Chapter 181: Invisible Barrier, Faceless Swordsman, Corridor Murals
Numerous sky-prides of the swordsmanship world stood before the Sword Gauntlet, admiring this towering building.
The moment they got closer to the building, the more they could feel the mysteriousness of the Daoist Rhyme it contained. This was a kind of existence that people of their level could not comprehend.
The people from the Linghu clan were not in the mood to decipher the mysteriousness behind it. After all, they could not apprehend it even if they tried anyway. On the contrary, it was the gossip they heard from the crowd around them that made them look extremely downcast.
The other sky-prides, who were their equals, threw mocking glances at them too.
Clearly, the fact that the Linghu clan had lost one spot this time seemed to have made them associate it with something, and they were all taking pleasure at their misfortune.
“Chu Kuangren!”
Linghu Teng, Linghu clan’s Young Emperor, fixed Chu Kuangren a dead stare, his gaze filled with malicious hatred. From his perspective, this was all Chu Kuangren’s doing.
Not only that, but the clone that he had refined and produced was also destroyed by his adversary, and this made him despise Chu Kuangren to the very core.
Chu Kuangren had noticed the distaste that Linghu Teng had for him too, so he raised the edge of his lip and spoke, “Yo, isn’t this the guy whose guts I’ve burst open?”
Upon hearing that, the crowd directed their glances at him, curious as to what that meant.
“Seems that Linghu Teng has a history with Chu Kuangren.”
“Is this related to why the Linghu clan has lost a spot?”
“No clue.”
After Linghu Teng heard what Chu Kuangren had said, he jeered back. “That was just a clone of mine. Killing just one of my clones is enough to make you so delighted? Chu Kuangren!”
“If the clone was so weak, would the real body be any stronger?”
“Would you like to give it a try?”
“If you don’t intend to attempt the Sword Gauntlet, I don’t mind staying out here just so I can burst you open one more time.” Chu Kuangren laughed.
“You…”
“Enough, let’s head inside the Sword Gauntlet first.”
Linghu Teng was about to say more, but Third Forefather Linghu stopped him.
He flashed Chu Kuangren an ominous glare before he led the other few Linghu sky-prides into the Sword Gauntlet.
The rest of the people began entering the tower as well.
“Chu Kuangren, once we’re out of the Sword Gauntlet, I look forward to a battle with you!”
Lunatic Swordsman from the Tempest Mountain looked at Chu Kuangren and said.
“As you wish.”
Chu Kuangren replied with a smile.
There was a second part to the sentence which he did not say.
‘As you wish, because I’m unbeatable anyway!’
Everyone else entered the Sword Gauntlet one after another. Every time a new person entered, a new bright spark would light up the pitch-dark floors of the Sword Gauntlet.
That spark signified the sword cultivator who had just entered.
At this moment, all these sparks were gathered solely on the first floor with each one of them unique to everyone’s energy.
If one spent just a little more time to sense it, they would be able to tell which one was whom.
Chu Kuangren and his compatriots had entered the Sword Gauntlet too.
“Huh?”
Chu Kuangren let out a soft exclaim. As soon as he entered the Sword Gauntlet, he realized that Nangong Huang and the other people around him had all vanished.
Leaving him all by himself.
“Is this some sort of spatial manipulation? Every single person gets redistributed into a different time-space, but everyone coexists inside the Sword Gauntlet at the same time.”
“Whoever built this Sword Gauntlet must be very masterful in using spatial force. This would require the level of at least a Sage Ruler I reckon.”
Chu Kuangren muttered under his breath.
A cultivator would be able to utilize spatial force when they reached the Paradise Realm. However, that was just the most basic level of time-space manipulation.
One example was the Battle Monarch Realm, which utilized a certain extent of spatial force.
After crossing that realm, a person’s spatial Dao would become more and more profound, which not many people could soldier on and walk until they reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
Chu Kuangren then stopped dwelling too much on that matter.
He saw that there was a flight of stairs not far away.
“This must be the staircase to the second floor.” Chu Kuangren slowly walked up, but then realized that there was a barrier in front of him.
“Is this the test?”
Chu Kuangren casually struck out a palm.
An immense Daoist Rhyme erupted, easily destroying this barrier.
He then climbed up to the second floor.
Chu Kuangren noticed that each of the subsequent floors all had a similar barrier too. In fact, the barriers became increasingly stronger the higher the floor count went.
However, they were not really a challenge for Chu Kuangren.
The moment he threw out a palm, no barrier could stop him in his tracks.
He was currently rising up the floors at an incredibly scary speed.
Outside the Sword Gauntlet, the people watched the bright spark which belonged to Chu Kuangren crazily ascending the tower. They were utterly bewildered.
“Isn’t this too fast? That’s already the eighth floor.”
“He truly is the famed Chu Kuangren. Absolutely incredible.”
“Hold on guys, take a look. Aside from Chu Kuangren, Lunatic Swordsman, Murong Yu, and Linghu Teng are climbing up pretty quickly too. They’re following closely behind Chu Kuangren. It seems like quite a few prodigious swordsmen have emerged this time.”
“That’s right.”
The Sages who were watching on silently in the dark were not at all surprised by this.
“The first few floors are only a warm-up, and the later few floors are where the actual challenge begins. It won’t be that easy from the twentieth floor onwards.”
“Yeah, let’s see how far they can reach.”
“When it comes to the Sword Gauntlet’s greatest Opportunity of Fortune, nobody has gotten that in for so many years. I wonder if any of them could get it this time.”
These Sages were once sky-prides too when they were younger, and they could still recall everything about the Sword Gauntlet since they too had attempted it before.
On the Sword Gauntlet’s twentieth floor.
Just then, a figure appeared right before Chu Kuangren.
It was a faceless man who was holding a sword.
“Oh, finally some change.”
Chu Kuangren became slightly more interested.
When that faceless man noticed Chu Kuangren’s presence, he held his sword up high and charged towards him fiercely as an incredibly powerful sword qi erupted.
Chu Kuangren merely threw out the same old palm of his.
The Human Mountain Seal smashed the faceless man to smithereens. To Chu Kuangren’s surprise, that faceless swordsman transformed into an infinite sword qi when he burst open, dissipating before his very eyes.
“His presence was birthed by the amassment of sword qi.”
Chu Kuangren was now fascinated, and he walked on to the next floor.
From the twentieth floor onwards, Chu Kuangren would face off against sword-qi-made faceless swordsmen, and their strength slowly increased from the stage of a Battle Monarch. By the time he got to the thirty-eighth floor, they were already at the level of an Honorable.
“Is this really a test for sky-prides?”
“Tsk, isn’t this too much? This is already an Honorable.”
Chu Kuangren remarked after he raised his hand and shattered the Honorable.
Amongst the younger generation, not many had the battle strength that was equivalent to an Honorable level. Besides, this was only the thirty-eighth floor!
There were twenty more floors to go.
He successfully stepped onto the thirty-ninth floor, and this time, he did not meet any obstacles. Nonetheless, the corridor started to change.
Murals started appearing on both sides of the corridor.
For instance, the thirty-ninth floor had a mural of a mountain which, upon closer inspection, contained a Daoist Rhyme. It looked as though it had the record of some sort of mysterious swordsmanship technique, and it subconsciously captivated anyone looking.
There was also a line of words at the corridor entrance, and only by gaining insight into the Daoist Rhyme in the mural within an hour could he go to the next floor.
With the incantation of the Meditational Clarity trait, Chu Kuangren’s Dao Techniques Realm was already comparable to a Sage, so it did not take him long to apprehend the mural.
Inside it recorded a Sage Technique!
The fortieth floor was surprisingly the same.
“If I continue to go up, will every floor’s corridor have records of a Sage Technique? Is this purely just to test our cognizance?
“No, wait, and also our Daoist core!”
“Without a great enough cognizance, one would not be able to gain insight from the Daoist Rhyme contained within the Sage Technique, thus failing to advance to the next floor! But if one’s Daoist core was not sturdy enough, one could end up overly immersed in the Sage Technique, which would not allow them to proceed to the next floor either.”
“Cognizance and Daoist core, they’re indispensable!”
Chu Kuangren mumbled to himself.
Whoever built this Sword Gauntlet was really intricate in its design.
…
“They’ve already reached the part with the murals. Back then, I was too immersed in the Sage Techniques so I wasn’t able to pull through.”
Outside the Sword Gauntlet, one of the Sages commented.
“Same goes for me. One hour and that’s it. Once you spend more than an hour at the same corridor, it would automatically register as a failure and you would then be transported out of the Sword Gauntlet. This level is way too difficult.” One of the Sages made a shake of the head and sighed.
As soon as they said that.
A bright white flash appeared at the entrance of the Sword Gauntlet. One of the young people was transported out, and he stared at his surroundings in a daze before his expression changed into a dreadful one. “I’ve failed.”