John followed Blood Moon, having already climbed thousands of steps. The others were far behind, barely visible in the distance.
Ahead of them stretched the endless staircase, reaching straight into the clouds with no end in sight.
According to Jolyne, the Sky Ladder was said to be infinite, as no one had ever made it to the very top.
At this point, even Blood Moon was struggling. The immense pressure weighed down on him, sweat continuously dripping from his forehead. With each step he took, he had to pause to catch his breath before moving on.
The strength of the Shadow Clan lay in their unpredictable and bizarre attack methods, but their raw physical endurance wasn’t as impressive.
John, on the other hand, looked completely at ease, walking up the steps as if taking a casual stroll, showing no signs of reaching his limit.
He thought about mocking Blood Moon, but the guy had already sealed off all his senses, making it pointless.
With a casual step, John moved ahead of Blood Moon.
He waved a friendly gesture toward Blood Moon.
But it was futile-Blood Moon, with his senses cut off, neither saw nor heard him.
“Hmph, useless!” John muttered in frustration. He left Blood Moon behind, focusing on the seemingly endless staircase ahead.
Soon, he had put significant distance between himself and Blood Moon, and the others were no longer even visible behind him.
But as he climbed higher, the pressure continued to mount. It felt like his internal organs were on the verge of being crushed.
John had reached above the clouds, having climbed tens of thousands of steps, yet the staircase still stretched endlessly into the sky, with no end in sight.
“I’m going to find out just how far this ladder goes,” John muttered, determination filling his eyes. His battle spirit ignited, and he pressed on, step by step, each one deliberate and heavy. Boom!
With each step he took, it felt like he was bearing the weight of a mountain. His face contorted in pain, his insides twisting under the immense pressure.
By now, John had taken the lead, and Blood Moon was nowhere to be seen.
But his goal wasn’t just to finish first in the Sky Ladder trial-he wanted to discover what lay at the top of this seemingly infinite staircase.
He refused to believe that there was no end.
Cough!
As he took another step, John couldn’t hold back a cough, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Gritting his teeth, he lifted his leg again and slammed it down onto the next step, his chest heaving with labored breaths.
The pressure here was tens of thousands of times greater than outside, pushing him to the edge of his endurance.
He felt like if he kept going, his body might just explode from the crushing force.
Struggling to stand upright, John looked up at the endless stairs above, taking a deep breath as a massive aura surged around him.
“Heaven and Earth Transformation!” he roared, as a powerful wind whipped around him, transforming him into a towering giant. His massive form blotted out the sky, but even from this vantage point, he still couldn’t see the end of the ladder.
“Keep going!” With his attributes amplified a hundredfold by the Heaven and Earth Transformation, the pressure was greatly reduced, allowing John to continue his climb.
Boom!
With a thunderous roar, John leaped forward, crossing hundreds of steps in a single bound. His speed was astonishing, but the pressure also multiplied with each step.
Rumble…
Suddenly, a terrifying surge of power enveloped him. It was the purest form of the four elemental forces-wind, fire, water, and earth-all crashing into John’s massive form, instantly crushing his body into nothingness.
[You have been killed by elemental source power. The Blessed Ring has activated.]
A flash of light indicated his resurrection, bringing him back in his Heaven and Earth Transformation form.
Cough!
John spat out a mouthful of blood, only to be torn apart by the elemental forces once again. [You have been killed by elemental source power. Lifesaver talent has activated…] Resurrected yet again, this time with ten seconds of invincibility, he remained unharmed by the deadly elemental forces.
“There’s hope!” His eyes gleamed with determination as he endured the overwhelming pressure, lifting his foot to surge up the steps with renewed speed.
Boom! Boom!
Thunderous roars echoed as waves of elemental source power swirled around him, relentless and unyielding.
Once the ten seconds of invincibility ended, he was killed once more.
The second activation of his Lifesaver talent gave him another ten seconds of invulnerability.
Roar…
A majestic dragon’s roar reverberated through the sky as John transformed into a divine dragon, still in his Heaven and Earth Transformation state.
Unfortunately, flight was forbidden on the Sky Ladder.
Even in his dragon form, sprawling across the steps, his massive body seemed insignificant against the endless staircase.
Whoosh!
Using all four limbs, John Scrambled up the ladder with increasing speed, his pace
accelerating as he climbed.
Ten seconds passed, and as expected, he was annihilated once more.
The Lifesaver talent triggered for the third time, enveloping him in golden light, rendering
him invincible yet again.
John’s enormous dragon eyes locked onto the distant peak of the Sky Ladder, burning with relentless determination. His speed surged even further.
Boom!
With each step, the dragon crossed hundreds of steps at a time.
But as the invincibility faded, the elemental forces became even more violent.
Once again, he was instantly obliterated.
The Lifesaver talent triggered for the fourth time.
“Faster!” John growled through gritted teeth, feeling the golden light around him quivering.
It seemed that even the elemental source power could challenge the limits of his invincibility. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself, climbing even faster.
Boom!
Blood sprayed as his body was torn apart, triggering the Lifesaver talent for the fifth time.
John’s expression remained calm as he sped up the steps of the Sky Ladder.
This was his final use of the Lifesaver talent. If he were killed again, there would be no more invincibility to save him.
In just fifty seconds of invulnerability, he had managed to climb hundreds of thousands of
steps.
Boom!
Blood mist filled the air as he was obliterated once again.
[You have been killed by elemental source power. Undying and Immortal talent activated.]
[You have been killed by elemental source power. Undying and Immortal talent activated.]
…
The notifications flashed continuously. Under the terrifying pressure surrounding him, John was struck down mere seconds after each resurrection.
His body and soul were taking heavy damage.
The challenge of the Sky Ladder meant that death would result in permanent destruction. At
this rate, he knew he would soon meet his end.
“Is that… the end?” As John resurrected once more, he caught a faint glimpse of what looked like the top of the ladder-just ahead of him, not too far away.
“Damn it, I’m going for it!” He gritted his teeth, determined to press on despite the crushing
odds.
With each resurrection, he had roughly half a second before he was killed again.
He had to use that fleeting moment to continue his climb.
John was determined to see what lay at the top of the ladder.
And he was gambling that his Undying and Immortal talent had enough resurrections left to
get him there.
Each time he came back to life, he could take only a few steps before being overwhelmed
again, all while enduring immense pressure.
Boom… boom… Blood mist swirled around him as he climbed, his body battered and broken.
John, still in his dragon form, struggled to ascend. Step by step, he edged closer to the top of
the Sky Ladder.
But soon, his spiritual power and energy were completely depleted. He could no longer sustain his Heaven and Earth Transformation or his dragon form, reverting back to his human
body.
Cough!
He spat out another mouthful of blood before being killed once again.
The Undying and Immortal talent triggered, bringing him back to life. But the crushing
pressure was so intense that he couldn’t even move his legs.
“No! I have to keep going!” John growled through gritted teeth. The end of the ladder was so
close, he couldn’t give up now.
[You have been killed by elemental source power. Undying and Immortal talent activated.]
…
The cycle of death and resurrection repeated, each time inflicting more damage to his soul.
Deep within his soul, the Crimson Karma Lotus manifested, doing its best to protect him from
further harm.
Even so, the constant deaths and resurrections were taking a heavy toll on his spirit, causing greater injury with each attempt.
“I can do this!” John refused to give in. Almost crawling now, he clawed his way up the Sky Ladder, using both his hands and feet to drag himself forward.
With each resurrection, he could only move about half a step before the elemental forces
struck him down again.
Even so, John continued inching closer to the end of the Sky Ladder.
100 meters.
90 meters.
50 meters.
10 meters.
He had no idea how many times he had resurrected; it felt like an eternity had passed.
Now, the end of the Sky Ladder was within reach.
But the pressure surrounding him was so intense that it felt like he was being crushed flat against the ground. He couldn’t even move a single finger.
Those final ten meters seemed like an insurmountable distance-a gap as vast as the heavens
and earth.
Even worse, his soul was severely wounded. His consciousness was growing faint.
If this continued, he feared he would truly die here. “Let’s go for broke!” John gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay conscious. With the few
hundred points of spiritual power and energy he had barely recovered, he once again activated
Heaven and Earth Transformation and shifted into his dragon form.
Roar!
A massive dragon’s roar echoed through the air, filled with defiance and indomitable fighting
spirit.
Seizing the brief moments between his resurrections, John charged recklessly toward the end
of the Sky Ladder.
Boom!
The entire staircase seemed to tremble under the force of his strides. His colossal dragon
body took one final step, crossing the ten meters, only to be obliterated again by the overwhelming elemental power, resurrected again in the process.
But as his body fell, it finally landed at the very top of the Sky Ladder.
Buzz!
A flash of light, and John’s form vanished. He reappeared in a vast, empty space.
Dark. Infinite.
There was no light to be seen, no sound to be heard. The space was utterly void of anything.
Everything around him felt so unreal. Even his own existence seemed questionable, as if he were merely a shadow of himself.
“Am I… dead?” he wondered aloud, touching his body.
Thankfully, he could still feel his physical form.
“But what is this place? How do I get out?” He swallowed hard, trying to steady himself. He
couldn’t feel his strength, as if the laws of this place were entirely different. It felt like he was floating in space, without any sense of grounding or movement.
This sensation was far worse than the endless cycle of death and resurrection on the Sky
Ladder.
“I have to get out of here!” John inhaled deeply, forcing himself to calm down. He sat cross- legged in the void, focusing inward.
This strange space felt devoid of all existence, even time seemed to have come to a halt.
He felt as if he were on the verge of a breakdown, fighting the overwhelming urge to end it all
and escape the torment.
…
Time passed-or perhaps it didn’t, as there was no way to tell in this void-until finally, John
found a sense of peace. The world around him seemed to shift.
The endless, empty space began to transform, like a massive egg encasing him.
He could now feel the energy in this space.
It was empty, elusive, but ancient, exuding a sense of eternity.
It felt as though this was the true end of the world.
What John didn’t notice was that the Creation Stone, which he had exchanged for at the
Heavenly Stele, floated out on its own, emitting a soft glow that enveloped him.
But even in this light, he could still see and feel nothing.
Except for that one thing-the elusive, ancient force.
As if it were the source of everything.