However, just as the tip of that deep-blue streak of cold light—formed from Xuanming himself—was about to touch the edge of the nine-thousandth-step platform—
“Crack—!”
A faint, crisp sound, like shattering ice crystals, came from within him.
That ultimate chill and indomitable will, which had concentrated everything he possessed and should have been utterly invincible, had unexpectedly developed an irreparable crack at the final moment!
Immediately afterward, an irresistible pressure and repelling force surged from the steps beneath him, pushing him backward.
The ancient prodigy, Xuanming.
Stopped at the eight-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth step.
This cruel and abrupt scene shook the souls of the four Chu Daolin had just reached the platform and had not even had time to savor their joy.
The struggle along the Imperial Road was truly merciless.
Even someone as powerful as an ancient prodigy could fall just short of the threshold, becoming a warning to those who came after.
As for the four of them, although they had reached the nine-thousandth step, their bodies swayed the moment they set foot on the platform. Nearly exhausted, they immediately sat down cross-legged and began absorbing the dense Dao resonance here with all their strength, repairing their bodies.
At the same time, several astonishing auras were steadily approaching from below on the staircase to heaven.
Chu Daolin suddenly opened his eyes, disbelief flashing through them.
The battle intent surrounding Qin Wuye, which had yet to fully settle, abruptly condensed.
Jiang Ruofeng and Lei Dong also looked up sharply, their gazes shooting toward the roiling chaos mist below like bolts of lightning.
They saw five figures standing shoulder to shoulder before the eight-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth step.
They were none other than Xiao Ruobai, Fang Hanyu, Ling Xi, Fatty Wang, and Qilinzi Mo Yu.
They had actually made it here as well?!
And all five had arrived together?!
So quickly?
At that moment, the hearts of the four Chu Daolin felt as though an invisible hand had clenched them tight.
Could these five make it across?
As if answering the storm of emotions raging within them, Xiao Ruobai moved.
He did not unleash the slightest radiance. He merely stepped forward with his right foot, planting it heavily on the step.
A battle intent so pure it seemed to originate from the very source of life erupted from him.
With the purest will to battle, he forcibly broke through the barrier of the Great Dao.
“Om—!”
A clear sword cry, piercing straight into the primordial spirit, suddenly rang out!
It was Fang Hanyu!
The pressure barrier before him was like a thin sheet of silk sliced by the sharpest paper knife. A perfectly smooth fissure appeared in it soundlessly.
As for Ling Xi, the destructive laws and mental erosion surging toward her seemed never to have existed at all. She stepped onto the nine-thousandth step with ease.
Within Fatty Wang, countless ancient golden runes surged wildly as though stimulated by something.
Qilinzi Mo Yu let out a low growl. Behind him, an enormous qilin dharma form condensed, its head reaching the heavens, its feet treading auspicious clouds, and its majestic eyes surveying all beneath them!
The qilin dharma form released a roar that shook the entire universe. Auspicious light condensed to its limit, transforming into a tangible pillar of crimson-gold radiance that smashed through the suppression before them!
Five footsteps, differing in weight but equally firm, rang out almost simultaneously as they stepped onto the nine-thousandth-step platform.
Xiao Ruobai, Fang Hanyu, Ling Xi, Fatty Wang, and Mo Yu.
They had made it.
In five different, heaven-defying ways, all five had successfully reached the nine-thousandth step!
Chu Daolin, Qin Wuye, Jiang Ruofeng, and Lei Dong stood frozen in place. Their pupils contracted to the extreme, and their faces were filled with unparalleled shock and disbelief.
All five had reached the nine-thousandth step?
After they had just experienced and deeply understood how terrifying it was?
How was that possible?!
Yet the five figures standing before them, their auras fluctuating but undeniably real—
And the lingering aftershocks of the fierce clashes between their different Daos in the air—
All coldly proclaimed the truth of what had happened.
Lei Dong violently shook his head, staring at Fatty Wang again and again.
Wasn’t this the fat man who had triggered the lightning frenzy in Thunderwind Valley?!
Back then, Lei Dong had merely thought him a somewhat lucky fellow with strange methods. He had not even truly taken him seriously.
But now, this very same fat man was standing on the nine-thousandth-step platform, just like Lei Dong himself?!
After a brief silence, a wave of noise erupted from below, like a tsunami powerful enough to sweep away everything!
“My heavens! Five people! Another five have reached the nine-thousandth step!”
“Battle Asura! Sword in White! Cyan Rakshasa! My god, they actually did it!”
“They’re too powerful! That was the final step, the one that even the ancient prodigy Xuanming failed to overcome! And they just walked right up?!”
“As expected of Battle Asura and the others! That battle intent could practically tear the heavens apart!”
Shouts of astonishment, praise, and incredulous roars thundered through the air.
Yet soon, even sharper and more bewildered voices rose up, drowning out the exclamations over Xiao Ruobai and the other three.
“Wait! Did you see that clearly?! That fat guy made it up too!”
“And that Qilinzi! How did he manage to reach the nine-thousandth step as well?!”
Everyone’s eyes instantly shifted from Xiao Ruobai and the other two, focusing on Fatty Wang and Qilinzi Mo Yu!
Compared with the overwhelming ascent of Battle Asura and the other two, the success of these two brought an even more earth-shaking shock to everyone’s understanding.
Their ordinary appearance before this stood in stark contrast to the astonishing fact that they had now reached the nine-thousandth step, creating an almost unimaginable reversal.
The gazes directed at Fatty Wang and Mo Yu were filled with utmost gravity and scrutiny.
So the true monsters were not limited to those three dazzling figures.
This seemingly simple and honest fat man possessed equally unparalleled talent. From this moment onward, no one would dare look down on Fatty Wang again.
Just what kind of prodigies had the Dao Repository Academy gathered this year?!
What left the four of Chu Daolin even more suffocated was that after Xiao Ruobai and the other four reached the platform, their auras fluctuated slightly but soon stabilized.
Unlike the four of them, who had immediately collapsed into cross-legged meditation from exhaustion, the five still stood perfectly straight!
Their gazes all turned toward the end of the platform—to the depths of the staircase to heaven leading even higher, where an even more terrifying aura awaited them!
Could they really be planning to continue upward without stopping to rest?!
That thought exploded in the hearts of the four Chu Daolin like a thunderclap!
Watching Xiao Ruobai and the other four head straight toward the stairs leading higher without pausing, Lei Dong suddenly clenched his teeth and growled, “We can’t fall too far behind! Hurry and regulate your breathing!”
Chu Daolin, Qin Wuye, and Jiang Ruofeng all felt their spirits tighten at his words. They immediately suppressed the turmoil in their hearts and circulated their techniques with all their might, frantically drawing in the dense Dao resonance and fragments of laws surrounding them.
The energy on the platform visibly converged toward the four of them, repairing their bodies and souls, both of which were on the verge of exhaustion.
However, their recovery speed seemed far too slow to keep up with the footsteps of those five.
Under the overwhelming pressure, the five advanced more slowly than they had below, but they nevertheless maintained a steady upward pace.
“Monsters…” Qin Wuye watched their backs and could not help but force the word through clenched teeth.
He considered his battle intent unparalleled, but when faced with pressure of this level, there was no way he could ascend so effortlessly!
“Follow them!”
Jiang Ruofeng suddenly rose to his feet, the battle intent in his eyes fully ignited.
“Even if we can’t catch up, we must at least see the view waiting at the heights with our own eyes!”
Hearing this, determination flashed through the eyes of the other three as well.
At their level, with wills forged like steel, their brief sense of defeat quickly transformed into an even stronger driving force.
They no longer held anything back. Regardless of the cost, they activated their secret arts to speed up their recovery, their eyes fixed intently on the heights above. The moment their condition stabilized even slightly, they were prepared to follow at once.
Below, as they watched Xiao Ruobai and the other four ascend ever higher without pause through the water mirror, the entire Dao Origin Mountain square once again fell into deathly silence.
Everyone understood what that meant.
To those five, the nine thousandth step was nowhere near the end. It might not even count as the beginning.
“Are they really going to reach the summit?”
A trembling voice gave form to the ultimate question in everyone’s hearts.
Just then, a streak of blue-green light, like a falling star tearing through the heavens, suddenly descended at the foot of the heavenly ladder with unstoppable force!
As the radiance faded, it revealed a tall figure standing as firm as a mountain.
It was none other than Eastern Region King Zhan!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
