pjbooks Chapter 138 From now on, it's up to you.
Chapter 138 From now on, it's up to you.
The sixtieth floor was reached moments after Jiang Chen uttered the word "physical body".
The cold has disappeared. In its place comes the wind.
"The sixtieth to the ninetieth floor is a test of combat." Jiang Chen stopped and looked at the dark golden light gathering in front of him. "Kahn's law is to materialize enemies with the will of the Watchers. Every enemy here is one that Kahn once watched over, one that roamed this planet, and one that the Apostle Hall marked as a 'threat'."
Within the dark golden light, a humanoid silhouette was coalescing. It grew clearer and more defined, eventually transforming into a warrior covered in dark golden scales, wielding two blades. Its face was concealed by a helmet, revealing only a pair of dark golden eyes. Those eyes had no pupils, only two burning dark golden flames.
"Abyss Warrior." Jiang Chen's voice was calm as ever. "Peak S-rank. In the first hundred years after the Apostles descended, Kahn personally slew the first warrior under the Third Pillar Demon God of the Abyss. He sealed its soul fragments on the sixtieth floor of the First Apostle's Hall as the first battle barrier for challengers."
Wang Kai drew his Azure Cloud Sword, its blade shimmering with silvery-white light. He took a step forward, standing beside Jiang Chen, the tip of his sword aimed at the Abyss Warrior who was emerging fully from the dark golden light.
"Brother Chen, I'll do this."
Jiang Chen glanced at him and nodded.
Wang Kai took a deep breath, and the pure white golden core deep within his dantian suddenly lit up. Chaotic power surged from the golden core, flowing along his meridians and into the blade of the Azure Cloud Sword, turning the silvery-white sword light pure white. He gripped the sword, looking at the Abyss Warrior covered in dark golden scales, at its eyes burning with dark golden flames, and felt his heart pounding.
Three months ago, he was a C-rank life skill awakener who couldn't even sense spiritual energy. Three months later, he stood on the sixtieth floor of the First Apostle Hall, facing a peak S-rank Abyss Warrior, gripping his sword, ready for battle.
He drew his sword.
A pure white sword light exploded from the blade, transforming into a straight beam of light that hurtled towards the Abyss Warrior's chest. Wherever the sword light passed, the air was torn apart, the dark golden light was dispelled, and even the void itself trembled slightly under the pressure of this sword strike.
The Abyss Warrior raised his right-hand twin blades to parry. The sword light struck the blades, producing a piercing metallic clang. Fine cracks appeared on the surface of the blades under the impact of the sword light, and dark golden flames surged from the cracks, burning in the void.
Wang Kai's second sword strike had arrived. His footwork was no longer the stiff, straight-line sprint of three months ago, but rather the arc-shaped footwork Jiang Chen had taught him. His body drew a graceful arc in the air, bypassing the Abyss Warrior's double-bladed parry, the blade slicing in from the side, aiming straight for the warrior's neck.
He practiced this sword technique for three months. From initially being unable to even walk steadily, he can now perfectly integrate the swordplay into combat. He practiced over a thousand times, falling countless times on the concrete floor of the abandoned factory; the old injury on his knee still hasn't fully healed. But with this sword, he achieved it.
The blade pierced the Abyss Warrior's neck. Dark golden flames erupted from the wound, scorching the Azure Cloud Sword's blade red-hot. Wang Kai gritted his teeth, channeling chaotic power into the blade. Pure white light clashed violently with the dark golden flames at the wound, producing a sizzling sound. Under the suppression of the chaotic power, the flames quickly dimmed and extinguished. The Abyss Warrior's body began to shatter from the neck, its dark golden scales peeling away piece by piece, dissipating into specks of light in the void.
Abyss Warrior, dead.
It takes twelve breaths to complete.
Fragments of the Abyss Warrior's dark gold scales still drifted in the void, like a silent, dark gold snowfall. Wang Kai withdrew the Azure Cloud Sword from the warrior's shattered neck. The blade still retained the warmth of the dark gold flames, casting the characters "Azure Cloud" on it in a play of light and shadow. His breathing was rapid, and his hand holding the sword trembled slightly—not from fear, but because the pure white golden core within him was spinning at an unprecedented speed, the power of chaos surging through his meridians like a newly awakened ancient dragon searching for more prey.
"Twelve breaths." Jiang Chen's voice came from behind, calm as ever, yet it made Wang Kai's back straighten involuntarily. "It's a third faster than in the simulation battle. The angle of your final sword strike in the arc footwork was off by half an inch. If the warrior had reacted just a second faster, your blade would have been caught in its shoulder armor. In that case, it wouldn't have been its neck that was severed, but your sword."
Wang Kai looked down at the blade of the Azure Cloud Sword. There was an extremely fine crack on the blade, extending about an inch downwards from the tip, a mark left by the dark golden flames when it pierced the general's neck. He gently ran his thumb along the crack, feeling the sword vibrate slightly.
"Brother Chen, this sword—"
"It's adapting to you." Jiang Chen walked to Wang Kai's side, glanced at the slowly extending crack on the blade, and his gaze lingered for a moment on the pure white light flowing around the edge of the crack. "The weapon used by the holder of the Chaos Spiritual Root will be eroded, modified, and ultimately assimilated by the power of chaos. This process is irreversible and does not need to be stopped. Let the power of chaos flow naturally, and the sword will find the form that best suits you."
He summoned the Primordial Sword from his palm, and six stars on the hilt lit up simultaneously. Gold, red, and blue light stretched across the void, creating a light curtain dozens of feet long, dispelling the darkness in front of the group. At the edge of the light curtain, countless dark golden figures could be vaguely seen gathering—the guardians of the sixty-first to ninetieth floors, the strongest beings that Kahn had watched over over the past ten thousand years, those who had roamed this planet, and those he had personally slain and sealed in the Apostle Hall, were awakening from their long slumber.
"From the sixty-first to the ninetieth floor, each floor has a guardian. Their strength ranges from the peak of S-rank to SSS-rank, and the strongest few—the guardians after the eightieth floor—have already touched the threshold of the Apostle level." Jiang Chen turned around and looked at the students behind him who were activating their true essence, gripping their weapons, and adjusting their breathing. His gaze swept from Wang Kai to Shen Qingxue, from Shen Qingxue to Bing Li and Xuan Ming, from Bing Li and Xuan Ming to Zhao Tieshan, Zhang Ziming, and the twenty students who had broken through to the peak of Foundation Establishment.
"From now on, I will not intervene. These gatekeepers are yours."
Wang Kai was the first to rush out.
His body traced a pure white arc in the void, his arc-shaped footwork pushed to its limit, each step creating a ripple of white spiritual energy beneath his feet. On the blade of the Azure Cloud Sword, the crack extending from the tip had expanded to a third of the sword's length under the infusion of chaotic power, its edges shimmering with pure white light, making the entire sword appear like a blade of light condensed from pure chaotic power.