Chương 597: Chapter 592: The First Death

The sound of footsteps behind me announced that the group were ascending to join me. It was Song Wei who arrived first with an expression of surprise. Shen Bolin was following close behind, and he looked just as impressed.

"That was faster than expected," Song Wei said, checking his jade compass as the others joined us.

"It took you only four minutes to defeat seven perfectly synchronized Early Oneiric Sovereign cultivators." Instead of thinking of a response, I focused on regulating my breathing and stabilising my spiritual foundation.

"I could feel their combined spiritual pressure from down there," Xu Feng said, looking at the cracked stone where the original Chen Huan dissolved.

"How did you deal with the coordination problem?"

"I found the central connection and scrambled it," I explained.

"It gave me the few seconds that I needed to act."

"That was smart of you, boy," Shen Bolin nodded.

"The number of fools that I have seen trying to overpower coordination with raw force are too many to count. It never works."

"Are you okay?" Li Na asked, pulling formation materials from her storage ring.

"Any wounds you need me to look at?"

"They're manageable," I shook my head.

"If anything, the foreign qi invasion was worse than the physical damage."

"Sit down." The girl brought out a small healing array onto the step.

"This will help stabilise your channels." For a second, I hesitated, knowing better than to just take a stranger's word for it, but a scan of the formation didn't reveal any malicious intent behind it. It seemed like the typical purifying formation, so I sat and let it do its thing. Not a moment later, the invasive dream qi was filtered out and expelled. As for the physical wounds, they'd take longer if I didn't resort to blue sun energy, but they weren't dangerous.

Natural recovery enhanced by dream qi should be enough for now. While I thought about my state, the others were talking about what they had just seen and what that meant for the upcoming challenges.

"If step fifty is that difficult, how are we supposed to handle our rotations?" Xu Feng said, playing with his sleeve nervously.

"I'm not like Hou. I don't think I could handle even three synchronized opponents."

"None of us could do that consistently," Xie Ling surprisingly agreed. The two Lucid Lawbearers glanced at each other, some sort of message was being passed between them.

"You do have a point," Song Wei said finally.

"We may need to revise the rotation plan. One of you was enough to deal with the lower levels, but from here onwards, we should—" Before he could complete his thought, Tian interrupted by pointing to step fifty-one with one hand. We all looked and found spiritual energy already gathering into the form of a man, but unlike Chen Huan, this guy's face was twisted with anger. He appeared to be in his thirties; he wore dark robes, and there was a curved sword in his right hand that was resting high on his shoulders.

As impressive as that was, what caught my attention were his eyes, because within them were a spark of recognition and burning hatred.

"Song Wei," the manifestation spat.

"I should have known you'd come back."

"Who are you?" Song Wei's apathetic response caused the manifestation's spiritual pressure to flare.

"Liar! One hundred and eight years ago, you came to Cloud River Sect and convinced me to join your expedition. You said we would share the lotus equally, and that no one would be left behind, but you lied!" Before Song Wei could respond, three more identical figures materialised beside the original, and all of them were staring at the Lucid Lawbearer with resentment.

"Fifteen of us!" another manifestation added." You promised all fifteen of us the spoils. You said that when we reached step ninety-nine and met the dreamgod's manifestation, then you—" Whatever he was about to say was cut off because the original's head had been cut off. I never saw Shen Bolin move, hell, I never saw him draw a sword. One second, he was beside us, and the next moment, he was on step fifty-one, standing behind the first manifestation, who was now without a head.

The other manifestations seeing this tried to scatter, but Shen Bolin's sword flashed three times, and all of their heads dropped to the floor and dissolved before they could even finish activating their movement technique. As the number in the sky changed from 49 to 48, everyone was silent. We were all staring at the back of Shen Bolin, who stood alone on step fifty-one with his sword still drawn.

"Do not pay their words any thought," Shen Bolin murmured, turning around to face us, his expression unreadable.

"The trial plays mind games by taking fragments of memories and distorting them into accusations."

"But what was he trying to s—" Xu Feng started.

"Nothing," Shen Bolin cut in.

"I have seen the palace create doubt and mistrust between groups to destroy them from within. Do not let it do the same to you. The enmity between me and Song Wei cannot be described in words, but even I can see this is simply a ploy constructed by the palace." The group had a mix of reactions. Li Na nodded slowly, seemingly happy to accept the explanation. Both Xie Ling and Tian's eyes narrowed, but they didn't question him. As for me, I kept my thoughts to myself. What Shen Bolin claimed did make sense.

I had read multiple novels where the inheritance site pitted the contestants against each other. It was a well-known tactic, so it wasn't too difficult to believe. On the other hand, whatever the manifestation was trying to accuse Song Wei of, it probably fit the Lucid Lawbearer's personality. The man was practical to the point of ruthlessness. It really would not surprise me at all if he had betrayed an expedition if it suited his interests. And I was ready for a situation like that if he tried it on us.

What surprised me more was how Shen Bolin was defending him. The two Lucid Lawbearers clearly despised each other. Yet Shen Bolin had moved immediately to silence the accusations before they could spread doubt through the group. The only explanation I could think of was either the trial genuinely was lying to us and Shen Bolin had put his personal issues with his rival to the side, or he had more… nefarious reasons for not wanting certain truths to be exposed.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"We have more immediate problems than trying to interpret the words of manifestations," Song Wei cleared his throat, turning our attention towards him.

"Like I was trying to say before we got rudely interrupted, the individual rotation system won't work from this point forward."

"Yes," Shen Bolin nodded.

"You have all done the best you could individually, and I appreciate that, but we do need to adjust our strategy."

"I say we move as a unit and clear each step together," Song Wei continued.

"Shen Bolin and I will take the lead, but we need you all to provide support and handle any enemies that break through our defense." None of us argued with that. That was actually a lot better than the original plan because clearly there was no way we were going to be able to solo any more steps. Since we were all in agreement, we all took our respective positions. Like they had mentioned, the two Lucid Lawbearers were standing at the front. Xie Ling and Tian were on the flanks.

Li Na and Xu Feng were in the rear for healing and formations. Then there was me in the center for mobile support. As we began to ascend to step fifty-one, the spiritual pressure increased in a way that was definitely noticeable, and it was apparent that the enemies here would be stronger than what any of us had faced. The first real change was that when four manifestations appeared, they were different people this time, and not just identical clones. Two men and two women.

They all wore differently coloured robes that had their own unique sect insignia, but it was their cultivation that drew my attention. Unlike before where the enemies were Early Sovereign, their cultivations ranged from Early to Mid-Oneiric Sovereign. Without wasting a breath, Song Wei and Shen Bolin engaged immediately. The former's techniques manipulated silver energy to bend probability itself.

When a sword was swung at him, the blade somehow missed despite being on a direct collision course, it was as if reality had decided the strike wasn't meant to land. As for Shen Bolin, the man fought with pure sword technique without resorting to complicated formations or reality-bending Laws, but he didn't need to. Each strike was perfectly placed and backed by overwhelming spiritual pressure, cutting through manifestations like they were made of paper.

Within five seconds, all four enemies were destroyed, and the number changed from 48 to 47. Best of all, the rest of us had not needed to move a single inch. When we landed on the next step, this time six enemies appeared, but that didn't make a difference to the two leaders. They tore through them, demonstrating to us just how trivial Mid Oneiric Sovereigns were to a Lucid Lawbearer. As we continued to ascend the staircase, the more we needed to contribute to deal with the stragglers. But we were doing well.

The ice beauty didn't earn her title just with her looks, her techniques provided excellent crowd control. Tian's sword work was exactly what I expected from Wu Kangming, they were precise enough to assist the leaders without getting in their way. And Li Na's formation turned out to be invaluable. Despite looking like a girl that wouldn't be able to bring herself to hurt a fly, she created barriers that channeled the enemies into kill zones, allowing Song Wei and Shen Bolin to eliminate them easily.

Also, her healing arrays between steps kept everyone's spiritual energy stable. However, the one that surprised me the most was Xu Feng and his earth techniques. This was his first time getting the chance to demonstrate their true potential and show how he didn't need to fight the enemies directly, but he could manipulate the dream-stone to make the environment favour us.

When eight manifestations appeared at step fifty-five, Xu Feng caused the stone to ripple like liquid, which caused them to lose their footing for a second. But a second was enough for Song Wei and Shen Bolin to execute them before they could recover. Then at step sixty-two, there were too many enemies to deal with at once, so Xu Feng created a stone wall that separated them, which let us eliminate one group while the other was still trying to circle around the barrier.

But it was actually at step sixty-eight when we were facing twelve manifestations simultaneously, Xu Feng demonstrated the destructive capabilities that the earth element had to offer. Three of the enemies were impaled by massive stone spike that erupted from the step's surface, instantly killing the Oneiric Sovereigns. That had earned impressive looks from the rest of the group, myself included.

Xu Feng had claimed he would struggle against 3 Early Oneiric Sovereigns, but this performance showed that was him simply being modest.

"Well done," Shen Bolin let out a rare praise.

"I've been practicing formation-enhanced earth techniques," Xu Feng beamed in response. Over the next few steps, the boost in confidence from the praise showed itself in how his techniques became more creative. The guy did it all: pitfalls to swallow enemies, choke points to force manifestations to attack from predictable angles, and even techniques to sense enemy positions through vibrations in the dream-stone. By the time we reached the seventieth step, we had found our rhythm.

The way it worked was that Song Wei and Shen Bolin eliminated the majority of enemies. Xie Ling and Tian handled any that slipped through. Li Na maintained formations and healing. Xu Feng controlled the battlefield itself. And I used my range and mobility to assist wherever needed because I wanted to conserve my true power for the more difficult steps. Little by little, the number dropped. 30, 29, 28, 27...

Unfortunately, that meant that the enemies grew stronger, and by step seventy-five, we were facing Late Oneiric Sovereign manifestations. Unlike their weaker colleagues, they coordinated better, used more advanced techniques, and took significantly more effort to eliminate. However, now that we had experience fighting together, we had learned to anticipate each other's movements to combine techniques for maximum effect, which made things significantly easier.

An example of this was when Xie Ling used her ice to slow down the enemy, giving my vines the opportunity to tie it up, and for Tian's sword to penetrate the chest. When we finished step seventy-nine, the number in the sky changed, and only twenty-one steps remained.

"Hmm, we're making good time," Song Wei murmured, checking his compass.

"Better than any of my previous expeditions at this stage."

"Don't celebrate yet," Shen Bolin warned.

"The next few steps are where—" Whatever he was about to say got lost in the overwhelming spiritual pressure that descended from step eighty.

"Lucid Lawbearer," Li Na whispered, looking pale as a ghost. There was only one figure on step eighty and he was an elderly man in immaculate white robes, who carried an ornate staff topped with a strange formation.

"I have been waiting for this day to come," the old man said, a murderous smile appearing on his face.

"I will teach those who dare to steal the master's treasures." Shen Bolin's eyes narrowed and he took a step forward.

"Everyone stay back," Song Wei ordered, placing himself between the manifestation and the rest of us.

"This one is beyond you."

"Staying back will not help in the slightest," the old man laughed, his staff glowing with intense white light.

"The master taught me well. I know how to handle rats. No matter how many of them there are." With that, he struck the dream-stone with his staff. From the point of impact, a formation exploded outwards in a wave of white light.

"Scatter!" Shen Bolin shouted. Even though we tried, it was futile because the entire step was engulfed before anyone could move more than a few feet. Immediately, the technique activated, attempting to lock down our spiritual energy and prevent any techniques from being used. I couldn't let that happen, so I channeled red sun energy to use its aggressive nature to break through the binding. The white light around me shattered, and I was free. But not everyone had the same luck, Xu Feng wasn't fast enough.

The formation completed its lock on him before he could circulate his earth techniques for defense. White light solidified around his body, holding him still, and his eyes went wide with terror.

"Let me demonstrate," the elderly manifestation smiled, the staff glowing with power, "what happens to those who dare challenge the master's legacy." The staff descended. Everyone moved at once to protect Xu Feng. Song Wei's silver energy tried to bend probability, to make the attack miss. Shen Bolin used his own law technique, trying to intercept. Xie Ling's ice erupted from the ground. Tian's blade cut toward the manifestation. My vines shot forward. Li Na's formations tried to redirect the attack.

But none of it mattered, the staff still connected with Xu Feng's chest. For one frozen moment, nothing happened. Xu Feng just stood there, held by white light, the staff pressed against his sternum. Then his eyes went empty, and the white light released him, letting his body fall face-first onto the dream-stone. Just like that, Xu Feng was dead…