pjbooks Chapter 141 Breakthrough!
Chapter 141 Breakthrough!
The guardian of the eighty-first floor is a giant over ten zhang tall, formed from pure dark golden light.
One-tenth.
These four words struck the hearts of everyone present like a meteorite falling from a height of ten thousand meters. Wang Kai gripped the light blade formed from pure white chaotic power in his hand, looking at the ten-zhang-tall dark golden giant. He felt his golden core throbbing wildly in his dantian, as if sensing an existence far beyond his comprehension, instinctively issuing a warning.
"One-tenth." He repeated the three words, a wild, blood-tinged grin spreading across his face. "Brother Chen, so the remaining nine-tenths, are they waiting for you on the hundredth floor?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll cut off one-tenth for you first."
Wang Kai rushed out. His body drew a pure white arc in the void, pushing his arc footwork to its limit, each step creating a ripple of white spiritual energy beneath his feet. The light blade in his hand, formed from chaotic power, left a long white trail as he moved at high speed, like a comet streaking across the night sky.
The dark golden giant lowered its head, looking at the tiny figure charging towards it. Its face had no features, only a smooth, flat surface that shimmered with dark golden light. But Wang Kai could sense that something was watching him from that surface.
The giant raised his right hand. The palm was as big as a city wall, and when the five fingers were spread, the dark golden light in the palm suddenly shone, turning into a beam of light as thick as a bucket, which blasted towards Wang Kai.
Wang Kai did not dodge. He poured the power of chaos into the light blade, and the pure white light on the blade suddenly intensified, colliding head-on with the dark golden light pillar.
There was no explosion, no loud noise. At the moment of their collision, the two forces produced an extremely eerie silence, as if time itself had been torn apart. The dark golden pillar of light began to disintegrate from its edges under the erosion of the chaotic power, while pure white light flowed upwards along the trajectory of the pillar, spreading towards the giant's palm.
The giant withdrew its right hand. A fist-sized pit had been eroded in its palm by the power of chaos, pure white light flowing around its edges, peeling away and evaporating the surrounding dark golden light layer by layer. It looked down at the pit in its palm; for the first time, ripples appeared on that smooth surface.
"The Chaos Spiritual Root." Its voice echoed from the entire void, deep and resonant, carrying a calm that was almost sincere, a calmness that had been tempered by countless years. "Kahn said that your chaotic power had touched the edge of the origin of chaos. It seems he was right."
Wang Kai did not answer. His second sword strike had already arrived.
This time, his target wasn't the giant's hand, but its neck—the exact same angle, the exact same path, the exact same determination as when he slew the abyssal dragon. But his speed was more than twice as fast, the purity of his chaotic power was more than an order of magnitude higher, and the light blade in his hand, condensed from chaotic power, was lighter, faster, and closer to his true essence than the Azure Cloud Sword he had used before.
The moment the blade pierced the giant's neck, dark golden light erupted from the wound, enveloping Wang Kai's entire right arm in its glow. His sleeve turned to ash, and the newly formed skin charred, cracked, and peeled away again in the light. But he did not stop. He squeezed the power of the pure white golden core within him, which had swelled to the size of an infant's head, to its limit. Chaotic power surged into the light blade like a tidal wave, exploding within the giant's body.
The giant's body began to disintegrate from its neck. Dark golden light surged from the cracks, dispersing into countless tiny specks of light in the void. Its body shrank continuously during the disintegration, from ten zhang to five zhang, from five zhang to one zhang, and from one zhang to the size of a normal human. When the last wisp of dark golden light dissipated, only a fist-sized, jet-black crystal remained in the void. Fine, dark golden patterns flowed across the crystal's surface, their rhythm resonating with Wang Kai's heartbeat.
Jiang Chen walked to Wang Kai's side, bent down and picked up the crystal. His gaze lingered for a moment on the dark gold patterns flowing across the crystal's surface before he put it into his palm.
"Fragments of Kahn's Law. Each time you slay a gatekeeper, one fragment drops. Collect enough to exchange for a chance to challenge Kahn's true form on the hundredth floor." He turned around, looking at Wang Kai, at his right arm charred black by the dark golden light, at the chaotic flying sword that was reforming from a pure white blade of light into a complete sword shape, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. "What's the name of your flying sword?"
Wang Kai looked down at the sword in his hand, which was solidifying from a blade of light. The sword was pure white, and the blade lacked the luster of metal, instead possessing a warm, jade-like texture. An ancient seal script was engraved on the hilt—the first character Jiang Chen had taught him, and the first character he had ever recognized from the cultivation world.
"The Way," Wang Kai said. "Brother Chen, the first word you taught me was 'the Way.' The Way of the Heart."
Jiang Chen looked at the sword, at the sharp, calligraphic inscription on the hilt, and remained silent for a moment.
"A fine sword."
Each level's guardian was stronger than the one above, from dark golden giants to abyssal dragons, from shadow demons to apostle projections, from law avatars to Cain's watcher clones. Wang Kai's right arm was repeatedly burned and regenerated during the battle; the new skin changed from charred black to pale white, then to a near-transparent color, revealing the pure white spiritual energy flowing beneath. The chaotic flying sword in his hand, named "Dao," grew longer, wider, and closer to the form of a complete sword during the battle. Its blade gradually changed from pure white to translucent, and within the translucent blade, countless fine golden patterns could be seen flowing—an anomaly produced by the spectral shift caused by the compression of chaotic power to its extreme.
On the 90th floor, Wang Kai stopped.
"Brother Chen," his voice was a little hoarse, "what's behind the ninetieth floor?"
Jiang Chen walked to his side, looking at the void in front of him illuminated by the Primordial Sword's light shield. At the edge of the shield, a dark golden barrier stretching across the heavens and earth could be vaguely seen. Countless fine runes flowed across the surface of the barrier, each rune breathing and pulsating slowly, as if it were alive.
"The ninety-first to ninety-ninth floors test your Dao heart." Jiang Chen's voice was calm as always, but every word made all the students present hold their breath for a moment. "Kahn's Law is to materialize the challenger's deepest fear with the will of the Watcher. Every enemy there is not real. They are yourself."
Wang Kai's grip on the "Dao" sword tightened slightly. His Dao heart, as Brother Chen had said, was "the brother who, from beginning to end, sent him messages to comfort him when everyone else was mocking him." But even the strongest Dao heart has cracks. What lay hidden in those cracks was something he hadn't dared to face for the past three months.
"Brother Chen, what will you see between the 91st and 99th floors?"
Jiang Chen was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, his voice very soft, as soft as the wind blowing across a dry riverbed.
"Su Wanniang. Qingyunzi. Taichu Immortal Emperor. Fentian Immortal Emperor. Bingxuan Immortal Emperor. And all those I've killed in the cultivation world. Every enemy I've slain, every person who died because of me, every person I've wronged, owed, and never had a chance to apologize to, will appear on the ninety-first to ninety-ninth floors. They will question me: why did I kill them? Why did I betray them? Why wasn't I there when they needed me most?"
He paused for a moment, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, a very faint curve, so faint that it was almost invisible.
"But I am not afraid. Because my Daoist heart was forged through the lives of these people."
Looking at Jiang Chen's profile, at the hairband on his right wrist that was bathed in the light blue morning light, and at the pale gold sword on the cuff of his dark blue uniform, Wang Kai felt his Dao heart being tempered by something at that moment.
"Let's go." Jiang Chen strode forward, his steps steady, each step landing on that invisible barrier with a deep, resonant sound like a war drum. "I'll go in first on the ninety-first floor. You wait outside. Come in after I've reached the ninety-ninth floor. We'll go in together on Kahn's one hundredth floor."
He walked to the barrier, and the Primordial Sword appeared in his palm, its hilt illuminating six stars simultaneously. Golden celestial fire, dark red scorching fire, and icy blue icy power surged from the sword, blasting a gap several meters in diameter into the barrier's surface. At the edge of the gap, countless fine, dark golden rays flickered frantically, attempting to repair the forcibly torn crack.
Jiang Chen stepped into the gap. His figure disappeared into the dark golden light, and the light shield of the Primordial Sword slowly closed behind him, sealing the gap again.
In the void, only Wang Kai, Shen Qingxue, Bing Li, Xuan Ming, and the 1,100 students remained. They stood at the edge of the Primordial Sword Light Barrier, watching the dark golden barrier that was slowly healing, silent like 1,100 statues.