother to steal his foundation, w.a.n.g Lin asked him about many things before killing him and sealing his soul within his own soul flag.
A white light flickered in w.a.n.g Lin’s hand, revealing Sang Muya’s terrified face. w.a.n.g Lin waved his right hand and the white light flew toward the devil.
The devil licked his lips as he stared at the soul with greed in his eyes and devoured it without any hesitation. After rubbing his stomach, he shook his head like a rattle and said, “Not going, still not going!”
w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes suddenly became cold as his Ji Realm Divine Sense flew out. The devil let out a painful howl and green smoke appeared on its body again. He began begging for mercy before unwillingly walking toward the vortex.
By using the trace of divine sense he had left inside the devil, he once again saw the scene on the other side of the vortex, but then his expressions suddenly changed.
After pa.s.sing through the vortex this time, it was not a world of ice but a sea of fire. This was indeed a sea of fire. The further in he looked, the darker the flames got. Looking into the distance, it was a sea of raging, black fire that had colored the sky purple. A wave of hot air surged forth.
In addition to all of this, various beasts formed from the fire could been seen moving about. Just like the world of ice, in this world of fire there was also a line of black towers that extended into the distance.
The devil let out a scream. It seemed to be afraid of the heat wave, so it quickly retreated.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit. His eyes lit up as he pointed toward the vortex again and looked toward the devil. The devil immediately cried, “Give me another soul!”
w.a.n.g Lin glanced at the devil before taking out another soul and throwing it over. The devil immediately swallowed it and revealed the expression of a hero ready for death as he charged back into the vortex.
This time, the world inside changed again and it was a world of sand. It was filled with countless large cacti as well as many tornados in the distance.
The row of black towers extending endlessly into the distance was exactly the same as the other two places.
w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes lit up. The following tests were a mountain of blades and a jungle. Combining everything, they represented metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; the five elements.
w.a.n.g Lin suddenly understood why Duanmu Ji went looking for w.a.n.g Qingyue. With w.a.n.g Qingyue’s five element escape technique, then no matter what trial, whether it was the blade mountain, jungle, world of ice, sea of fire, or endless desert, it would be very easy for them to pa.s.s through.
If w.a.n.g Lin could choose, then he would definitely pick the desert. After all, he knew the earth escape technique, which would be very useful there.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit before flying to the top of a nearby stone pillar and riding it toward the vortex. He looked over and glanced at the devil. The devil let out a sigh and obediently entered the vortex
Not long after, just as the stone was about to enter, w.a.n.g Lin jumped back to a stone behind it. The devil came out with a sad expression and went back into the vortex
This continued and on the fourth time the devil went inside, w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes lit up and he charged into the vortex.
What appeared before him was an endless desert with violent desert winds heading toward him. Countless black tornados could be seen in the distance. They extended from the ground all the way into the sky. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that they were everywhere.
Along with the wind was the sand, which would pack a hard punch if it were to hit someone.
He put the devil away, touched the sand on the ground, took a step forward, and disappeared into the ground. When he reappeared, he was already 1000 feet away.
1000 feet away was the first tower in the earth trial. When he walked into the tower, the sound of the wind outside suddenly disappeared. It was completely silent inside the tower.
As w.a.n.g Lin carefully examined the tower, his expression became serious. This tower had a total of three floors. While the first two floors had nothing in them, the third floor had a table that was covered in a thick layer of dust. w.a.n.g Lin looked around and was about to go back down, but his eyes suddenly lit up when he stared at the table.
When he looked at it from the side, he noticed that one spot on the table was higher than the rest. He stepped closer to take a look before waving his hand and creating a breeze that blew away a layer of dust.
A row of words began to appear on the table. w.a.n.g Lin waved a few more times and the breeze created by him gradually caused the words to become more visible.
It was clear that these words were left by people who came here before and were covered by dust over a long period of time.
“Because I entered this place, I decided to leave my signature!” These few words were filled with power, like a force that pushed at him. He pondered for a bit before leaving the black tower.
The moment he left the black tower, the howling wind came back again. The sand was raging in the sky, covering it and making it dark.
w.a.n.g Lin only moved through the ground using his earth escape technique. He didn’t dare to fly, because if there were powerful restrictions in the sky, then he would die the moment he took off. He pondered for a bit before taking out a flying sword and throwing it to the sky. The flying sword charged into the sky. When it was about 1000 feet into the air, a black wind appeared out of nowhere and turned the flying sword into dust.
w.a.n.g Lin’s expression remained the same. He had already guessed that something like this would happen, and the flying sword was only a confirmation. He took a look around him. This place was about 100 kilometers away from the next tower. After pondering for a bit, he took a step and moved forward underground using the earth escape technique.
This time, w.a.n.g Lin could clearly feel a force preventing him from using the earth escape technique. However, this force wasn’t very powerful, so w.a.n.g Lin only had to use a bit of spiritual energy to counter it. This allowed him to safely pa.s.s this 100 kilometer distance.
After arriving at the second tower, he searched through it and found nothing. He was not sure if Ancient Emperor and them had also pa.s.sed through this earth trial. However, from what he had heard them say and with the mention of the ice s.h.i.+eld, it seemed like they were going to pa.s.s through the water trial instead.
At this very moment, several tens of thousands of kilometers in front of w.a.n.g Lin, Hunchback Meng stood in a black tower with a gloomy expression. He looked outside and saw that the black wind had surrounded the area. The howling of the wind sounded like the cries of ghosts as they leaked into the tower.
He was currently in a very sorry state. Even the toad on his shoulder looked very weak; it swayed its head while letting out weak croaks.
As he touched the toad on his shoulder, he felt deep hatred in his heart. Several months ago, he, Six Desire Devil Lord, and the others were chased by the red dragon. None of them were a match for the dragon, and even when they worked together, they still couldn’t stand up to it. In the end, each of them could only escape on their own.
Everyone’s goal was the swirl at the top of the pa.s.sage. Only by going into the swirl and entering the first trial would they be able to get away from this danger, but that red dragon was close behind them, so their original plan was destroyed.
They originally planned to enter the first trial together and use everyone’s power to get through it. This way, the difficulty of the first trial would decrease greatly. They would also be able to preserve their spiritual energy and use it for the second trial.
Unfortunately, the red dragon was simply too strong, and its ability was really hard for everyone to deal with, so they could only run. When they arrived before the vortex, everyone rushed into it without any thought other than escaping. As a result, everyone encountered a different environment.
The one Hunchback Meng entered was the earth trial. When he saw the desert, his heart sank. They originally planned on going through the water trial, which was the world of ice. Last time they came here, they were able to get through the water trial after many deaths. Although it was dangerous, these lucky four had already been through it once. They also all prepared treasures to counter that place, so they were confident in pa.s.sing through it.
However, Hunchback Meng had never experienced the earth trial before. As a result, he could only bite the bullet and force his way through. The first 10,000 kilometers were relatively safe, but after that, the black wind covered the sky and beat him down. There were also mysterious creatures inside the black wind that used sound to attack, making it very hard to defend against.
Originally, there weren’t a lot of these creatures, so he killed them one by one with his poison. However, he soon realized that the more he killed, the more appeared. In the last big battle, there were cries from at least 10,000 of those creatures.
However, Hunchback Meng was a Soul Formation cultivator, and one that specialized in poison. Although the sound attacks from those creature made him put up his guard, he still killed them all in the end. But before he moved very far, more than 10,000 of those creatures appeared again.
After killing 100,000, there were 1 million. After killing 1 million, there were 10 million. Inside each black tornado were countless creatures. In fact, these black winds were created by the movement of these creatures’ wings.
He continued to kill more and more until he lost track of how many he killed. The spiritual energy in his body was running out and it was becoming unstable. In the end, he was finally able to create an opening that allowed him to rush past creatures and enter the black tower. He didn’t dare to leave.
Even though he was a Soul Formation cultivator and had poison, he was shaken. There were simply too many enemies, and he was afraid that if he did manage to kill all of the ones that were outside, ten times as many of them would appear right after.
There were countless black tornados in this endless desert. Not to mention 10 times more, 100 times, 1,000 times, or even 10,000 times more was likely. Thinking about this, Hunchback Meng’s heart went cold.
Although none of the creatures were individually powerful, if there were 1 billion or 10 billion of them, then their combined sound attacks would shatter the soul of even a Soul Formation cultivator like himself and would even break his body.
The more w.a.n.g Lin moved forward, the more confused he became. He had already moved more than 1,000 kilometers, but aside from a few large tornados, there weren’t any other dangers. It was just that the resistance underground became even more powerful, forcing him to slow down. More than half of the spiritual energy in his body had been used to fend off this force.
w.a.n.g Lin appeared before a black tower. This black tower was 1000 feet tall and pierced right through the sky. Just as w.a.n.g Lin entered the tower, his expression changed when he looked at the ground. There were a few minor traces of movement on the thick layer of dust. It was as if something had gently brushed against it.
w.a.n.g Lin slowly walked over and looked down at the ground. His eyes sparkled as he quickly and carefully checked each floor of the tower. On the top of the tower, he found that there were a lot of foot prints that made a mess of the dust.
w.a.n.g Lin took a deep breath. He was not sure if there was someone else who had entered the earth trial before him. From the looks of the marks here, they weren’t here that long ago.
w.a.n.g Lin stood at the top of the tower and looked outside. He could see very far from here, but aside from the countless black tornados, there was nothing in the distance.
After pondering for a bit, he slowed down a lot as he casually moved forward. It didn’t really matter who was before him; once he meets them, he will definitely be controlled by them. However, if he can control the distance between them, then he can borrow their power to safely pa.s.s this earth trial.
With this in mind, w.a.n.g Lin slowly advanced with the earth escape technique. As a result, he arrived at the black tower 10,000 kilometers from the start. Along the way, he would send the devil out first every time he encountered a black tower. Only after it had been checked by the devil did he carefully enter.
Time slowly pa.s.sed. Half a month later, the height of the towers had reached 8000 feet. w.a.n.g Lin looked down from the top of the tower.
Along the way, he had gotten used to going to the top of each tower and looking into the distance from there. His pupils suddenly shrank as he saw tornados of various sizes going toward one direction as if something was calling them.
w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes lit up. He looked at them for a while before going down the tower. At the bottom of the tower, he entered the ground and continued forward.
The resistance underground was now even more powerful. He now needed to use 80% of his spiritual energy to fend off the force and continue to use his earth escape technique. w.a.n.g Lin suddenly stopped when he noticed with his divine sense a black light in the sand before him. A stench suddenly appeared, and without hesitation, w.a.n.g Lin took out the pill Hunchback Meng had given him and put it in his mouth. After that, he went up and appeared aboveground.
This was the first time he had surfaced before reaching a black tower.
The moment he appeared on the surface, the sound of the howls of the wind increased. The pressure caused by the wind hitting his body was painful. But at this moment, w.a.n.g Lin could not be bothered to worry about those things anymore as his hand formed a seal and he shouted, “Go!”
A strange wind suddenly appeared. It moved between the black tornados and then began to move around in the desert. Gradually, the desert seemed to be to be searched through by an invisible hand. This hand found countless black beast corpses.
These creatures were only about the size of his fist with a pair of thin wings on their backs. Their mouths were sharp and their faces were fierce.
w.a.n.g Lin’s divine sense spread out. He frowned at what he saw. There were no less than 10,000 corpses here, and their bodies were all black, meaning they had died from a powerful poison.
w.a.n.g Lin quickly realized that the person that was ahead of him was Hunchback Meng.
Thinking of Hunchback Meng, w.a.n.g Lin sneered, but in his heart he became even more on guard. He sank back into the ground and continued toward the next tower.
A few hours later, w.a.n.g Lin’s divine sense found the next tower, only there was a small tornado in front of the tower moving back and forth.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit as he backed up. He decided to go around it and go straight for the next black tower. However, just at this moment, the black tornado began to slowly move toward him. The tornado dragged up the sand from the ground and shot it back out. Some of the sand hit the tower, creating a series of pattering sounds.
w.a.n.g Lin sneered. He spread out his divine sense and found that this was the only tornado around. His Ji Realm Divine Sense appeared and entered the black tornado. He found that there were more than 1,000 divine senses inside it.
Each of those divine senses was roughly equal to that of a Core Formation cultivator. As long as none of them were above the Nascent Soul stage, they were no danger to w.a.n.g Lin. In just one sweep, about 100 divine senses were destroyed. However, the remaining 900 divine senses fused together to form a sword that stabbed toward w.a.n.g Lin’s divine sense.
The tornado suddenly paused for a moment, and this pause caused the tornado to disappear, revealing the countless small creatures inside.
These small creatures were exactly the same as the ones w.a.n.g Lin saw before. They were all crowded together with their wings beating and letting out strange cries.
These sounds gathered together to make one large sound wave. At the same time, their divine senses mixed together to form a sword. Shortly after that sword was formed, it lunged toward w.a.n.g Lin with the sound wave right behind it.
w.a.n.g Lin frowned as he quickly withdrew his divine sense. He slapped his bag of holding and the devil flew out. When it saw the sword made of divine sense, it immediately became excited and jumped toward it without waiting for w.a.n.g Lin’s order.
As the devil flew out, the divine sense sword and sound waves arrived one after the other. The devil let out an excited roar as his body turned into a cloud of smoke. The cloud of smoke spread out and quickly surrounded the sword formed from the divine sense of all those small beasts. As for that sound wave attack, it had no effect on the devil because he didn’t really have a body, so pa.s.sed through him.
At the same time, w.a.n.g Lin opened his mouth and spat out a crystal light. The crystal sword shot toward the group of creatures. When it got close, all of the small creatures scattered. There were so many of them that they covered the sky.
All of this happened in an instant. After w.a.n.g Lin saw the small beasts scatter, he quickly slapped his bag of holding and hundreds of flying swords flew out. w.a.n.g Lin’s divine sense latched onto each sword. Using the might of his Ji Realm Divine Sense, the flying swords rained down on the small creatures.