Renegade Immortal 171-180

Chapter 171 – The Jade Li Muwan Left

 

It was very clear that he couldn’t go around it. If he wished to leave here, he would have to go through it.

Wang Lin secretly sighed. He pointed at the crystal sword and commanded it toward a stone pillar behind him. The crystal sword kept breaking pieces of the stone pillar off and they all floated into the ring around Wang Lin.

Gradually, more and more shattered stones gathered around him. After reaching five or six rings, he withdrew the crystal sword after making some calculations.

Wang Lin charged into the empty area with a massive amount of stones revolving around him. He slowed down once he went deep into the blank area and calmly moved forward. There were no signs of danger.

However, this did not make Wang Lin stop being cautious; it made him even more alert. After being in this strange place for so long, Wang Lin didn’t believe that such a calm and peaceful place existed.

Instead, he thought that he was only feeling a false sense of safety because there was a very powerful creature somewhere near.

He was on full alert, the crystal sword was hidden among the shattered stones, and he was holding a Nascent Soul level charm in his hand. His divine sense was spread out and checking his surroundings. There was also a sliver of it connected to his bag of holding to ensure that he was ready to take stuff out of it in any situation.

He slowly made his way to the center of the calm area. From his current position, if he were to look to his side, he would be able to draw a straight line to where the stone disappeared before.

Wang Lin became even more alert. After traveling for a few steps, he suddenly sensed a great amount of danger from his divine sense. He didn’t hesitate at all to quickly back up and use the Nascent Soul level charm to form a light screen before him.

The moment his body backed up, two arcs appeared where he was just standing. The two arcs connected and formed the shape of a big, open mouth.

The Nascent Soul level charm shook violently in his hand and turned to dust. Using this chance, Wang Lin quickly backed up. Cold sweat appeared on his forehead as he stared at the big mouth that was closing. His heart was shaking violently.

This spacial rift-like creature didn’t open its mouth when the rocks came through but waited for when he passed by. It seemed that it had made Wang Lin its target.

Wang Lin pondered for a bit. Looking at the remaining distance, he was only half way across. He couldn’t help but let out a bitter smile because that was the only Nascent Soul level charm he had. This showed that the power of that mouth was stronger than the attack of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

If Wang Lin had been touched by that creature’s mouth at all, then he would at least be heavily injured, if not dead.

He took a deep breath. After pondering for a bit, he took out a large amount of defensive treasures from his bag of holding without any hesitation. These were treasures he had gotten from killing all those cultivators. However, because they were all low quality treasures, they had been used by him because he saw them as expendable.

After hesitating for a bit, he began to move forward along with the ring of stones. This time he was even more careful as he moved forward with his divine sense spread out. He decided that he would immediately back up if he noticed anything off.

Then, a 100-foot-long half circle appeared before him and more than half of the stones in front of him suddenly disappeared. Wang Lin immediately backed up, but more than half of the stones behind him disappeared as well, and then so did the stones in other directions. This meant that no matter where he went, there would be more of those invisible creatures.

Wang Lin immediately moved to the side, but then the protective layer formed by the hundreds of defensive treasures began to crackle and shatter one by one.

Wang Lin was aghast as he curled himself up and slid to the side, barely dodging past it. He stood 100 feet away with his shirt completely covered in sweat. The spot he was just flying through was surrounded by at least seven open mouths. If it wasn’t for those treasures stalling for a bit of time, he would have already died.

Wang Lin let out a wry smile. All of the stones around him were now gone. While he still had more defensive treasures, they would be all used up if he encountered dangers like this a few more times. Most importantly, Wang Lin was worried that if he was surrounded in all directions by those mouths, then he would die for sure.

He let out a sigh as he took out more defensive treasures. After activating them, he spread out his divine sense and began to carefully move forward again. He looked toward the border of this calm area. If he were to fly at full speed, he could cross this area in only a few moments. However, if he were to really do so, then it was very likely that he would run headfirst into the mouth of one those creatures. At that point, not even a fairy could save him.

He took a deep breath and clenched his teeth as he slowly moved forward. His divine sense was carefully checking his surroundings. Three days later, Wang Lin was completely exhausted, and all of the defensive treasures in his bag of holding had been used up.

In these three days of time, he encountered many life and death situations. One time, half of his body was inside a mouth. If he hadn’t entered the heaven defying bead in time, he would have already died.

Luckily, the heaven defying bead was not inside the mouth of the creatures, so when he came back out, he was not inside the creature’s mouth. However, Wang Lin was afraid of entering the heaven defying bead now because if the heaven defying bead were to get devoured, then even if he avoided death for the moment, he wouldn’t be able to avoid it when the time to be inside it runs out.

Seeing that there was less than ten kilometers left, Wang Lin took a deep breath and pushed forward. Suddenly, a mouth began to open before him. Just as Wang Lin was about to dodge, his divine sense suddenly felt a sense of danger. The one thing he was most afraid of happened.

Mouths shaped like arcs appeared all around him. Those creatures were all opening their mouths simultaneously. Wang Lin felt very frustrated as he frantically searched through his bag of holding until he came upon a very plain-looking, white jade.

This was the defensive formation that Li Muwan had given him as a parting gift to use when he went into closed door cultivation. Wang Lin didn’t hesitate to throw out the jade. He had already made up his mind; if things went bad, he could only enter the heaven defying bead. Even if the space the bead was in ended up being devoured, it was the only choice.

The moment he threw out the jade, the surrounding mouths all opened completely and approached him. However, just at this moment, a ring of green light appeared next to Wang Lin. Then it suddenly spread out and a green dragon came out of the jade. As the dragon appeared, the mouths began to devour the ring of light that had spread out.

The ring of light continued to shake as the dragon circled around Wang Lin. Wang Lin jumped and forcibly charged out through the gap between two of the mouths.

During this process, the dragon continued to roar as its figure became more and more faded. With this charge, Wang Lin covered the last ten kilometers without stopping. Many mouths opened up along the way, but they were all blocked by the green dragon around him.

After completely leaving the calm area, the green dragon was about to collapse. Wang Lin quickly sent out a few seals, causing the dragon become a green gas again and sending it back into the white jade.

Wang Lin heard a quiet ping. When he looked down, he saw a that small crack had appeared on the jade. Wang Lin’s heart ached. He checked it with his divine sense. After finding that it hadn’t become useless, he let out a sigh of relief and carefully put it back into his bag of holding. He turned around to look back at the calm area. His heart was still shivering.

After pondering for a while, he raised his head and jumped onto a stone pillar. He then stomped on the pillar, causing it to shatter. The shattered stones reformed the ring around Wang Lin as he flew upwards.

After several more days passed, Wang Lin’s speed became even faster. After leaving that strange area, it felt like he had entered a different world. He didn’t meet any more of those spacial rift-like creatures, and what was even more surprising was that he didn’t meet any powerful creatures like the dragon either.

As a result, his speed naturally increased. However, he didn’t throw away the stones around him; better safe than sorry. Wang Lin was so caution that unless he was 100% sure he was safe, then there was no way he would throw aways these rocks right now.

As his speed increased, Wang Lin was getting to where he needed to go quicker and quicker. After some time, Wang Lin noticed that the stone pillars around here were the same size as the one he was on when he entered.

This void was simply too large. Wang Lin didn’t believe that he could pinpoint the location of that oval ring of light, so he could only use the size of the stone pillars to estimate his location.

On this day, he stood on top of a cone-shaped stone pillar. His eyes lit up as he looked up. He had been flying horizontally among stone pillars of this size for a very long time, and now he found that oval ring of light.

In the void above him floated a very large oval ring of light. He felt a bit of regret because he didn’t go to the trials. If he completed the trials, he would be able enter the ancient god’s body. There would definitely be things he needed in there, but after going through the dangers of this place, Wang Lin knew that with his cultivation, there was no way for him to survive here.

He let out a sigh of regret as he jumped up and flew toward the ring of light. However, just as he was about to touch the ring, bolts of purple lightning appeared. The bolts intersected with each other and formed a concave, rhombic pattern.

Wang Lin was startled. He couldn’t move forward; it was as if there was a powerful force preventing him from doing so. His eyes sparkled as he stared at the concave, rhombic pattern. This concave was just big enough for a top quality spirit stone. The debut release occurred at N-ov3l=B(j)n.

Wang Lin immediately backed up. At the same time, the concave rhombic pattern disappeared and the purple lightning returned to the ring of light.

He tried it again several times, and the concave rhombic pattern appeared every time. Wang Lin began to ponder. His eyes sparkled as he looked at it for a while before turning around and flying upwards.

He remembered that this place was simply the passage to the first trial. As long as he sat on top of a stone pillar, he would be able to pass through here.

Chapter 172 – Earth Trial

 

He stayed here for a long time. The path in which the pillars moved spiraled upwards. Wang 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. The inception of this chapter’s publication is linked to N0v3lb11n.

Wang 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.

Wang 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 passed and came out on the other side. What appeared before Wang 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 shining 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 Wang 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 Wang Lin’s hand.

Outside of the giant vortex, Wang 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 Wang 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 Wang 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!”

Wang 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 damn place gives me a weird feeling. I won’t go. I absolutely won’t go!”

Wang Lin slapped his bag of holding and took out several soul flags. All of these used to belong to someone else. Wang Lin picked up one of the flags. His eyes lit up as he reached out and grabbed Sang Muya’s soul.

Back when Wang Lin met Sang Muya, who killed his own senior brother to steal his foundation, Wang Lin asked him about many things before killing him and sealing his soul within his own soul flag.

A white light flickered in Wang Lin’s hand, revealing Sang Muya’s terrified face. Wang 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!”

Wang 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 passing 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.

Wang 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!”

Wang 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.

Wang 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.

Wang Lin suddenly understood why Duanmu Ji went looking for Wang Qingyue. With Wang 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 pass through.

If Wang Lin could choose, then he would definitely pick the desert. After all, he knew the earth escape technique, which would be very useful there.

Wang 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, Wang 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, Wang 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 Wang 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. Wang 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. Wang 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.

Wang 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.

Wang 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, Wang Lin could clearly feel a force preventing him from using the earth escape technique. However, this force wasn’t very powerful, so Wang Lin only had to use a bit of spiritual energy to counter it. This allowed him to safely pass 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 passed through this earth trial. However, from what he had heard them say and with the mention of the ice shield, it seemed like they were going to pass through the water trial instead.

At this very moment, several tens of thousands of kilometers in front of Wang 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 passage. 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 passing 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 Wang 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.

Wang Lin appeared before a black tower. This black tower was 1000 feet tall and pierced right through the sky. Just as Wang 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.

Wang 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.

Wang 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.

Wang 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 pass this earth trial.

With this in mind, Wang 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 passed. Half a month later, the height of the towers had reached 8000 feet. Wang 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.

Wang 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. Wang 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, Wang 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, Wang 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.

Wang 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.

Wang Lin quickly realized that the person that was ahead of him was Hunchback Meng.

Thinking of Hunchback Meng, Wang 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, Wang Lin’s divine sense found the next tower, only there was a small tornado in front of the tower moving back and forth.

Wang 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.

Wang 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 Wang 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 Wang 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 Wang 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 Wang Lin with the sound wave right behind it.

Wang 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 Wang 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 passed through him.

At the same time, Wang 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 Wang Lin saw the small beasts scatter, he quickly slapped his bag of holding and hundreds of flying swords flew out. Wang 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.

Chapter 173 – The second devil

 

Wang Lin didn’t want to deal with all of them in one go; he wanted to force them to split up. Sure enough, under the rain of swords, the small beasts split up once more. Wang Lin went through the gaps the small creatures had left and arrived outside the tower. He stopped before the door and turned around to retrieve all of the flying swords that were flying back toward him.

At the same time, he called the devil back. The devil was too busy devouring the divine senses of the small creatures and completely ignored Wang Lin. Wang Lin let out a cold snort as his Ji Realm Divine Sense flew out.

When that snort reached the devil’s ears, it made him shiver in fear. He no longer dared to continue devouring the divine senses, so he reformed his body from the cloud of black smoke and went into the tower along with Wang Lin. While he was floating around Wang Lin, he felt like he had been wronged. He longingly looked at the divine senses of those beasts one last time before going back into the dragon tendon.

He didn’t understand what was wrong with this fiend’s brain to leave all these enemies unkilled and telling him to come back.

Wang Lin’s expression was very serious as he stared at those small creatures from inside the black tower. There was a reason why he stopped the devil from devouring them all. He thought about it and came to the conclusion that these small creatures gathered together to form these large tornados. The one thing this place had the most of were these black tornados.

This meant that there was virtually an unlimited number of these small creatures. Their main means of attack were divine sense and sound waves. Although their attacks were fairly powerful, their bodies were extremely weak. The debut release occurred at N-ov3l=B(j)n.

As a result, it made destroying these small creatures very easy, especially for someone like Hunchback Meng, who only needed to throw out some poison. However, Wang Lin couldn’t forget what he saw from the top of the last black tower, when countless black tornados were gathering in one spot.

That kind of movement had purpose, which meant that these small creatures had a way of calling each other. After too many of them die, they call their friends. If he were to get trapped in that kind of cycle, then he would certainly end up dead. There were simply too many tornados.

At the same time, if he killed too many, then they might call back those black tornados that were heading toward Hunchback Meng. If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be Hunchback Meng opening the path for him but him helping Hunchback Meng by distracting the black tornados.

In that last battle, around 200 of those small creatures were destroyed by Wang Lin and the devil. His eyes sparkled as he stared at the small creatures outside. The creatures gathered together again to form the black tornado. After circling the tower a few times, they no longer cared about Wang Lin and continued to move forward.

After the black tornado left, Wang Lin let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, his heart turned cold. This earth trial was very strange. The logic here was completely opposite of what was normal. When someone notices that those small creature specialize in divine sense and sound attacks but have weak bodies, their first reaction would be to kill them as quickly as possible to prevent attracting more.

But as a result, once a certain amount of these small creatures are killed and they begin to call for help, then unless your cultivation is heavenly, the only road left is death.

Wang Lin cultivated at the top of the black tower and stared into the distance, looking at where all of the black tornados were gathering. After pondering for a while, he decided to not rush things and to wait inside the black tower.

He then looked at the devil. The devil’s face was filled with greed as he watched the black tornado leave.

Wang Lin didn’t explain but coldly said, “I don’t care how many souls you have devoured; spit out half of them for me.”

The devil struggled with the decision. If he were to escape right now, would this fiend chase after him? He hesitated for a bit before looking at Wang Lin. When he saw Wang Lin’s gaze turn hostile, he quickly began to spit out large number of those small beasts’ souls.

After spitting out 20, he pretended to look weak. He secretly thought, “No matter how powerful you are, you still have to eat what I spit out! If you have skill, then don’t eat it!”

Wang Lin didn’t know what the devil was thinking, but after seeing the pride in the devil’s face, he was about to take a guess. However, Wang Lin couldn’t be bothered with such things. All of his attention was focused on the 20 souls of those small creatures.

After carefully looking at them for a while, he grabbed the souls and walked up the tower. After finding a floor of the right size, his Ji Realm spread out and surrounded the area.

The devil followed behind Wang Lin. He wanted to see Wang Lin eating the souls covered in his drool with his own eyes. While he still feeling proud of himself, he suddenly noticed that the surroundings were covered in Wang Lin’s divine sense. This divine sense that made him feel pain worse than death, the red lightning that caused him nightmares, was moving around the room. His entire body suddenly became soft. He secretly thought, “It’s over! It’s over! It seems like this fiend is going to end me…”

Terrified, he was about to start begging for mercy when he noticed that Wang Lin wasn’t even looking at him. Wang Lin was currently silently staring at the 20 souls of the small creatures. The devil swallowed the words he was going to say and considered himself lucky.

Wang Lin carefully observed the souls of these small creatures. They had about the same strength as an early stage Core Formation cultivator. They weren’t strong, but not really weak either. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had forcefully nurtured the devil to be like the wandering souls, the devil wouldn’t have been able to easily devour all of these souls that were similar to him.

It was due to the devil’s success that he came up with the idea of making another devil. He knew that his main weakness was that he lacked magic treasures. Even now, the only one he could use for a fight was the flying sword. As for the others, they were all too low quality to be of any use.

Aside from the flying sword, there was the devil. This devil proved to be quite useful earlier. If he hadn’t used the devil against that divine sense sword, he would’ve had a much harder time.

The only other treasures he had were the dragon tendon and the scroll. However, the aura in the scroll was too strange. Wang Lin decided that until he fully understands what the scroll is, he will not use it.

The key to raising a devil was the special nature of the soul. The first devil’s soul had the potential of a Nascent Soul cultivator. This allowed Wang Lin to raise it in such a way that it managed to gain a few of a wandering soul’s attributes. However, compared to the wandering souls of the world of decay, there were still many differences.

If it were a true wandering soul, then no matter what cultivation level the enemy is at, once it jumps on them, it will be able to devour their soul and suck away all of the essence of their flesh. Unless they meet some very powerful cultivator that can destroy them, their only natural enemies are soul devourers.

However, the devil Xu Liguo could only devour souls that were at the same cultivation level as him. If he tried to devour the soul of a Nascent Soul cultivator, then there was a chance that he would be repelled.

What attracted Wang Lin was the small creatures’ ability to fuse together. This was the first time he had seen divine sense able to fuse together to form a new divine sense.

This special ability made Wang Lin want to use it to make a devil.

Wang Lin pondered for a bit before slapping his bag of holding, causing a few soul flags to fly out and float around him. The souls inside the flags were mostly demonic cultivators of the Sea of Devils, as well as some creatures from the Sea of Devils.

He waved his right hand, trapping 19 of the souls inside a cage of spiritual energy and leaving only one of them all by itself.

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled as he retrieved a soul from one of the flags. He threw the soul out after leaving a mark on it.

Unfortunately, just like Xu Liguo back then, the soul of the small beast didn’t know how to devour at all, so it stared dumbfoundedly at the surroundings instead. However, Wang Lin wasn’t in a rush. After having experienced raising a devil once, he knew that to make a soul have abilities similar to a wandering soul’s would take time.

However, this first step required him to be a little bit more forceful. Red lightning appeared in Wang Lin’s eyes as his Ji Realm formed a net around the small creature and slowly closed in on it.

Under the pressure of the net, the soul of the small creature began to move. Seeing that there was nowhere to go, it started to move toward the other soul.

Wang Lin was completely focused on watching the soul of the small creature only to see the small creature suddenly speed up and ram into the other soul. It didn’t devour the other soul but fused with it. Wang Lin could feel that the small creature’s soul had become a bit stronger.

He was surprised. He originally thought that he would have to spend a lot of effort to force it to devour. After all, the devil Xu Liguo took some effort back then. He didn’t expect that he would only need to push it a little and it would fuse with the other soul by itself. Although it was not devouring, the effect was the same.

Without a word, Wang Lin withdrew the red net, took out another soul, and threw it out after leaving his mark on it. This time, the small creature charged forth and fused with it without any input from Wang Lin.

As a result, Wang Lin was now very interested. His eyes lit up and he pointed at the soul flags multiple times. More than a dozen souls flew out. After leaving his mark on them, he threw them out.

At this moment, the soul of the small creature suddenly began to move, ramming into the souls one by one. Every time it collided with one, it would fuse with it and become stronger before moving on to the next one.

In less than one hour of time, the small creature finished fusing with more than a dozen souls. It looked like it was even about to break through from the early stage of Core Formation to the mid stage.

Wang Lin was even more interested now as he took one of the soul flags and shook it. More than a hundred souls flew out. After leaving his mark on all of them, they flew toward the small creature.

The soul of the small creature let out a sharp cry. This was the first time it had made a sound inside the tower. As it howled, a sound wave began to spread out. When Wang Lin saw this, he was very happy. His eyes sparkled; his attention was completely on the small creature.

He knew that he had found a treasure. For some reason, this small creature’s soul was very strange. It seemed like it was made to be made into a devil. With almost no forcefulness needed, it would start fusing with other souls on its own. In addition to this, what surprised Wang Lin the most was the sound wave attack. He originally thought that the creature would require a body to use this attack, but it could be used with just the soul.

When Wang Lin took a closer look, he realized that this sound wave was designed to attack the soul. After the sound wave spread out, all of the souls that were charging toward it slowed down and seemed to be dying.

Just at this moment, the soul of the small creature charged out. In less than half an hour, it completely devoured these more than 100 souls. Shortly after, the soul exploded into a red mist about 10 feet wide and slowly fell down.

Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as he waved the soul flag. The remaining 19 souls of the small creatures were sucked into the flag before it was placed back inside his bag of holding. He then turned around and stared at the red mist. He could feel the slivers of divine sense he had marked the souls with slowly fusing with the soul of the small creature.

The devil stood on the side and stared dumbfoundedly at everything that was happening. He secretly thought, “Violent! This little brother is too violent! Looks like I’ll have to start working harder, or else this fiend might feed me to this little brother!” The devil’s body trembled as he backed away. He floated in the air and began to quickly digest the souls he had devoured.

This wait lasted three days. During these days, there was no change to the red mist at all. Aside from observing the red mist, he saw countless black tornados pass by. One of the black tornados was more than 10,000 feet tall. It was like the king of black tornados had passed by the black tower.

As the biggest tornado passed by, it paused for a moment as countless divine senses surged forth. Their target wasn’t Wang Lin but the red mist.

However, the moment those divine senses hit the black tower, they were bounced back. The king-like black tornado lingered around the black tower for a bit before leaving.

Wang Lin could clearly feel that when the divine sense from the black tornado came, there was an abnormal fluctuation inside the red mist. This surprised Wang Lin and made him observe the red mist even more carefully.

Gradually, more and more black tornados appeared. They were all heading toward one direction. Wang Lin sneered; there was no need to guess if that direction was where Hunchback Meng was.

Hunchback Meng’s face was very gloomy. In truth, when he killed the first wave of the small creatures and was immediately surrounded by a second wave that had ten times more than the first wave, he realized he messed up.

His actions were based off the experience in the world of ice. In that trial, there was also a type of creature that lived there and appeared in massive groups. One had to kill them as quickly as possible or else they would attract more.

However, this damn earth trial was the exact opposite. This thought made Hunchback Meng let out a bitter smile. But since he had already reached this point, even if he no longer attacked them, those small beasts would continue to attack him with sound waves and divine sense attacks.

Eventually, Hunchback Meng’s demonic side began to show. He gave up on restraining himself and threw out large amounts of poison. As a result, the small creatures began to call for help more and more, to the point that even though he was inside a black tower, the amount of small creatures that had gathered had reached a point that made even his mind go blank.

He was currently standing inside the black tower and looking out at the endless black tornados. At the same time, the number of small creatures kept increasing as they called for more back up. He had attempted to use the tower as a base and throwing poison out from inside it, but the tower had a powerful restriction on it. While it prevented the small creatures from attacking, it also prevented people inside the tower from attacking what was outside.

Hunchback Meng wasn’t sure what would happen if he were to leave the tower. He was sure that he would receive the combined divine sense and sound wave attacks of 100 million, or even 1 billion, of those small creatures the moment he walked out.

Even though he was a Soul Formation cultivator that could cause 10 million cultivators to tremble with a single stomp from his foot, there was no way for him to take the combined divine senses and sound wave attacks of more than 1 billion of those small creatures.

After pondering for a bit, he touched the toad on his shoulder and revealed a vicious expression. Without a word, he pointed at the toad. The toad then jumped down from his shoulder and began to croak.

Hunchback Meng’s heart ached as he looked at the toad. He let out a sigh and then put it away. After pondering for a bit, he took out a 100-foot-long python. On the head of the snake there was a single horn. The moment it appeared, the air around it became hot.

“If I use the toad, then I won’t get injured, but the toad will die for sure. Ah, this one-horned python is a mid quality spirit beast. Although I can still use this, I will receive some injuries,” Hunchback Meng muttered to himself as his index finger slashed his middle finger to draw out a drop of blood. He chanted some strange words and the drop of blood rapidly became lighter in color until it was milky white. The white drop of blood landed on the head of the python.

Hunchback Meng quickly formed seals with a serious expression on his face. He slowly pointed at his own forehead and pulled something out. A crystal, silk-like thread was pulled out from his forehead. The thread was then slowly pressed against that milky white spot on the python’s forehead.

After a very long time, Hunchback Meng took a deep breath, stood up, and then casually threw the python on the ground. The moment the python landed, it coiled up and remained still.

Hunchback Meng’s eyes became fierce as he walked out of the tower without any hesitation. The moment he walked out, the howling of the black tornados increased countless fold. All of the small creatures fused their divine senses and unleashed a torrent of attacks upon Hunchback Meng.

At this moment, even the sky changed colors, and the restriction that was placed at the top of the earth trial began to shake.

Wang Lin wasn’t very close to that place, but even he felt the pressure. He opened his eyes and looked toward where Hunchback Meng was.

At the same time, an abnormal fluctuation happened in the red mist. This pulled his attention away from what was going on with Hunchback Meng. He reached out with his hand and a blue flame appeared.

If the devil that comes out of the red mist wasn’t under his control, he would use his Ji Realm and the blue flame to completely destroy it. If it could be controlled, then it would be for the better.

When the powerful divine sense attack came, Hunchback Meng didn’t dodge but waved his sleeves. A large amount of black smoke poured out of them.

The black smoke gathered and became a cloud. This cloud began to spread out. Any of the small creatures that touched the black cloud immediately fell from the sky and began to twitch. Its body would then turn into black smoke, which would soon after join the black cloud.

Right after he finished pouring out the smoke, the series of powerful divine sense attacks arrived. Hunchback Meng let out a miserable groan. His body then became more and more illusionary until it was replaced by a 100-foot-long python with a horn on its head. The snake rolled around for a bit before being completely disintegrated by the divine sense attacks. Even its core was turned to dust.

At the same time, the python that was inside the tower became blurry and soon turned into Hunchback Meng. His face was pale and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. He revealed a bloodthirsty smile as he muttered, “My heaven-destroying poison is considered the number 1 poison in the Sea of Devils, and I have used it all up. I don’t believe that I can’t kill all of you!”

The black cloud covered the area around the tower. As soon as it touched a tornado, the tornado would collapse into countless small creatures. Soon after, those small creatures would turn into black smoke and become part of the black cloud.

As result, the black cloud became larger and larger. The speed at which it expanded rapidly increased.

As for Wang Lin, his expression was very serious as he stared at the red mist. The fluctuations in the red mist became much more frequent until the red mist began to slowly condense again. Wang Lin didn’t even blink. The sound of fire burning could be heard coming from the blue flame in his hand.

At this moment, red lightning appeared in his eyes and the restrictions he had set using his Ji Realm became even more sturdy. Even the devil Xu Liguo regained his senses. After looking around for a bit, he became very happy and secretly thought, “It seems this little brother will not be so easy to control. It is best that both of you heavily injure each other so that I can devour you both. Haha, now that is a good idea!”

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. His eyes sparkled endlessly. Although the devil Xu Liguo had recovered a bit of his memory, it was only but a sliver. The remaining memories vanished when he became a devil. He didn’t consider himself a cultivator at all; he only thought of himself as a devil.

Time slowly passed. The red mist became smaller and smaller until finally, all of the rest mist suddenly condensed into a red, glowing orb. After a few crackling sounds, the orb shattered, releasing a dark red gas. The gas quickly took the shape of the head of the small creature with its sharp beak and emitted a cold aura.

The moment it appeared, it disappeared. Although Wang Lin was secretly shocked, his face remained calm as he turned to the right and shot his Ji Realm out.

The red creature appeared in the direction Wang Lin turned to. It was shocked and quickly disappeared again. This was the first time Wang Lin’s Ji Realm had missed.

This showed just how fast the new devil was. Wang Lin remained calm. Not only did he not panic, but he became even more calm. His eyes became cold as his Ji Realm shot out behind him.

A miserable scream came from behind him. The moment the devil appeared, it collided headfirst with Wang Lin’s Ji Realm. It wasn’t able to dodge it in time, so the Ji Realm filled its body.

Its body involuntarily floated into the air and moved before Wang Lin. It looked at Wang Lin with a terrified expression as it let out miserable cries.

The devil Xu Liguo took a deep breath and quickly discarded the idea of rebelling. He didn’t think that the fiend could so easily defeat his little brother. After pondering for a bit, he realized what had happened and secretly cursed, “Evil!”

Chapter 174 – The devil’s mutation

 

Wang Lin’s gaze became cold as he stared at the newly formed devil. His Ji Realm left his body, took the shape of a red dragon, and then roared at the small creature.

His majesty as a soul devourer was suddenly on full display. Not to mention the small creature, even the devil Xu Liguo was so scared that he sank to the ground and didn’t dare to move. The pressure of a natural predator caused his heart to tremble.

The small beast began to struggle and let our roars of its own, but compared to Wang Lin’s roar, it was filled with helplessness. The small creature eventually began to beg for mercy with its eyes.

The dragon formed by Wang Lin’s Ji Realm coldly stared at the small creature for a long time before finally returning to Wang Lin’s body. He then he waved his hand and took out a soul flag. The devil didn’t hesitate at all to turn into red mist and enter the soul flag.

Wang Lin left a sliver of his divine sense in the soul flag before putting it back into his bag of holding. Then he waved his other hand and threads appeared all over the room. This was a countermeasure he had set up against the devil.

As Wang Lin waved his hand, those threads of divine sense returned to him.

The reason why he was able to find the small creature no matter how fast it was was partly due to these threads of divine sense. When he first noticed the abnormal fluctuations in the red mist, he used the divine sense restriction he had placed to silently create a spider web of divine sense threads.

No matter where that small creature went, Wang Lin would be able to track it. Also, after it had devoured so many souls with slivers of Wang Lin’s divine sense, the mark left on the small creature also played a big role.

Under the effect of both of these, it was no surprise that Wang Lin could track it.

After withdrawing his divine sense, he stood up and looked outside the window. After pondering for a bit, he walked down the tower. At the door of the tower, he organized everything before walking outside. The devil saw Wang Lin go underground and quickly followed.

Unfortunately, before he followed for long, he was caught by Wang Lin and was thrown into the dragon tendon.

In this location, the resisting force was very powerful. Wand Lin had to use almost 90% of his spiritual energy to resist it. As a result, his speed involuntarily slowed down.

As he slowly moved forward, his divine sense was spread out to carefully observe what was in the distance.

A few days later, Wang Lin’s expression changed. He saw through his divine sense that there was a black cloud quickly flying towards him.

Whenever the black cloud moved, the black tornados would attempt to dodge. Those that weren’t fast enough would scatter into countless small creatures and be devoured by the black cloud. Wang Lin put the pill into his mouth again as he stared at the black cloud and sank even lower.

Before long, the the black cloud passed by. Behind the black cloud was the king tornado. It was currently spinning rapidly to create as much wind as possible. This was what was causing the black cloud to move so quickly.

The king tornado pushed the black cloud past where Wang Lin was and went into the distance. Not long after, the king tornado returned. This time, it moved even faster as it let out loud howls and disappeared again.

After it left, Wang Lin continued to slowly move forward. He sneered. That black cloud must have been created by Hunchback Meng. If it wasn’t for the king tornado pushing it away, then the small creatures would have suffered greatly once it spread out.

After pondering for a while, his eyes lit up. Hunchback Meng must have quite a bit of treasures and pills on him; if these small creatures could kill him, then Wang Lin might be able to take some. Thinking about the treasure of a powerful Soul Formation cultivator, Wang Lin’s heart began to beat faster. However, he quickly dispelled the idea. Compared to treasures, his life was much more important.

After letting out a sigh, Wang Lin discarded all of these unrealistic ideas and continued to move forward. However, after confirming Hunchback Meng’s location, he no longer went straight forward; he went around instead.

Half a month later, he passed an area filled with black tornados that stunned him the moment he saw them with his divine sense.

It was a very dense group of tornados. The amount of small creatures there must have exceeded 100 million. Wang Lin’s head tingled. This made him even more cautious. He spent a month going around this group of tornados.

Most of the black tornados had been attracted by Hunchback Meng, so although there were same scares along the way, there was no real danger. Wang Lin was currently inside a black tower as he looked back at where Hunchback Meng was.

After sneering in his heart, Wang Lin left the tower and continued forward. He could see a giant vortex in the sky in the very far distance.

That vortex was the same as the one in the void. It clearly led to the second trial!

Wang Lin took a deep breath and walked toward the vortex. At this point, he could no longer use the earth escape technique because the resisting force underground was too great. Even if he were to use 100% of his spiritual energy, he couldn’t move with the earth escape technique at all.

However, the earth escape technique didn’t increase one’s speed only when they were underground. As long as there was earth under his feet, then although it wouldn’t be as fast as a flying sword, it was still faster than running.

In these past few months, Wang Lin had been constantly using the earth escape technique, so his mastery of it had increased a lot. Wang Lin could feel that the earth escape technique he knew was nothing compared to the real earth escape technique that was said to allow one to travel tens of thousands of kilometers in a few breaths of time.

As Wang Lin sighed, he didn’t forget to keep his divine sense spread out to carefully check the surroundings. Luckily, large amounts of black tornados were attracted by Hunchback Meng. As Wang Lin flew forward, he didn’t meet too much danger.

Three days later, the vortex was now in sight. As he walked along, Wang Lin’s expression suddenly changed and he drilled into the ground. Suddenly, a powerful force began to resist him. He drank a large gulp of spirit liquid for the power to fend it off.

Not far away, ten black tornados suddenly appeared in the direction of the vortex. Their target was Hunchback Meng. When they arrived at the spot where Wang Lin was hiding, the black tornados suddenly stopped and began to circle the area.

Wang Lin’s heart sank. He had tried to enter the heaven defying bead’s space before, but he couldn’t enter it since arriving in this desert. Otherwise, he would have just gone inside it until the tornados passed. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B1jn.

Wang Lin looked at the vortex in the distance and began to calculate. He clenched his teeth as he slapped his bag of holding to bring out the devil. When the devil saw all the small creatures above them, he became very excited and immediately charged toward them.

Unfortunately, the moment he appeared, all of the surrounding ten tornados let out howls. More than 10,000 divine senses merged together and crashed down on the devil.

The devil let out a miserable scream. The combined divine sense attack was not something he could handle. His body began to release green smoke, making him want to retreat to where Wang Lin was, but then the second attack came.

At the same time, Wang Lin took out a soul flag and shook it, causing the second devil to come out. The second devil was startled for a moment before letting out a sharp cry.

After the sharp cry, all of the tornados paused and stopped spinning, revealing the countless small creatures inside. All of the small creatures were startled as they stared at the second devil. Even the second attack on Xu Liguo was stopped.

The second devil’s eyes turned red as it let out another cry. All of the small creatures began to back up. Their eyes were filled with terror when they looked at the second devil.

Wang Lin was surprised. His eyes sparkled as he began to ponder. As for Xu Liguo, he felt very humiliated. It could be said that recovering his memory wasn’t always a good thing. At least he wouldn’t feel humiliated before he recovered his memory. At this moment, he secretly thought, “This is too shameful; I was saved by little brother. No matter what, I was the first to follow this fiend. No, if this continues, then every little brother this fiend makes will be stronger than me. No, I can’t let it happen!”

The devil gritted his teeth and charged into one of the tornados. After grabbing a few of those small creatures, he began to devour them.

The small creatures began to panic and began to dodge, but the second devil let out another cry. Those small creatures no longer dared to move; the fear in their eyes deepened.

The more Wang Lin saw, the more his eyes lit up. He suddenly came up with an idea. The second devil must’ve seemed like a mutation to these small creatures. It must’ve been some mysterious connection between them that caused this scene to happen.

If this was true, then the reason why these small creatures’ divine senses could merge made sense. His eyes lit up as he came out from underground.

Although the small creatures were cautious when he appeared, they didn’t panic or attack.

At this moment, the second devil looked at Xu Liguo, who was devouring the small creatures, and let out a few strange cries. All of the small creatures’ bodies shook. Their divine senses left their bodies to fuse into an attack that was directed at Xu Liguo.

Xu Liguo immediately smiled and revealed an expression that looked like he was trying to please the second devil. He quickly spat out all of the souls he had devoured before quickly returning to Wang Lin. Once he was behind Wang Lin, his expression changed to one filled with hatred as he stared viciously at the second devil.

He secretly complained in his heart, “You wait! Just you wait! Push me too far and I’ll fight you to the death!”

Wang Lin didn’t even look at Xu Liguo. He was secretly holding the defensive jade Li Muwan had given him. His divine sense spread out and checked the small creatures one by one. In the end, he found that about ten of them were considered mutants, because they had more powerful divine senses.

While Wang Lin observed, he was able to find a total of 10 variants, then one of them suddenly flew before the second devil and let out a few sharp crys.

Chapter 175 -Stealing Treasure

 

The second devil’s eyes turned red. Without any warning, it charged toward the small creature. The small creature was also fierce; its divine sense flew out and charged forth as well.

The two immediately collided with each other, and due to the divine sense mark Wang Lin had left on the second devil, he was able to immediately notice the change. This confrontation was filled with many dangers as only one of them could exist. It was either the second devil would be devoured or that variant small creature would merge with the second devil.

Soon after, Wang Lin let out a soul. The devils he had made as a soul devourer already contained characteristics of a wandering soul; how could this variant compare?

The two souls began to fuse together and the second devil began to surface. The variant’s divine sense gradually faded until it was completely devoured by the second devil.

A group of small creatures quickly surrounded the second devil and formed the black tornado again. Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. The reason why these small creatures could merge their divine senses was because there was a powerful leader guiding them. The fact that these small creatures’ divine senses could merge and even devour each other were related to their nature.

The second devil let out a few cries and was ready to charge toward the variant in another black tornado when Wang Lin let out a cold snort. The second devil immediately stopped. Even the tornado stopped spinning and turned back into countless small creatures.

Wang Lin could clearly see that within the small creatures, the second devil revealed a painful expression with deep fear for Wang Lin in its eyes.

Wang Lin sent out a message. The second devil quickly let out a cry and the surrounding small beasts surrounded Wang Lin. Wang Lin remained calm; his eyes were as calm as water. He didn’t have any reaction toward the small creatures flapping their wings around him.

After those small creatures got close to him, they didn’t attack. Instead, they lifted him up and turned back into a black tornado.

The devil Xu Liguo wanted to follow him in, but he was repelled by the black tornado. He let out a series of roars because he felt very wronged. In the end, it was Wang Lin who reached out and dragged him inside.

While inside the black tornado, he didn’t even have to fly at all; he was standing on a few of the small creatures. Also, he was surrounded by the combined divine senses of all these small creatures, so the ones in other tornados could barely notice him through it.

Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. He gave the second devil an order and the tornado immediately flew toward where Hunchback Meng was. When he did that, the rest of the tornados followed. Soon, the ten tornados arrived at where all the other tornados were gathering.

When they got close, a powerful divine sense went past them. Wang Lin became alert, but the divine sense didn’t stop and just swept past them.

The divine sense clearly didn’t observe closely; it only took a glance and found nothing wrong.

Maybe in its view there couldn’t be any abnormality in the tornado. Wang Lin stared at the king tornado and sneered in his heart. Needless to say, that divine sense definitely belonged to the variant inside the king tornado.

He already had some understanding of these small creatures. In every single tornado, there was a more powerful variant inside. They were the ones that allowed the small creatures to merge their divine senses and gave orders.

This was like the difference between generals and soldiers. The normal small creatures were soldiers, the more powerful variants were generals, and the one in the tornado that seemed to reach the heavens was the king.

After getting close, Wang Lin could see that among this giant cluster of tornados, there was a sky high black tower. Hunchback Meng must’ve been inside.

Wang Lin wasn’t in a rush. The reason he asked the second devil to bring him here was because he realized that he could get close without being noticed. He acted based on the opportunities given. He didn’t think he could kill Hunchback Meng, but he wanted to use this chance to steal some treasures.

The divine sense mark left inside the second devil was different from the one left inside the devil Xu Liguo. The devil Xu Liguo was cultivated for a very long time, so Wang Lin’s divine sense mark was deeply ingrained in him. In fact, Wang Lin wouldn’t even need his Ji Realm, all he needed was but a thought to destroy Xu Liguo. However, in normal circumstances, he wouldn’t use the mark he had left to attack. He kept it as his last resort.

He normally used his Ji Realm to threaten and the mark to secretly manipulate. After all, Xu Liguo had recovered some of his memories, making him very different from wandering souls.

But the second devil was different. Although Wang Lin’s mark on the second devil wasn’t deep, he took the initiative at the start to make it so the second devil wouldn’t ever dare to rebel.

The reason Wang Lin stopped the second devil from merging with more of the variant creatures inside the other tornados was because he was afraid the fusion would dilute his divine sense mark. This would cause problems. With Wang Lin’s cunning, there was no way he would let something like that happen.

When even someone as tenacious as Xu Liguo was completely tamed by Wang Lin, there was no way a devil created from a simple beast could be a match.

Hunchback Meng’s face was as gloomy as mud water as he looked bitterly at the tornados outside. He paid special attention to the largest tornado with a look of dread on his face. The divine sense inside the largest tornado was as powerful as all the other tornados’ combined. It was able to use just its divine sense to push his heaven-destroying poison far away.

During this time, he had used up all of the spirit beasts inside his bag of holding. Although the techniques he used after using a spirit beast as a substitute was able to kill a lot of them, more creatures quickly arrived.

It was impossible to kill them all!

And if he made a mistake, then he would be hit by the combined divine senses of all those small creatures. Even though he was a Soul Formation cultivator, this would still injure him.

This wouldn’t be a light injury but a major injury that could cause his cultivation to drop greatly.

As for treasures, he had also used quite a few. Although they had some effect, the result was the same.

At this moment, he had reached the end of his rope. It was not that he hadn’t considered charging out; he had already tried doing so. That time, he used more than ten spirit beasts as substitutes, but just as he was about to break through the siege, the largest tornado hit him. Not only did it prevent him from leaving, it also injured him.

Hunchback Meng bitterly thought, “Could the heavens want me dead? I have already defied the heavens as I cultivated and finally reached the mid stage of Soul Formation. I originally thought I could use this cultivation to get a Soul Transformation pill and reach the Soul Transformation stage in one go, but…” He couldn’t help but think back to 1000 years ago when the last group came. Everyone but them four died.

There were many people among them that had higher cultivation levels than they did, but they all died. The four of them only survived due to sheer luck.

After 1000 years of preparation, he was able to increase his cultivation level from late stage Nascent Soul to mid stage Soul Formation. The reason he was able to increase his cultivation so fast was because he consumed one of the Giant Demon Clan’s major treasures, the Ancestral Demon Heart!

This was also why he was wanted and being hunted by the Giant Demon Clan!

Hunchback Meng revealed an expression of unwillingness. He clenched his teeth as his gaze fell on the toad. This toad, Li Tian, had been with him for thousands of years and had never abandoned him. He watched it grow from a low quality spirit beast to a high quality spirit beast. It was already considered a pseudo desolate beast. If there were some pills to help it, it could truly become a desolate beast in another 1000 years.

But now Hunchback Meng had no other option. He caressed the toad and whispered, “If I could teleport in this damn place, then I wouldn’t be in this situation. Li Tian, this time I’m depending on you!”

As he spoke, his right hand suddenly reached into the toad’s mouth. The toad’s body trembled and it revealed a painful expression. However, it didn’t resist; it only calmly looked at its owner.

Hunchback Meng closed his eyes but quickly reopened them. His eyes were now merciless as he said, with a heavy tone, “Li Tian, I’m sorry!” With that, his right hand viciously pulled back. In his hand was a green core that was emitting powerful spiritual energy fluctuations.

The toad, Li Tian, weakened until fell on its side. It let out a weak croak as all the pustules on its back began to break and leak a foul-smelling black liquid that covered its body. Even its croaking had no real strength behind it anymore.

Without any hesitation, Hunchback Meng threw the toad’s origin core into his mouth. His body immediately began to twitch and black smoke emerged from his face. He let out a few roars as all the pustules on his face broke. Black liquid shot out everywhere and released black smoke as it landed on the walls.

There are many levels of cores in a spirit beast, but only when a creature reaches spirit beast level does a true core form. Although some variants also have cores, those are just fakes. They are just formed by their spiritual energy and used as storage.

A real core is very different as they are the basis for all of that beast’s techniques. When a beast reaches low quality spirit beast rank, an earth core similar to that of a Core Formation cultivator’s core is formed. However, it is still very different from the core of a Core Formation cultivator.

When they become mid quality spirit beasts, their earth cores turn into heaven cores, and when they become high quality spirit beasts, their heaven cores turn into origin cores, only one step away from a desolate beast’s origin soul!

Only when they reach desolate beast rank do their origin cores turn into origin souls. At that point, they truly become powerful desolate beasts.

The black gas on Hunchback Meng became even denser as he lied on the ground and grabbed the toad. After grabbing the toad, he pressed it against his forehead.

More and more black liquid came out of the toad. This liquid covered the pustules on Hunchback Meng’s face and entered them. Eventually, the entire toad turned into black liquid, which was absorbed by Hunchback Meng.

The hump on Hunchback Meng’s back suddenly swelled up and numerous pustules appeared on it. These pustules covered his entire back. Looking at him now, he looked similar to the toad.

Hunchback Meng closed his eyes. Black gas gathered on his forehead and formed a vortex. Then he suddenly opened his eyes. His pupils were now triangular. They revealed a ruthless gaze.

As Hunchback Meng clenched his fists, black lightning appeared and crackled in his hand. He took a deep breath and muttered to himself, in a husky voice, “This ancient demonic technique is really amazing. By using the origin core of the high quality spirit beast toad, it was able to increase my cultivation to the peak of late stage Soul Formation. This time I will be able to charge through! However, this price is simply too great. If I wasn’t forced into this helpless situation… alas!”

With that, he slowly walked out of the black tower. When he came out, lightning formed by the merged divine senses suddenly descended. Hunchback Meng, with eyes fierce, spat out green gas. The moment the divine sense lightning entered the green gas, it slowed down a bit. Taking this opportunity, Hunchback Meng jumped into one of the tornados.

The tornado suddenly stopped spinning and the small creatures inside it spread out. However, they didn’t move far before exploding. Their blood rain downed from the sky.

Hunchback Meng’s eyes were ruthless as he jumped into the next tornado.

But shortly after, millions of divine senses merged together to form a lance that charged forth like it was going to break the sky.

This lance left many after images as it travel across the sky. One second it was in the air and the next it was closing in on Hunchback Meng, leaving behind sonic booms. Even the restrictions of the earth trial were affected; they let out thunderous roars.

The tornado Wang Lin was in was far in the back, so it didn’t affect him much. He stared at Hunchback Meng’s inhuman figure. He paid extra attention to the bag of holding on Hunchback Meng’s waist.

As for the divine sense lance, Hunchback Meng only took one gaze at it before forming a seal with his hands and letting out a complex chant. Suddenly, a small, four-legged cauldron covered in gas flew out of his mouth.

The moment the cauldron appeared, a thick, green gas began to spread out of it. The lance landed on the small cauldron. The collision of the two created a thunderous rumble and a 10-foot-thick shock wave quickly spread out. Even the tornados were forced to escape. Those that weren’t quick enough were hit by the shock wave. All of the small creatures inside those tornados turned to dust.

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled as he backed up along with the other tornados, but his gaze was still locked onto Hunchback Meng. He didn’t blink even once.

The small cauldron in the air snapped in half and fell from the sky. But the lance that hit it began to turn green starting from the tip. Soon, the entire lance was green. It trembled before shattering into individual divine senses.

This was when something strange happened. Almost every divine sense that was part of the lance had a sliver of green on it. The green began to quickly spread and within only a few seconds all of the divine senses that were part of the lance became completely green.

The moment the green cauldron snapped in half, Hunchback Meng’s body suddenly weakened. He coughed out several mouthfuls of essence blood. That green cauldron was his life treasure. Using his late stage Soul Formation cultivation, he was able to use it to withstand the attack of more than a billion divine senses merged together, but it was split in half in the end.

Hunchback Meng didn’t have time to feel pain over the loss. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the green divine senses covering the sky. The debut release occurred at N-ov3l=B(j)n.

All of the divine senses that were colored green exploded and turned into spiritual energy. Once their divine senses shattered, their bodies also died.

As the divine senses exploded, a large number of the tornados stopped spinning and the small creatures within them fell from the sky.

Hunchback Meng reached out and put the green cauldron that had snapped in half back into his bag of holding. He took this chance to escape, and the direction he went toward just happened to be where Wang Lin’s tornado was.

At this moment, the king tornado let out a thunderous roar. The tornado suddenly stopped spinning, revealing 30-foot-long flying creature.

Its size was many times larger than the rest of its kind, but to Wang Lin, it couldn’t even compare to the desolate dragon in the tunnel.

As the beast roared, it jumped forth. Sound waves spread out from its sharp beak as it flew. Wherever the sound wave traveled, the space of the earth trial showed signs of tearing. This showed just how powerful it was.

At the same time, all of the remaining tornados charged toward Hunchback Meng, especially the ones that were where Hunchback Meng was going. They all charged forth, not caring about their lives as they attempted to stop Hunchback Meng. Divine sense, sound waves, and various attacks rained down on Hunchback Meng. However, none of them were able to stop Hunchback Meng. Every tornado was destroyed when Hunchback Meng rammed into them.

However, every time he collided with one, the black vortex on his forehead became a bit fainter. He secretly complained in his heart. He knew that the increase to his cultivation level was about to end. If he paused for even one moment, he would be hit by the sound wave of the king tornado. Thinking about this, he flew even faster.

Wang Lin saw that at the moment the king creature let out the sound wave, there was a flash of light coming from the creature’s forehead. There was a golden finger sticking out of its forehead.

He didn’t have too much time to think about it, because Hunchback Meng was closing in. Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as he sneered and slapped his bag of holding. The dragon tendon suddenly flew out. It quickly condensed and created branches that also condensed around the same spot, creating a thick stick.

The moment Hunchback Meng closed in, the tornado he was in backed up. Among all the other tornados, his tornado was almost unnoticeable.

When Hunchback Meng charged by, Wang Lin threw out the dragon tendon. Hunchback Meng had just charged through a tornado when he suddenly noticed an abnormal fluctuation of spiritual energy. But at this moment, the area was filled with spiritual energy from the dead creatures, so unless he checked very carefully, it was hard to detect exactly what it was.

Hunchback Meng was dead set on fleeing, so while he noticed it, he didn’t think much of it. Hunchback Meng didn’t think there were any other human cultivators here besides himself.

However, when he suddenly felt his right leg being pulled by a powerful force, his expression changed greatly. Without even needing to turn his head, thanks to his experience, he was able to tell that it was a magic treasure made from the tendon of a beast. There was no way for those small creatures to use magic treasures, so the only other answer meant that it was a human cultivator!

Hunchback Meng normally wouldn’t care much about these kinds of treasures. All he had to do was use a bit of spiritual energy to shatter it and use poison on it to poison the user.

However, he was currently surrounded by black tornados that were sending endless waves of divine sense and sound wave attacks. He was already struggling to charge through by force on this last breath of spiritual energy. Especially due to the fact that his life treasure had shattered, he was in a sorry state. If it wasn’t for the combination of the ancient demonic technique and the toad, he would already be dead.

At this critical moment, this normally insignificant dragon tendon was like a death rune that was imprinted on his body. Although that dragon tendon shattered under his force, this caused him to pause for a moment.

It was just one pause, but it lasted long enough for the sound waves to arrive at his back and for the attacks from the nearby tornados to close in.

The straw can’t kill the camel, but it can be the breaking point that causes the camel to be crushed to death.

The effect of the dragon tendon was like that straw.

As Hunchback Meng was hit in the back by the sound waves, he coughed out blood and was sent flying. Just at this moment, a giant tornado passed by him. A hand reached out of it and grabbed the bag of holding on his waist.

At that moment, Hunchback Meng vaguely saw through the tornado. He saw Wang Lin’s mocking smile. He became furious and coughed out another mouthful of blood. The blood turned into a gas that would make people nauseous and chased after the tornado.

After Wang Lin grabbed the bag of holding, he ordered the second devil to fly as quickly as possible toward the vortex without any hesitation. That was the entrance to the second trial.

As for the blood, it was blocked by the small creatures that formed the tornado. However, the toxins inside that blood were no joke, and since Wang Lin was always cautious, he jumped out of the tornado the moment it was hit by the blood. Close behind him were the two devils.

The moment Wang Lin landed, he entered the ground with his earth escape technique and quickly moved forward. As for the tornado, the blood completely infected it and all the small creatures inside it died.

Although a lot of things happened, they happened very fast. In just the blink of an eye, the bag of holding on Hunchback Meng’s waist disappeared.

When Hunchback Meng was hit by the sound wave, his bones and flesh began to break. The many pustules on his back broke, releasing a black, foul-smelling liquid. Any small creatures that touched the black liquid immediately died.

At this moment, he saw that his blood attack was blocked and Wang Lin escaped. He didn’t even feel heartbroken about his stolen bag of holding. Instead, he was filled with a deep urge to kill Wang Lin. If it wasn’t for Wang Lin, he would have already made it through this blockade and reached the second trial.

However, all of this changed due to Wang Lin’s appearance. With Hunchback Meng’s intelligence, he immediately realized that he had been making a path for Wang Lin this whole time. He even attracted the attention of all the tornados. Otherwise, with that kid’s Core Formation cultivation, how else could he have safely passed through the first trial?

Chapter 176 – Capturing the wind pack

 

When Hunchback Meng was caught by the king tornado, he was drowned by a flood of hatred.

Wang Lin’s body turned into a cloud of smoke as he quickly escaped from the group of tornados. There were some scattered tornados that came to try and stop Wang Lin like they did with Hunchback Meng.

Wang Lin sneered. His eyes were completely calm without a trace of panic. As the group of tornados got closer, one of the tornados suddenly sped up and arrived next to Wang Lin. The tornado picked up Wang Lin and quickly charged out of the encirclement of tornados.

This all happened too quickly for the other tornados to react, and even if they could have reacted, they weren’t smart enough to realize the problem.

Wang Lin stood within the tornado and charged toward the vortex to the second trial. The moment he charged out of the tornado, he secretly ordered the second devil to take control of another one.

He was able to escape so quickly because up to this moment everything has gone just as planned.

That king creature scanned the distance before landing in Wang Lin’s tornado. It revealed a confused look before letting out a thunderous roar. All of the tornados started chasing after Wang Lin.

As for the king tornado, it had a strange expression on its face while it carried Hunchback Meng and slowly disappeared into the opposite direction.

The difference between the tornados varied a lot; it depended on the amount of small creatures inside. The more there were, the faster that tornado went. As a result, the tornados formed a line while they chased after Wang Lin. The tornado Wang Lin controlled had a decent amount of small creatures, so its speed was not slow either.

Although the tornados were chasing Wang Lin, he wasn’t scared. Instead, he calculated the speed of those tornados before turning back to look at the closest ones. He opened his mouth and spat out a crystal light. The flying sword quickly teleported toward the tornados Wang Lin had in mind.

His Ji Realm was traveling inside the flying sword. His targets weren’t the little creatures that were like soldiers, but the ones leading each tornado.

With the presence of the Ji Realm Divine Sense and the sharp blade of the flying sword, in just the blink of an eye one of the tornados Wang Lin was eyeing suddenly stopped. All of the small creatures inside it suddenly scattered with confused looks on their faces.

Wang Lin didn’t stop at all. His hand quickly pointed and a ray of light zipped between the tornados. Suddenly, a majority of the large tornados Wang Lin was paying attention to collapsed.

At this moment, he began to see the divine senses behind him begin to merge, so he waved his hand and the crystal sword returned in a flash. It was not that Wang Lin didn’t want to fight, but those small creatures were now on guard. He was able to catch them by surprise before, but if he continued, then the flying sword would be blocked by the merged divine senses when it approaches a tornado.

He didn’t want to be like Hunchback Meng, fighting until his life treasure splits in half.

Wang Lin sneered while the flying sword was coming back to him. He continued to escape. Soon, the distance between him and the tornados widened. All of the tornados he targeted were the largest ones that were slightly faster than him.

All of this happened in an instant. In the blink of an eye, a gap appeared between Wang Lin and the tornados. However, the small creatures had finished merging their divine senses, and a series of divine sense lightning bolts rushed towards Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s eyes were still calm. When the divine sense lightning arrived, Wang Lin gave the second devil an order. The small creatures controlled by the second devil suddenly turned around and charged out, creating sound waves that began to spread out.

This sound wave attack created a shock wave that pushed Wang Lin’s tornado forward, causing the divine sense lightning to miss. When the small creatures chasing Wang Lin merged their divine senses for another attack, Wang Lin was already far away from them.

As the large vortex in the sky came into Wang Lin’s sight, his eyes started sparkling. In truth, if he hadn’t decided to steal from Hunchback Meng, he would already have safely entered the second trial.

Even now, if he gave up on hiding inside the tornado and charged out using all of his strength, he had an 80% chance of making it, but this was not what Wang Lin planned to do.

He didn’t know what kind of dangers were in the second trial. It was very unlikely he would have the luck of someone opening the path for him like here in the first trial, so he mustn’t recklessly charge in.

As a result, the ever so cautious Wang Lin set his sights on the tornados behind him. Wang Lin’s plan was to bring some of those tornados with him to the second trial. This way, he would have some means of self-defense in the second trial.

With this thought in mind, he couldn’t just enter the vortex on his own. He carefully looked back at the tornados behind him and began to ponder. Then he clenched his teeth and gave an order to the second devil. His tornado slowed down.

The moment he slowed down, the tornados behind him immediately closed the distance to 500 feet, and a series of attacks also quickly closed in on Wang Lin.

The tornado Wang Lindo was in only needed one breath of time at full speed to reach the vortex.

That is to say that it would take one breath of time for the tornados to catch up and two breaths of time for them to enter the vortex.

During the first breath of time, Wang Lin took an item out of his bag of holding. When the divine senses attack arrived, Wang Lin didn’t suddenly speed up to avoid the attack but instead used the small creatures in his tornado to block it.

In just one breath of time, more than half of the small creatures in Wang Lin’s tornado died.

Wang Lin’s expression was calm. There was no hint of panic in his eyes. At this moment, Wang Lin was even closer to the vortex, and the tornados behind him quickly closed in.

In the second breath of time, Wang Lin’s body charged out of his tornado like an arrow. The group of tornados closed in while their sound attacks burst forth.

The moment Wang Lin left his tornado, all of the small creatures besides the second devil died.

At this time, Wang Lin’s body was already inside the vortex. The tornados chasing him had also entered the vortex. The tornados suddenly stopped, and some in the back of the pack were about to retreat.

However, how could Wang Lin let them do as they wished? He looked at the 40 or so tornados that were chasing him and shouted, “Stay here for me!”

As he spoke, he sent spiritual energy into the object he had taken out of his bag of holding during the first breath. Suddenly, a ring of light expanded and surrounded all the tornados.

The image of the dragon appeared, and under Wang Lin’s control, it circled along the ring of light. At this very moment, purple lightning reached out from the vortex. The purple lightning landed on Wang Lin and went through him into the ring of light. The vortex quickly pulled them all into it.

In the blink of an eye, Wang Lin and the 40 or so tornados were pulled into the vortex.

At this point, the rest of the tornados had caught up, but when they touched the vortex, they were bounced back. More and more tornados gathered here, but after trying for a very long time, they still weren’t able to enter the vortex. After some time, they slowly began to disperse.

The first trial, the earth trial, gradually calmed back down. In an unknown location inside the earth trial, Hunchback Meng floated in the air. His body was a bloody mess, and his eyes were filled with confusion. In front of him was the king creature’s body. The golden finger bone on its head was slowly appearing.

It pointed to Hunchback Meng’s brow… The primary upload of this chapter happened on N0v3l/B1n.

As for Wang Lin, after he came out of the vortex, he quickly spread out his divine sense and was shocked. The place he was at now was a grey world with nothing but a bridge made of black stone.

Wang Lin withdrew his divine sense and looked back. The dragon formation was still there with more than 40 tornados inside. They were still trying to escape by colliding wildly against the surrounding rings of light.

Every time they collided, the ring became a bit dimmer. Wang Lin let out a cold snort as he put away the dragon formation. As soon as the formation disappeared, the 40 plus tornados scattered.

At the same time, Wang Lin pointed at his brow. The second devil quickly appeared and let out a challenging roar toward those tornados.

The tornados all suddenly stopped. One of the small creatures flew out from one of the tornados and collided with the second devil. Wang Lin calmly watched this all happen. This was a part of his plan. The reason he didn’t let the second devil challenge them in the first trial was because there were simply too many tornados chasing them to stop. The moment the second devil began challenging them, they would attract even more tornados. If the second devil ever failed, then Wang Lin would be left without any means of escape.

But now there were only these 40 plus tornados, making it a very different situation.

Three days later, Wang Lin looked into the distance while standing next to the black bridge. Forty-two black tornados were packed closely together. If one looked closely, they would see that the tornados were all surrounding one tornado in the center with slivers of red light connecting them.

The leaders of all tornados were fused with the second devil. However, through force, Wang Lin pulled them all out and put them in a soul flag to use for making more devils in the future.

He did this to prevent himself from losing control of the second devil because the second devil had merged with too many of them.

Chapter 177 – King poison cauldron

 

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled as he stared at the stone bridge. During these three days, he had been observing the stone bridge and still hadn’t taken one step onto it.

Aside from this stone bridge, there was nothing in this grey world.

Wang Lin pondered for a bit before waving his hand. All 42 tornados behind him suddenly stopped spinning. They turned into tens of thousands of small creatures, and then the creatures began to spread out.

Wang Lin slightly closed his eyes and used his connection with the second devil to perceive the small beasts. The small beasts scattered, leaving behind only the sound of wings fluttering. After a bit of time, even those sounds were gone.

After a very long time, he suddenly opened his eyes and flew northwest. The small creatures began to gather from all directions and reformed the tornados behind him.

Before long, Wang Lin stopped as he arrived before a stone tablet more than 30 feet tall. The tablet gave off a red light, giving it a demonic feel. There were a few small creatures on the stone tablet. They were flapping their wings and letting out buzzing sounds.

After seeing Wang Lin arrive, those small creatures flew toward him and rejoined the tornados behind him. Wang Lin saw four big words on the stone tablet — Road of No Return.

These three words contained an ancient feel. Wang Lin looked at them for a bit before shifting his gaze to the bottom right corner. He seriously looked at it for a while before waving his hand. A gust blew by, blowing away all the dust and dirt on the tablet and uncovering a small row of words to appear.

“I have passed through the earth trial and captured the king creature there before arriving at this Road of No Return. This place is very interesting; if anyone in the future sees this, then consider it fate. I’ll give you one piece of advice: ponder the meaning of ‘No Return’.”

Wang Lin’s expression remained calm, but he was secretly shocked. These small words were the same as the one he saw in the black tower. They were clearly written by the same person.

From the look of these words, the earth trial was beyond easy for this person. Even the powerful king creature there was captured by him.

However, on second thought, Wang Lin narrowed his eyes. If this person had captured the king creature in the earth trial, why was it still there? There must be some lie in these words. The word “capture” implied that it now followed this person.

There was of course the chance that he really did capture it and another one was simply born after countless years.

Wang Lin wasn’t interested in whether this was true or false. His gaze returned to the words “Road of No Return” and he began to ponder.

After a long time, he turned and flew toward the stone bridge with the tornados following closely behind him.

After returning to the bridge, Wang Lin slapped his bag of holding and the devil Xu Liguo immediately flew out. He looked jealously at the small creatures and secretly complained in his heart, “So what if he has a lot of little brothers following him? I’ll just get my own followers!”

Wan Lin looked at the stone bridge and pointed at it. This time, Xu Liguo immediately sprinted toward the bridge without trying to bargain like in the past. He was full of energy as he proudly looked at the tornado and thought, “See this? This fiend still thinks I’m more important. Why wouldn’t he let number two do it instead otherwise?”

When he looked at Wang Lin, he revealed an appeasing look before flying toward the stone bridge. He flew for a long time without finding any danger and even circled it a few times before returning.

Wang Lin slightly frowned. He stretched his hand out. A small creature flew out from the tornado and landed in his palm. It looked at him with its small eyes and remained still.

Wang Lin threw the small creature toward the black stone bridge. The small creature moved three steps before stopping. Wang Lin stared at the small creature with a serious expression.

The small creature’s body trembled while it slowly turned around. Its eyes were filled with fear. Then, just as it turned around, a vortex appeared under the small creature, sucking it in. An instant later, everything returned to normal.

Wang Lin pondered for a while. He understood that the stone bridge was the key to leave this Road of No Return. He tested the bridge out with a few more small creatures, and the result was the same.

However, Wang Lin noticed that when a group of small creatures went, only one would be affected at a time while the others were not affected until the first one died. Then another small creature would be affected and so forth.

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled as he muttered “No Return… No Return… it means that once you take a step forward, you can’t turn back…” He pondered this but still didn’t step onto the bridge.

He sat down in the lotus position next to the bridge and took out two bags of holding. One of them had a golden thread. This was the one he had stolen from the mysterious corpse while he was learning the Divine Path in the War God Shrine.

Unfortunately, there was a mysterious force on the bag that prevented his divine sense from going inside and opening it. Wang Lin knew that the bag contained someone else’s divine sense and that he had to erase it before he could open it.

However, this divine sense was too powerful; after trying a few times, Wang Lin gave up. Instead, he surrounded it with his divine sense so that the divine sense in the bag would be cut off from the outside world, making it so its owner couldn’t sense it.

Although Wang Lin wasn’t powerful enough to erase the divine sense, he still managed to hide it with his Ji Realm divine sense.

The other bag of holding was the one he had stolen from Hunchback Meng. The divine sense on there had already disappeared, meaning that Hunchback Meng was dead.

Wang Lin sneered in his heart. His eyes lit up when he opened it. This was indeed thousands of years of savings of a Soul Formation cultivator. Just spirit stones alone, there were more than 300,000 piled up like a small mountain, and all of them were high quality.

What made Wang Lin’s eyes shine even more were the two pieces of stone with halos around them. They were the very rare, top quality spirit stones.

Wang Lin’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. Just these two top quality spirit stones were worth the risk of stealing from Hunchback Meng.

In addition to the spirit stone, there were several bottles. Finally, for magic treasures, there was only the green cauldron that was split in half and nothing else.

Wang Lin understood after he pondered for a bit. Hunchback Meng was trapped for a long time, so he must have used up all his treasures. N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.

His guess was very accurate. Hunchback Meng had many treasures, and they were all Nascent level or higher. However, after trying to break through the tornados multiple times, he used up all his treasures, especially during that one time when he used ten spirit beasts as substitutes. He threw out countless treasures in that attempt. He was even willing to explode his treasures to make a path, but sadly, he still failed in the end.

It was because of this that the only magic treasure he had left was the green cauldron.

Aside from all of this, there were also many jades inside the bag of holding. Wang Lin checked them one by one, and the smile on his face got wider after each one. These jades were filled with alchemy methods, refining methods, and records of spirit beasts.

These things were very useful to the current Wang Lin. At least there wouldn’t be any more issues of not recognizing a valuable material when he sees it.

Also, Hunchback Meng specialized in alchemy and poison, so the bag contained a lot of jades that specialized in those. Wang Lin spent a long time reading them all. This made his knowledge increase by over 100 times.

There was a dark green jade that caught Wang Lin’s attention. It was a cultivation method, and its name was only one word: Underworld.

This method was described to have come from the demon god Qi, who used poison as the basis of one’s dao. There were a total of nine layers, and by layer six, even Soul Formation cultivators would not be able to resist the poison.

However, this method was very vicious. One would have to endure unimaginable pain because various poisons would have to be injected into the body to create a full poison body.

This side effect stays until one reaches the ninth layer. This was when all of the poison would be expelled from the body to form the true underworld poison, allowing a person to return to normal. Before all of that, a person would suffer deformities. The first thing that would happen was pustules would grow on the person.

After Wang Lin finished looking through it, he pondered for a bit and gave up on the idea of cultivating this. Hunchback Meng must’ve had that stench because he practiced this method. Although Wang Lin wasn’t one to care about his looks, it was described in the jade that by cultivating this method, your body would be filled with poison. There was a chance that the poison would invade your consciousness, thus turning you into a hollow shell that only knows how to kill.

This was the main reason why he gave up on cultivating this method. Although he couldn’t use this cultivation method, there were still many techniques in the jade that he could use if he had the poison.

As for refining poison, Wang Lin had already read the jade containing all of Hunchback Meng’s experiences, which made Wang Lin’s heart tremble with excitement.

He took out all those bottles from the bag of holding and used the jades to identify each of them. Almost all of them were poison, and only one bottle contained pills Wang Lin knew, which was the pill he had taken to prevent himself from being poisoned.

This anti poison pill was only medium quality. Only by taking a mild poison along with this pill could the pill’s effect increase.

Wang Lin put everything into his bag of holding and threw Hunchback Meng’s on the ground. Then he picked up an object and his expression became serious.

This object was Hunchback Meng’s life treasure, the green cauldron.

Although this cauldron had split in half, there was still powerful spiritual energy coming from it. However, this spiritual energy was filled with poison. The green substance that could kill divine sense made Wang Lin extra cautious when examining it.

He knew that aside from the top quality spirit stones and the green jade, the next most valuable thing in Hunchback Meng’s bag was this cauldron. After all, this cauldron was a Soul Formation cultivator’s life treasure, and it had been refined in his body for thousands of years.

When he checked the jades, there was an explanation on it. When one reaches the second layer, they require a treasure to suppress the poison in their body.

This cauldron was an imitation of the legendary King Medicine Cauldron. Although it was an imitation, the materials this green cauldron was made of were not worse than the King Medicine Cauldron’s. What made it inferior was that it couldn’t absorb the spiritual energy from tens of thousands of plants like the King Medicine Cauldron could.

This cauldron was the most important treasure of a sect in a rank 3 cultivation country. Hunchback Meng spent hundreds of years to get it. He first joined the sect and became the sect head’s personal disciple due to his talent. Then, when he got the chance to get close to the cauldron, he stole it, killed his master, and escaped to the Sea of Devils. After that, he used the cauldron as his life treasure.

He forcibly took a King Medicine Cauldron and refined it into a King Poison Cauldron. If he had managed to reach the ninth layer, then although it wouldn’t reach the level of the legendary King Medicine Cauldron, it would be pretty close. However, instead of a King Medicine Cauldron, it would be a King Poison Cauldron.

Unfortunately, he died before getting there, and due to chance, this cauldron was now in Wang Lin’s hands.

Wang Lin recalled what the jade said about this cauldron. After pondering for a bit, if he also cultivated the same technique, then after he reaches a certain level, he could devour it and make it his own life treasure. However, he had already decided to not cultivate this method, which made this cauldron hard to deal with.

Wang Lin would feel very frustrated if he couldn’t use this kind of treasure. The reason for doing all of this was to become stronger. Although he wasn’t close to reaching the Nascent Soul stage and this wouldn’t increase his chances of getting there, he had to travel through this dangerous place, and this green cauldron could definitely increase his survival rate.

Wang Lin’s face was gloomy. He raised his head and looked at the stone bridge. His eyes sparkled before he opened his mouth for the crystal sword to fly out. The sword flew around him a few times before stopping in front of him.

Wang Lin looked at the flying sword with a lingering expression on this face. He clenched his teeth and hit the crystal sword. The sword trembled for a bit before letting out a sword hymn. Then, red lines appeared on the body of the sword.

This was the soul essence blood he had used to blood refine this sword back in Zhao. Although both his and the sword’s bodies were destroyed, the blood refining technique was very tyrannical. It forcibly carved the soul essence blood onto the sword’s spirit.

This sword spirit was originally without shape or intelligence, but it was inside Wang Lin’s soul for so many years, and it underwent a change when Wang Lin became a soul devourer. The sword spirit gained a hint of intelligence and was preserved.

It wasn’t until Wang Lin used the War God Shrine’s refining technique to make it another body that it completed its transformation.

It could be said that this flying sword had done much for Wang Lin. Countless people had died to this sword. The sword had garnered so much killing intent that it could now be considered a killing treasure.

Wang Lin revealed a serious expression while moving his right hand over the sword. The blood lines on the sword became even more noticeable until the sword cracked along those lines and fell to the ground in pieces.

There were only lines of blood floating in the air now, and the image of a sword would appear and disappear.

Wang Lin took a deep breath before slapping his bag of holding. The reaction furnace flew out. He threw the two halfs of the green cauldron into the reaction furnace. A green gas immediately covered the reaction furnace while sizzling sounds came from inside.

Wang Lin’s eyes became cold. His hand formed seals that he placed on the reaction furnace. The reaction furnace began to spin faster and faster until it even caused the green gas surrounding it to spin, creating a green tornado.

Wang Lin reached out and grabbed all of the shattered pieces of the crystal sword. He picked up one piece and stared at the rapidly spinning reaction furnace. After a very long time, he threw one piece into the fast-spinning reaction furnace.

The moment it entered, the crystal piece melted and mixed with what was inside the furnace.

Wang Lin calmly threw the pieces into the furnace, and after one hour, all of the pieces were inside the furnace. Wang Lin let out a sigh of relief. Then, his hand formed seals and he placed them on the reaction furnace.

After doing this, the reaction furnace started spinning much faster. Now he couldn’t see what was inside anymore; there was only a spanning mass. The green vortex looked like it had stopped, but if one looked closely, they would see that it had not stopped moving. It just moved so fast that it looked like it was still.

Wang Lin muttered, “Still not enough!” With his divine sense, he could see that the heat created from the spinning of the reaction furnace wasn’t enough. This heat had only caused the green cauldron to turn slightly red, but it hadn’t melted yet.

Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as several objects flew out of his bag of holding. He didn’t even look at them as he grabbed one and accurately threw it into the reaction furnace.

When the object fell in, there was a puff of green smoke. Although the reaction furnace wasn’t spinning faster, the temperature inside it increased by one fold. The green cauldron inside it was now completely red.

But there was still no sign of it melting.

The object he threw inside was a special refining material of the War God Shrine, the Chicken Blood Stone. When stimulated by spiritual energy, it can generate high temperatures.

If too many are used, then instead of increasing temperature, it lowers it instead. Which was why Wang Lin put them away after using a few.

The inside of the reaction furnace had reached a terrifying temperature, but the green cauldron was still just burning red with no signs of melting.

Wang Lin pondered for a bit before throwing out Purple Moon Vines, Shattered Flower Stones, Blue Moon Wood, and dozens of other War God Shrine refining materials. After these things were thrown into the reaction furnace one by one, a multicolored cloud of smoke rose from the reaction furnace in the shape of a cauldron.

This cauldron of smoke shattered the green vortex, but then, in a mysterious manner, it went back inside the reaction furnace, dragging the green gas along with it.

A series of thunderous roars came from the reaction furnace and cracks began to appear on it. Wang Lin focused himself and watched the green cauldron inside. The green cauldron had started to melt, but the speed at which it melted was very slow. At this rate, there was a high chance that the reaction furnace would shatter before the cauldron was finished melting.

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled. He raised his right hand and a blue flame appeared, causing the temperature around him to immediately drop. This was the underworld flame created when he completed the underworld ascension cultivation method.

This ice flame had already fused with Wang Lin’s golden core, so it will never disappear, but if it was overused, it would damage his golden core.

This was why he had only used this as his ace before. He wouldn’t casually use it.

Seeing that the reaction furnace was at its limit and about to shatter, he sent the blue flame forward.

Wang Lin was highly concentrated as he controlled the flame to slowly move forward. He had to make sure that there weren’t any fluctuations in the flame to maintain it at a constant, low temperature.

At this moment, the number of cracks on the reaction furnace suddenly increased, but before they could spread, they were surrounded by the ice flame, solidifying the furnace.

After just these few breaths, Wang Lin was covered in sweat. He had taken a big risk. If he controlled the flame well, it would help keep the reaction furnace together, but if he messed up, it would increase the speed of the reaction furnace shattering.

Right now, thanks to the reinforcement from the ice flame, the cracking of the reaction furnace was slowed down. However, if he didn’t limit how cold the flame was, then it would affect the melting of the green cauldron inside. This made Wang Lin even more focused, because he needed to keep the temperature at a point where it would help keep the furnace stable but wouldn’t affect the melting of the green cauldron.

The green cauldron slowly melted. Wang Lin didn’t dare to relax this entire time. After an unknown amount of time had passed, the green cauldron completely melted into a puddle of dark green liquid.

Wang Lin let out a sigh of relief as his hand formed a seal that landed on the reaction furnace. This caused the reaction furnace to stop spinning. Wang Lin reached out and pulled out all of the green liquid.

Inside the liquid, the image of a small cauldron would appear and disappear. Wang Lin knew that this was the cauldron spirit of this King Poison Cauldron. Without any hesitation, he waved his hand and the sword spirit floating in the air merged with the green liquid.

The cauldron spirit merged with it as well. Wang Lin’s expression was serious. The two spirits didn’t act as Wang Lin predicted and attacked each other. After some resistance, the cauldron spirit turned into green gas and entered the sword spirit.

After the two merged, Wang Lin finally relaxed. His hand pointed a few times while the green liquid slowly solidified according to Wang Lin’s will into the shape of a 6-inch shortsword.

Two rows of countless small thorns grew out from the two sides of the sword. They gave off a green glow that looked very stunning.

The flying sword had completely solidified and was now dark green. The sword also contained the poison of the King Poison Cauldron. If one was hit by it, if the sword didn’t immediately kill them, the poison eventually would.

Even if a Nascent Soul cultivator were to get hit by this flying sword, it would be hard for them to escape death. After all, the poison in this sword was from Hunchback Meng’s King Poison Cauldron.

However, after reforming this sword, he no longer dared to swallow it and instead nurtured it in his golden core. Even when he uses it, he will have to be careful because if he is hit by it, it will be hard for him to live as well.

There was no antidote for the poison of this King Poison Cauldron. Aside from Hunchback Meng, no one could cure it.

Wang Lin was confident in its power, particularly the thorns on the sides of the sword. With just a thought, the thorns could break off to attack the enemy, making it very hard to guard against.

Chapter 178 – Restriction mountain

 

Wang Lin waved his right hand and the flying sword flew toward him. He carefully guided the flying sword into his bag of holding before relaxing. He didn’t want to be cut by the sword he had refined and die from the poison.

After putting the flying sword away, Wang Lin stood up and walked toward the stone bridge without any hesitation. The tornados howled as they quickly followed him.

Wang Lin carefully moved forward. Although this bridge looked normal, the scene changed and the bridge became 1000 feet long the moment he stepped on it.

A vortex appeared on the other side of the bridge.

Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled. He pondered for a bit before reaching out with his hand. A small creature flew out and landed on his palm. He threw the small creature and it shot out like an arrow toward the vortex.

However, after the small creature only flew 100 feet, a bolt of purple lightning accurately landed on the small creature and turned it to dust.

Wang Lin’s expression remained the same. If there were no restrictions here, he could just fly across without any issue. However, he could only take it step by step now. He had to move slowly and without any sudden acceleration. He looked at the 1000-foot-long bridge, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

Wang Lin remained completely focused with each step. On the tenth step, he was suddenly surrounded by fog and the tornados behind him disappeared.

The second devil also disappeared along with the tornados; even the connection between them was blocked by a mysterious force. Wang Lin couldn’t detect it at all.

Wang Lin wanted to look back, but just as he was about to turn around, he forced himself to stop. Wang Lin’s face was sullen while he pondered, then he sneered and continued to walk forward.

This time it was 100 feet.

A thunderous roar suddenly rang out behind Wang Lin that even caused the bridge before him to shake. Wang Lin immediately stabilized his body. He knew this roar; it was the roar of the desolate dragon from the tunnel.

A fishy and hot breath blew on his back. Wang Lin controlled himself to not even check with his divine sense. This bridge was called the Path of No Return, meaning that once one steps on it, they can’t go back.

Wang Lin didn’t believe that this place could be so simple. Not only could he not go back, but he couldn’t even turn his head around. He most likely couldn’t spread his divine sense toward his back either. In the end, everything must follow the two words of No Return, or else he would die here like that small creature.

Although he couldn’t turn his head or check with his divine sense, he knew that for him to feel this heat it meant that the dragon had opened its big mouth and was right behind him.

Wang Lin was surprised, but he didn’t panic. There was no way for that dragon to appear behind him; it had to be some type of illusion.

Just at this moment, a red light flashed by his right shoulder. His pupils shrank. He clearly saw that the red light was the dragon’s forked tongue. His forehead was covered in cold sweat. He looked sideways and found a sticky substance that released a strange smell on his shoulder.

Wang Lin took a deep breath and began to calm down. His steps were still steady while he gently walked forward. The forked tongue kept flashing by his body, and his clothes flapped under the hot breath. Suddenly, a powerful killing intent appeared behind him.

Wang Lin looked at his flapping clothes and let out a mocking smile. If it was before, he would still be a bit unsure, especially after seeing the sticky substance on his shoulder. However, after seeing his clothes flap like this, he was confident that this was an illusion.

The reason was the thing behind him was supposed to be a desolate beast. Normally, just one breath would have blown him far away at this range, but now it could only make his clothes flap.

Wang Lin was very determined; no matter what kind of sound or movements there were behind him, he still just calmly walked forward. At this moment, the red dragon let out a violent roar and attempted to devour him. Wang Lin could see the dragon coming from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t panic and continued to calmly walk forward.

The moment the dragon devoured him, it turned into a cloud of smoke. Wang Lin slowly walked out of the smoke.

He had walked 900 feet and had only 100 feet left, but just at this moment, he heard a soft cough.

This cough was very soft, but in Wang Lin’s ears it was like thunder booming. He couldn’t help but stop. His body trembled and two streams of tears rolled down his face.

That cough continued. Wang Lin knew that all of this was an illusion and was fake, but he still had the urge to turn around to take a look.

“Tie Zhu… turn around and let dad have a look…”

The familiar voice entered his ears, causing Wang Lin to clench his fist and close his eyes. When he opened them again, his eyes were filled with determination and he began to walk forward again.

“Tie Zhu… mother just wants to see her child. How could you be so ruthless as to not even turn your head…”

Wang Lin closed his eyes again. His body was trembling with each step, but he continued forward without any hesitation. Soon, he arrived at the end of the stone bridge. Throughout these last 100 feet, his parents’ voices never stopped.

When he reached the end of the bridge, his parents’ voices disappeared. The howls of the tornados returned and he regained his connection with the second devil.

Wang Lin still didn’t turn around. After pondering for a long time before the vortex, he took out the jade Li Muwan had given him and activated it. He surrounded the tornados behind him and they entered the vortex together.

Wang Lin disappeared inside the vortex after being pulled by the purple lightning.

What appeared before him when he walked out of the vortex was a large mountain that was covered by clouds. It was so tall that it was impossible to see all of it with all the clouds around it. Compared to the mountain, Wang Lin looked very small.

After seeing the mountain, Wang Lin was shocked, but he was soon able to figure out that the Path of No Return was clearly not the second trial. Otherwise, all of this didn’t match what Ancient Emperor and Duanmu Ji said about needing Wang Lin’s death spell.

He still couldn’t see anything that required divine sense attacks to get past. He continued to look at the mountain and guessed that maybe this was the real second trial.

He spread out his divine sense and his pupils immediately shrank. There was clearly a broken restriction in the foot of the mountain with slivers of red light flashing around it.

Wang Lin pondered for a bit before walking toward the mountain. Before long, he reached where the restriction was. The restriction had clearly been destroyed by someone, leaving behind a hole big enough for one person to pass.

Red light shined from the sides of the hole. He then looked up toward the mountain peak. He immediately became very cautious, because he was certain that there was someone ahead of him.

There was nothing else here besides this mountain, meaning that this mountain was the key for this trial. There was also only one choice, which was to climb to the peak of this mountain.

To a mortal, climbing a mountain like this would be a very difficult task, but to a cultivator, it wasn’t difficult at all.

However, with Wang Lin’s experience here so far, there had to be a restriction that prevented him from flying, so he had to walk up the mountain.

After pondering for a while, Wang Lin turned around and looked at the tornados. He waved his hand and the tornados began to merge together to form a large tornado. Wang Lin jumped toward the tornado. When he got close to it, an opening appeared on the tornado as if it were welcoming him in.

Standing inside the tornado, Wang Lin sent out a command and the giant tornado immediately moved forward.

Right after they passed the restriction, Wang Lin saw with his divine sense that the restriction began to recover and soon returned to normal.

Wang Lin’s heart sank. If the restrictions could recover, then he couldn’t let the person before him open the path for him like he did in the first trial.

Thinking about this, the countless divine senses of the small creatures merged together under Wang Lin’s control through the second devil and spread out.

He carefully controlled this powerful divine sense to check the surrounding area. His heart sank. This place was completely covered with restrictions. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B1jn.

It wouldn’t be wrong to call this place a restriction mountain. Forget climbing straight up; just one wrong step would get him killed.

While Wang Lin was exploring the area with his divine sense, one of the restrictions was recovering and completely returned to normal in the blink of an eye.

Wang Lin withdrew his divine sense. After pondering for a bit, he walked out from the giant tornado. He took out a bag of holding and waved his hand. The tornados, along with the second devil, entered the bag. This bag of holding was one he got from an insect cultivator. It couldn’t hold items, but living creatures could stay inside it.

Wang Lin had tested it with a few small creatures a few days ago. Once he found out that it worked, he was using it to store the small creatures.

After the small creatures entered the bag, he tied that bag to his waist and took a deep breath before he began walking forward. His divine sense was spread out, carefully observing his surroundings.

While he used the small creatures’ divine senses to scan the area, he found that there were openings between the restrictions. However, the openings were too small for the giant tornados to pass through, and the surrounding restrictions were fully functional, so they would activate if touched.

This was why he gave up on the idea of using the giant tornados to charge up to the mountaintop.

Chapter 179 – Studying Restrictions

 

It was not that Wang Lin didn’t think about going back the way he came after he got his hands on the top quality spirit stones, it was that the situation was too dangerous back in the first trial, and without Hunchback Meng to open the path for him, he didn’t even know if he could make it back. Even if he were to spend all that effort to make it through, the vortex wouldn’t take him back. The only path that would be left for him was death, because there was no way for him to be lucky enough to pass through the first trial again.

Wang Lin’s personality wouldn’t allow him to make bets easily, especially when things he couldn’t afford to lose were on the line.

However, according to Wang Lin’s analysis, if Hunchback Meng and them were able to leave this place 1000 years ago, that means there was a transfer array out of here. Otherwise, there was no way those four would dare to come here again.

Unfortunately, Hunchback Meng didn’t have anything in his bag of holding that contained information about this place. The inheritance item they had was not in Hunchback Meng’s possession.

Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. He believed that if he could get his hands on that inheritance item, he would be able to find a way out of here.

After carefully looking around, Wang Lin walked forward. Before long, he suddenly stopped while looking at a large rock in the distance. This rock was emitting waves of spiritual energy. Wang Lin took a few steps to the side and walked around.

The sky was dark. It gave off a feeling of oppression like a giant rock on someone’s heart. Wang Lin carefully walked through the gap between two restrictions before letting out a sigh of relief.

He looked around. A mere 300 feet took him several hours to get through. He had to make sure that there was no problem with each step before he took it.

He looked up toward the mountain that seemed to never end. He wondered how many years it would take for him to reach the top if he kept going at this pace.

He let out a heavy sigh. On the first trial, he managed to get through it by luck, but it seemed he would have to rely on himself for this second trial. After Wang Lin pondered for a bit, his face darkened. With his mere Core Formation cultivation, it was simply too dangerous here, but if he were go to back, it would be even more dangerous.

If he wanted to live, he would have to force his way forward. Wang Lin pondered for a bit and then his eyes lit up. He didn’t continue forward but instead turned back and carefully went through the gap between the two restrictions. He continued to go back until he was at the foot of the mountain again.

At the very bottom of the mountain, where the first restrictions appeared, he knelt down and carefully studied the restriction.

This was a patch of grass about a dozen feet wide. There were many patches of grass like this here at the foot of the mountain, but there were less patches of grass higher up the mountain. At first glance, there was nothing special about it, but when Wang Lin took a closer look, he could see that the grass here contained a mysterious order.

Wang Lin carefully examined each blade of grass. When he finished, he recorded his thoughts in a jade.

Using three days of time, he record details of every blade of grass. He wanted to use this to find a way to break through the restriction.

Wang Lin knew that if he were to try to break through by force, there would be no hope for him to reach the top. It would be an impossible task for him.

Also, the higher one climbs, the more powerful the restrictions become. There will be a point where there will be no way to get around the restrictions. If he didn’t prepare ahead of time, he would die for sure.

If he wanted to pass this trial, he would have to learn to control the restrictions on this mountain. The more he understands about restrictions, the higher his chance for survival. There was no other way.

This was why Wang Lin came back down and began to study the first restriction in detail.

Restrictions are very different from formations. Formations use very specific methods to create a very specific effect. The components used in a formation are very complex. If one tries to study it by force, they will only gain an elementary understanding.

Restrictions are considered a type of formation, only they are much more versatile. They can change based on the will of the user. Restrictions are much like divine sense in a way.

Powerful cultivators can place down restrictions with just their divine sense. Even after hundreds of thousands of years, as long as the divine sense isn’t destroyed, then those restrictions will still be active.

Sometimes even if the user is dead, the divine sense in a restriction will form its own consciousness and continue to maintain the restriction.

Restrictions are always changing. Almost no one but the caster can completely see through them. There are two ways to get through a restriction. The first is to break through by force, but that is not something ordinary people can do.

The second method is to research it. Once you understand the principle and rules of the restriction to a certain degree, you will naturally be able to open the restriction.

Wang Lin was using the second method.

After recording the first restriction onto the jade, he carefully studied what he had recorded. Luckily, he learned the basics of formations during the time he was a soul devourer, so he wasn’t completely lost when studying this.

Time slowly passed. Ten days later, when Wang Lin was staring at this area, his right hand suddenly grabbed the grass. The grass then started to move. However, Wang Lin seemed to have already seen this coming and moved with the grass.

His right hand moved to the left, then it moved to the right, and his other hand joined in as well. At a glance, it looked like he was moving without any pattern, but upon closer inspection, he was moving in sync with the grass.

In just a few breaths of time, the speed at which his right hand was moving had reached some kind of limit and started to create afterimages. Most of the time, when one afterimage appeared, the previous one had already disappeared.

Ten breaths later, sweat appeared on his forehead and he was completely focused. He quickly pulled back his right hand and a ray of red light appeared. It was chasing his right hand.

While Wang Lin pulled his hand back he suddenly began to move his hand once more. The red light became weaker and weaker until it finally disappeared.

When he withdrew his right hand, it was completely numb. Wang Lin looked toward the grass. It had already returned to normal without anything out of place.

The restriction here was to kill anyone that tried to enter. If one had a high enough cultivation level to charge through by force, then that red light would appear and chase the person until it killed them.

After studying the restriction for a few days, Wang Lin gained a basic understanding of it. This time, it was just an experiment. He had conducted experiments like this more than ten times in the past few days.

He could only last three breaths the first time he tried, and he would be injured by the red light when he did. Now he could last ten breaths and was able to stop the red light. Wang Lin believed that if he had just a bit more time, he would be able to break through.

This means that if he were to completely enter the restriction, he could survive for ten breaths of time, and if he leaves it within that ten breath period, then even the red light couldn’t stop him.

Wang Lin became excited. Although this restriction was the simplest one on this mountain, he believed he had found the right path. As long as he continued down this path, then it wasn’t be impossible to leave this place.

If Wang Lin’s original purpose for learning restrictions was to leave this place, then now he had one more goal. The more he researched, the more he became interested in restrictions. He had never thought about how powerful restrictions could be.

For example, the restrictions in the grass here; although Wang Lin could safely pass through it, he couldn’t place one down himself because he hadn’t completely understood it yet. Once he completely masters the restriction and can make it his own, then he can place it down himself.

Although it wouldn’t be as powerful as this one, the strange nature of the restriction wouldn’t be any weaker.

Wang Lin took a deep breath. His face contained a hint of excitement while he became absorbed in his research. One month later, Wang Lin put away the jades and walked into the grass.

The moment he entered, the grass suddenly began to move and a red mist appeared. Every blade of grass began to move violently before flying up like sharp weapons and disappearing within the red mist. This chapter’s initial release occurred on the N0v3l–Biin site.

At the same time, howls came from all directions while sharp weapons rained down on Wang Lin.

Wang Lin remained calm and paid no attention to the weapons at all. He continued to walk like it was his own backyard as all of the weapons closed in.

Wang Lin casually waved his right hand. Although it looked very slow, his hand mysteriously has already arrived before the weapons. If there was someone else looking in from the outside, they would be shocked. This was only possible if someone had gained full understanding of the restriction.

Wang Lin didn’t know any special techniques, but he knew that his hand would be faster than the weapons, and he became faster by thinking he was faster.

As his hand waved, he drew a circle. This simple action was the fruit of Wang Lin’s research. Although it looked like a simple circle, his hand made thousands of different seals all in one go without any pauses while he drew it.

After this circle was completed, all of those weapons slowed down, turned back into grass, and flew around Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s expression was still calm. From the moment he entered, he always walked at the same calm pace, and even now it was no different.

As he walked forward, the patch of grass parted in the middle like it wouldn’t dare to block him. When he was about to leave the area, red lights appeared in the red mist around him. Wang Lin suddenly reached up with his right hand and grabbed.

All of the red lights stopped like they were all caught by a giant hand and crushed to bits. The red lights quickly gathered again, but this time they formed a road under Wang Lin’s feet that led to the outside of the restriction.

Wang Lin’s expression remained normal as he walked on the red road and out of the restriction.

He let out a laugh when he walked out of the restriction. After spending all this time, he finally completely understood this restriction and made it his own. His interest for restrictions had reached its peak. He looked back at the restriction with a mocking expression and moved his hand within it.

The restriction suddenly shook, and the movement of the grass changed. If one were to look at it closely, they would see that the movement was more complex than before.

Wang Lin muttered to himself, “If someone appears behind me, they will have to be careful!” With his understanding of the restriction, he added another layer onto it.

From now on, whenever someone enters that restriction, no matter what they do, they will trigger his second restriction. With the addition of that second restriction, there was a chance that someone will die in that patch of grass.

Of course, if they use the same method as Wang Lin, then the difficulty of researching the restriction would also increase.

Wang Lin looked around with a cold smile on his face. He suddenly moved to another patch of grass and increased the difficulty of the restriction in that one. He kept doing this until every patch of grass had been tampered with.

After doing all of this, Wang Lin pondered for a bit. He felt like this wasn’t enough and sealed all of the gaps between the restrictions. This means that if someone wished to enter, they would have to walk through the restrictions.

After finishing all of this, Wang Lin began to walk up the mountain.

At this very moment, Six Desire Devil Lord was staring at the thick cloud before him. This cloud had been there for three days. No matter what Six Desire Devil Lord did, he couldn’t make it scatter.

He expression was gloomy. On his side stood the young man who came with him. The young man stood there, dazed, and just stared at the fog.

Six Desire Devil Lord looked at the young man and then looked behind him before letting out a cold smile. The first trial he had entered was the ice trial, which he was very familiar with. Although he didn’t have Ancient Emperor’s treasure, how could he not be prepared after 1000 years?

Back then, he said that he was able to take everyone through the second half of the ice trial. If he said it, than he was 100% confident he could do it.

The truth was that 500 years ago, he obtained a treasure that allowed him to use the water escape technique, which had the same effect as Wang Qingyue’s earth boat.

As a result, with his cultivation and his understanding of the ice trial, he easily passed through it with the young man.

As for the Road of No Return between the first and second trials, it was also no problem for him. Although he almost died the first time he came here, he had now mastered the Six Desire Demonic Cultivation Method. The thing he was least afraid of now were things that messed with his emotions. He had researched a lot about emotions.

The Road of No Return was like child’s play to him. If it wasn’t for him having to protect the young man, it wouldn’t have taken any time.

Although protecting one person made it a bit slower, the result was still the same.

The one thing that made him worry was this second trial, the so called Restriction Mountain. The reason it was called Restriction Mountain was because the entire mountain was covered in restrictions, and the higher up one climbs, the more powerful the restrictions become.

Back then, the four of them arrived here with other powerful cultivators and were able to get through. However, many died because they were forced by the powerful cultivators to test the power of the restrictions.

If Six Desire Devil Lord hadn’t come with his master, it probably would have been hard for him to escape death in this place.

However, his master was the main force in breaking the restrictions. His master was a master of restrictions and formations who had studied and broke the restrictions until 1000 feet before the exit. However, he wasn’t able to get any further. In the end, he placed down a restriction on top of it. Then he worked together with the other Soul Formation cultivators to kill a mid stage Soul Formation cultivator. Only by using that cultivator’s body were they able to open a 1000-foot-long tunnel to get through.

This tunnel would only last three breaths of time. The lucky survivors all charged into the tunnel. In the end, only a small group of them made it. Everyone else died.

Every time Six Desire Devil Lord thought about this, he would feel how dangerous it was. Only now that he had finally reached the mid stage of Soul Formation himself did he dare to come here again.

The luck he had in the first trial made Six Desire Devil Lord very confident again. He considered himself lucky because the key to get through the third trial was in his hand. Based on Six Desire Devil Lord’s years of observation, he believed that this person could get him through the third trial, but the price would be the young man’s life.

However, Six Desire Devil Lord didn’t care about this person’s life at all.

What he was worried about was how he would get past those last 1000 feet at the top of the mountain. Although it had been 1000 years and he had prepared, he was only 50% confident.

He had spent most of the last 1000 years studying restrictions, and with his extraordinary memory, he was able to memorize most of the restrictions here. Only after 1000 years did he feel confident in coming here. Along the way, he easily broke through all of the restrictions, but right after he broke through them, he returned them to normal.

He also added more restrictions on top of them. His goal was the same as Wang Lin’s.

However, the restrictions on Restriction Mountain got progressively more complicated as he climbed higher, so Six Desire Devil Lord’s pace gradually became slower. At this point, he had to study the restrictions for a long time before taking one step.

For example, this cloud wasn’t here 1000 years ago, but it was here now, which surprised him.

As for Wang Lin, after 1000 feet, the number of grass patches decreased. What he saw now were black rocks. Wang Lin took the jade out and began to record again.

The restriction on this rock was completely different from the one in the grass. The restriction on the grass was formed by the movement pattern of the grass.

However, this rock was different. Besides some patterns on the rock, there was nothing notable about it. If it wasn’t for the faint spiritual energy it was emitting, it would be impossible to tell that it was a restriction.

Wang Lin looked around and found many similar restrictions nearby. If he wanted to, he could get through them by walking through the gaps between each restriction. However, compared to leaving, Wang Lin preferred to gain a complete understanding of these restrictions instead.

He knew that passing through this area was easy, but he also knew he had to spend a lot of time and effort here if he wished to reach the top of the mountain.

Wang Lin began to carefully research the restriction.

There was no sense of time in the mountain, so in the blink of an eye, seven years had passed. On this day, Wang Lin drank some spirit liquid as he stood on a rock on the side of the mountain. In these past seven years, half of Wang Lin’s hair had turned white.

He had devoted himself to studying restrictions, causing him to be mentally stressed all the time. Four years ago, his hair started turning white at the root.

However, his divine sense also became more powerful under this stress, and he unknowingly entered the mid stage of Core Formation. He was now one step closer to the Nascent Soul stage.

His eyes were even more sharp, and his temperament had changed greatly. If Wang Lin was like never-melting ice seven years ago, then now he was also impossible to see through.

This feeling came from his eyes. His eyes seemed to be able to see everything, and there were stars within them that would sometimes flash. If Duanmu Ji saw Wang Lin now, he probably wouldn’t believe it. These were the divine sense eyes that were only obtained once someone had reached a certain level of mastery in restrictions.

Wang spent these past seven years refining his eyes. In these seven years, he had encountered countless restrictions. All of them required him to carefully study and examine them. He was almost killed by those restrictions many times.

This was especially true for some restrictions that clearly had other restrictions added onto them. Luckily, Wang Lin had always been cautious, so he noticed that these restrictions were different than the ones from the mountain. After carefully studying them, he realized that the person above him was also an expert in restrictions.

Just from looking at the restrictions, Wang Lin could see that this person’s understanding of restrictions was much deeper than his.

However, Wang Lin wasn’t scared at all. His interest in leaving the second trial had decreased a lot. From his point of view, this was the dreamland for learning restrictions. The way the restrictions became progressively more complex meant that a person could start at the basics and work their way up

This kind of place was almost impossible to find. The restrictions went from simple to difficult. It was a very valuable place.

Chapter 180 – The Unlucky Ancient Emperor

 

With great concentration, Wang Lin walked the path in the mountain. It had been seven years. Every time he broke a restriction, he would change it a little and add on a few more. If the path he took was like hell and full of danger at every step, he would make it feel like the grass had turned to ice. Everything combined would make it feel like the heavens and earth were swallowing you.

If there was anyone unlucky enough to run into them, they would still lose a layer of skin if they didn’t die.

In these seven years, Wang Lin changed a lot in regards to his restriction technique. He had gained a lot of enlightenment. Now he could easily wield all of the restrictions broken by him as his own, and more effectively than they originally were.

This surprised Wang Lin and increased his interest even more. After all, the only way to exit this mountain was through restriction techniques.

In the past seven years of his restriction research, Wang Lin never just made simple observations; he was able to produce his own method of deducing how to get past the restrictions. This method was the result of countless trials and errors. He always worked slowly from the starting point, never missing a single detail. While he slowly he progressed, each of his steps forward were firm.

When it came to rare and difficult restrictions, he always started from the basics and slowly progressed through. Without any impatience in his heart, he slowly developed the mindset to practice restriction techniques.

There were many who could use restriction techniques; however, there are very few that have a deep understanding of them. Aside from a few old experts, no one else could match Wang Lin in restriction techniques.

Even Wang Lin himself was very confused. It seemed like his mediocre talent didn’t matter at all when practicing restriction techniques.

At this moment, Wang Lin sat cross-legged on a large rock. He was staring straight ahead at the cloud in the distance. The cloud was motionless.

As of two days ago, Wang Lin started staring at the cloud in deep meditation. He took out a jade and recorded a few words on it, then he drew on the ground.

This cloud appeared to be very subtle to Wang Lin. His restrictions were all around the mountain. If anyone wanted to get passed them, they would have to fly through and rely on their luck to survive.

If it was seven years ago, Wang Lin would need to use small animals to experience a breakthrough in the restriction technique. However, with his now developed understanding of restrictions, especially with his soul piercing eyes, he only needed to stare at the cloud for a bit. While not fully comprehending the restriction, he was able to tell what restriction was in place. It was one that prevented flying.

In this way, the cloud restriction became even more ingenious. If there were no clouds, while the restriction would still be difficult to break, one would not be completely lost. However, the cloud covered the center of the restriction.

This increased the unknown variable within this restriction.

Even in this situation, Wang Lin’s heart didn’t become flustered. His eyes gleamed as he stared at the cloud. Suddenly, his hand started moving in a blur in front of him.

Afterimages of his hand started appearing until it looked like he had thousands of hands. These afterimages started to tremble, and then began to spread rapidly.

The afterimages created by Wang Lin’s hand formed a illusionary circle. He suddenly paused and thrusted his right hand forward. The illusionary circle formed by the afterimages flew toward the cloud.

After the illusionary circle entered the cloud, it started to dissipate. The illusionary caused waves to surge through the cloud. Wang Lin sat cross-legged, not even glancing at the clouds. With his eyes closed, he slowly started to frown.

This illusionary circle was a technique developed by Wang Lin to break restrictions. After seven years of research and improvement, he had mastered this technique.

He didn’t even need to look with his eyes. By examining on the wave produced by the illusionary circle, he was able to understand the structure and rules of the restriction. After a while, he opened his eyes. His right hand waved in front of him again. This time with a serious face, he moved his hand until the amount of time it takes for one incense stick to burn passed by. Layers of the illusionary circle quickly appeared before him.

When the ten illusionary circles appeared, Wang Lin started to breath hard. He was losing control of his right hand. With the last of his strength, he thrusted his arm ten times.

The ten illusionary circles fell on the cloud one by one.

While forming the illusionary circles looked easy, it required Wang Ling to circle his hand tens of thousands of time for one circle to form.

This technique was the result of seven years of studying restriction techniques. One could say that the illusionary circle itself was a restriction technique.

The ten illusionary circles penetrated the cloud and faded away. This created endless amounts of ripples within the cloud, causing it to pulsate rapidly.

Wang Lin concealed his presence. His left hand then repeatedly drew a picture on the ground. After a long time, he opened his eyes and let out a smile. He waved his left hand and wiped away all the pictures on the rock. His eyes were shining as he stood up, wiped away the pictures with his left hand, and then started rubbing it with his right hand. He looked down and calculated the time. He then suddenly moved his right hand and shot out a beam of light.

The light shot toward the cloud, causing it to tremble, then it slowly dissipated. As the cloud disappeared, what was hidden inside it was revealed.

Wang Lin took a deep breath. He took out a jade and carefully recorded its characteristics as he analysed the restriction. In the last seven years, whenever Wang Lin opened a restriction, he would record it so that he may use it again in the future.

After the time it takes for a full incense stick to burn passed, he put away the jade. He stared at where the cloud was and saw a broken bridge only ten feet away from him.

This was the true face of the restriction. As Wang Lin was about to step forward, he carefully scanned the bridge. His eyes landed on a small tree growing next to the broken bridge.

With Wang Lin’s experience from breaking restrictions for the past seven years, he noticed that there was something wrong with the small tree. In all of the restrictions that Wang Lin had come across in this mountain, although very rarely, he would sometimes find two restrictions stacked on top of each other. But this restriction was very different from the precious restrictions.

This one must’ve been added by someone else. He himself had done the same thing many times in the past seven years. This little tree must have been placed here by someone else.

Wang Lin laughed coldly. He looked at the restriction on the little tree once and immediately recognized the same level of foul play he had encountered several times before. They were all created by the same person.

About four years ago, someone started to try to obstruct him with restrictions. After breaking them one by one, he had a good understanding of their restrictions.

The restrictions in the mountain normally didn’t activate unless he touched them. However, the restrictions set by this person were very different. The moment he entered their range, they immediately attacked him. If its attacks ended up being in vain, it would self-destruct and active all of the restrictions nearby, trapping the person in a prison of restrictions.

Wang Lin narrowed his eyes as he stared at the little tree. He sent out three illusionary circles. They landed on top of the little tree.

The little tree shook a little and the leaves started to fall off. The trunk quickly turned dark. After some time, it finally started to bend.

Wang Lin’s illusionary circle contained numerous restrictions. Its main role was to break restrictions. Thus, the restriction on the little tree broke, layer by layer.

A cold light flashed in Wang Lin’s eye. He quickly took the black sword out of his bag of holding and sent it towards the tree. At the same time, the bent tree trunk flew at Wang Lin.

The black sword suddenly flashed by, brushing past the tree trunk and slicing it in two. When the tree trunk fell to the ground, it curled up and gradually revealed itself to be a brown centipede.

The centipede twisted a few times before turning into a cloud of black smoke. This black smoke gave off the feeling of death that would cause people to panic; however, it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Wang Lin thought with a dignified look in his eyes. This was the first time he had seen a restriction that used a spirit beast where the spirit beast’s body created a black smoke that would cause panic. He felt very familiar with this method.

He was able to tell that this restriction and a few others before this were set up by the same person. It was really obvious that that person rarely used this kind of restriction. It wasn’t much stronger than the rest, but it was much more ingenious. If someone carelessly walked by, it would be hard to avoid death.

“Six Desire Devil Lord!” Wang Lin whispered. He knew why this felt so familiar to him. Back then, in the void, Six Desire Devil Lord wanted to use him to test his outlandish technique.

Wang Lin remembered this in his heart. The first time Six Desire Devil Lord targeted him, he decided to spare Wang Lin after a quick interaction. He used the youth he brought with him instead.

He used the body of that youth as a special material to cast spells. This time it was exactly the same, only the victim was a centipede.

At that very moment, on a rock 5000 feet from the mountain top, Six Desire Devil Lord suddenly turned around and stared at the mountain. The eyes of the youth standing at his side were no longer vacant, but filled with a deep, dull color.

“Who the hell is it that kept breaking my restrictions in the last five years? He even broke the restriction I set to kill him in the clouds. Could it be Duanmu? No, it must be Ancient Emperor. That old bag of bones must have been studying restrictions for the past thousand years. This person will be my greatest enemy in the third test!” Six Desire Devil Lord whispered to himself.

A hint of fanaticism showed in his eyes. At the mountain top 5000 feet away, there was a giant whirlpool. That was the entrance to the third trial.

In the past seven years, Six Desire Devil Lord’s travels started out smoothly, but as he got closer to the top, the power and complexity of the restrictions grew. There were some truly stunning restrictions. It was one of those restrictions that trapped Six Desire Devil Lord for five years.

He turned away and quickly moved forward.

At that same moment, a person stepped out of the whirlpool at the foot of the mountain. This person was holding a whisk and wearing a veil covering his face with a fairy-like, gentle aura. He walked out confidently.

It was Ancient Emperor.

Although he looked calm, he wrinkled his brow. At the first trial, he went through the fire trial. It took him seven years to work his way through it.

There were many monsters within the fire trial. He killed countless numbers of them. While it would’ve been possible to break out sooner if he had used all his power, Ancient Emperor was a very patient man. He would rather waste time fighting than take a risk.

The amount of patience he had was what greatly differed him from Hunchback Meng.

Ancient Emperor was well prepared for breaking past the trial this time. Even though he ran into the fire trial, his natural weakness, he remained strong and made his way out one step at a time.

Although this took him a lot of time, his treasures were not used up, so when he tries to get past future trials, he will still have them.

However, on the road ahead, nothing could stop him. While there were many illusion restrictions, none of them were able to affect him.

After entering the second trial, Ancient Emperor let out a deep sigh. His eyes were fixed on the mountain top as he revealed a cold smile. For the past 1000 years, he’d been preparing for today.

If you wish to enter the third trial, you must learn about restriction. This was something he had learned by heart. If it wasn’t for his amazing speed that allowed him to cross the tunnel in three breaths all those years ago, even if he had killed all the people that were there that day, he would still have died.

He wasn’t like Six Desire Devil Lord, Duanmu, or Hunchback Meng. Over 1000 years ago, he was already at the mid stage of Soul Formation and was the leader of the last expedition.

Back then, Six Desire Devil Lord and the others were merely juniors in his eyes. If it wasn’t for his grave injury after escaping, how could those three still be alive today?

For the past 1000 years he had been recovering at the Sea of Devils and started developing his knowledge of restrictions so that he could attempt to enter the trial again. In those 1000 years, he was able to recover all of his cultivation, but he was unable to advance it. After careful analysis, he believed that the injuries from all those years ago had damaged his foundation. Unless he used some heavenly treasure, his cultivation would be forever stuck.

As a result, he became even more excited at the thought of re-entering the Land of the Ancient God. Only here would he find the treasure that could not only let him recover, but also help him advance to the Soul Transformation stage, allowing him to become an Soul Transformation expert. This would make all the hardships he had suffered more than worth it.

To this end, he gave up cultivating and focused only on restriction research. He even went to many sects that were famous for their restriction techniques to study.

After 1000 years of study, he felt very confident in his ability. He even brought a few amazing surprises with him. He touched his bag of holding and widened his smile.

Without saying a word, he arrived at the first restriction at the foot of the mountain.

This was the first restriction he broke by force all those years ago. After glancing at it once, he stepped forward. He saw that there was no reason to waste time solving this restriction; it was much better to just smash it by force.

After all, this was exactly how he had passed it all those years ago.

He recalled that the moment he had entered, the weeds turned into blades. Things turned out as he expected. The weeds around him flew up, as he expected, and it flew through the red mist that suddenly appeared. It then came back around and became a rain of swords.

Ancient Emperor acted like nothing happened and pressed forward. As the swords approached his body, they become covered in ice and instantly exploded.

The continuous popping sounds didn’t slow Ancient Emperor one bit. He easily reached the edge of the formation. He remembered that this was where a red light should appear.

Sure enough, just as he was thinking it, pillars of red light appeared around him. Ancient Emperor let out a short chant. His right hand made a fist and smashed into one of the red lights. The light immediately scattered and disappeared.

One after another, he punched the red lights. In less than two hours, all of the red lights were gone. He easily broke through this restriction.

Ancient Emperor stepped forward. He was eyeing the second restriction a few dozen feet away from him. After moving a hundred feet, his face suddenly changed. The moment he walked out of the restriction, black fog appeared all around him. This was clearly very different from the red lights and sounds of beasts that could be heard from within.

Shortly after, countless black swords and red lights appeared. They all flew towards him. Their speed was simply too fast; by the time he heard them, they were already on him.

Ancient Emperor’s face suddenly darkened. He let out a roar, and the spiritual energy that came out with the roar immediately turned into a thick wall of ice that surrounded him. Most of the attacks hit the ice wall.

He then immediately retreated a few steps. He made a fist with this right hand and punched toward the ice wall. The ice immediately shattered into millions of pieces.

His left hand continued to shoot out spiritual energy that attached to the ice shards one by one. The ice rapidly melted and became clones of Ancient Emperor. They all sent out numerous techniques.

The restriction roared after receiving such a strong attack. It completely collapsed.

As the black fog disappeared, Ancient Emperor walked out with a gloomy face. His complexion darkened as he released a strong killing intent. “Six Desire Devil Lord, this restriction must have been laid by you!”

The surprise restriction that suddenly appeared made him not know what to do for a moment. If someone that wasn’t as strong him in that situation, even if they didn’t die, they would have been left in a sorry state.

The reason he was so sure it was Six Desire Devil Lord was because Duanmu didn’t have the temperament to learn restriction techniques. However, this didn’t exclude that brat Wang Lin.

But he firmly believed that it was Six Desire Devil Lord because he had completely forgotten about Wang Lin.

Now that he considered how evil the restriction was, he could not help but curse in his heart. He had secretly decided in his heart that no matter how simple a restriction may look, he would tread ever so carefully.

As Wang Lin slowly walked toward the mountain’s peak, he suddenly paused and looked at the foot of the mountain. He noticed that the first restriction he set had been broken.

However, Wang Lin felt no panic in his heart. As he was proceeding up the mountain in the past seven years, he had laid down countless restrictions to stop anyone behind him. Even if they managed to break through all the restrictions without dying, they would at least lose a layer of skin.

If their luck was bad, they might even cause the nearby restrictions to trigger. Even if it was someone in the Soul Formation stage, the only road for them was death.

There weren’t many super powerful restrictions behind Wang Lin. There were only three or four, on top of the restrictions that were already there. Six Desire Devil Lord had added a few layers on to them. After Wang Lin had painstakingly gotten through them, he added even more layers on top. And finally, for good measure, Wang Lin spent four weeks going back and chaining all the restrictions together so that if one gets triggered, the result would be disastrous.

Wang Lin let out a cold laugh. The people behind him didn’t matter. He continued moving forward.

The closer to the top Wang Lin got, the more he slowed down. He had to spend a lot of mental energy to understand how the restrictions functioned. He learned every detail of the restriction before he would attempt to break them.

With the restriction technique he created, he could only create up to ten illusionary circles. He couldn’t make any more than 10. Not to mention him, even someone at the Soul Formation stage couldn’t do more.

With this technique, if it was anyone else, the most they could make would be about three to five circles. The only reason Wang Lin was able to make is ten was because of the Ji Realm divine sense.

It was because of the support from this technique being drawn to the limit that Wang Lin was able to advance one time after another to the point where he could draw ten illusionary circles.

The jades he had used to record restrictions now numbered over a hundred. They were his treasures, proof of his growth.

Wang Lin’s will was definitely very strong. Many restrictions took him many days and nights to study and analyse, and then one day he finally had a breakthrough.

Time quickly passed by and in the blink of an eye, three years had passed. Wang Lin’s hair had already turned completely white. His eyes even sharper, as if they could pierce your soul.

Wang Lin had never thought he would spend ten years on a mountain top, but for him, these ten year passed by quickly. Every moment was spent studying restrictions.

From his position, he was 6000 feet from the top of the mountain. However, starting at 3000 feet from the mountaintop floated a thick, white fog that made it impossible to reach the top.

After three years, Wang Lin didn’t have much spirit liquid left. He had to be very careful with how he expended his spiritual energy, making sure to conserve as much of it as possible.

Researching restrictions required a lot of mental energy, and as one expended mental energy, their spiritual energy would also be used up along with it.

Right now, his white hair was tied up. He sat cross-legged on a cliff surrounded by restrictions. These restrictions had all been destroyed by the illusionary circles created by this right hand.

As Wang Lin approached the top, he became more nervous, wondering if the person in front of him had already passed the second trial. If that person didn’t pass, then he must be waiting for him up there. The restrictions up where Wang Lin was were so strong that if he randomly picked one, even someone in the Soul Formation stage would struggle to survive it.

As a result, Wang Lin couldn’t get distracted at all. His full focus must be dedicated to analysing the restrictions.

Regarding the person behind Wang Lin, he clearly felt his progress in the past three years. From the start, he would feel a restriction being broken every few weeks. Now it would be months before he felt one being broken. The reason why he was getting slower and slower was not only because of the increase in strength of the natural restrictions, it was also due to Wang Lin’s own growth. The restrictions he laid now were like heaven and earth compared to ones ten years ago.

Wang Lin slowly exhaled. His gaze shifted forward. Just like how he could detect the speed of the person behind him, the person in front also knew the speed in which Wang Lin was progressing. Maybe there would be some hidden danger that awaited further up.

Wang Lin let out a cold smile. He waved his hand and placed several restrictions. He had been sitting here for almost a year. He had to pay attention not only to what was above him, but also to what was below him. He laid countless restrictions all around this spot.Wang Lin was in no rush. He had no intention to run head long into the enemy’s trap. There must not be a single mistake at this point.

Wang Lin was waiting for the person behind him to catch up to let him pass first.

The person behind him must be at least at the Soul Formation stage. This was the reason Wang Lin stopped for a year. He had been laying down countless restriction not to attack, but to hide his presence.

After a year of laying down restrictions, Wang Lin felt confident that as long as he didn’t move, the other one will have a very hard time noticing his presence.

A few days later, Wang Lin felt a nearby restriction being broken.

His lip curled into a cold sneer as he stared back, eyes shining.

Ancient Emperor’s anger had not subsided in these three years. Instead of subsiding, he felt more and more angry. In these past three years, he not only had to spend a lot of time breaking each restriction, he also had to be extra careful of the restrictions left behind by another person.

The thing that pissed him off the most was that when he finally broke through a restriction, it would set off many other restrictions. He almost died dozens of times.

All along the way, he felt gloomy and couldn’t help but curse in his heart. Sometimes he couldn’t hold it in and would curse out loud. From his point of view, the person who added the restrictions was simply too vicious.

Sometimes, a restriction would look like it was nothing, but when he cracked it, that crack would turn out to be the activation for that restriction.

There were also restrictions that he could just walk past if he didn’t try to crack them. But if he did try to crack them, they would create an endless loop of restrictions. Step by step, even knowing the dangers ahead, he had to keep moving forward to finally escape from this hell.

Unless he decided to give up halfway, he could only continue to climb up.

Every time he thought about it, his anger would boil. He wished he could tear apart the person that did this.

Sometimes, he would feel very strong spiritual energy and spend a long time observing, but he wouldn’t detect any restriction. After expending a great deal of spiritual energy, he would send out his treasures to test for any restriction only to find that there was no restriction, that the spiritual energy was left on on purpose to trick him.

What made him the most angry were places that looked completely normal, but if he watched carefully, a trace amount of spiritual energy could be sensed. These would be impossible to detect unless he gave them his undivided attention.

But then he would spend even more spiritual energy to check the area only to suddenly realize this was also a fake restriction.

In the past three years, Ancient Emperor had to deal with real and fake restrictions constantly. He would sometimes accidentally trigger a real restriction, causing a chain reaction. This chapter was originally shared via N0/vel/Biin.

At the first trial, he had spent more time to save his magic treasures, but now more than half of them had been used up. They were all used to defend himself when the restrictions were triggered.

His heart ached and he was full of regret. If only he had used those treasures to pass through the first trial sooner. If only if he was walking in front of that man, his path would be lot smoother.

Two years agom when he saw three different types of restrictions, he realized that Six Desire Devil Lord was only one of the people responsible for this.

He realized that there were two restriction masters in front of him. At first he was most weary of Six Desire Devil Lord, but now that crown went to the mystery man.

Cracking this person’s restrictions would leave one’s heart in dread. At first, while this person’s restrictions were very clever and detailed, they didn’t require much power. However, as he progressed, the mystery man’s skill improved leaps and bounds. The restrictions were not only smart but mind boggling complex.

At first, Ancient Emperor would easily crack the restrictions, but as time passed, it took more and more out of him to work his way through the restrictions.

The presence of the mystery person became more important in his heart. He felt that at least in terms of knowledge of restrictions, that person was his rival. He felt that even though that person couldn’t match up to his thousand years of experience, the cleverness of the restrictions left him wordless.

What shocked him the most was that the mystery person looked like he had just started learning restriction techniques. It was very difficult to believe, but he was sure of this.

The most important part was that the layout of the restrictions were messy and large at first, but now they were very hard to find and had been refined to two special characteristics.

The very fast attack speed, method of attack, condition of the trigger, and timing made it difficult to respond in time.

In his heart, he thought highly of this person, and now even higher. He finally managed to break a restriction that took a great deal of effort. He walked out with a gloomy face.

He gazed upwards. He was still seven 7000 feet from the top. If it was like before, he could easily get there in the blink of an eye. Forget running there, even if he could fly he would still be forced to move with great care.

He clearly remembered 1000 years ago when there was a Soul Formation cultivator that was displaying his unique magic treasure with the ability to teleport him around the mountain. When he suddenly disappeared, a purple lightning bolt came crashing down and interrupted his technique.

The magic treasure was being used like a toy, but it was suddenly struck by the lightning along with the entire body of the user until there was no trace remaining.

This scene left everyone in silence. To fly in the air meant attracting the purple lightning, so everyone opted to trek through the ground rather than attempting to fly.

Ancient Emperor continued for a month. The distance between him and Wang Ling had gotten smaller and smaller. This was the first time Wang Lin got to see a Soul Formation expert break through a restriction.

Today, Ancient Emperor stood only ten feet away from Wang Lin. His gaze suddenly shifted to where Wang Lin sat. His eyes gave off an odd light.