Chapter 242 - 241: Sixth Floor

The environment was a literal manifestation of despair. There was no land. There was no sky.

He stood upon a narrow, crumbling bridge forged entirely from human bones, suspended over a vast, infinite ocean of boiling, churning blood. The air was thick, suffocating, and carried a physical weight that made it difficult to draw breath. The roaring of the blood ocean sounded like the screams of a million dying souls.

Peerless Stage, Lin Yuan analyzed, his Unshaken Dao Heart flaring violently to repel the overwhelming, psychic suppression of the realm. The Eighth Step of Dao Resolve.

This was one of the two absolute apex of the Spirit Severing realm before one began the transition to Soul Transformation. This was the exact cultivation plateau that Chu Kuang had occupied before his recent ascension.

At the far end of the bone bridge, rising slowly from the boiling ocean of blood, was the sixth Phantom Guardian.

It was a towering, heavily armored warlord, clad in rusted, spiked plate mail that dripped with thick, crimson gore. In its hands, it wielded a massive, serrated halberd—a cruel, ironic parallel to Chu Kuang’s own weapon of choice. Its pitch-black eyes locked onto Lin Yuan, radiating a raw suppression that caused the bone bridge beneath Lin Yuan’s boots to groan and splinter.

This was going to be the hardest fight he had ever fought.

The physical and spiritual pressure radiating from the Guardian was immense!

Lin Yuan then drew the Primordial Sovereign Sword and charged across the bone bridge.

The warlord swung the massive halberd horizontally, unleashing a tidal wave of boiling blood and dense Sword Qi that completely engulfed the narrow bridge.

Lin Yuan did not dodge. He swung his sword downward, executing a flawless Sword Qi vertical slash.

The clash was deafening.

Lin Yuan’s blade bit into the halberd’s shaft. The sheer impact of the collision shattered the bone bridge beneath them for fifty yards in either direction. They were left fighting in mid-air, suspended by their respective Dao domains over the boiling ocean.

Lin Yuan was instantly pushed backward.

The physical disparity was finally showing its teeth. A Rank 10 physique was monstrous, but fighting a Peerless Stage entity head-on was like trying to arm-wrestle a falling comet. The Guardian’s strength was astronomical.

Lin Yuan slid backward through the air, his boots skidding against the void, his arms shaking from the immense strain.

The Guardian pressed the advantage, launching a rapid, furious flurry of halberd strikes that blurred into a wall of steel and blood.

Lin Yuan engaged in a rapid, earth-shattering melee exchange. He parried, deflected, and redirected the overwhelming blows using the indestructible nature of his sword. Sparks and blood rained down into the ocean below. Every time their weapons clashed, the shockwaves triggered massive tsunamis in the blood sea.

"He is too heavy!" Ling Xi warned, her voice strained as she channeled her spiritual essence to reinforce the blade against the relentless assault. "His Spiritual energy is trying to crush me!"

Hold the line, Lin Yuan commanded, his mind working with terrifying speed.

He could not win a battle of pure attrition here. The Guardian’s Peerless Stage Cultivation was simply too dense. He needed to use the environment against it.

As the Guardian raised its halberd for a massive, overhead execution strike, Lin Yuan activated the [Heaven and Earth Shift].

But he did not use it on the halberd. He used it on the ocean below.

The space beneath the Guardian violently warped. A massive, towering pillar of boiling blood was instantly shifted from the ocean and redirected straight upward, slamming into the Guardian from below with the force of a geyser.

The impact temporarily threw the warlord off balance, breaking its execution stance.

It was the only opening Lin Yuan needed.

He utilized the Immortal Cloud Step, flashing directly above the staggered Guardian.

He raised his left hand toward the sky, his deep purple eyes flashing with absolute, destructive intent.

[Heavenly Thunder Break]

Lin Yuan did not call the lightning down from the sky; he infused the entirety of the spell directly into the blade of the Primordial Sovereign Sword.

The runes on the sword flared with blinding brilliance. The blade vibrated with millions of volts of heavenly might.

With a roar of exertion, pushing his Rank 10 Ancient Beast Body to its absolute limits, Lin Yuan drove the supercharged sword directly downward, plunging it into the gap between the Guardian’s neck and its heavy shoulder armor.

The impact was catastrophic.

The Heavenly Thunder Break detonated internally. The sheer, overwhelming thunder surged through the Guardian’s meridian network, clashing violently with its Peerless Stage Qi.

The warlord froze in mid-air, arcs of purple lightning violently erupting from its visor and the joints of its armor. It let out a booming groan of structural failure.

Lin Yuan placed his boot on the Guardian’s shoulder, yanked his sword free, and kicked the entity backward.

The Peerless Guardian plummeted toward the boiling ocean. Before it even hit the surface, its internal matrix completely overloaded. The warlord violently exploded, vaporizing into a massive cloud of red mist and silver sparks that rained down upon the churning sea.

Lin Yuan hovered in the air, his chest heaving heavily, sweat beading on his flawless forehead. His arms ached with a deep fatigue.

He had done it. He had defeated an Eighth Step, Peerless Stage phantom!

The swirling, boiling blood ocean below him began to calm, parting down the middle to reveal a grand, spiraling staircase carved from obsidian, leading upward to the seventh floor.

A single, booming chime echoed across the Central Continent’s Grand Court.

The entire amphitheater fell completely silent. There were no whispers. There were no shouts of denial. There was only the collective staring of a hundred thousand cultivators trying to comprehend the numbers written in stone.

MERIT RANKINGS (CURRENT)

1. Xuan Mingzhe (Xuan Province) - 8100 Merits

2. Jiang Wan (Jiang Province) - 6830 Merits

3. Ye Ao (Ye Province) - 6800 Merits

4. Feng Yao (Feng Province) - 6700 Merits

5. Lin Yuan (Zhao Province) - 6610 Merits

6. Ling Chuan (Ling Province) - 5660 Merits

...

"Six thousand six hundred and ten," Lord Zhao Shenming whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of awe and fear. "He cleared the sixth floor. He executed a Peerless Guardian."

The reality of it settled over the Upper Division pavilions like a shroud.

Lin Yuan, an Early-Stage Spirit Severing cultivator, had just dismantled a phantom that possessed the exact same cultivation plateau as their most revered heirs.

And he was still climbing.

Lin Yuan was officially in fifth place. He was not in the Top 3 yet. The base merit advantage of Jiang Wan and Ye Ao, combined with their own terrifying, rapid ascents, kept them just barely ahead of him. Feng Yao hovered silently in fourth.

But the gap was shrinking.

Inside the Nine-Tiered Sky, Lin Yuan slowly descended and landed upon the first step of the new staircase.

He looked upward, toward the swirling vortex that guarded the entrance to the seventh floor.

The seventh floor. The Supreme Stage. The Ninth Step.

He had tested his physical limits. Now, it was time to let the Heaven and Earth see his true face.

Lin Yuan gripped his sword, his eyes beginning to glow with a faint, terrifying tri-colored light, and began his ascent toward the true peak.