Chapter 2078: Ten Monoliths!

Max hadn’t entered the Ten Shadows Trial yet, which meant both the devils and the angels had knowingly broken the Five Race Deal, and they had done it for him.

A faint smile crossed Max’s face, though there was no humor in it.

’So my existence already worries them this much.’

That was the only explanation.

The Devil Race and Angel Race wouldn’t risk damaging an agreement that had held for years just because they disliked one newcomer. They had watched his battle, they had seen the Seven Divine Veins, and they had watched him destroy Greyjin while standing at the 1st level of the Law Manifestation Realm.

Apparently that was enough to convince them he was better killed now than allowed to grow.

Anna had anticipated something like this. Before Max left Bloodstone City, she had warned him not to treat the Five Race Deal as absolute protection, because rules only mattered as long as everyone believed following them was more beneficial than breaking them.

If someone found Max’s potential frightening enough, the agreement could suddenly stop mattering to them.

That was why she had given him one last safeguard, a Void Crystal.

Max’s hand moved toward the storage space where he had put it. The crystal was small enough to sit comfortably in his palm, and its surface looked almost transparent, though faint distortions constantly shifted inside it as if a fragment of empty space had been sealed within.

Anna had been extremely serious when she handed it over, and she had told him not to use it carelessly. The Void Crystal was extraordinarily rare, even in Bloodstone City.

Once it was crushed, the spatial power inside would activate instantly and tear open a temporary passage through the outer layer, teleporting the user to a completely random location somewhere within it.

There was no way to control where they ended up. Max might appear near another city, in the middle of the wilderness, or even close to some dangerous beast territory. When the alternative was certain death, though, the destination hardly mattered.

The Void Crystal was an emergency escape treasure, and Anna had specifically told him to crush it only when every other option had failed and his life was truly at risk.

Max understood her reasoning. A treasure that could instantly pull someone away from high-level Divine Lord Realm cultivators was far too valuable to waste, and that was precisely why he hadn’t used it against the angels.

He had never actually been trapped. The moment their attack came down, he had simply slipped into his own dimension and waited for them to leave.

’Using the Void Crystal there would have been a waste.’

Max picked up speed, and seven-colored lightning flashed across the sky as the distance between him and the Ten Shadows Trial kept shrinking.

The crystal was far more useful as a hidden last resort. His dimension could already save him from plenty of situations, which meant he could save the crystal for something truly dangerous, something that even his dimension might not solve easily.

Perhaps that would come in the inner layer, or the core layer, or somewhere far worse than either.

Max smiled faintly.

’Anna gave me something far too valuable.’

He had no intention of wasting it.

As he flew onward, the ancient pressure he had sensed in the distance grew stronger with every passing minute.

At first it was little more than a faint heaviness hanging in the air, but the closer he came to its source, the more distinct it became. It wasn’t the pressure of a single cultivator, and it didn’t feel like the aura of a powerful beast either.

Instead, it felt ancient and vast, as though something that had existed for countless generations was quietly watching everything that approached.

The terrain gradually changed as well. The pale yellow wilderness flattened out, and the jagged rocks and broken ridges that had covered so much of the landscape began to disappear.

Strange black lines spread across the earth, forming enormous patterns that could only be made out properly from the sky. Some looked like circles, while others resembled ancient runes or unfinished formations buried beneath the ground.

Max slowed slightly, and then he finally saw it.

The Ten Shadows Trial.

Even from several kilometers away, there was no mistaking the place.

Ten enormous monoliths stood on a vast plain. Each one rose hundreds of meters into the sky, towering over the surrounding land like ancient pillars left behind by some forgotten civilization. They were spaced out in a wide formation, with equal distance between each one, and together they formed an enormous arc around a central trial ground.

Max’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied them, because every monolith was different.

The first was made of dark gray stone and carried only a few faint runes across its surface. The second was slightly larger, with bronze lines running through it like veins. The third gave off a deeper pressure and was covered in crimson inscriptions that flickered with light now and then.

The differences grew more obvious with each one. By the time his gaze reached the sixth and seventh, the pressure coming from them was strong enough that even at this distance he could feel something pressing faintly against his mind.

The eighth monolith was almost entirely black, and ancient silver symbols crawled slowly across its surface as though they were alive.

The ninth was even more imposing. It rose higher than the rest, and the space around it seemed to warp slightly. A faint aura surrounded the structure, carrying a pressure that made it immediately obvious why defeating the ninth shadow was considered such an extraordinary feat.

Then Max looked at the tenth, and his eyes lingered there.

The final monolith stood at the deepest part of the trial ground, and it was the tallest of them all. Unlike the others, its surface had no clear color.

Depending on the angle Max viewed it from, it seemed black, silver, golden, or completely transparent. Strange patterns surfaced across it now and then before fading again, and the space around it remained unnaturally still. Even the natural energy of the Godslayer’s Pilgrimage seemed hesitant to come near it.

’So each one represents a single shadow.’

Max finally understood why the trial had such a simple name.

The whole trial ground had been built around those ten monoliths. A challenger would begin with the first shadow and push forward one stage at a time, moving closer to the deeper monoliths with every victory and facing something harder each time.