Chapter 38: Passing the Test

“Cough, cough, cough!”

Scrambling on hands and knees, Wei Cheng burst out from the ruins in utter disarray.

At this moment, the entire city of Floating Clouds had become a living hell, including the once-magnificent city lord’s manor.

Darting through the shattered walls and broken stones, Wei Cheng resembled a panicked, fleeing hare.

Corpses of locals and monsters littered the ground everywhere; occasionally, he even glimpsed the golden shield technique deployed by some trial participants—undoubtedly members of Zhou Wu’s team. He wondered how many of them still survived.

Whistling through the air, another barrage of fire spears rained down with deadly precision. Wei Cheng risked a single glance upward and instantly assessed the situation: every living soul in the city had been marked by the antlered demons. Each survivor was being “gifted” anywhere from dozens to hundreds of these flaming javelins.

He could thus deduce that there were likely only two to three hundred survivors left in Floating Clouds City.

“Incredible,” Wei Cheng couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly. He had fought tooth and nail to reach the final circle, only to find such fierce competition remained—so many contenders still standing.

Astonishment aside, he dared not slow his pace. Wei Cheng felt as if his legs had turned into wheels of fire, churning ceaselessly beneath him.

But the enemy’s level was simply too high. What’s more, the fire spears could even adjust their trajectory mid-flight—they were practically guided missiles.

In a flash of thought, Wei Cheng made up his mind: he would take the hits head-on. As a “Mountain Mover” by trade, he found that running at breakneck speed while executing fancy evasive maneuvers consumed twice as much internal strength as simply bracing himself to withstand the blows.

He could endure a lot, but this was too much!

With a thunderous roar, Wei Cheng halted and unleashed his Golden Bell Shield. Dozens of fiery spears engulfed him in a blaze of blinding light.

A fierce inferno soon erupted at his location, but from that moment on, Wei Cheng did not emerge.

Truly, he had no intention of coming out again.

He resolved to lie low. Amid the raging flames, Wei Cheng devoured the monstrous bird’s heart in great gulps to replenish his internal strength, all the while channeling even more energy into his Golden Bell visualization. He would rather let the fire scorch him than be relentlessly hounded by those spears.

With just over half an hour left, he believed he could endure until the end.

Sure enough, no more fire spears came hunting for him after that.

Meanwhile, the other trial participants in Floating Clouds City were displaying their own abilities.

Ling Yan Xu Shan, who had cultivated for sixty years, darted through the city like a celestial swallow, her figure weaving at more than two hundred kilometers per hour, executing evasive maneuvers and feints that dazzled Wei Cheng’s eyes.

Nearly a thousand fire spears chased her relentlessly, with new ones constantly joining the pursuit while older ones reached their limit and exploded in midair.

At a glance, the “Celestial Swallow” seemed to flutter about with ethereal grace.

At one point, she even drew a great deal of aggro away from the other survivors.

But a few minutes later, when over ten thousand fire spears were converging from every direction to hunt her down, she finally reached her limit. Though she still had internal strength and could continue her dazzling maneuvers, it was simply beyond her power.

With a bitter smile, she conceded defeat and chose to exit.

In the next instant, her figure vanished, and the ten thousand spears exploded in the sky, unleashing a shockwave that nearly toppled half the city.

Several trial participants who thought themselves safe, standing hundreds of meters away, were slain instantly by the blast, losing even the chance to escape.

Of course, such unfortunate souls were few; more were quick-witted enough to flee at the first sign of trouble.

After the airburst, fewer than fifty trial participants remained in Floating Clouds City.

The difficulty spiked severalfold—soon, nearly every survivor had hundreds or even over a thousand fire spears chasing them. Who could possibly withstand such an onslaught?

One after another, dozens chose to leave, bitterly accepting defeat.

The error lay in their initial tactics: as the strongest team, they should never have sat back and watched the weaker teams fall. Had they defended the city walls together and balanced the power among the teams, without abandoning or sacrificing the weak, the city’s shield would not have fallen so soon, nor the defensive formation been breached.

They thought urban combat would be easy, not realizing the demons fought with no regard for convention, bombing indiscriminately and even killing their own forces.

However strong their team on the southern wall, they were no match for the monstrous horde outside. Now, it was too late for regrets.

“Zhou Wu, we have to retreat!”

In the midst of the burning city, three figures stubbornly persisted. Among them was Zhou Wu, a prodigy and kingly “Mountain Mover” who had cultivated for eighty years.

He had mastered the seventh level of the Golden Bell Shield; even when struck by a hundred fire spears at once, he could recover swiftly and remain unscathed.

At this moment, he was furious, unwilling to accept defeat. How could things have gone so wrong in just a few minutes? Not long ago, he had three hundred powerful trial participants under his command—how could everything collapse so quickly?

This trial was utterly unreasonable!

The other two with him had each cultivated for seventy years—truly the elite among the five thousand participants.

But it was useless. With tens of thousands of antlered demons locking onto them, their remaining time could only be counted in seconds.

“There are still people on the northern wall! I have to hold out to the end!” Zhou Wu shouted fiercely. The north was the weakest. As the strongest on the south wall, he could not accept defeat.

“Zhou Wu, don’t be stubborn! That guy must have hidden himself in the sea of fire long ago, dodging the demons’ detection. But we’re out of time. With so many demons, this is nothing but carpet bombing!” one of his companions yelled. As the team’s strategist, he was wracked with regret.

He had considered organizing the weaker participants but found it too troublesome, with too little time and unclear interests, not to mention all the ambitious individuals involved. So he abandoned the idea.

Who could have predicted that the local soldiers would not help defend?

The worst had happened.

The city’s four walls were interconnected; no matter how impregnable the southern line was, once the other three fell, it was meaningless. With the defensive formation and shield destroyed, even the strongest trial participants on the southern wall were doomed.

“Damn it all! Zhou Wu, Qin Douzi, I can’t hold on any longer. If you want to die here, count me out!”

Amid the deafening crash and explosions, one of Zhou Wu’s companions exited the trial.

Moments later, the strategist, Qin Douzi, was forced to leave as well. Barely a second after his disappearance, thousands of fire spears bombarded his former position.

In the end, Zhou Wu could only stubbornly last a fraction of a second longer, as thousands of fire spears came raining down above his head.

His gaze grew distant and lost.