Chapter 43 - Pillar of Trial

Unlike the previous couple of test floors, this floor was actually containing a test room, and it was a large one. Cleo looked around and could not help but sigh in awe at the amount of people who were still climbing up the tower, one floor at a time. It was insane, but impressive in its own right. Every single one of the thousands of people within the room were a testament to the perseverance of life within the tower. They were all there to show how much everyone wanted to improve, grow and reach that point where they would be unmatched in all the world.

She was jostled slightly as she looked around, looking back she noticed that people were still coming into the room before them, but for whatever reason no one could take a step beyond the line that had been drawn in the sand. Even Yun had tried, but he was completely unable to even take a step beyond. It was an impressive work of mana if nothing else, but it did not stop Cleo from feeling like a penguin squashing up for warmth. She wondered if Winoa was beginning to feel claustrophobic, she knew that her friend did not like being in cramped spaces, but she could not tell. Jim was standing in the way.

As she wondered if Winoa was feeling alright there was a disturbance to her right and she felt the entire mass of people squash together. There had been very little space before, but now there was basically none. She could feel the person behind her breathing on the top of her head, which she found rather unsettling, but she ignored it and instead focussed on who was causing everyone to be so bunched up. She tried to crane her head to both the left and right to see where the person was coming from, but still she could not work out where the person was walking from.

Finally after a few moments an ornately plumed woman from the Vermillion clan stepped out of the crowd and past the invisible line blocking everyone off from the center of the room. She smiled coquettishly as she swung her hips to attract the attention of every hot blooded male in the room. Cleo could not help but admire her as she drew the sights of everyone without any hesitance or uncertainty. No matter how powerful a cultivator you were, it did not necessarily give you self confidence. Instead it was highly likely that you would become more of a guarded individual because of how dangerous the path to immortality actually was. The path was often described as made of daggers and betrayal, but that was something Cleo was used to. The only people she trusted were her friends, her family had thoroughly proved to her that they were not to be trusted.

The Vermillion woman glanced around the room before opening her beak. “Hello Challengers, welcome to the testing grounds. This floor is a rather simple test, but it proves how deep your cultivation is. You cannot pass this test if you are not a peak Saint at the very minimum, so those who are less than those attempting to become Heaven ranked, you should save us all time and simply leave. I really don’t want to have to deal with your carcasses when I announce that there are only a hundred non Heaven ranked passes in this round. You’ll die from the challenge or from your companions stabbing you in the back”. As she spoke, a pillar rose from beneath her before stopping at around two metres in height. The pillar was ivory, adorned with hundreds of different sigils that seemed to exude a power that was aimed at crushing Saints. It was a work that had all the hallmarks of the Hephaistia clan at their heyday, but was not one that Cleo recognised. She had seen parts of the Book of Creation, but this object was something new.

“This is the pillar of trial,” the Vermillion woman continued. “Originally every floor was supposed to have one, to test the density of mana within the people climbing the tower, but most of the adjudicators are not like me and felt like creating their own tests. I’m honestly a bit of a conservative though. I believe that clans should stay with their own blood and that tests should be done like they were supposed to be. You pass, improve, or simply die. I honestly don’t care which. The first hundred non-Heaven ranked people pass, and the rest of the survivors can try to pass tomorrow. Or the next day, it depends on how long it takes to get to a hundred. Have fun!” With that, she leapt up into the air and began floating high above the crowd of people.

Almost immediately the group surged forwards as they were able to finally step beyond the invisible line that had bound them moments earlier. It was like a wave of flesh as the people all swarmed towards the middle in the hope of being the first to pass the test. Almost immediately, however, the riot slowed down and began to flag because with each step the people attempting to pass the test took, the would feel the weight crush them more, until finally the depths of each person’s strength was revealed in full. Those that had spent very little time either cultivating with a Book or practicing their breathing exercise were immediately left behind by those who had done better until only ten people were left moving without any issue whatsoever. One of them was Yun, but none of the rest of Cleo’s friends could manage to move at a normal pace, even Cleo could only move at about half her normal walking speed. Fortunately for her, this was still far faster than the majority of the people in her surroundings.

With her head held high she stepped forwards, ignoring those around her in the hope that they would be too busy dealing with their own issues that they would ignore her until she was reaching the pillar in the middle. She spared a second to look around the room and saw that while she was near the front of the pack, she was not alone in any sense of the word. There were around two hundred people who were keeping up with her, even if they were lagging behind slightly, and some of them were becoming extremely competitive. Across the room from her, Cleo could see that there were three people who were dragging each other down in an attempt to reach the other side first. One of the people, a young man with black hair, dug his hand into the face of a woman trying to drag him back, but instead only ended up with a finger in their eye and propelling him forward.

Cleo kept moving, but soon enough she heard someone behind her. She looked back and saw a towering man in his forties, looming over everyone and sending a large hand towards her. Cleo had no idea about what he was doing, but she was having none of it either way. She channeled the mana within her in two directions, one throughout her body to ease up the path she was having to take and the other into her palms. Turning round she fired a plume of flame towards the large man, turning the surface layer of mana that protected him from the region they were standing in into charcoal and forcing him down on his knees immediately. At the same time, the fire was like an engine, propelling her forwards and out of the crowd of people. She was now between the crowd and the Heaven rankers, but this did not mean she was safe. In fact her fireball seemed to set off a chain reaction that spread throughout the crowd.

Weapons began flying about and mana constructs tore through the air as the entire crowd began fighting amongst each other in order to reach the pillar first. Several times weapons were lost deep inside the suppression region, but still the fighting continued. If one lost their weapons then they would fight with their mana constructs, if they ran out of mana then they would use their hands and crawl out of the area with someone else. It was tooth and nail and every single person was trying to go down swinging.

The crowd had visibly separated into three groups. The first was that of the Heaven rankers. They were standing back at the start, watching on at the melee that was surrounding them. The moment they had touched the pillar they had been whisked out of the way of the competition and deposited at the beginning in order for them to be able to enjoy the rest of the show. Some, like Yun, had friends who were still trying to compete, but most of them were simply watching for the enjoyment of the spectacle. The second group was that which cleo was in, the group that had begun to break free of the horde and was actually making progress in the trial. All her friends were there, except for Louisa, who was still clawing her way out of the mass of flesh and blood that warped and twisted around them. The third group was of course the largest group, the melee of around a thousand people, each trying their utmost to either get out of the pile, survive for longer than anyone else, or simply go down and take as many people with them as possible. It was messy, brutish and made Cleo feel sick by looking at the damage people were inflicting on each other. The sound of screams, snapping bones, the wet slap of flesh being rent apart and open, even the occasional sound of a death rattle inside the pile made her feel incredibly uncomfortable, and she could no longer bare to look behind herself to see how her friends were doing. The sounds themselves were simply too much.

She could feel the mass behind her as more people began breaking free from the pile, feel the wave of people slowly moving closer to her. She knew they were hot on her heels and she could not take it. She pushed more mana through her body, rapidly draining her reservoir so that she could push herself further in the hope that she would soon enough reach the pillar, because she knew without a doubt that soon enough she would be able to reach it. It was simply a matter that her reservoir held enough mana to get her there.

With each step, her breath rattled through her body and she felt weaker and weaker, but still she persisted. Putting one foot ahead of the previous, again and again she could feel the sweat drip down her forehead and hit her dress before finally she bumped into something. She pushed her hair out of the way and looked up to find that the pillar that had been her target was finally in front of her and that the weight she had felt pressing down on her was suddenly gone. She turned around, there was a flash of light, and she began tipping over, but before she hit the ground, Yun came over and helped her stand up again. He smiled and nodded at her before looking back out to the crowd to watch their friends slowly trickle in, but Cleo was too tired to think. She sat down on the ground and immediately relaxed, drifting off to sleep with the sounds of cheering and fighting going on in the background.


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