Trials of the Abyss

Every street In Eight Trigrams City was bracketed on one end by a bloody battlefield, and the other by an encroaching darkness.

Most cultivators in the city did not take the time to consider their situation and instead just blindly rushed forward.

Pang Jian kept a close eye on what lay behind him.

Their group of five maintained a safe distance from the encroaching darkness behind them as they leisurely strolled toward the city center.

Having slowed down their pace, Pang Jian could take the time to experiment with the Earth Blaze Technique, in hopes of increasing his combat prowess when a battle inevitably erupted.

A delicate voice suddenly rang out from a nearby stone building, "Junior Brother...Junior Brother Zhou."

The timid voice was tinged with surprise as if the owner of the voice could not believe what they were seeing.

Zhou Qingchen trembled, and his rugged face brightened with ecstatic joy.

Turning toward the stone building, he suppressed the excitement in his heart, calling out in a low voice, "Senior Sister Jiang, is it really you?"

"Junior Brother Zhou..." An elegant woman poked her head out from a window. She wore black robes, embellished with a red mountain on the chest.

Her delicate oval face was slightly pale. Glistening beads of sweat trickled down on her smooth forehead as though she was enduring excruciating pain.

Zhou Qingchen let out a strange cry, startling everyone around him. He rushed toward the stone building and shouted, "Senior Sister Jiang, what are you doing here?"

Seeing that it was indeed Zhou Qingchen, the woman in the stone building breathed a sigh of relief.

Shortly after, her expression turned sorrowful. As she walked out of the stone building, she recounted her experience, "After the remains of the Celestial Phoenix appeared, they scattered far and wide in the lower worlds. Some fellow disciples and I were exploring one of the locations where the bones fell when we saw a white mountain with a Mirror Tunnel on its cliff—"

"Senior Sister Jiang, what happened to your left hand?" Zhou Qingchen exclaimed when the graceful woman named Jiang Li fully revealed herself.

"Someone chopped it off," Jiang Li said with a bitter smile, glancing at where her arm ended at her elbow. "We were making our way to the city center. We could not have known..."

The bodies from the Red Mountain Sect that Pang Jian and the others had encountered earlier belonged to Jiang Li’s group. They had been ambushed along the way.

Only Jiang Li managed to escape by hiding in a nearby stone building.

The others were all ruthlessly slaughtered.

Only after everyone rushed toward the city center following the emergence of the pillar of light and the extraordinary treasures within did Jiang Li dare to show herself.

Due to her severe injuries, she trailed behind, careful not to venture too close to the city center. Unexpectedly, she encountered Zhou Qingchen and his group, who had also deliberately slowed their pace to maintain a safe distance from the encroaching darkness.

"Who did this?" Zhou Qingchen asked as he stepped forward, hastily retrieving various vials and bottles from his spatial bracelet. His eyes were bloodshot. "Here are some healing potions, Senior Sister Jiang..."

"There’s no need for that. I’ve already bandaged it myself. The bleeding stopped long ago." Jiang Li forced a smile.

Zhou Qingchen’s anger surged as he shouted, "Who did this?!"

"Someone from the Second World. They call him Qi Qingsong. That’s all I know."

Jiang Li’s delicate eyebrows trembled at the sight of Zhou Qingchen’s enraged expression. Unwilling to deceive him any longer, she tearfully confessed, "Junior Brother Zhou, the reason I avoided you and refused your advances before is because...I’m older than you. My cultivation talent is limited and my background isn’t good.

"I’m sorry for treating you harshly. The truth is, I don’t feel worthy of you. I don’t want to hold you back." Jiang Li shook her head incessantly. Her glistening tears splashed onto the stone floor with each shake.

With reddened eyes, Zhou Qingchen forced his mouth to stretch into what he thought was a brilliant smile. "Senior Sister, I don’t care about any of that. I’ve liked you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. I’ve always wanted you to know that."

"I know," she whispered, shoulders trembling slightly.

"Senior Sister..."

Zhou Qingchen reached into a small compartment within his spatial bracelet and retrieved a green pear wrapped in a pristine white handkerchief.

He meticulously wiped the green pear clean and offered it to Jiang Li with a grin. "I know you like pears, so I always carry one on me. You never accepted the ones I offered you before, but please have this one today."

The green pear shone brightly after his thorough wiping, and the skin looked close to being rubbed off.

Jiang Li’s eyes welled up with tears as she stared at the green pear. The determined and sincere expressions on Zhou Qingchen’s face reminded her of the first time she met him, and how shy he was back then.

At the time, she had found it amusing. However, as time passed, she realized that he was only shy in front of her.

That same shy boy was calm and composed when interacting with other senior disciples of the Red Mountain Sect, showing no signs of nervousness or hesitation.

"Alright." Jiang Li took the pear with a smile. She did not utter another word as she lowered her head and bit delicately into it.

Zhou Qingchen had waited a long time for this. He watched her with a silly, endeared grin as if the way she ate the green pear was the most adorable thing in the world.

He paid no mind to the endless darkness from the Fifth World inching closer with every passing second.

Seeing that Su Meng’s eyes were brimming with tears, and Luo Hongyan was maintaining an unusual silence, Han Duping took it upon himself to urge, "Young Zhou, we need to pick up the pace."

Luo Hongyan had always regarded Han Duping and Zhou Qingchen with disdain and was always aloof with them. However, she now silently observed Zhou Qingchen and Jiang Li, and when she heard Han Duping’s urging, she icily remarked, "You’re so annoying!"

Han Duping grimaced. "We really do need to hurry."

"Got it," Zhou Qingchen nodded. He knew they could not afford to delay for much longer.

He wanted to help support Jiang Li, but she held the green pear with one hand, and her other hand was injured, leaving him unsure of what to do as he stood there awkwardly,

"I can manage on my own, it’ll just be a bit slow. I-I’m afraid I might slow you down," Jiang Li said worriedly, glancing at the unfamiliar faces of Pang Jian, Luo Hongyan, and Su Meng.

Luo Hongyan said offhandedly, "Except for Pang Jian, the rest are all burdens. Having one more won’t make any difference."

"Thank you." Jiang Li bowed slightly in gratitude. She did not wait for Zhou Qingchen’s assistance and sensibly walked forward on her own.

Zhou Qingchen glared at Han Duping. He instructed Han Duping to walk ahead and look after Jiang Li while Zhou Qingchen stayed behind with reddened eyes.

Once Su Meng and Luo Hongyan followed suit to continue onward, Zhou Qingchen took a deep breath and turned to the silent Pang Jian. "Help me kill Qi Qingsong. I don’t care who he is in the Second World! You have to help me! No matter what it takes, I have to kill him!"

Pang Jian nodded, and uttered with a single word, "Okay."

***

All streets eventually came to an end.

When the group arrived at the city center, they were greeted by a vast plaza filled with corpses.

A towering stone building stood in the center of the plaza. The stone tiles surrounding it resembled white jade. Inscribed at its summit were three prominent characters: City Lord’s Mansion.

The towering pillar of light and its treasures originated from the City Lord’s Mansion.

The mysterious City Lord’s Mansion stood right in the center of the plaza, where nearly a hundred people were engaged in fierce combat.

Pang Jian’s heart wavered.

The plaza carried a pungent smell of blood. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground.

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All the battles he had fought before, whether against the Shadow Specter Sect or Dong Tianze, were small-scale skirmishes.

This was the first Pang Jian had seen such a gruesome scene. Countless cultivators were locked in chaotic battles. Blood flowed like rivers and severed limbs were scattered across the battlefield.

Zhou Qingchen scanned the battlefield before turning to Jiang Li with an intense look in his eyes. "Senior Sister Jiang, do you see Qi Qingsong?"

He did not recognize a single person out of the nearly hundred cultivators fighting in the plaza.

"No, he’s not here." Jiang Li bit her lip. With a pale face, she urged, "Junior Brother Zhou, I appreciate your concern for me, but I don’t want you to die here. That person...he only severed half of my arm. He comes from the Second World, and his combat prowess is formidable. I don’t want any of you to die because of me."

She felt it would be difficult for Zhou Qingchen and the others to kill Qi Qingsong as they were right now.

Jiang Li already felt fortunate that she had survived to meet Zhou Qingchen again. She did not want Zhou Qingchen and the others to die on her behalf.

Zhou Qingchen did not respond to her words, so she whispered again, "I’m happy to be able to return home. I forbid you to risk your life for me. It’s not worth it."

"For you, everything is worth it!" Zhou Qingchen said firmly.

Pang Jian noticed a girl clad in white emerging from the street on their left side.

"Someone’s coming," he warned.

The white-clad girl wore a thin veil over her face. It seemed she had been trailing behind just like them and had just arrived.

Noticing Pang Jian’s gaze, the girl in white coldly acknowledged their presence with a disinterested nod.

"Let’s leave this street for now and observe from the sidelines to see if the darkness behind us spreads to the plaza," Luo Hongyan suggested, prompting everyone to enter the white plaza.

They diverted their attention from the battling crowd and turned toward the steadily approaching darkness behind them.

It was not only them.

As the endless darkness from the Fifth World emerged from the intersections of the eight streets, even the cultivators engaged in combat halted their actions.

Nervousness and apprehension filled the air as everyone watched the darkness approach.

Remarkably, the darkness halted at the intersections. The radiance from the plaza seemed to prevent it from advancing beyond the intersections.

Boom!

The cultivators breathed a sigh of relief at the sight and resumed their battles once more.

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