Chương 350: The dangerous hallway

As he groped his way and retraced his steps while barely supporting himself by leaning on the wall, Long Feng smiled mockingly.

"I'm so naive…" He staggered and nearly lost his balance before he fully leaned against the wall. His body's resistance was rapidly weakening and a tearing pain was beginning to fill his body. The pain was on a molecular level, like all of the cells and molecules that were the foundations of his very existence were slowly tearing apart. Each step became extremely difficult as he slowly lost feeling and control of his body. Breathing became impossibly hard.

Each breath he drew in brought some of the aura into his body and tore his lungs and airways apart. Words couldn't describe the feeling at all. This aura seemed to be intent on destroying his entire body from his cells, reducing him to the base molecules. The aura was strangely assimilating him, something he couldn't understand. A soft mocking laugh escaped his lips as he lost almost ninety percent of control over his feet.

"I thought as long as I avoided the deities, I would be considered safe." He chuckled. This action caused a tearing pain to fill his lungs. It was almost like his lungs were being torn apart with every breath he took and this chuckle hastened it.

"I thought… I could see the danger and have enough time to retreat." More blood spilled out of his mouth. He looked ahead and saw that he was only a few steps away from the place he stood previously and had a bad feeling. That should be something like a safe spot. Nothing changed untill he walked passed that specific spot. A few feet was nothing to him normally, but now it was the difference between life and death. His feet were so heavy that he couldn't even lift them.

His eyelids were growing heavy as well and he could only rest against the wall and stare at the spot that was steps away.

"Who knows… that I wouldn't even sense the danger, not to talk of seeing it and retreating… how could I not expect this… I ignored my instincts…" he gasped lightly, finding breathing becoming impossible. His chest was so heavy that it was like a literal rock that replaced his heart. Naturally, he wouldn't have much space to breath in air.

"My instincts have never been wrong. How could I… so stupid…" he coughed and his soul shivered greatly. The pain that tore through his chest with that cough was indescribable. As his eyes became heavier, a random thought crossed his mind.

"I suppose this is where tens of Imperials lost their lives. Why then… are there no corpses?" He felt extremely tired. His eyes were slowly closing, giving room for darkness to envelope him.

"T-the nine firmament steps… short burst of speed… I can…" he couldn't even form complete thoughts in his mind anymore. His body had began to turn numb to the pain of assimilation, but that numbness brought some little order to his mind. He slowly recalled the short burst of speed whenever the nine firmament steps was used without preparation. But he needed to circulate his energy to activate the technique, but his energy was completely frozen in his body.

Long Feng's mind struggled to stay awake and ignore the pain that was eating his body as much as he could. He placed everything he had left in him, his willpower, his drowsy mind and his fading consciousness into a single thought. Immediately after that, he completely lost consciousness and his body began to sway, about to fall to the ground. Inside his Dantian, the spirit cyclone was frozen in place, not revolving as it always did. This was the root of the issue.

His spirit cyclone was directly impacted before he could react and it's revolution was stalled. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That caused all energy flow out of his Dantian to be cut off, and the remaining energy in his meridians froze as well. The instant before he fell unconscious, a broken thought formed an instinct that echoed into his Dantian.

"Revolve…" at the same time he had that thought, he also instinctively unleashed the nine firmament steps. That thought began to fade away alongside his consciousness, dispersing into nothing. There was no way a thought could exist alone while the owner of that thought was unconscious. It wasn't possible. But… while a thought couldn't exist, something else could. Will! Long Feng's willpower was sufficiently strong for a swordmaster, enough for him to form a sword heart.

Even if only for a second, if could still burn even after he was unconscious or dead. And that single second was the difference between life and death. His last thought and action served as fuel to ignite his will for a single second. He didn't know if it would work, he simply followed his instinct this time and did it anyway. His intangible willpower blazed in his soul for a fraction of a second before dimming, but…

The spirit cyclone suddenly stirred slightly, surprisingly resisting the suppression of the external aura. That tiny stir broke the pressure for a split second and the cyclone suddenly rotated anti clockwise with astonishing momentum. The suppression on his Dantian shattered like broken glass as a flood of energy rushed out of his Dantian and into his meridians. The circulation of energy that was cut off resumed once more, sending the gushing Imperial energy to all part of Long Feng's body.

All of this occurred within a second, even before his body could fall down. He had already unleashed the nine firmament steps, but there was no energy to drive it before. Now though, energy was rushing through his body. The result was the sudden activation of the technique. A powerful pressure erupted from Long Feng's body for a brief moment as his feet propelled his entire body straight forward for a second.

His body crashed into the ground head first, but the burst of speed threw him over twenty feet away, completely moving his body out of the death zone he predicted. He remained unconscious as he lay on the ground, but his breathing visibly became lighter. His energy resumed it's circulation freely and the strange aura pouring into his body was suddenly cut off.

While his energy was still suppressed to within his body, his energy circulation was no longer restricted and that brought back some degree of protection to his weak body.

Ten youths trudged through the long narrow hallway in silence. Each of them emanated a weak aura, but that aura was without doubt belonging to a deity. Unfortunately, each of them was like a fading lamp, flickering in and out under the strange suppression of the aura. At this place, the aura was so dense that it was nearly double that of Long Feng's area. The ten youths were none other than the famous top ten outer peak disciples of the Supreme Heaven Sect.

They were walking together, not because they wanted to but because they were forced to. If they moved alone, then perhaps one or two of them would be facing death by now. Zhou Zheng lowered his head to stare at his palm then he huffed deeply.

"My strength is suppressed to roughly thirty percent. I'm sure that's the same for you all. Without our true essence, we're only as strong as peak Imperials!" He uttered. No one responded for a few seconds before one of them glanced back to Zhou Zheng.

"Wow, genius. You noticed." He replied sarcastically. Zhou Zheng glared at the person and snorted before ignoring him.

"Our true essence won't last for much longer. I say we stop here and retreat before things get out of hand! We don't even know what lies ahead!" He added.

"You can leave if you're afraid. We've come this far, I'm not just about to return the whole way with empty hands." Another youth replied. Zhou Zheng's eyes bulged as he glared at them, then turned his gaze to the three youths at the front of the group.

"You three also think so? Don't you understand that this is a huge risk? A single weak deity puppet gave us a solid beating before we destroyed it, and the peak Imperial puppets are a headache if we don't use our true essence. For now long can our true essence last?" Situ Hong glanced at him calmly.

"We've come so far. Don't you feel unreconciled to just leave? Also, in case you're forgetting, there's no exit. It'll be a waste of time to return. We could be already approaching the end." Zhou Zheng pulled at his hair in frustration.

"This damn hallway has no end! We've been walking for over three days now! What end are you expecting? Our deaths?" Qiu Yushi at the lead faintly spoke at this moment.

"We're almost there. I can feel it. I just don't know… if we can ever reach it." Zhou Zheng went silent for a minute before he inhaled deeply.

"I'm having a bad feeling about this." Bai Zijun who was silent since the beginning suddenly snorted coldly.

"How did a spineless coward like you become a deity? Don't you know something as simple as danger existing wherever there is opportunity?"

"You! …" Zhou Zheng's face turned beef red as he glared at Bai Zijun furiously.

"Damn you. Who's a coward? Let's see what's in this damn inheritance ground that makes it so hard to tread!" As he shouted, a powerful aura suddenly blew over from ahead. They all stopped and took on different battle stances with serious expressions and a surprisingly coordination. They had probably done this many times already. The aura drew closer and a pitch black metallic humanoid figure approached them, the aura of a deity blazing around it. This was a deity stage puppet!

Situ Hong's eye lids twitched as he stared at the puppet.

"Watch out everyone! It's stronger than the previous one. Let's take it down quickly to avoid drawing out the battle and wasting our true essence!" He felt rather bitter in his heart as he said this. Normally, any of them could smash this puppet on their own. That was how strong they were. But now, they had to work together all ten of them to stand a fighting chance against it. This was an unbearable humiliation not just to him but to all these proud geniuses.

Everyone silently acknowledged his words and they all attacked at the same time with fluid coordination that should otherwise be impossible for competitive disciples like them. Booming sounds soon resounded through this part of the hall as they began a desperate fight against the puppet.

In the very depths of the inheritance ground, an extremely hidden sense spread at a shocking speed, covering the entire inheritance ground in a second. The ten deities' struggles through the hallway as they battled the puppets was clearly captured as well as the unconscious Long Feng far behind. The sense stayed upon the ten deities for a while before leaving without any of them noticing anything at all. It turned it's focus to the unconscious Long Feng who lay there, unmoving just like a corpse.

The sense focused on him for over an hour, silently watching, observing. An hour… two, three… A whole day passed again. This was the fourth day since the opening of the inheritance ground, which left three days before the inheritance ground closed. The ten deities were extremely battered, but they kept going deeper and deeper, unknowingly inching closer to the depth of the huge palace. Each of them had varying numbers of injuries in their bodies even with their cultivation realms.

It suddenly made perfect sense why no early stage deity could clear this path easily and reach the end. The threat of death was very high even for a deity if they didn't know when to stop. As for a Peak imperial, death was practically assured. It was a terrifying feat for a rank one imperial to survive an ordeal that could kill peak rank nine Imperials and even early stage deities. The sense had remained focused on Long Feng's body throughout the time.

After the full day, it finally stirred as though it had confirmed something. A faint presence approached Long Feng's body, drawing increasingly closer till it covered him. In that moment, a feeling of chaos and disorder could be felt from that sense for a brief second before it faded. The surrounding aura surged rapidly and gathered above Long Feng to form a pitch black circular hole that devoured the weak light from the glowing crystals.

The hole was like a portal to somewhere and it slowly expanded before enveloping Long Feng's body, covering him in darkness. When the portal faded, Long Feng's body was nowhere to be seen. The gathered aura rapidly dispersed and the hallway returned to normal, leaving no trace of a person being here before.