Chapter 234 - 233: Second Floor

The staircase forged from pure, glowing starlight spiraled upward into the swirling emerald vortex, carrying Lin Yuan away from the silence of the first floor.

As he walked, his black and white robes gliding noiselessly over the astral steps, his mind remained perpetually active. He dissected the structure of the Nine-Tiered Sky, peeling back the layers of its arrays. It was a masterpiece of the ancient era. The spatial compression required to stack nine distinct, self-sustaining battlefield dimensions within a single pagoda was a feat that even the current Void Refinement Emperors of the Central Continent would struggle to replicate.

He stepped through the emerald vortex.

The transition was seamless. The ambient temperature skyrocketed instantly, transforming from the cool, sterile vacuum of the first floor into a suffocating furnace.

Lin Yuan stood upon a jagged precipice of blackened basalt. Below him, rivers of thick, sluggish magma carved glowing orange veins through a desolate, ruined landscape. Ash fell from a sky completely obscured by roiling, toxic black smoke, drifting down like dark, cursed snow. The air was so superheated that it visibly warped and distorted the horizon.

The second floor, Lin Yuan mused, his deep purple eyes sweeping over the volcanic wasteland.

To a standard Early-Stage Spirit Severing cultivator, the ambient environment alone would be a lethal threat. They would be forced to expend a significant portion of their Spiritual Energy just to maintain a cooling barrier, slowly draining their spiritual sea before the fight even began.

But Lin Yuan did not raise a barrier. He allowed the scorching ash to fall upon his skin.

His Rank 10 Ancient Beast Body absorbed the heat as if it were a mild spring breeze. The dense, indestructible cellular structure of his flesh, tempered by the Body Genesis Essence, completely ignored it. He breathed in the air, his lungs effortlessly purifying the ash and converting the raw thermal energy into a faint trickle of ambient Qi.

"This place smells like a burned boot," Ling Xi’s voice chimed within his spiritual sea, the nine-tailed sword spirit manifesting a spectral nose just to wrinkle it in disgust. "And it is entirely too bright. Are we going to fight a rock? Please tell me we are not fighting a rock."

We fight whatever the artifact manifests, Lin Yuan replied calmly.

As if summoned by his thought, the largest river of magma in the center of the wasteland began to violently bubble and churn.

A colossal pillar of molten rock erupted upward, defying gravity. The magma swirled and rapidly cooled, solidifying into the hulking, ten-foot-tall figure of the second Phantom Guardian.

This entity was vastly different from the flawless female of the first floor. It was a towering, heavily armored warlord. Its armor was forged from jagged, cooling obsidian, glowing fiercely at the joints with internal, liquid fire. A heavy, iron-horned helm obscured its features, leaving only two pitch-black, mindless eyes visible through the visor. In its massive, gauntleted hands, it wielded a colossal, double-sided battleaxe attached to a thick, spiked chain.

Lin Yuan’s Divine Sense washed over the towering behemoth.

Resolute Stage, Lin Yuan analyzed. The Fourth Step of Dao Resolve.

The Resolute Stage represented a fundamental shift in a cultivator’s foundation. It was the point where the Dao Heart crystallized into an unyielding boulder. A Resolute cultivator did not easily bend to illusions, nor did they falter under pressure. Their Qi carried a dense impact, designed to crush through obstacles through sheer, and uncompromising persistence.

The Phantom Guardian swung the colossal battleaxe in a wide, lazy circle, the spiked chain rattling like thunder over the volcanic roar.

It did not wait for an opening. The Guardian stomped its boot against the ground, shattering the basalt cliff, and launched itself across the magma river.

"Mountain-Cleaving Ash Strike!"

The Guardian roared, a guttural sound that carried no true emotion, only the programmed echo of an ancient warlord’s battle cry. It hurled the massive battleaxe directly at Lin Yuan. The axe spun through the air with terrifying velocity, trailing a massive comet-tail of superheated magma and compressed spatial force.

Lin Yuan stood perfectly still on the precipice. He did not draw the Primordial Sovereign Sword.

He merely raised his right hand, his fingers slightly curled.

He activated the unparalleled divine technique: [Heaven and Earth Shift].

The space directly in front of Lin Yuan folded inward, creating a high-dimensional mirror of absolute redirection.

The spinning, magma-infused battleaxe struck the invisible spatial mirror. To the mindless Phantom Guardian, the impact must have registered as an impossibility. The force of a Resolute Stage strike did not shatter the barrier; it was swallowed whole.

A moment later, the space directly above the towering Guardian tore open.

The Guardian’s own battleaxe, retaining every ounce of its lethal momentum, shot downward from the void, aiming directly for the creature’s iron-horned helm.

The Guardian, lacking the emotional capacity for shock, merely reacted with flawless martial programming. It violently yanked the spiked chain attached to its gauntlet, attempting to alter the trajectory of the falling axe.

But Lin Yuan had already moved.

Utilizing the Immortal Cloud Step, Lin Yuan vanished from the precipice. He slipped through the ambient heat waves, materializing directly within the Guardian’s guard while it was distracted by its own redirected weapon.

Lin Yuan’s eyes remained a cool, calculating purple.

He drew back his palm. The mist of his Dao Intent flared to life, and he unleashed a devastatingPalmstrike.

His palm struck the center of the Guardian’s breastplate.

The impact was devastating. The Palmstrike bypassed the external armor and detonated the spiritual core of the target from the inside out.

A deafening, hollow CRACK echoed across the wasteland.

The massive, ten-foot-tall Guardian froze. The glowing orange magma pulsing at its joints instantly turned a dead, ashen gray. For a full second, nothing happened.

Then, the back of the Guardian’s armor violently exploded outward, showering the magma river with shattered obsidian and dissipating Qi.

The Resolute Stage guardian crumpled to its knees, the matrix holding its form together completely short-circuiting. With a heavy groan, it dissolved into a shower of brilliant, fiery sparks, returning to the foundational matrix of the Nine-Tiered Sky.

Lin Yuan lowered his hand, exhaling a slow, steady breath. The ambient array of the second floor instantly scrubbed away the minimal Qi he had expended.

"Too slow," Ling Xi criticized inwardly. "You could have just let me cut him in half. Big, bulky targets are my favorite. They make such a satisfying sound when they break."

"I’m sorry about that," Lin Yuan said, stepping over the scattered ashes of the Guardian. "But I wanted to test how powerful my Palm Strike would be after infusing it with my new Dao Intent. The Dao of Three Rebirths has truly elevated my merged Dao by leaps and bounds!"