Chapter 84 Awakening (Extra Chapter 8/12 for Leader Zhibai)

Abruptly, an indescribable sound drifted over. At first, it was faint and distant, but it persisted without pause. Within seconds, it seemed to echo right behind Wei Cheng, then as if the sound was emanating from within him—from his very mind. In the end, Wei Cheng could no longer be sure, for it felt as though the shouting and roaring came from himself.

He had forced himself, with sheer will, to shatter the ultimate form of the Immovable Golden Bell, heedless of the fact that blood was streaming from his seven orifices, his organs torn asunder, his entire body violently erupting with blood.

It was only when golden light flickered several times at his brow, with a surge of warmth rising in his heart, that he was jolted awake.

Why was this fourth wave of the Shadow Curse so powerful?

He suddenly raised his head, and saw a blood-red "moon" hanging high in the sky. No—there were four of them, each positioned at a corner of the heavens, their eerie crimson light casting its glow upon the earth.

Wait—these weren’t moons!

Wei Cheng abruptly realized: they were eyes.

In the next instant, his whole body was seized by chill. A cold, despairing, decayed aura, like a venomous snake lurking in the night, sank its fangs into his heart.

He felt as though he was suffocating, utterly unable to breathe.

Wherever this aura passed, his Mountain-moving inner force withered swiftly—the mountains in his Mountain-moving visualization seemed to enter a bleak winter, all life withering, rivers freezing solid.

Only a single golden radiance atop the mountains stubbornly shone on, like a flickering flame, an unyielding heart, Wei Cheng’s last hope.

“Thump, thump, thump!”

Who knew how long had passed before Wei Cheng sensed his own heartbeat. He was utterly exhausted, like a lone boat tossed in a furious sea, on the verge of capsizing at any moment.

Yet he had never thought about giving up. Even with only a sliver of strength, each struggle was insignificant, but as they accumulated, he gradually felt his Mountain-moving inner force again, slowly awakened it, from nothing to something, from weak to strong.

When he could finally roar up at the sky, take control once more, he was surprised to find the world around him had grown quiet again.

The fourth wave of the Shadow Curse had passed.

He had survived, but the land before him was utterly transformed.

The earth that had melted now cooled, becoming barren, jagged rock.

In the direction of Floating Cloud City, a majestic, towering mountain had risen, piercing the heavens.

At its summit, infernal flames still erupted, black mists billowing, drifting like dark clouds in every direction.

Around the mountain was a massive ring of cliffs, and below them flowed a river of magma hundreds of meters wide.

Yet the countless monsters were gone, even the fiery birds had vanished without a trace.

It felt like a dead zone, a place of utter despair.

Wei Cheng stared in astonishment, unable to comprehend it.

But what truly baffled him was that, whether it was the dispersal of the Shadow Curse or his own dulled senses, the ominous feeling that had once unsettled him was now so faint as to be barely perceptible.

“No, it’s my soul, my will, my spirit that have endured a hellish tempering. Since I wasn’t destroyed, I can naturally ignore it now.”

Wei Cheng slowly began to circulate his Mountain-moving inner force, and was shocked to discover that his Mountain-moving visualization had advanced to eighty percent refinement as a result of resisting the Shadow Curse.

A full ten percent—almost inconceivable, yet somehow expected.

Moreover, among the eight clusters of mountains, many elegant details had vanished, replaced by rough, wild strokes, as if they had survived a merciless, brutal battle, scarred and battered.

Even the great river winding among the seven mountain clusters had grown more austere and fierce.

Of course, only Wei Cheng could notice and appreciate these details.

Because of this, the overall quality of his Mountain-moving inner force had also improved slightly—by about one-tenth.

Wei Cheng could hardly believe it.

Facing the Shadow Curse directly had yielded such benefits.

Given the nature of the Mountain-moving discipline, it was understandable.

Wei Cheng glanced once more at the devastated toxic zone, wasted no time, and turned to walk out of it.

As expected, no matter how tumultuous things were inside the toxic zone, outside nothing had changed—the boundary between life and death remained clear.

Wei Cheng walked less than a hundred steps before reaching the line; on one side, lifelessness, on the other, vibrant vitality.

He stepped across, and just then, from the direction of the magma river behind him, came an angry roar, quickly fading away, with the vague outline of a magma giant over a hundred meters tall.

A moment later, a dazzling, breathtaking beam of light swept across, like a legendary sword’s brilliance—it cleaved through dark clouds, through nightmares, through countless shadows, opening a broad golden road before Wei Cheng.

At the end of this golden road, he caught a glimpse of a magnificent immortal city shrouded in multicolored auspicious clouds—could this be Cangwu Prefecture’s city?

Wait, he couldn’t be certain.

For everything before him suddenly blurred, just as in the previous stage—he was about to return to the dream, and through that dream, return to reality.

But first, there were rewards to claim.

A mysterious, ancient stone tablet for passing on techniques hovered there, but it did not emit any divine light. Strange rune patterns appeared on its surface, transforming in Wei Cheng’s eyes into intelligible text.

“Floating Cloud City has fallen. The ancient demon Lord Red Sun, sealed here for tens of thousands of years, is about to awaken. The Prefect of Cangwu City has dispatched special envoys to investigate, with the following results:

Exploration progress: West and North directions complete; East and South directions missing (friendly forces' exploration progress can be combined).

Exploration difficulty: After enduring the first wave of the Shadow Curse, difficulty +5%; second wave, +10%; third wave, +20%; fourth wave, +50%.

Based on the above, three rewards can be chosen:

1. Divine Light irradiation for fifteen seconds (using the highest and lowest quality experienced in this stage, median as the standard)
2. Comprehend a technique from the transmission stone tablet once
3. Five hundred vats of osmanthus wine (can be taken back to Earth)
4. Randomly receive a decommissioned standard artifact from the prefecture’s treasury
5. Ten Gold Dragon coins
6. A genuine token from the Cangwu City patrol corps
7. A fifty percent overnight discount voucher for Purple Garments Lodge”

Wei Cheng stared, dumbfounded, but he didn’t rush to choose. He looked around—no one else was present; only he remained.

It was clear this trial had its own awareness. Liu Sui and the others had journeyed with him, but the rewards were not distributed equally.

Especially since he had fully endured the fourth wave of the Shadow Curse—the difficulty reaching fifty percent, quite terrifying.

And these optional rewards were intriguing.

Wei Cheng decisively dismissed the Divine Light irradiation and the overnight voucher. Divine Light was valuable, but easy enough to obtain on the battlefield; with his strength, achieving a first kill was no problem.

The other rewards were far rarer.

After a brief thought, he chose the second, third, and fourth rewards.

Almost instantly, the stone tablet split into three, revealing the Mountain-moving Technique, the Spirit Swallow Technique, and the Purple Mist Technique.

But after inspecting them, Wei Cheng was slightly disappointed. He had hoped to obtain the third level of the Mountain-moving Technique, but it was still the second level, so he chose the second level of the Spirit Swallow Technique.

With those five hundred vats of osmanthus wine that could be taken back to Earth, he could not only complete the fine-tuning of the eighth innate meridian for the Mountain-moving Technique, but also cultivate the Spirit Swallow Technique.

It was a sure profit.

As Wei Cheng made his selection, the three transmission stone tablets slowly faded away, and then—he woke from the dream.